› added 9 years ago

130

TIL that US Robotics is still around, and still makes modems, and has 125 employees

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

0dGD1 TIL that most of the moons of Uranus are named after Shakespeare characters.
k5mm TIL in 1999 the WHO found food irradiation so safe, they deemed “risk assessment” inappropriate because there was no risk (document p. 162; PDF p. 67)
b6kpp TIL that George Washington had to borrow money to travel to New York City for his presidential inauguration. Despite owning 60,000 acres and 300 slaves he had very little cash and part of the reason he took the job was the salary.
n0lG TIL in Pakistan and India smoking scorpions to get high is a growing trend. The high lasts about 10 hours, with the first 6 being quite painful. Addicts of scorpion smoking describe it as more addictive than heroin, saying the hallucinations make “Everything appears like it is dancing.”
VDM8 TIL two MIT grads are designing a nuclear power plant that can use nuclear waste as a source of fuel, produce 75 times more energy per ton of fuel, and utilize 96% of supplied fuel, vs only 4% used with traditional designs. It will also be virtually accident proof and cheap to build.