› added 13 years ago

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TIL that Andy Hallet, “Lorne” in “Angel”, died at the age of 33 from congestive heart failure brought on by lasting weakness from a dental infection years earlier.

ndGB TIL of Arthur Ganson’s “Machine with Concrete”, a kinetic sculpture of 12 connected gear pairs with the last gear stuck in concrete. It can still turn though, due to gear reduction that cuts the rotational speed by 1/50th for each gear set. The last gear will take over 2 trillion years to turn once.
gMOQ7 TIL Antipopes used to exist. Anyone who makes a significantly accepted competing claim to be the Pope is considered to be the Antipope. The last time this happened was in 1439.
4kxlR TIL that, in video games, "ludonarrative dissonance" is the technical name for the conflict between the story told in the gameplay, and the story in the non-interactive scenes (for example, the way that Drake in "Uncharted" is a fun-loving rogue in the cutscenes but a killing machine in the game).
69PK8 TIL Soil solarization is a small scale means of pest control. Covering the ground with a transparent sheet of polyethylene can heat soil to 35-60 C (95-140 F), which kills pathogens upto 30 cm deep in the soil and can promote healthy microbe growth.
DeKY TIL in 1785 Marquis de Sade wrote a book on a twelve-meter long roll of paper while imprisoned in France. The book was assumed to be lost in a raid and wasn’t published until 1904. The book, 120 Days of Sodom, makes 50 Shades of Grey look like a nursery rhyme.