› added 4 years ago

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TIL about Benford's law: if you take natural sets of numbers (like lenghts of rivers, population of cities, financial transactions..), probability of first number is not even. There is 30% probability for number to start with 1, and only to 5% for 9. It is so reliable it is used to defect fraud!

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via reddit.com

rN6lx TIL during Apollo 11 NASA suspected that the pressure from the exhaust of the LM engine being reflected by the lunar surface might make it explode, and Neil Armstrong was meant to shut it down as soon as the contact light went off, but he forgot.
Z8vpp TIL Danish Astronomer Tycho Brahe owned roughly one percent of all the money in Denmark, wore a nose made of gold after losing his own in a duel and had a pet moose that he sent out to attend parties in his place until it one night got so drunk that it fell down a flight of stairs and broke its neck
lbxG TIL actor Wallace Shawn, while playing Vizzini (“Inconceivable!”) in The Pricess Bride, didn’t understand the movie’s sense of humor. Director Rob Reiner gave him line readings, and he merely imitated them.
4nPb TIL In 2007 it was reported that only 4 percent of olive oil leaving Italy was pure Italian olive oil due to counterfeiting which is as profitable as cocaine smuggling with half the risk.
GR5N TIL Ray Bradbury believed we all wound up creating the dystopian future of Fahrenheit 451 anyway. “Stop talking on the telephone, stop talking on the stupid Internet. It’s a waste of time.”