› added 9 months ago

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TIL that 'Cognitive Dissonance' is the mental discomfort experienced when holding 2 conflicting beliefs or values simultaneously. People tend to change one of the conflicting beliefs or acquire new information to reduce the discomfort. Introduced by psychologist Leon Festinger in the 50s.

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l7RbA TIL Victor Vescovo is the first person to complete the "Explorers' Extreme Trifecta" of land, sea & air by: summiting Mount Everest (the highest point on Earth), diving to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (the deepest point on Earth), & entering space (crossing the 100-km-high Kármán Line).
loJpV TIL that using his knowledge of telephone systems, Kevin Poulsen, alias “Dark Dante,” hacked the phone lines of a radio station to become the winning caller for a brand new Porsche. He was sentenced to 5 years and banned from using computers for years. Later he reinvented himself as a journalist.
ZMV4 TIL that there was an 18th century British sport called cock throwing that involved tying up a rooster and taking turns throwing sticks at it until it died. This game was popular among children.
Y7J9v TIL the top 10% of American adults - 24 million of them - consume an average of 74 drinks per week, or a little more than 10 drinks per day.
v8pR TIL that developers could have been putting minigames in loading screens for us to play while we wait for the proper game to load, but Namco took out a patent for it 20 years ago, preventing any developers from doing so.