TIL Operation Mockingbird was a classified CIA program spanning from the 50’s through to late 70’s intended to influence the media and create ‘a propaganda network’ of leading American journalists.
TIL That, despite the relative rarity of ring galaxies, our photograph of Hoag's Object reveals yet another ring galaxy in the background.
TIL about the Fast Inverse Square Root, an ingenious set of code that quickly calculated accurate square roots in Quake 3 using floating points and Newton's method. However, it is not exactly known who on the dev team implemented the code.
TIL about the Makapansgat Pebble, a waterworn piece of Jasper that unmistakably resembles a human face. This pebble was carried a great distance to a South African cave by an Australopithecus hominid around 3,000,000 years ago. It is the earliest known evidence for human visual-symbolic thought.
TIL that the current premier of Cambodia (Lord Prime Minister, Supreme Military Commander Hun Sen) is a former member of the Khmer Rouge.
TIL that Nintendo was so popular in the 1980s and early 1990s that it almost destroyed the computer-game industry. Even the children of computer-game developers demanded the console despite their parents’ refusals and access to state-of-the-art computers at home.
TIL that in Japan, you can hire handsome men to show up at your office and watch sad videos with you until you cry, then wipe your tears for you
TIL naturalist Chris Packham said he would “eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with.”