TIL that Judy Garland was the mother of Liza Minelli 😱 (it.wikipedia.org)
TIL Kudzu growth in the US has been way overestimated. Newer estimates stated that Asian privet had invaded some 3.2 million acres—14 times kudzu’s territory (www.smithsonianmag.com)
In news media and scientific accounts and on some government websites, kudzu is typically said to cover seven million to nine million acres across the United States. But scientists reassessing kudzu’s spread have found that it’s nothing like that. In the latest careful sampling, the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu...
TIL the role the Congolese played in creating the atomic bomb (www.wired.com)
It is a sad history of cruelty and oppression, and a big part of the story that didn’t make the screen in Oppenheimer. It gives the marble scenes a much deeper meaning.
TIL Mr. Tornado (Tetsuya Fujita) who created the tornado intensity F0-F5 scale was living in the primary target city when the atomic bomb was dropped but the city was spared because it was too cloudy (www.fox6now.com)
“It was a certain weather pattern that spared Fujita from that bombing, allowing him to pursue his atmospheric discoveries....
TIL The average POTUS has been charged with two felonies. (thepoliticswatcher.com)
Today I learned about the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (en.m.wikipedia.org)
This is a “”“school”“” that makes “pray away the gay” camps look like lovely vacation experiences. They primarily cater to families with neurodivergent kids under the guise of helping them learn how to function in a neurotypical society. They use methods like GEDs to administer electric shocks when students...
Study finds SARS-CoV-2-associated sepsis was more common, deadly than previously thought (medicalxpress.com)
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 of the Mobile phone throwing competition that originated in Finland (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL about Halal Ribfest (barbecue/food that's permitted by a Muslim diet) and they go on tour. (www.halalribfest.com)
TIL rabies is an STD (www.ebervet.com)
TIL "jerk" had the meaning of "stupid" (www.theringer.com)
Great article by the host of my favorite Podcast....
TIL many of the social media sites top brass come directly from the alphabet orgs (twitter.com)
CIA, NSA, FBI,…...
Great story about a small Danish town that helped rescue Jews during World War Two (www.bbc.com)
TIL Abou thief ants that infest any nests to steal food (www.canr.msu.edu)
Thief ants are absolutely tiny ants that are named for building their nests connected to the colonies of bigger ant species. They do this to steal food.
TIL of Naba Baongo II, a sub-national monarch in Burkina Faso. In 2015, he played a key role in ending a military coup in the country peacefully, without any bloodshed. His kingdom is 528+ years old (en.wikipedia.org)
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 "The moderate position on Ukraine is to hold both Russia and the US empire responsible for their respective roles in starting and continuing this war. That’s the middle ground." (caitlinjohnstone.com)
The mainstream position in the west is that Putin invaded Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom, and that Moscow is 100% responsible for this conflict in every way while the US is just an innocent little flower who just wants to protect freedom and democracy. When you actually spell out what the mainstream position...
TIL Wikipedia is an arm of the propaganda machine for politicians and gov't agencies (web.archive.org)
You can read more about Larry’s encyclosphere here: larrysanger.org/…/the-encyclosphere-is-greater-th…
TIL psychedelics supposedly work by desynchronizing the brain (www.nature.com)
TIL “The Dark Side of the Moon”’s cover is apparently public domain if you slapped the letters “CGI” on it (commons.wikimedia.org) Spanish
Some government employee made the “new logo” in the 90s for NCSA software (the Common Gateway Interface), and government work is public domain....
TIL that there is a Refugee Team in the Olympics (olympics.com)
TIL the term "Mad as a Hatter" likely came from hat makers using mercury and the resulting mercury poisoning. (en.wikipedia.org)
Mercury poisoning of hat-makers – In 18th and 19th century England, mercury was used in the production of felt, which was commonly used in the hat-making trade at the time. Long-term use of mercury products often resulted in mercury poisoning-induced erethism among hat-makers.[1][2] In the late 19th-century United States, a...
TIL the writers of "Take me Out to the Ball Game" had never seen a baseball game (historyfacts.com)
TIL: Key differences between Borderline PD and Complex-PTSD (www.psychologytoday.com)
Borderline Personality Disorder...
