› added 9 years ago

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TIL A man named Jack Ass sued MTV for $10 million, claiming the series Jackass was plagiarizing his name. Jack Ass, formerly known as Bob Craft, changed his name in 1997 to raise awareness for drunk driving, after his brother and friend were killed in a vehicle accident.

epnrn TIL about the Antikythera Mechanism which is widely considered to be the first analogue computer created by the ancient Greeks. The mechanism had about 30 precision gears which makes it the earliest discover of gears in Europe, and could track celestial body movements, eclipses, and sporting events.
9wQ0D TIL that Bill Gates was so addicted to Minesweeper, he used to sneak into then-Microsoft President Michael Hallman's office after work to play it, as he had uninstalled the game from his computer
RvWw TIL the USA signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture, which reads, in part: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
GYdoG TIL of Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent a total of 12 years in psychiatric hospitals, labour camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union. During his time in prison he co-wrote a manual instructing victims of political psychiatry how to behave during interrogation to avoid being diagnosed as mentally ill.
woPA8 TIL a crystallographer named Yuri Struchkov authored or coauthored 948 scientific papers between 1981-1990, which equates to 1 paper every 3.9 days. In 1992, he won the Ig Nobel prize in literature for his prodigious contributions to the field.