› added 5 years ago

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TIL that engineers at IBM had to hand weave their memory 14KB in total for both control and redundancy of their flight computer in the SATURN V launch vehicle. Wire shaped inside the mesh represented a bit based on the magnetic field generated by the direction of current flowing through it.

rRWkW TIL that EA Poe's revenge story "The Cask of Amontillado" was part of a literary feud. Poe's rival Thomas Dunn English wrote a novel, "1844," featuring a drunken wife-abuser based on Poe; Poe, in turn, used details from that novel as the setting for his own murder fantasy about English.
jN0jR TIL the fastest-advancing solar technology as of 2016 was the Perovskite solar cell. This type of solar cell, made of a hybrid organic-inorganic lead or tin halide-based material, has the potential to achieve higher efficiency and lower cost than any solar cell currently commercially available.
r5w0 TIL forging a signature is legal if the persons signature you are forging gives permission.
b9vbp TIL the longest land border of France is with... Brazil. Because the French Guyana is officially part of France, the 649 km (405.6 mi) contiguous border is longest than any boundaries with European countries. Their longest border in Europe is with Spain, which is 646 km (403.8 mi) long
wLrOY TIL The rarest natural hair color in the world is red, with only 1-2% of the world population having natural red hair. Second is blond, with 3%, then brown/brunette, with 11%, and finally black with 75-85%.