The world is more interesting than you think.
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Minecraft builders shatter magical stones to craft portals
To visit a terrifying hell dimension, you simply need to find the hardest substance known to block-kind. Punching violently dense volcanic rock until it…
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Why game dialogue multiplies so quickly
Giving players choices is a mathematical nightmare. If a conversation branches in three directions, and each of those branches splits again, writers are…
Discover moreWhitney Houston sang her iconic ballad's opening in one take
Most pop singers require dozens of vocal takes edited heavily together to sound decent. Whitney Houston walked up to the microphone and recorded the legendary…
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Prophets left sealed boxes that bishops refuse to open
Leaving behind a cryptic chest of heavenly predictions is a massive flex. Joanna Southcott claimed her sealed box held the key to saving humanity, but…
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Ordo Templi Orientis members enthusiastically baked highly questionable bodily fluids into their mystic ritual cakes
Forget the Great British Baking Show, early twentieth-century occultists had their own highly unsanitary version of a technical challenge. The secretive Ordo…
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Some games secretly match trolls with trolls
Instead of properly removing awful people, the system simply quarantines them together in a digital asylum. Trolls are secretly placed in queues consisting…
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Babylon had a minimum wage—and brutal penalties
Long before modern labor boards, the Code of Hammurabi strictly dictated how much corn you had to pay a hired worker. Of course, the penalties for breaking…
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Early Christian theologians heavily debated whether the star of Bethlehem was actually a massive Jupiter conjunction
Even heavily religious scholars cannot entirely escape the allure of celestial mechanics. For centuries, theologians and astronomers have furiously debated…
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Scheduled deliveries alter cosmic destiny
Parents who book a C-section for a Tuesday morning are literally playing god with their child's celestial map. You aren't fulfilling an ancient prophecy; your…
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Why renting a car in Europe may mean driving stick
If you book a standard rental vehicle across the pond, it will almost certainly have a clutch pedal. Automatic transmissions are still considered a luxury…
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Japan built a train with a working fireplace
Japan's Train Suite Shiki-shima was designed to make literal billionaires weep with joy. The rolling palace is an ultra-exclusive sleeper train featuring…
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Compartmentalization keeps your conflicting values apart
You are a devout environmentalist who also drives a massive, gas-guzzling monster truck on the weekends. To avoid your brain exploding from the hypocrisy, you…
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Skyrim’s dragons speak a language built from scratch
World-building reaches its peak when you invent grammar for flying lizards. Bethesda didn't just string together cool-sounding gibberish for the dragons in…
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When a five-cent coin is worth more as scrap
Arbitrage is fun until it becomes a federal crime. Thanks to wildly fluctuating commodity markets, the copper and nickel composition inside a five-cent coin…
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A digital nightclub sold for $635,000 in real money
Why buy real property when you can own a string of code that acts as a nightclub? An entrepreneur in the Entropia Universe purchased a digital club for…
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Those wellness bracelets may not do much
Those futuristic-looking bands sold in mall kiosks claim to align your iron levels and boost vitality. In reality, the magnets inside them are so pathetically…
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Floating suspended in midair ruins comfortable sleep
Try getting a good night of rest when you are hovering three feet above your cot. Sleep levitation sounds amazing until you helplessly drift into the ceiling…
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The turkey leg at the Renaissance faire isn't medieval
Eating a massive roasted turkey leg feels incredibly medieval, except turkeys are native to the Americas and were entirely absent from Renaissance Europe.…
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Saliva immediately transports digestive enzymes into food
Digestion doesn't wait for the stomach. The second you take a bite, your spit is already acting as a chemical delivery service, soaking your sandwich in…
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Constantly plagued by noisy urban neighbors
John Dee was the personal advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, boasting one of the largest private libraries in Europe. Yet, if you read his actual diaries, he…
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Pull-to-refresh gestures update feeds via downward dragging
Nothing replicates the anticipation of a casino quite like a mobile interface. Dragging a screen downward triggers a little spinning icon, offering the exact…
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Hottest sea globally is unequivocally the Persian Gulf
Thanks to extremely shallow depths and surrounding scorching deserts, this basin heats up to utterly absurd temperatures. Jumping in feels less like a…
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Heavy weights for fewer reps build strength much faster
Lifting incredibly light objects a hundred times is simply a bizarre form of cardio. To actually forge sheer structural power, you must force your physical…
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Teen drama parents are universally oblivious or missing
Adult supervision would instantly ruin every plotline, so parents in teenage narratives are conveniently scrubbed from existence. They are either chronically…
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