Author Topic: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles  (Read 30288 times)

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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #60 on: December 20, 2018, 11:23:03 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin
Quote
The chastity of the Vestals was considered to have a direct bearing on the health of the Roman state. When they entered the collegium, they left behind the authority of their fathers and became daughters of the state. Any sexual relationship with a citizen was therefore considered to be incestum and an act of treason.[26] The punishment for violating the oath of celibacy was to be buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus ("Evil Field") in an underground chamber near the Colline Gate supplied with a few days of food and water. Ancient tradition required that an unchaste Vestal be buried alive within the city, that being the only way to kill her without spilling her blood, which was forbidden. However, this practice contradicted the Roman law that no person might be buried within the city. To solve this problem, the Romans buried the offending priestess with a nominal quantity of food and other provisions, not to prolong her punishment, but so that the Vestal would not technically be buried in the city, but instead descend into a "habitable room".
ancient lawyers :lawd
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toku

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #61 on: December 20, 2018, 11:34:19 PM »

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #62 on: December 30, 2018, 02:13:51 PM »
Quote
Cato's political and personal differences with Caesar appear to date from this time. In a meeting of the Senate dedicated to the Catilina affair, Cato harshly reproached Caesar for reading personal messages while the senate was in session to discuss a matter of treason. Cato accused Caesar of involvement in the conspiracy and suggested that he was working on Catilina's behalf, which might explain Caesar's otherwise odd position—that the conspirators should receive no public hearing yet be shown clemency. Caesar offered it up to Cato to read. Cato took the paper from his hands and read it, discovering that it was a love letter from Caesar's mistress Servilia, Cato's half-sister.
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bork

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #63 on: December 30, 2018, 02:49:23 PM »
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
Quote
Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.
Quote
Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.
:doge
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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #64 on: December 30, 2018, 04:38:32 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi
Quote
Puyi or Pu Yi (/ˈpuː ˈjiː/;[1] simplified Chinese: 溥仪; traditional Chinese: 溥儀; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan, was the last Emperor of China and the twelfth and final ruler of the Qing dynasty.
Quote
Puyi came to Beijing on 9 December 1959 with special permission from Mao Zedong and lived for the next six months in an ordinary Beijing residence with his sister before being transferred to a government-sponsored hotel.[287] He had the job of sweeping the streets, and got lost on his first day of work, which led him to tell astonished passers-by: "I'm Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty. I'm staying with relatives and can't find my way home".[288]
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Raist

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #65 on: December 31, 2018, 04:41:04 AM »
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
Quote
Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.
Quote
Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.
:doge


I know in-laws can be tough to deal with sometimes, but trying to kill them is a little bit rough.

Tasty

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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #67 on: January 24, 2019, 07:24:02 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Rose_Willson
Quote
As Stratford, Willson wrote three books, the most famous of which was Satan's Underground, purporting to tell a true story of her upbringing as a baby breeder (for sacrifices) in a satanic cult.
Quote
Willson claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.
Quote
She would later create another false identity in 1999 ...  Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Willson collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors. As Grabowski, Willson befriended Binjamin Wilkomirski, claiming to remember him from the camps. Wilkomirski himself (real name Bruno Grosjean) was later revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #68 on: February 17, 2019, 02:12:56 AM »
I stumbled onto this via the Tulpa Wikipedia page. Worth a skim for all of the brony references in what is genuine academic research.

http://somatosphere.net/2015/04/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html
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chronovore

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #69 on: February 19, 2019, 06:49:36 AM »
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
Quote
Fan death is a well-known superstition in Korean culture, where it is thought that running an electric fan in a closed room with unopened or no windows will prove fatal. Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea.
Quote
Electric fans sold in South Korea are equipped with timer knobs that turn them off after a set number of minutes. This is perceived as a life-saving function, essential for bedtime use.

Not just a Korean thing- my Japanese in-laws were super-concerned the first time I stayed over at their house and wanted to use a fan during the summer.  Woke up sweating because the fan had shut off- it had one of those stupid timers on it.  When we moved in with them for a few months, the first thing I did was to go buy a fan that did not have a shut-off timer on it.
:doge

Maybe your in-laws are secretly Korean?

Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #70 on: February 19, 2019, 10:53:46 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Rose_Willson
Quote
As Stratford, Willson wrote three books, the most famous of which was Satan's Underground, purporting to tell a true story of her upbringing as a baby breeder (for sacrifices) in a satanic cult.
Quote
Willson claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.
Quote
She would later create another false identity in 1999 ...  Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Willson collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors. As Grabowski, Willson befriended Binjamin Wilkomirski, claiming to remember him from the camps. Wilkomirski himself (real name Bruno Grosjean) was later revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud

I like to read about the Satanic Panic every so often, some of that stuff was batshit crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers

Quote
The Mail on Sunday] asked Pazder: "Does it matter if it was true, or is the fact that Michelle believed it happened to her the most important thing?"

He replied: "Yes, that's right. It is a real experience. If you talk to Michelle today, she will say, 'That's what I remember'. We still leave the question open. For her it was very real. Every case I hear I have skepticism. You have to complete a long course of therapy before you can come to conclusions. We are all eager to prove or disprove what happened, but in the end it doesn't matter."
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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #71 on: February 21, 2019, 01:44:04 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus

Quote
When minelaying was completed in October 1943, she was retained for conversion to an amenities ship as part of a mobile naval base for British Pacific Fleet warships. She underwent further conversion at Vancouver in 1944 including installation of a movie theater and canteen staffed by mercantile crews of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary service.[3] Conversion included a brewery to make beer for shipboard consumption.

Rufus

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #72 on: February 21, 2019, 06:02:08 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_different_Amish_affiliations

Handy chart for what technologies different groups of Amish are allowed to use.

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #73 on: February 23, 2019, 07:00:11 PM »
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Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #74 on: February 23, 2019, 07:39:21 PM »
prostrate cancer
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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #75 on: February 24, 2019, 06:02:37 PM »
Within the H.L. Mencken wikipedia article
"In 1931 the Arkansas legislature passed a motion to pray for Mencken's soul after he had called the state the "apex of moronia."
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Great Rumbler

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #76 on: March 02, 2019, 09:48:04 PM »
"Leck mich im Arsch" (literally "Lick me in the arse") is a canon in B-flat major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 231 (K. 382c), with lyrics in German.

Quote
"Lick me in the arse" is a calque of the song's title and lyrics into English. A more idiomatic translation would be the English "Kiss my arse!" or American "Kiss my ass!"
dog

shosta

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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #78 on: April 23, 2019, 05:04:11 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden

Quote
Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893),[1] was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that, under U.S. customs regulations, the tomato should be classified as a vegetable rather than a fruit.
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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #79 on: April 24, 2019, 02:10:02 PM »
mad at benji for never telling me about this one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Quote
Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces in mid-2002. [...] The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as "Blue", and an unknown adversary in the Middle East, "Red", with many lines of evidence pointing at Iran being the Red side.
Quote
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?"[1] After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.

After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore.[2] Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.[3]
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Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #80 on: April 24, 2019, 02:34:26 PM »
What did they expect when they made the "bad guys" leader General Ripper?

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shosta

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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #82 on: April 27, 2019, 03:18:31 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Moths_described_in_1874
Quote
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 376 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #83 on: May 11, 2019, 12:24:41 AM »
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Tasty

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #84 on: May 24, 2019, 11:30:01 AM »

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #85 on: May 30, 2019, 02:25:35 AM »
The Communist Party USA (Marxist–Leninist) was a small Maoist political party in the United States in 1965 by members of the Communist Party USA around Michael Laski, who took the side of China in the Sino-Soviet split.

