› added 4 years ago

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TIL of the Harvard Sentences, a set of phonetically-balanced words used to test audio quality. It is used to test phone call quality, text-to-speech programming, and more.

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ADxMd TIL The number of students caught cheating at the UK's top universities (including Oxford and Cambridge) increased by a third in three years. There was a surge in cases of academic misconduct.
ADLMg TIL there are 480 million tiny needles in Earth's orbit. They were placed there in 1963 during the cold war as part of Project Westford to facilitate global communication
ZVDp TIL that in 2009, there was a mass shooting at an LA Fitness in Pittsburgh. There was little national press, even though it was a hate crime against women, and the shooter kept online diaries chronicling his plans for the attack.
O0ye TIL of a German currency called Chiemgauer that was designed to oxidize over time, decreasing the worth of the note. This is to promote local spending and decrease hoarding of the notes
R7je7 TIL In 1984, an anti-cruise missile activist poured red paint on the only good copy of the Canadian Constitution. He was subsequently sentenced to 89 days in weekend jail.