According to statistics, at the end of 2019, there were about 2 zettabytes of data on the internet which roughly equals 72,000 years of high-definition video. That’s pretty incredible, right? Of course, there’s a lot of useful information out there but it’s still impossible to know everything. So, from time to time, we all make small but very important personal discoveries and some of us choose to share those experiences with the rest of the world online.
We at The Elite Indian love it when people find out something new about ordinary things, so prepare to be amazed!
- A screensaver has a purpose — and it literally saves your screen from an image being burned into it. I’m 37. © 4e696b / Reddit
- I know that mice don’t actually like cheese, and Einstein wasn’t actually a good student. I don’t believe in popular culture anymore. © almost_bergman / Twitter
- The reason that the lower notes are on the left side of the piano is that most people are right-handed, and the bass parts are simpler to play, even with the non-dominant hand. © illegalwaffles / Reddit
- My grandpa used to ask me when I was a kid if I could talk without moving my lips. Being a dumb kid I would always give it my best effort and thought I was pretty good at it. 20 years later I realized the old man was just telling me to keep my mouth shut. Too bad I can’t let him know I finally figured it out. © buttsphincter / Reddit
- I only just today realized that the “walk the plank” piece on a boat is not a special addition that pirates added to their ships as a means of public execution that looked like a little wooden diving board. It is, in fact, the very same plank as the gangplank you’d normally use to get on and off of the ship. It is not the presence of the plank that is threatening, but the absence of a dock. © Liontamerr / Reddit
- Raincoats typically have bright colors so you’re easier to spot during heavy rain, not because raincoat designers have bad taste. © AvoidAtAIICosts / Reddit
- As a child, I was confused as to why Mary, Kate, and Ashley were referred to as the Olsen twins and why ads on TV only ever showed 2 of them at a time. And then 16-year-old me found out about Mary-Kate. © PM_ME__RECIPES / Reddit
- Cilantro and coriander are the same plant. © MongoBongoTown / Reddit
- Canada still has 91% of the forest that existed at the beginning of European settlement. © Kwpthrowaway / Reddit
- The Grammys are called this because the awards are gramophones. © L00katTheAww / Reddit
- One reason why Greenland is considered the largest island and Australia is a continent, not an island (even it fits the definition of an island to be entirely surrounded by water), is that Greenland is a part of the North American plate and Australia has its own separate tectonic plate. © lopezjessy / reddit
- In order to properly use a hand dryer, you have to rub your hands. I used to just put my hands under it and question why it was taking so long, but then I saw one of my friends rubbing their hands and I felt stupid. © MyFakeNameIsGUS / reddit
- On an iPhone, you can set the brightness of the flashlight. © SeyiDALegend / Reddit
- I’m nearly 40 and watched my wife open an ice cream bar wrapper from the bottom and pull it out by the stick. Up until that point, I’d open it from the top and pull it down like a banana! I don’t know why I never thought of that before. © bdgod13 / Reddit
- What I just realized today was that every picture of the Milky Way is simply a simulation of what scientists believe the Milky Way looks like — no one has ever actually seen it in its entirety. It seems like a relatively logical fact when you think about it like that, but it was one of those things I’d just taken for granted. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure that out. Anyhow, mind blown. According to calculations by Jason Preston, this distance is a minimum of around 30,200 light-years, which would take Voyager 1 more than 535 million years to travel. © Alexis Cedargren / Quora
- Blankets/jackets don’t make you warm they just keep in your body heat. The thicker or more dense the material, the more heat it keeps in. This is why space blankets work. © Mrtomatoe22 / Reddit
- Just today, I’ve found out that cats’ hind legs always step on the same spot where the front legs just were. Did you know that? © helensmail55 / Twitter
- I’ve just found out that the language of The Sims characters was made up of Ukranian, French, Tagal, Finnish, and Latin. I thought that they were just mumbling stuff but it actually makes sense now. © bian_98 / Twitter
- I was like 16 when I found out I could just hold the tap itself instead of holding my hand in the water to determine the temperature. © Joxxill / Reddit
- Old trees have cracked bark because they expand and grow a lot and tree bark is not super flexible so it cracks. However, younger trees have smoother bark, because they haven’t grown much. © _Gwynn_ / Reddit
- I just finished reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. At the end of the book, there was a little blurb about the author; Abraham Stoker. Bram is short for Abraham. I didn’t know that. © I-AM-SPARTA81 / Reddit
- When people would refer to “a double-edged sword,” I thought the sword’s hilt was also a sword. Only until yesterday, it was explained to me by my brother that it was just sharp on both sides of the blade. © Bubcheeseburger / Reddit
- Pufferfish suck in water, not air. © TheSchmetKing / Reddit
What random discovery would you add to this list?
Preview photo credit -theLunarMartian- / Reddit
