Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
How a razor inventor influenced modern surgery
King Camp Gillette's idea of cheap, disposable razor blades was later adapted for surgery, where disposable blades meant surgical knives didn't need sharpening.
Discover more
Toilets use a simple gravity-fed siphon to empty the bowl
A rush of water from the tank fills the curved trap and starts a siphon, carrying the bowl’s contents down the drain.
Discover more
Why smart bulbs use power when they're off
Even when the light is off, a smart bulb keeps its wireless receiver powered so it can hear the command to turn on.
Discover more
The zipper got its name from rubber boots
B.F. Goodrich used the new fastener on boots and called it a zipper, helping the name stick. Before clothing manufacturers embraced it, boots and tobacco…
Discover more
A language written entirely with the word chicken
Instructions are made by repeating “chicken” different numbers of times, with the count carrying the meaning.
Discover more
How to pump water uphill without electricity
A hydraulic ram pump uses gravity and water hammer: flowing water suddenly shuts a waste valve, creating a pressure spike that pushes some water through a…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Why water towers are giant elevated buckets
The tanks store water high above town, so gravity pushes it through the pipes and provides pressure at home.
Discover more
Before joysticks, games used rotary dials
Games like Pong used paddle controllers with rotary knobs, so players turned a dial to move instead of pressing a directional control.
Discover more
Microsoft bought Apple stock while the two were still rivals
The 1997 deal included $150 million in non-voting Apple shares, continued Microsoft Office development for the Mac, and a patent agreement. Apple also made…
Discover more
The slow cooker began with a Sabbath stew
Naxon designed the heated ceramic crock so the bean stew could cook without anyone lighting a fire during the Sabbath.
Discover more
Tweezers rely on natural metal tension to spring back open
Squeezing bends the joined metal arms; their natural tension springs them back open when you let go.
Discover more
Audio reverb simulates acoustic reflections in empty rooms
Reverb layers delayed, fading reflections onto a dry recording, making it sound as if it came from a larger room—even when no such space was recorded.
Discover more
Paperclips hold a world record for chaining length
The longest paper-clip chain on record stretched more than 20 miles.
Discover more
Password strength relies completely on random entropy
A password’s strength depends on how unpredictable it is, not on cosmetic swaps like replacing E with 3. Unpredictable combinations of unrelated characters…
Discover more
Why BlackBerry was named after a fruit
The small, tightly packed black buttons on the keyboard reminded the marketing team of a blackberry’s bumpy surface.
Discover more
Overfitted models memorize answers instead of learning
An overfitted model can ace its training data by memorizing examples instead of learning patterns. It may then fail on new data it has never seen.
Discover more
The software command that names the culprit
In version-control software, the “blame” command shows who last changed each line of code and when, making it easy to trace a bug—and awkward to see who…
Discover more
Wind-up toys store kinetic energy in a tightly coiled spring
Turning the key winds a flat steel spring around a post. As it unwinds, it powers a small gearbox that makes the toy move.
Discover more
Voicemail systems are strictly closed telephone exchanges
In a traditional voicemail system, an unanswered call is routed to a network server, where the message is stored until the recipient retrieves it.
Discover more
AOL dial-up survived until 2025
The service finally ended on September 30, 2025, decades after its modem noises became a symbol of early home internet. Broadband made it feel obsolete long…
Discover more
Open-source software exposes its entire codebase freely
Anyone can inspect, modify, and distribute the code, subject to its license. Some projects rely on volunteers to find and fix bugs.
Discover more
What really makes carousel horses gallop
An overhead offset crank drives a metal rod up and down as the carousel turns, making each horse appear to gallop.
Discover more
WD-40's name is a record of failed attempts
It stands for Water Displacement, 40th formula: the successful version followed repeated attempts to get the product right. The spray also contains…
Discover more
Hexadecimal uses letters to pretend they are numbers
Hexadecimal is a compact way to represent binary data: its base-16 system uses the digits 0 through 9, then A through F.
Discover more