What the developers of PHP were considering for their syntax. Just a reminder that the most hated programming language could have been so much worse. (en.wikipedia.org)
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: There is a breed of goat that is half black and half white -- The Valais Blackneck goat (en.wikipedia.org)
(Full disclosure, I learned this yesterday.)...
TIL of the Mobile phone throwing competition that originated in Finland (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Upon the death of the Dalai Lama, a search for his reincarnation is conducted where a child is identified through a series of 'tests' before being recognized as the succeeding Dalai Lama. The c... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL: Tommy Thompson was an American treasure hunter who successfully found millions of dollars worth of gold coins from the SS Central America. However, he went on the run due to refusing to pay of... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL of anchorites, medieval Christian ascetics who were walled into a cell ("anchorhold") attached to a church for their entire adult lives. Through small windows, they received sustenance, dispose... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL how trash is disposed of in modern large submarines. Trash is deposited into a Trash Disposal Unit (TDU) which collects and compacts it into a galvanized steel can. A ball valve is opened allow... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL about Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,' an album so exclusive, only one copy was ever produced. (en.wikipedia.org)
There are no circulating copies of the album online and it cannot be commercially exploited until 2103, but it can be played at listening parties....
Why is a millennium old fossilised human poop on display at the Archaeological Resource Centre in the UK? (en.wikipedia.org)
Happy Birthday James Clerk Maxwell! (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL abou the Amalgam Comics, a joint publication by DC & Marvel featuring characters that were a mix of those from both universes (en.wikipedia.org)
About the comics: antifandom.com/marvel/wiki/Amalgam_Comics...
100 years ago, Vladimir Lenin died (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, died of Tuberculosis three years and ten months after the assassination. (en.wikipedia.org)
Princip was nineteen years old at the time and too young to be executed, as he was twenty-seven days shy of the twenty-year minimum age limit required by Habsburg law.[43] On Thursday 28 October 1914 the court found Princip guilty of murder and high treason, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison...
TIL how Carroll O'Connor became Archie Bunker (en.wikipedia.org)
The character Archie Bunker in All In The Family was originally offered to Mickey Rooney, who declined. Carroll O'Connor lived in Europe, and accepted the role only because he thought the show would fail and he could go home, so much so that part of his contract with Norman Lear included a return plane ticket to Rome so that he...
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday is 20 years old (en.wikipedia.org)
cross-posted from: lemmy.capebreton.social/post/889065...
TIL CJK compatibilty ideographs (often used to put a lot of symbols in fonts such as 着 which displays as the Wii logo on my machine) were originally allocated to support older standards for storing Chinese characters and derivatives in code points (en.wikipedia.org)
Sorry for the confusing title. Basically before Unicode, a bunch of different standards for storing Chinese characters (also used in Korean and Japanese which also have some of their own derivatives) emerged. When Unicode sought to unify every standard they of course had to add compatibility for older standards so for all the...
TIL of Mustatils; over 1000 walled courtyards spanning hundreds of meters were built at least 7000 years ago. Their function in unknown. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Scarface (1983) was not only shunned by the Oscars, but actually received a Razzie nomination for Worst Director. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the number of continents varies and do not follow a strict criteria (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that 80s child actress Judith Barsi made so much money by 4th grade, her family bought a house in West Hills. She died at age 10 when her father killed the entire family. Her final films, “The ... (en.wikipedia.org)
100 years ago, Vladimir Lenin died (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL about 'Growing the beard' (en.wikipedia.org)
“Growing the beard” refers to the opposite of jumping the shark; i.e. when a show dramatically improves in quality. In the series Star Trek: The Next Generation the second season is considered to be better in terms of storytelling over the first season. This shift coincided with character William Riker, who was clean-shaven...
TIL about the 1957 Kyshtym disaster in the USSR, where improperly stored nuclear waste exploded and created the third-worst peacetime nuclear incident in history. It was kept secret until 1976. (en.wikipedia.org)
To make it worse, before they decided to store the nuclear waste, they’d just dump it into the river, which was used as drinking water by thousands of people. Again, kept secret.
TIL India still officially recognises 5 sub-national monarchies, known as the 'Kings of Dangs'. They receive payment from the government every year during Holi (en.wikipedia.org)
As per the treaty signed in 1842 the British were allowed to use the forests and their natural products against which they had to pay around 3,000 silver coins to the five kings. Currently the kings receive a monthly political pension by the Government of India, which is the main source of their income. This payment is continued...
