› added 7 years ago

509

There is 'no incentive for escalator manufacturers to do anything different.'

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epRO5 TIL about Gemistos Plethon, a 14th/15th century Greek scholar who rejected Christianity and favoured a return of Hellenic paganism in the Byzantine Empire.
D1xmp TIL of the Contranym, which is a word that has two contradicting definitions. Ex. Shelled means both having a shell and stripped of a shell
69R4Z TIL Machu Picchu was the guarded secret of a few Peruvian farmers until 1911 when one of them agreed to guide an American explorer up the mountain for the price of a few coins.
4X1x5 TIL that "home equity loan" is a euphemism for a second mortgage. Invented in 1982/83, the term was part of a systematic effort to sell more loans and financial products.
W4M9 TIL Coal Power Plants generate more radiation than Nuclear Power Plants. Coal contains uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements.They occur in such trace amounts in natural coal. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.