› added 13 years ago

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TIL that AT&T has a database known as “Hawkeye” that contains 312 terabytes of data detailing nearly every telephone communication on AT&T’s domestic network since 2001

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P1rVg TIL of brain stimulation reward, manually stimulating specific parts of the brain to elicit pleasure and happiness. A volunteer subject in 1986 spent days doing nothing but self-stimulate. She ignored her family and personal hygiene and she developed an open sore on her finger from using the device.
e0jmE TIL that AI(s) playing Chess, despite continually beating human players, are still not able to play according to the equilibrium strategy that forces the opponent into a draw. A strategy that was proven to exist by the mathematician Nash in the 1960s.
8J1G TIL that there’s a movement in Belgium aimed at splitting the country into French speakers and Dutch speakers. Belgium would then be dissolved and the respective groups would merge with France and the Netherlands.
vPy4r TIL: Thanks to poor internal communication at NASA, information about a spacesuit water leak wasn't properly communicated. Later, Astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned on a July, 2013 ISS space walk, his helmet filling with several liters of water before they could get him back inside.
Ypeor TIL lots of Japanese tourists who visit Paris are so shocked to discover “scruffy streets” and “unfriendly locals” instead of the magical city they imagined, that they experience psychological problems as a result.