Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

gahidus t1_jeaf168 wrote

Reply to comment by Sarcosmonaut in TIL a special law in the UK was created to ensure that the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital will forever be able to collect royalties from stage performances, audiobooks, book releases, etc. of Peter Pan in the UK. This is the only work with an 'exception' to copyright laws. by [deleted]

They meant trying to get a law passed to extend copy right indefinitely in America as well, obviously for their own properties.

19

possiblynotanexpert t1_jeaezpo wrote

Reply to comment by Foxhound199 in TIL that Walt Disney World began as "The Florida Project". Dummy corporations were used, by Walt Disney Productions, to buy up 27,000 acres of land to avoid bursts of land speculation in the Orlando area. Early rumors assumed possible development by NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes. by jdward01

I think it’s safe to say they made the right choice. Not sure if NOLA would have been the right spot with the hindsight we have now.

417

tweda4 t1_jeaeaqk wrote

Reply to comment by floridawhiteguy in TIL a special law in the UK was created to ensure that the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital will forever be able to collect royalties from stage performances, audiobooks, book releases, etc. of Peter Pan in the UK. This is the only work with an 'exception' to copyright laws. by [deleted]

"what? The government is supporting a children's hospital with a patent to a children's story!? ARGH DAMN YOU BIG GOVERNMENT! WHEN WILL YOUR TYRANNY END?!" /s

shit man, I hope you missed an /s in your comment lol. The spirit of the law is to be Just (something that laws so often fail to be), and you know what, I consider this to be a pretty Just result.

13

luis-can-jump t1_jeae8h5 wrote

Reply to comment by LordOfTrubbish in TIL a special law in the UK was created to ensure that the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital will forever be able to collect royalties from stage performances, audiobooks, book releases, etc. of Peter Pan in the UK. This is the only work with an 'exception' to copyright laws. by [deleted]

It isn’t to fund it, it’s a UK hospital so it’s funded by the NHS. It just helps build profits for additional services, research, etc.

28

El_Dudereno t1_jeadzsq wrote

Reply to comment by nowhereman136 in TIL that William Daniels, famous for playing Mr. Feeney on "Boy Meets World," has been married to to actress and fellow Emmy Award winner Bonnie Bartlett since June 30, 1951; at more than 71 years, it is the longest active Hollywood marriage as of today. by arrogant_ambassador

Additional fun fact, John Quincy Adams was not just son of John Adams, but also served as America's 6th president.

5

growsomegarlic t1_jeadzfb wrote

Reply to comment by bolanrox in TIL that Walt Disney World began as "The Florida Project". Dummy corporations were used, by Walt Disney Productions, to buy up 27,000 acres of land to avoid bursts of land speculation in the Orlando area. Early rumors assumed possible development by NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes. by jdward01

if they bring the tendie plate back to the dishwasher without being asked to.

so, no.

13

wickethewok t1_jeadr9o wrote

Reply to TIL that Walt Disney World began as "The Florida Project". Dummy corporations were used, by Walt Disney Productions, to buy up 27,000 acres of land to avoid bursts of land speculation in the Orlando area. Early rumors assumed possible development by NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes. by jdward01

Given how packed and sometimes sold out the two US parks are, I think there is demand for a third. Maybe in the middle of the country in like Texas or something. But Disney could very well be years deep into such a project and almost no one would know.

193

leadchipmunk t1_jead001 wrote

Reply to TIL over the course of his 23 published adventures, Herge's Tintin was knocked unconscious 43 times. Between 1929 and 1973, he was hit with a rake, a brick, a whisky bottle, an oar, a giant apple, a camel femur, a block of ice, and countless punches and clubs. by morerubberstamps

We must have different definitions of "countless." If he was knocked unconscious 43 times, it can't be more than 43. With the other examples listed, we are down to 35 punches at most. That sounds pretty countable to me.

5

GoGaslightYerself t1_jeacw16 wrote

Reply to comment by ebolashuffle in TIL that tularemia is an infectious disease that can be contracted by “inhaling particles from an infected rabbit ground up [by] a lawnmower”. by krisalyssa

Yep, Preston also wrote another riveting New Yorker article about what they thought was an outbreak of Ebola zaire at a research primate quarantine facility just outside Washington, D.C. in 1989.

US Army doctors had to sneak into the facility in spacesuits, under the cover of darkness (so as not to panic residents), to euthanize hundreds of Ebola-infected monkeys (without panicking the monkeys and without getting bitten), bag up their corpses in biocontainment Level 4 bags, and then hermetically seal and slag the entire building with formaldehyde gas. After it was all over, it turned out that >!the macaques had a type of Ebola that didn't harm humans...the virus was eventually named Ebola reston after the town by the same name in Virginia...but talk about major pucker factor while it was all underway...!<

Preston was often an incredibly lyrical writer IMHO. At the end of the article about the Reston events, he recounts visiting the Primate Quarantine Unit some years after the crisis was over. Here he is:

>I walked along the back wall of the former monkey house until I came to a window. Inside the building, climbing vines had rioted, and had pressed themselves against the inside of the glass. The vine was Tartarian honeysuckle, a weed that grows in waste places and abandoned ground. I couldn’t see through the leaves into the former hot zone. I walked around to the side of the building, and found another glass door, beribboned with tape. I pressed my nose against the glass and cupped my hands around my eyes, and saw a bucket smeared with a dry brown crust. It looked like monkey excrement. I guessed that it had been stirred with Clorox. A spider had strung a web between a wall and the bucket of shit, and had dropped husks of flies and yellow jackets on the floor. Ebola had risen in these rooms, flashed its colors, replicated, and subsided into the forest.

9