Jason Pettus @jasonpettus@mastodon.cloud

#TodayILearned that the term "taser" actually comes from an old Tom Swift children's book from the 1920s, and stands for "Tom Swift's Electric Rifle."

#TodayILearned that part of the reason for the 1950s "gelatin dinner" fad was that gelatin requires a refrigerator to set, which at the time was rare and expensive, so making one proved to others that you were comfortably middle-class. https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/why-were-there-so-many-gelatin-based-dishes-50s-and-60s

#TodayILearned that @InNOutBurger (a famous chain elsewhere but that doesn't exist in the US Midwest) uses their profits to fund a secret Christian agenda, including printing Bible verses on their cups and wrappers. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/umredx/til_that_innout_burger_food_containers_include/

#TodayILearned that "unsubscribing" from a @Substack does not actually turn off its emails, and that you have to go by the website and specifically trigger a second option to do that. That's some shady nonsense right there, friends.

#TodayILearned that eight US Presidents used slave labor inside the White House during their active years in office, all the way up to Zachary Taylor in 1850. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_owned_slaves

#TodayILearned that the lobby of the #NewYorkDailyNews building, a famous staple of Early Modernism which I had assumed had been torn down long ago, is actually still very much intact and can still be visited by the public at 220 E. 42nd.

#TodayILearned that the production designer of the classic #Nosferatu (celebrating its centennial this year) was a practicing occultist. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/movies/nosferatu-100-robert-eggers-remake.html