Today I Learned - Kbin chat

TIL Many bronze age peoples forgot what stone age tools were, and thought discovered ones as some kind of mystical talismans or signs from a thunder god ( www.theguardian.com )

Also mistaken for fulgurite by the more naturalistically minded, apparently. Maybe most common in the Nordics, based on viking references?...

TIL Earthworms aren't native to the northern United States; they are a recent invasive species which does significant damage to boreal forests ( www.outdoorlife.com )

TIL the American Conservapedia, among other atrocities, redirects Linux to GNU/Linux ( www.conservapedia.com )

I guess they have a quantum taste for GNU!

TIL Most Explosives used by Hamas Are Unexploded Israeli Bombs Dropped on Palestine ( medium.com )

TIL 40 states in the US charge you $20-$80 a day for being incarcerated in prison. ( en.m.wikipedia.org )

Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything....

TIL if The Bare Naked Ladies had $1m when the song was recorded, and parked it in S&P500, they'd be rich.

While $1m USD in 1988 is worth only $2.6m in 2024, if they just put it in the S&P 500 back then and left it there, it'd be worth over $44.6m today....

TIL: The Phrase “Death To America” Didn’t exist Before the CIA Overthrew the Iranian Government for Nationalizing their Oil in 1953 ( medium.com )

TIL the PSVR uses Linux ( www.playstation.com )

just stumbled upon this license

Today I learned an oil company prevented the rescue of contracted divers working on their pipe to save money. ( www.youtube.com )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_Petroleum_Holdings#Paria_Fuel_Trading_Company_diving_tragedy...

TIL White Castle was the pioneer of fast food, not McDonalds ( 99percentinvisible.org )

Excellent listen throughout, but you can skip to 17:30 for competition with McDonalds.

About the successor of Virtual RMS ( lemmy.ml )

Thanks to this comment : https://lemmy.ml/comment/10591882

TIL about blindsight, a phenomenon by which visually blind people can apparently see or detect objects without using their visual cortex ( en.m.wikipedia.org )

It was a footnote in an article I read about a monkey using blindsight and that there had been several experiments with humans proving blindsight existed and that surprised me. As a footnote....

TIL Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Was An Anti-Communist CIA Operative who Kept the Feminist Movement From Discussing Class; only Gender ( medium.com )

TIL ~62% of the atoms in a human body are Hydrogen, and are as old as the universe. ( en.wikipedia.org )

The real reason men grow beards ( www.bbc.com )

TIL that 'Rocky' (1976) was inspired by the true story of Chuck Wepner, a local boxer from New Jersey who was set up for a dream fight with Muhammad Ali. Wepner quit his job to train full time. ( www.biography.com )

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/2699121...

TIL about exploding head syndrome, which causes patients to hear a loud, frightening noise when falling asleep or waking up. Up to 10% of people may have it, but cases often go undiagnosed ( en.wikipedia.org )

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/2659121

TIL the U.S. Civil War is called "The Slave War" in Icelandic ( lemmy.world )

TIL that Telefonicá sells 'anonymous' location data of their clients. ( www.heise.de )

TL;DR Some cellular cetwork providers triangulate your location and sell it to god knows who. And since real anonymous data is a lie, those who buy that data probably can tell who and where you are....

TIL that quadruple A batteries exist ( lemmy.world )

What device even uses this??

Australians are 10x more likely to develop skin cancer than the average person

https://www.wcrf.org/cancer-trends/skin-cancer-statistics/

TIL the dev of Iron Lung, an acclaimed indie horror game, faced significant backlash over increasing the price from $6 to $8 ( www.ign.com )

Then, responding to those who have said he’s “only doing this for the money", Szymanski tweeted: “Yes, no fucking shit. I make games for a living. If I didn't want to earn money from them I wouldn't charge money for them.”...