› added 9 years ago

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TIL that IBM has stated that the Scroll Lock key on your keyboard does nothing. When PC Magazine asked an executive of keyboard manufacturer Key Tronic about the key’s purpose he replied, “I don’t know, but we put it on ours too.”

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b9Qgp TIL that all modern horses are likely descended from a single male ancestor. Wild stallions were aggressive and untamable, so he was probably a timid stallion for whom domestication was the only chance to get laid.
XYvQ TIL: the inventor of intermittent windshield wipers tried to sell his idea to the auto industry and was turned away. When they began showing up on new cars, he sued, and won.
R5W54 TIL: There is a small part of Spain inside France. The town of Llivia is a few Kms over the border but has a special road to connect it with the rest of Spain.
YALP TIL adjectives in English always have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a ‘lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife’, but any other word order would sound entirely wrong.
4X8dX TIL the name “California” comes from a 16th-century romance novel popular among the Spanish explorers who “discovered” the west coast.