Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Audio bit depth dictates available dynamic volume ranges
The difference between an agonizingly loud blast and total silence is strictly a matter of data allocation. Bit depth determines the sheer number of possible…
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The first trackball was built for radar
Nothing speeds up the development of a handy desk gadget quite like a global military conflict. Invented in 1952 by the Canadian Navy, the first trackball was…
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Typewriters used an actual loud bell to signal the line end
Before word processors could magically wrap text to the next line, machines just screamed at you. Mechanical typewriters utilized a literal physical bell that…
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Why hovercrafts were designed to carry bombs
The loudest, most obnoxious way to cross a swamp was originally intended to be a weapon of war. It was conceived in absolute secrecy to transport explosive…
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Tarballs are just tape archives from the seventies
We are still dragging ghosts from the disco era into modern computing. The `.tar` file extension heavily used today literally stands for 'Tape Archive,'…
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Why cell towers still need buried cables
Glancing up at a towering metal spire heavily covered in rectangular antennae heavily implies a completely wireless utopian world. While the massive tower…
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Why Git is named after an insult
Self-deprecation is the hallmark of great developers. The creator famously named his revolutionary version control system after a slang term for an idiot,…
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Why Python makes threads wait in line
Despite running on machines capable of doing billions of things at once, standard Python stubbornly refuses to multitask efficiently. Thanks to the Global…
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Pokémon Go beat radio to 50 million users
The acceleration of modern tech adoption is wildly disproportionate. It took decades for radio broadcasters to put a box in fifty million homes. Nintendo…
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The robot vacuum that spent its life hitting walls
Long before Roomba successfully mapped the exact layout of your living room, there was the Electrolux Trilobite. It was a massive, clunky disc that relied on…
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Spinning rotors react to applied forces at right angles
Physics completely abandons intuition when things start spinning quickly. If you push on a heavy, rapidly rotating disc, the force does not affect the object…
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When tests exist only to turn the chart green
Developers frequently write testing scripts that check absolutely nothing of value, simply to satisfy middle management's arbitrary code coverage quotas so…
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Duct tape sticks using a highly aggressive rubber adhesive
This silver miracle roll doesn't use standard glue. It relies on a thick layer of unvulcanized rubber adhesive that flows into the microscopic pores of…
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The flash drive was born to replace fragile floppy disks
The thumb drive was born purely out of rage at fragile magnetic film. By the late 90s, floppy disks were notoriously unreliable; breathing on one too hard…
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Smartwatches demand to be charged completely every day
Strapping a tiny computer to your wrist provides unparalleled access to your heart rate and endless annoying notifications. The massive downside is trading a…
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Samsung means three stars in Korean
Subtle branding simply doesn't exist when your corporate goal is absolute planetary domination. Founder Lee Byung-chul chose the name 'Samsung' in 1938…
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Nyan Cat was based on a real cat
The hypnotic eight-bit pop-tart feline that left a rainbow trail across millions of screens wasn't just a fever dream of a random artist. The creator…
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Supersonic wind tunnels test aerodynamics of moving vehicles
Before throwing a wildly expensive vehicle into the sky, creators strap models into massive cylindrical tubes and blast them with hurricane-force winds. By…
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Electrical ground wires physically connect to the earth
That innocent-looking third prong on a wall plug literally just runs all the way back to a gigantic, heavy metal stake aggressively hammered deeply into the…
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Game Boy Advance completely lacked a screen light
Despite launching in 2001, the system demanded you play in direct, blinding sunlight just to see your character. Players were forced to buy obnoxious,…
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Domain names are essentially rented real estate
You never actually own a website address permanently, no matter how much you pay for it upfront. The internet runs on an infinite subscription model, meaning…
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IPv6 offers a completely absurd surplus of addresses
Because running out of connections is embarrassing, the updated protocol provides undecillions of unique addresses. You could assign a distinct IP to every…
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Neoprene is literally just synthetic rubber that got cooked
The sleek, modern material keeping scuba divers warm is not some advanced aquatic fabric. It is essentially liquid rubber that has been whipped with nitrogen…
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Why speaking is faster than typing
We are hopelessly slow, stubborn analog creatures. Despite the existence of hyper-accurate speech-to-text algorithms that can transcribe spoken language…
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