Post * wp48 — Curious Curator

› added 10 years ago

70

TIL that Theodore Roosevelt vocally disapproved of putting “In God We Trust” on US currency, saying “It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.”

Read more

wBVE TIL Two privacy researchers from the University of Texas were able to unmask Netflix users’ political and sexual orientation by taking the “anonymized” movie ratings (released as part of Netflix Prize) and comparing them against non-anonymized movie ratings posted at IMDB.

jNbKp TIL: Jaywalking was made a crime, primarily due to car makers wanting to shift blame of accidents to pedestrians, instead of drivers. This was done to help prevent the image of the car as being a dangerous luxury, which would have hurt sales.

QNMme TIL Encyclopaedia Britannica's best all-time year was 1990 when 100,000 sets were sold. Sales started falling when Microsoft released Encarta in 1993. In 2010, the final print run produced 12,000 sets.

LQe69 TIL Ars Amatoria, the most famous work by roman poet Ovid, is just dating advice in the form of a poem. It was written in 2 AD and contains advice such as "never forget her birthday", "let her miss you but not too much" and "never ask her age". He also wrote a sequel with dating advice for women

QJQKL TIL that the city of Hamburg in Germany has a total of 2,496 bridges, which is the most of any city in Europe and many more than cities like Venice, Amsterdam and Saint Petersburg. This has led to Hamburg being referred to as "the Venice of the North".