General Secretary Laski was expelled after gambling away nearly all of the party's funds in Nevada in an attempt to raise more funds.
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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #86 on: May 30, 2019, 03:13:24 AM »
LITERALLY IN VEGAS

https://libcom.org/blog/putting-it-all-red-michael-laski-story-14072018
Quote
Shortly after the essay, in the spring on 1968 Comrade Laski was publicly expelled from the CPML. They also published a list of charges against the former General Secretary. And yes the losing party funds at Vegas Casinos is on that list. But bizarrely the way the CPML frames the issue with that little adventure as "subjectivism"

A further example of Mr. Laski’s subjectivism was his taking of almost all of the Party’s funds and gambling with them while traveling through Nevada – avowedly for the purpose of raising funds for the Party – losing, every penny in the effort. To compound this crime, he never admitted his actions until a year after the event, and even then he mentioned only one instance of gambling, and the Party had evidence of his gambling in Nevada on at least two other occasions.
Quote
That's in section four " SUBJECTIVE APPROACH TO POLITICAL QUESTIONS" the final section in the list of reasons Laski was shown the door. Also in that section is probably the origin of the gun fight story I'd heard. It list several times when Laski threatened other party members with loaded fire arms and fired into the air at meetings that weren't going his way.

When Mr. Laski did not get his way in political discussions, he did such uncomradely acts as throwing objects at comrades, wrecking pieces of equipment owned by the Party (smashing a typewriter and a telephone, on different occasions, and throwing gasoline on an offset press), threatening a member of the Central Committee with a loaded shotgun on one occasion, and with a loaded pistol on another occasion, firing pistols into the air at Secretariat meetings, and acting on a small scale like a putchist, although, more pathetically, he was like a frustrated child.

And that isn't quite the end of the story though both Laski and the CPML would fade away a few years later. Laski didn't take this very well and set up a split also called Communist Party of the U.S.A. (Marxist-Leninist) and at least some members followed him.
nice

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #87 on: June 02, 2019, 05:35:36 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joseph_Dresnok

James Joseph Dresnok was an American defector to North Korea, one of six U.S. soldiers to defect after the Korean War.

Quote
Dresnok's first military service was two years spent in West Germany. After returning to the United States and finding out that his wife had left him for another man, he re-enlisted and was sent to South Korea. He was a Private First Class with a U.S. Army unit along the Korean Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in the early 1960s. Soon after his arrival, he found himself facing a court martial for forging signatures on paperwork that gave him permission to leave the base which, ultimately, led to his going AWOL (Absent Without Leave).[3]

Unwilling to face punishment, on August 15, 1962, while his fellow soldiers were eating lunch, he ran across a minefield in broad daylight into North Korean territory, where he was quickly apprehended by North Korean soldiers.
:lawd

Quote
"I was fed up with my childhood, my marriage, my military life, everything. I was finished. There's only one place to go", Dresnok said in an interview. "On August 15th, at noon in broad daylight when everybody was eating lunch, I hit the road. Yes, I was afraid. Am I gonna live or die? And when I stepped into the minefield and I seen it with my own eyes, I started sweating. I crossed over, looking for my new life."
this man's decision making is, how to put this, very poor

Quote
James speaks English with a Korean accent and considers himself Korean but reportedly does not wish to marry a Korean woman.
:dead

Quote
In August 2017, Dresnok's sons confirmed that he had died of a stroke in November 2016. They released a statement saying their father told them to remain loyal to Kim Jong-un and that they would destroy the US if it launched a preemptive strike against North Korea.
:dprkcry
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curly

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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #89 on: June 07, 2019, 10:37:21 PM »
It's actually thought to be somewhat common during early industrial warfare before the national professionalization of armies, like the 18th Century wars, for that to occur as many soldiers were pressed into service, as the armies moved about you could find yourself pressed into fighting for Austria, Prussia, Russia, France, etc. all over the same areas since you'd desert as the army moved away.

benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #90 on: June 07, 2019, 10:41:12 PM »
More importantly, the end of that Wikipedia page had a link to this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/debbie-hanlon-ad-campaign-1.4710338


Quote
Hanlon's ad, posted to Instagram on June 16, features Kyoungjong's picture, story and, at the bottom, suggests Hanlon is a real estate agent who "fights" for her clients.

"I get a phone call from some woman screaming at me on the phone saying I'm a racist pig," she said.

"Me! Like I'm so shocked, I started to cry."

In addition to phone calls, there's also been backlash online with people questioning Hanlon's judgment and calling her names.

"This is so disrespectful," read one comment on Hanlon's now-deleted Instagram post.

"This is some real #whitenonsense," reads another. "What the bananas were you thinking?!"

Hanlon, who has written a children's book entitled I'm No Bully and performs as Miss Debbie, a character against bullying, calls the criticism bullying.

