› added 10 months ago

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TIL Leonhard Euler wrote some papers on music theory. However, these papers were considered “too mathematical for musicians and too musical for mathematicians.”

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dg7Z TIL that it was illegal in Soviet Union to not have a job
wLnp1 TIL in 1714, a Norwegian captain and an English captain had a 14-hour long ship fight. Afterwards, both ships were badly damaged and the Norwegian captain was running out of ammo. He sent an envoy to the English ship, asking if he could borrow some of their ammo. They said no.
W7o7L TIL If Coca-Cola's inventor had decided to file a patent application in 1892 instead of keeping the recipe a secret, patent protection would have expired long before Pepsi ever came onto the market in 1965. Patent protection lasts 20 years at most. Trade secrets can last forever.
ed15 TIL an investor and operator of a hedge fund has placed a $1,000,000,000 special bet (known on the stock market as a “short”) against the shady multilevel marketing company, Herbalife. If they lose money, he makes money. He plans to donate his profits to charity.
0w96A TIL that in 1973 the CEO of GM dismissed Honda's CVCC technology as only good for "little toy motorcycle engines." Soichiro Honda then bought a Chevy Impala with a 5.7L V8 and had engineers build a CVCC system for it. Flown back to the US, it passed EPA tests without a catalytic converter.