› added 10 years ago

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TIL that BBC once trolled an internet troll (who sends vile abuse on memorial pages) by giving the man an unscheduled interview (the troll gave a very disrespectful interview.) BBC aired it with his name and location open and he received a lot of hate that he was forced to delete his account.

Read more cnet.com

via reddit.com

5GL8 TIL in 2013 the Chinese government hacked Google. While many initially believed the hack was targeting the email accounts of activists, it actually targeted and compromised Google’s internal warrant tracking system, letting the Chinese know which of their operatives were being monitored.
7pY7 TIL that Steven Spielberg was not present for the shooting of the final scene in Jaws, because he thought the crew was going to throw him in the water when the scene was over. Since then, it has become tradition for him to be absent on the final scene of one of his movies.
1nRO TIL that a religion has sprung up around the philosophy of The Dude in The Big Lebowski. I’d say more, but I’m going for the whole brevity thing.
BVyk TIL that in the ‘60s at the height of the Cold War, the US continuously flew planes carrying nuclear bombs around the world as a precautionary measure in the event of an attack by the USSR. 5 of these planes crashed, and nuclear contamination resulted in at least 2 instances.
0g1R TIL that the recipe for Tootsie Rolls calls for the previous day’s batch to be mixed in, so as to (theoretically) include some of the very first Tootsie Roll in every candy made