3 weird but true facts about technology

1. Changing fonts can save printer ink

That's right, fonts are not created equal. People create different kinds of fonts for all kinds of reasons: to convey a message, for decoration, embellishment or as iconography.

The theory is, if you use a 'lighter' font (with a lighter stroke), you'll use slightly less ink per page. Based on the assumption that you're only printing with inkjet printers that use the old style cartridges (not ink tanks, and not tonerbased laser printers), you'll likely save about 10 per cent ink by switching to one of the lighter fonts.

Of course, the flipside to this argument is that as a home consumer, you'll never print enough volumes to actually see a benefit.

1. Email existed before the world wide web
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You probably don't even think before composing a one-line email message and sending it. But it wasn't always so easy. There's an interesting clip on YouTube: "How to send an Email – Database – 1984". This was from a tech TV show called Database and the presenters demonstrated what it took to actually send an email back in those days.

You had to use a computer and a rotary telephone to connect to a service called Micronet. This was pre-WWW, so there were no URLs, just numbered webpages. For emails, the webpage number was 7776.

1. 92 per cent of the world's currency is digital

This means that most of the money you earn, transact with, use to buy goods/services and so on exists only on computers and hard drives. Only an estimated 8 per cent of currency globally is physical money.

All the black money piles come from within this 8 per cent. This is a fair estimate that economists seem to agree on though, not an exact figure. This low percentage seems absurd but when you stop to think, it makes sense considering that most large transactions are done electronically anyway.

Banks store electronically too and the 92 per cent includes all kinds of transactions done using credit/debit cards and wire transfers. Might be a good idea to revisit all those hacker movies where a nerdy computer hacker manages to siphon billions off in just a few minutes.