"Go on and read those comments that people are talking about me, personally," she said. "This is a personal attack."


According to Hanlon, the ad was created by a marketing professional four years ago as part of a larger campaign, Keeping it Real Estate.

...

"So all of a sudden, somebody has a problem with it? No. This is online bullying at its finest. And I'm the victim."

Meanwhile, Hanlon plans to pursue charges against people she feels have attacked her, adding she's already taken first steps with police.

"This is an online bullying issue and I've never experienced it before, and I don't know what kids would do," she said, adding that after this experience, she can sympathize with youth being bullied online.

"Sure, no wonder some of the poor darlings want to take their lives, because this weekend was a really, really, really hard weekend for me."
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Quote
In the controversy around this latest ad, some of Hanlon's other ads have also caught people's attention.

One is of a deceased Puerto Rican taxi driver, Victor Perez Cardona, who had requested he be propped up in his cab at his wake.

Hanlon's ad shows a picture from the service and tells people to phone her if they need a ride related to her business.
[close]

Kara

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #91 on: June 07, 2019, 11:00:29 PM »
benji-kun linking Libcom... welcome to the resistance, genosse.

Tasty

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Tasty

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #93 on: June 20, 2019, 02:03:07 PM »
AI effect

Quote
"A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labelled AI anymore."
- Nick Bostrom

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #94 on: June 28, 2019, 12:37:32 AM »
This post is more targeted at the LF crowd

Mo Xiong
Quote
Mo Xiong (Chinese: 莫雄; pinyin: Mò Xióng) 1891 - February 1980) was born in Yingde, Guangdong[1] and was a close friend of Sun Yat-sen, and member of Tongmenghui, a member of Kuomintang, and a communist sympathizer / agent. He served high ranking positions in both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China. In both Mao Zedong's and Zhou Enlai's words, Mo Xiong had saved the Communist Party of China and the Chinese revolution in 1934 when he provided important intelligence on Chiang Kai-shek's military plans, and thus saved the Communists from total annihilation.

Quote
After the successful siege of the adjacent regions of Ruijin, the capital of the Jiangxi Soviet, and occupying most of the Jiangxi Soviet, Chiang was confident that he would finish off the Communists in one final decisive strike. [...] The plan was to build 30 blockade lines supported by 30 barbed wire fences, most of them electric, in the region 150 km (93 mi) around Ruijin, to starve the Communists. [...] Realizing the certain annihilation of the Communists, Mo Xiong handed the document weighing several kilograms to his communist handler the same night he received it, risking not only his own life, but that of his entire family.

With the help of Liu Yafo (刘亚佛) and Lu Zhiying (卢志英), the Communist agents copied the important intelligence on four dictionaries and Xiang Yunian (项与年) was tasked to take the intelligence personally to the Jiangxi Soviet. The trip was hazardous, as the nationalist force would arrest and even execute anyone who attempted to cross the blockade. Xiang Yunian was forced to hide in the mountain for a while, and then used rocks to knock out four of his own teeth, resulting in a swollen face. Disguised as a beggar, he tore off the covers of the four dictionaries and hid them at the bottom of his bag with rotten food, then successfully crossed several lines of blockade and reached Ruijin on October 7, 1934. [...] On October 10, 1934, the Communist leadership formally issued the order of the general retreat, and on October 16, 1934, the Chinese Red Army begun what was later known as the Long March, fully abandoning the Jiangxi Soviet. Seventeen days after the main Communist force had already left its base, the nationalists were finally aware that the enemy had escaped after reaching the empty city of Ruijin on November 5, 1934.

Mo Xiong, less problems
« Last Edit: June 28, 2019, 12:45:46 AM by Shosh »
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Kara

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #96 on: June 28, 2019, 02:52:07 AM »
United States v. One Book Called Ulysses is my personal favorite.

benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #97 on: June 28, 2019, 02:52:52 AM »
the book won! albeit with the worse legal reading :american

Kara

  • It was all going to be very admirable and noble and it would show us - philosophically - what it means to be human.
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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #98 on: June 28, 2019, 07:40:01 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceased_Wife%27s_Sister%27s_Marriage_Act_1907

Pound for pound (:teehee) there isn't a dumber polity than England.

