› added 5 years ago

79

TIL: the "law of the instrument", a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool. As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

R5k5a TIL Paul Winchell was a comedian/ventriloquist who invented one of the earliest artificial hearts. Winchell also invented a flameless cigarette lighter, a garter belt without visible lines, and owned over 30 patents.
OGML4 TIL the Köçek were young male slaves or Romani dancers who usually cross-dressed in feminine attire and were employed as entertainers in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th Century. Men were known to fight and occasionally kill for the opportunity to have sexual intercourse with them.
jvLX TIL there was a renowned deaf-mute baseball player in the early 20th century named “Dummy” Taylor. He was the highest paid deaf person of the 1900’s and was also known as the comedian of the Giants, coaching at third base in rubber boots when an umpire refused to call a game due to rain.
ZpyGv TIL the small town of Taihape, New Zealand is known as the "Gumboot Capital of the World" because a fictional farmer character is from there. It hosts an annual Gumboot Day festival and gumboot tossing competition.
GYX4Q TIL In 1951 Thelma Howard was hired as a maid for Walt & Lillian Disney. Walt would gift her shares of Disney stock every X-mas for the next 30 yrs. She died in 1994 that's when it was discovered she still had all 192,000 shares valued at $9,000,000. It went to disadvantaged kids & her disabled son