Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

series_hybrid t1_ja8x6lc wrote

Reply to TIL that the Slurpee was invented by accident when a Dairy Queen owner would provide frozen soda, from a cooler, to customers when his soda fountain would break down. The owner, Omar Knedlik, improvised the Icee machine out of car parts, which was eventually licensed by 7-11, to become the Slurpee. by jdward01

The Margarita was named after a female bartender who was serving oil-workers after work in the summer.

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Ronnyalpuck t1_ja8ws8w wrote

Reply to TIL John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, was arrested and tried for merely teaching the theory of evolution in 1925. by JesusLikesHisCheezIt

The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.

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marmorset t1_ja8wpf7 wrote

Reply to TIL that in the period of time since the introduction of the consumer price index, the highest inflation rate observed in the U.S. was 20.49% in 1917. by ringopendragon

The government has changed the way a lot of things are calculated now, the new numbers aren't comparable. Food and energy, which often rise the most, sometimes aren't figured into the inflation rate.

The unemployment rate isn't trustworthy either. It used to estimate the unemployed, but now sometimes they exclude people who are unemployed but aren't collecting unemployment anymore. If you lose your job and collect unemployment, you count, but if after you lose your benefits and are still unemployed, you don't count.

I used to buy chicken breast at $1.79 a pound, now I pay $2.99 a pound. Milk was $2.45 a gallon, now it's $3.75 a gallon. That's just two years ago, and they're both over 50% more expensive, a far cry from the 10% the government claims.

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fib16 t1_ja8wkii wrote

Reply to comment by HPmoni in TIL of David Sarnoff, the head of RCA and NBC who suppressed and then stole FM radio and Television from their inventors, driving one to suicide and the other to alcoholism. by Dega704

Well. They pretty obviously came up with Facebook but an idea and execution are two very different things. Zuckerberg made it was it is. If the brothers did it themselves we may not have fb today. It may have died. So they’re lucky a smart person “stole” it and made it into a multibillion dollar company and they got paid a shit ton for it. They were lucky imo. They claimed they lost out on billions. I say they got paid just for their idea and doing nothing else.

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herbw t1_ja8ufpx wrote

Reply to TIL In Approximately 241,000 years, Nanga Parbat #9 tallest mountain in the world located in Pakistan will overtake Everest and will become the tallest mountain in the world. by AdClemson

The key is saying something which cannot be possibly tested, geologically.

Also, plate tectonics is complex systems of all those plates interacting . That's not possible to understand very well.

So writin such is like sayin today an asteroid in 25K yrs. will crash on the earth in a precise place and time of day. As Wittgenstein 100 years ago would say, "meaningless."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

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