› added 8 years ago

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TIL One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. When eBay creator, Pierre Omidyar, emailed the person who bought the broken laser pointer for $14.83 ($22.40 today) to make sure he knew it was broken, the man told him “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.”

Read more time.com

via reddit.com

adDy TIL: Pokemon Gold and Silver which sold 23 million copies were developed by only 4 programmers.
Z5LB TIL Melatonin levels secreted in breast milk vary depending on the time of day, helping a baby know when to sleep/wake up and thus regulate its sleep cycle. Babies who are fed formula have a harder time regulating their sleep cycle and are more prone to colic
85XZ TIL Gene Autry created “The Cowboy Code” in the 1950’s, a list of qualities every cowboy should take to heart. Included were “He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas” and being gentle to animals.
JwaV TIL that African soldiers fighting against the Japanese in Burma during WWII appropriated and manipulated the rumors that they were cannibals. To demonstrate this, soldiers pretended to eat the ‘meat’ of fallen soldiers so that remaining survivors would flee in fear
oE0W TIL that NASA, during the Apollo program, had to rename urinal sleeves in sizes “small, medium, and large” to “large, gigantic, and humongous” because astronauts would only select large (regardless of their size) and the sleeves kept slipping off.