TIL During the shooting event of the 1965 World Pentathlon Championships, Herbert Polzhuber drank 10 glasses of beer and a bottle of cognac, stepped onto the shooting platform, shot all his bullets... (en.wikipedia.org)
Following Red Hat's lead, Linus Torvalds will only publish Linux Kernel code to paid contributors (en.wikipedia.org)
At Linux, thousands of people spend their time writing code to enable new features, fixing bugs, integrating different packages and then supporting that work for a long time - something that our customers and partners need....
John David McAfee, author of the first commercial anti-virus software, was born on Sept 18th 1945 (en.wikipedia.org)
cross-posted from: lemmy.capebreton.social/post/604393...
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 the Kingdom of Bailundo, a non-sovereign monarchy located in Angola. Its king was notably deposed in 2021 after being charged of involvement in a murder (en.wikipedia.org)
Ekuikui V sometimes dubbed himself as the “king of (all) Ovimbundu”. In early 2021, Ekuikui V was sentenced to six years in prison by the Provincial Court of Huambo (TPH) for his implication in a murder in 2017. Ekuikui V had issued a judgment in a traditional court case, finding Jacinto Kamutali Epalangana guilty of killing...
Hook an old FPS gamer up. Anyone else fondly miss "assassin mode" from Soldier of Fortune (2000)? (en.wikipedia.org)
I have never played another FPS that had a mode like this, and it was so damn fun and self-balancing....
TIL Alaska P. Davidson was the first female special agent hired by the Bureau of Investigation. Davidson was hired by director William J. Burns in 1922 but was forced to resign by Director J. Edgar... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that the Longyou Caves, a mysterious network of man-made caves over 2,000 years old, were never recorded in any historical documents and were only rediscovered by local farmers in 1992. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Bhutan doesn't recognize China in any way, shape or form (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Panama hats may take a master weaver up to 8 months to produce, at a price of $200. The best hats can sell outside of Ecuador for 50x what the weaver is paid (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: James Cameron ended up marrying the actress (Suzy Amis) who played Rose's granddaughter. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the term Redneck likely originated from the sunburned red neck of those working in fields. (en.wikipedia.org)
Greensleeves is almost 500 years old. I'm sure there were other very popular songs when it came out, but Greensleeves had to staying power to still be here. What do you think is today's Greensleeves? (en.wikipedia.org)
Not just a song that can be found in the archives, but one that almost everyone can hum, even today....
TIL about de la Chapelle syndrome where people with XX chromosomes are born with traditionally masculine organs & presentation. Usually those with the trait are unaware they have XX chromosomes at all (en.wikipedia.org)
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 the TRAPPIST-1 Star System (en.wikipedia.org)
(it’s not a solar system because Sol is our star, specifically; we’re the only Solar system)...
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 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: In 1958, while he was an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. “In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy,” chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. “Sometimes his rebel...
Happy Birthday James Clerk Maxwell! (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)
What's your take on Cassavetes? (en.wikipedia.org)
Alcoholic? Messiah?
TIL that in 2014, a photographer tried to copyright a monkey's selfie and sue Wikipedia for it. (en.wikipedia.org)
The EFF soon created a crossword, overlaid it on top of the monkey, and featured it on their website....
TIL: Gamergate's have interesting hierarchy and can replace the queen (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL one of the oldest TV shows was simply called "Sea Stories" on the BBC, featuring Royal Navy Commander A.B. Campbell describing the personalities and places he had seen. No known footage exists. (en.wikipedia.org)
aired from 1936-1937. if anyone has a copy pls lemme know