› added 4 months ago

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TIL: That the movie Philadelphia was shot in chronological order as Tom Hanks, playing a character with AIDS, had to gradually lose weight over the course of the film. It was also felt that this would help Hanks follow a clearer emotional trajectory.

nenjr TIL when shooting the cover for Pink Floyd's "Animals", the giant inflatable pig that was used for it broke loose from its moorings. It flew over Heathrow, and pilots spotted it flying 30,000 feet in the air, resulting in cancelled flights. It eventually landed at a farm in Kent, scaring some cows.
Oo9KY TIL a moth species has evolved to live in sloth fur. The moths use sloth dung to incubate their eggs and when they hatch, the moths fly back into a sloth's fur, completing the cycle. When the moths die, their corpses fertilize moss growing in the sloth's fur, which provide camouflage and...nutrition
lQjV TIL that there was once a real-life replica of The Simpsons house, made for a contest. It was re-created from footage of more than 100 episodes of the show to get every facet of the house right. The winner, however, chose to accept a cash prize instead.
xVrrw TIL about the Opabinia, one of the strangest fossils ever discovered. It had five eyes on a flat, shrimp-like body without legs, was covered in chitinous scales and had a long, extensible mouhtpiece, like the one found in common houseflies, but much longer.
rRPde TIL that Tay was an artificial intelligence bot that was released by Microsoft via Twitter on March 23, 2016; it caused controversy when the bot began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets through its Twitter account, causing Microsoft to shut down the service only 16 hours after its launch.