Top

Warping is throwing an anchor either manually for a small ship or by rowing the anchor out and dropping it farther away for a larger ship. Then the ship would reel it to change position. Good for maneuvering in harbor. Etymologically related to "throwing" and essentially threading a needle across the sea....

TIL: How Private Prisons Sued The State of Arizona for Not Having Enough Prisoners ( medium.com )

TIL about Wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic worldview of accepting the simple, imperfect, and transient things in the world. Similar to kintsugi (repairing broken pottery with golden paste), it's abou ( en.wikipedia.org )

TIL about Roko's Basilisk, a thought experiment considered by some to be an "information hazard" - a concept or idea that can cause you harm by you simply knowing/understanding it ( en.wikipedia.org )

Roko's basilisk is a thought experiment which states that an otherwise benevolent artificial superintelligence (AI) in the future would be incentivized to create a virtual reality simulation to torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development, in order to...

TIL that there is a global, time traveling radio (sort of) ( radiooooo.com )

You can choose anywhere on earth, pick a decade, and hear music from that time and place. Pretty neat.

TIL That reddits "most addicted city" is eglin air force base FL ( lemmy.world )

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/s/vMRsaTdMn0

TIL: The Chicken soup for the soul publisher owns redbox ( www.foxbusiness.com )

TIL that in Melbourne, a 1 : 1 000 000 000 scale model of the solar system includes a mini-Proxima-Centauri that is one-time-around-the-entire-world away at this scale. ( stkildamelbourne.com.au )

From the pdf:...

TIL most cultures and peoples all over the world have historically had trouble recognizing the color blue ( www.ancientoriginsunleashed.com )

TIL the very first animated feature film was "Creation" by Pinto Colvig, made in 1916. It has been lost and only a few frames remain, but Colvig went on to be the voice of Goofy and the original Bozo. ( blueprintdigital.com )

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/420d81f5-17c6-4060-b24b-2a53b609de4f.png

TIL the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) was actually made after a book adaptation, which means Star Wars hype is technically literary-based in nature ( starwars.fandom.com )

TIL India had a tradition in the 1970s of making military helicopters look like animals ( www.peepultree.world )

TIL: How The IMF and World Bank Debt Trap Countries and Force them into Austerity ( medium.com )

TIL Hunter S. Thomson got an early honorable discharge from the air force in part because, "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members." ( en.wikipedia.org )

From Wikipedia:...

TIL: There is a species of penguin that lives in the southern point of Africa. (African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin.) ( en.wikipedia.org )

TIL: About Foxfire a Bioluminescent Fungus ( en.m.wikipedia.org )

I first heard about it as being used to mark gauges on a 1770s submersible so the operator could read them in the dark....

Today I Learned

TIL humans are the only animal with a chin. We aren't sure why. ( www.smithsonianmag.com )

TIL Private Prison stocks skyrocketed when Trump was first elected ( www.thestreet.com )

TIL sailing ships commonly moved around without wind by warping ( en.m.wikipedia.org )