› added 11 years ago

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TIL that when Carl McCunn was lost in the Alaskan wilderness and a plane flew low by him, he put his fists up and started to celebrate being rescued, but the plane continued on. The fists were the signal to ‘ALL O.K.’.

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9YaB7 TIL: China’s ongoing toilet revolution aims to replace open-pit latrines with safe, sanitary toilets and septic systems, to reduce the spread of parasites and diseases, and improve waste treatment.
aRjN TIL that since most people in Japan and China use their phones or computers to phonetically convert the Latin alphabet to type Chinese characters, more people are forgetting how to write some characters by hand. On a Chinese TV show, only 30% of participants could write “toad”, 癞蛤蟆 (Lài há ma).
pXOG TIL actor Gary Busey had been an outspoken opponent of helmet laws before his own motorcycle accident, but than changed sides and said: “If you don’t wear a helmet, you’re not playing with a full deck.”
7A57 TIL that the American Family Association demanded that Home Depot “stop supporting the gay agenda”. Unlike Lowe’s who bowed to AFA pressure a few months earlier, Home Depot refused and suffered an AFA boycott. During the next quarter, Home Depot’s profits increased by 6.1%.
p0JN TIL David Prowse, the actor who portrayed Darth Vader (in form, not voice), is banned from attending official Star Wars conventions because George Lucas finds him annoying.