Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Why carousel horses usually run counterclockwise
In most of the Western world, you will never find a merry-go-round spinning to the right. The mechanics were rigidly designed to cater to right-handed riders…
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Cardboard boxes gain strength from wavy fluted inner paper
A flat sheet of paper is utterly useless for shipping. Glueing a rippled, wavy layer of paper between two flat sheets creates a continuous series of rigid…
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The 3D printer that delivers tools to space
Prime shipping doesn't quite reach low Earth orbit yet. Instead of waiting months for a resupply rocket to bring a specific wrench or replacement valve, NASA…
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Why power-plant cooling towers are hourglass-shaped
Those ominous, gargantuan concrete silos spewing white clouds at power plants aren't shaped like hour-glasses just for aesthetics. The hyperbolic curve relies…
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Why tech support can be a hacker's way in
Why spend weeks trying to crack a sophisticated firewall when you can just ask someone to open the door? The most devastating breaches rarely involve entering…
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Thumb drives are basically miniature solid state drives
The cheap promotional stick you got for free is just a dramatically inferior solid state drive. Both use exact same flash storage components to trap…
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BlackBerry gave us read receipts
The profound anxiety you feel when someone reads your message but refuses to reply can be entirely blamed on early corporate smartphones. BlackBerry…
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Seismographs draw lines to measure earth tremors
Measuring devastating earthquakes relies entirely on the fact that heavy things hate moving. A massive weight is suspended above a rolling drum of paper; when…
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Nonogram grids force you to paint pictures via deduction
You start with an empty board and some vague numbers on the edges, and somehow you are expected to mathematically carve out a picture of a duck. It requires…
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Your Lightning cable has a tiny authenticity check
Apple didn't just want to sell you a wire; they wanted to control who could legally manufacture it. Those proprietary connectors feature incredibly small…
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Yahoo stands for a surprisingly pompous phrase
Early internet pioneers were truly terrible at naming things. Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo loved the slang word 'yahoo' (meaning rude or uncouth), but…
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Why round manhole covers never fall through
City planners did not choose circles simply because they look nice on the pavement. A circular heavy iron lid is the only geometric shape that cannot…
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When Steve Jobs asked Bill Gates to save Apple
The ultimate corporate swallowing of pride. In 1997, Apple was hemorrhaging money, weeks away from total financial collapse. Freshly reinstated CEO Steve Jobs…
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The paint-can trick behind airtight food containers
Food preservation tools occasionally draw inspiration from the hardware aisle. The famously airtight seal on your grandmother's plastic containers was…
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The first mechanical computer took 169 years to finish
Charles Babbage is the patron saint of vaporware. In 1822, he conceptualized the Difference Engine, a massive, steam-powered mechanical calculator with…
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A file-sharing site nearly bought the nation of Sealand
In a truly unhinged attempt to evade international copyright laws, founders of a notorious file-sharing site tried to buy an abandoned anti-aircraft platform…
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The controller buttons that changed how we play
Before the SNES arrived in 1990, gamers exclusively used their thumbs, leaving their index fingers completely useless. Nintendo revolutionized the plastic…
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The early social networks that shaped online addiction
Long before you were relentlessly scrolling past ads for things you just talked about, early platforms pioneered the very concept of connecting profiles. They…
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Cloud platforms endlessly duplicate data globally
Uploading files to the cloud does not put them in the sky; it triggers an aggressive replication process. Your simple text document is endlessly copied across…
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Why split-screen games often run worse
The joy of sitting next to your friend on the couch comes at the horrific cost of rendering the entire world twice simultaneously. Because the poor GPU has to…
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The “10x developer” may just be running on caffeine
The industry myth of the super-coder who purportedly does the work of ten people is usually just a guy who refuses to sleep, heavily relies on energy drinks,…
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Why a dragon's roar drowns out the whole game
When the massive dragon roars, the entire universe politely silences itself. To make major threats feel devastating, the audio engine automatically lowers the…
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The strange font designed to help you remember
Because making things easy to read is apparently bad for your brain, academics literally invented a font that deliberately frustrates you. Sans Forgetica is…
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Neopets has an infinite omelette for hungry pets
In order to keep an absolutely massive player base from letting their virtual pets starve to death, the creators of this site added a deeply bizarre safety…
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