Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
How tractors helped create the Dust Bowl
Mechanizing the farm had some surprisingly catastrophic side effects. The rapid adoption of deep-plowing gasoline tractors tore up the natural prairie grasses…
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Spring loaded internal flaps force fluids to flow one way
Sometimes the simplest physical barrier is all it takes to govern massive systems. A non-return valve features a mechanical flap held perfectly shut by a…
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How your trackpad knows where you touched
That smooth square below your spacebar is completely dead inside until you touch it. It projects a dense, invisible grid of electrical capacitance across its…
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USB connections are almost universally backwards compatible
Plugging a brand new device into an ancient computer usually guarantees absolute failure. The universal serial bus defies this completely, allowing a flashy…
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Why JSON won’t let you add comments
The creator intentionally removed the ability to add descriptive comments to these files. This was done specifically out of spite, to force people to stop…
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Caller ID spoofing manipulates network origin data
Because legacy phone networks fundamentally operate on the honor system, lying is shockingly simple. Caller ID data is transmitted alongside the call signal,…
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Space station solar arrays lack atmospheric protection
Free from annoying clouds, they also have exactly zero protection from the constant, brutal bombardment of micrometeoroids and harsh solar radiation, meaning…
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The console expansion that played Atari 2600 games
Imagine buying a console explicitly designed to play another company's cartridges. Coleco brazenly released an expansion module that accepted Atari 2600…
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Why some Bolivian clocks run backward
Decolonizing regional timekeeping involves heavily aggressive mechanical choices. To explicitly reflect the natural solar shadow movements of the southern…
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Clicking a mouse repeatedly will snap the microswitch
Every peripheral has a definitive expiration date hidden inside its plastic shell. Beneath the primary buttons sits a tiny piece of curved copper known as a…
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Why tap payments work only inches away
Sometimes, terrible range is considered a premium feature. Close-proximity tap technology is artificially restricted to only broadcast a signal a few inches…
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Why gamers always shoot the red barrels
Decades of repetitive digital conditioning have deeply ingrained a single, undeniable truth into the minds of all gamers: brightly colored cylindrical objects…
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Why the keyboard designed to beat QWERTY never took over
Your agonizing wrist cramps are entirely self-inflicted. The Dvorak layout actually places the most used vowels and consonants right on the home row, severely…
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Enemy aggro mechanics completely ignore the largest threats
Virtual combatants are notoriously terrible at threat assessment. Threat generation algorithms—or "aggro"—run entirely on mathematical values assigned to…
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Correction tape rolls a dry film of white plastic
Unlike messy liquid white-out, this dispenser applies a microscopic layer of opaque white plastic directly onto your typo. It is essentially an extremely…
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Hackers breached a casino through its fish tank
The 'Internet of Things' has finally reached peak absurdity. In 2017, an unnamed North American casino was violently hacked, and investigators traced the…
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The strange recipe that turns ice into tough armor
Water is notoriously terrible at stopping projectiles, but if you toss in some sawdust, you suddenly have a composite material tougher than concrete. Known as…
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Anisotropic filtering fixes oblique angles
Without this crucial math, looking down a long virtual road turns the asphalt into a muddy, smeared catastrophe. Standard rendering algorithms violently fail…
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Traceroute commands map intermediate internet hops
By intentionally sending packets designed to expire after crossing a specific number of routers, this utility forces every intermediary stop to send back a…
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When Unix gives up, it has a kernel panic
When a severe, unrecoverable error occurs in a Unix-based system, the kernel triggers a routine officially named a 'Kernel Panic'. The machine determines that…
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The physics trick behind a soda can tab
The humble aluminum can opening is a masterclass in exploiting basic physics to tear metal smoothly. The opening on the lid isn't fully cut; it's heavily…
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How barbed wire ended the open range
The cowboy way of life was fundamentally destroyed by a few sharp twists of steel. By allowing farmers to cheaply fence off massive expanses of the plains,…
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Stretched polyethylene terephthalate reflects infrared heat
You know those shiny, crinkly space blankets that look like massive gum wrappers? That is just heavily stretched plastic coated in a microscopic layer of…
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How a memory leak can freeze your computer
Some applications are incredibly greedy and completely forget to return the resources they borrowed. A memory leak occurs when a script grabs active space to…
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