› added 13 years ago

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TIL that Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, formerly of Steel Dan and The Doobie Brothers, is now a defense consultant and chaired a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense. He is self taught, and got into defense consulting as a hobby.

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a8pdM TIL of Ticker Tape Synesthesia, or seeing words in writing as they're spoken, sort-of like a news ticker or subtitles. There's no known cause, but it's thought to result from excess inter-connectivity of neurons in the different sensory regions of the brain.
xVb0k TIL that in social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it. "No one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes"
VMQGZ TIL that a bank robber successfully robbed an armoured truck by hiring decoys on craigslist and then escaping down the nearby river in an inner tube. At least 12 people showed up to answer his advert. The robber pepper sprayed a guard, stole the money, and fled.
pDQG TIL Paul McCartney dreamed the melody of “Yesterday” one night and immediately wrote the music the next morning. He then looked around for a month to find out whether or not he plagiarized it from someone else.
P1LEE TIL- The Apollo 11 astronaut left Lunar Laser Retro-Reflectors on the moon and NASA has been conducting experiments with them for over 50 years thus proving the moon landings happened.