Tasty

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archnemesis

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #100 on: July 03, 2019, 10:39:44 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
Hah, I had a coworker who created a coffee camera once. I had no idea it was a historic thing.

Tasty

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #101 on: July 04, 2019, 04:54:54 AM »

shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #102 on: July 09, 2019, 08:30:14 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Quote
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster.[1][2] Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas. The highly toxic substance made its way into and around the small towns located near the plant.[3]

Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release.[4] A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.[5]

Quote
Civil and criminal cases filed in the United States against UCC and Warren Anderson, UCC CEO at the time of the disaster, were dismissed and redirected to Indian courts on multiple occasions between 1986 and 2012, as the US courts focused on UCIL being a standalone entity of India. Civil and criminal cases were also filed in the District Court of Bhopal, India, involving UCC, UCIL and UCC CEO Anderson.[7][8] In June 2010, seven Indian nationals who were UCIL employees in 1984, including the former UCIL chairman, were convicted in Bhopal of causing death by negligence and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of about $2,000 each, the maximum punishment allowed by Indian law. All were released on bail shortly after the verdict. An eighth former employee was also convicted, but died before the judgement was passed.

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There are two main lines of argument involving the disaster. The "Corporate Negligence" point of view argues that the disaster was caused by a potent combination of under-maintained and decaying facilities, a weak attitude towards safety, and an undertrained workforce, culminating in worker actions that inadvertently enabled water to penetrate the MIC tanks in the absence of properly working safeguards.[6][39]

The "Worker Sabotage" point of view argues that it was not physically possible for the water to enter the tank without concerted human effort, and that extensive testimony and engineering analysis leads to a conclusion that water entered the tank when a rogue individual employee hooked a water hose directly to an empty valve on the side of the tank. This point of view further argues that the Indian government took extensive actions to hide this possibility in order to attach blame to UCC.[58]

Theories differ as to how the water entered the tank. At the time, workers were cleaning out a clogged pipe with water about 400 feet from the tank. They claimed that they were not told to isolate the tank with a pipe slip-blind plate. The operators assumed that owing to bad maintenance and leaking valves, it was possible for the water to leak into the tank.[6][59]

This water entry route could not be reproduced despite strenuous efforts by motivated parties.[60] UCC claims that a "disgruntled worker" deliberately connecting a hose to a pressure gauge connection was the real cause.[6][58]

Early the next morning, a UCIL manager asked the instrument engineer to replace the gauge. UCIL's investigation team found no evidence of the necessary connection; the investigation was totally controlled by the government, denying UCC investigators access to the tank or interviews with the operators.[58][61]

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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #103 on: July 09, 2019, 11:55:12 PM »
Quote
Ordinary People (Slovak: Obyčajní Ľudia), full name Ordinary People and Independent Personalities[6] (Slovak: Obyčajní Ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti, OĽaNO), is a populist,[7] conservative[8] political party in Slovakia. It ran four candidates on the list of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party in the 2010 parliamentary election to the National Council, and all four were elected.
I love this name :lol
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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #104 on: July 23, 2019, 01:49:08 PM »
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shoko_Asahara

Quote
Asahara's "religion" targeted the rich as well as intellectuals. He preached that the world would be enveloped by wars and only he could lead the way to salvation. Asahara preached over the radio and even sold his blood and bath water for his followers to drink.
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benjipwns

  • your bright ideas always burn me
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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #105 on: July 25, 2019, 08:15:58 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment
Quote
In 1955, astronomer and UFO researcher Morris K. Jessup, the author of the just published book The Case for the UFO, about unidentified flying objects and the exotic means of propulsion they might use, received two letters from a Carlos Miguel Allende[5] (who also identified himself as "Carl M. Allen" in another correspondence) who claimed to have witnessed a secret World War II experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In this experiment, Allende claimed the destroyer escort USS Eldridge was rendered invisible, teleported to New York, teleported to another dimension where it encountered aliens, and teleported through time, resulting in the deaths of several sailors, some of whom were fused with the ship's hull.
Quote
Jessup tried to publish more books on the subject of UFOs, but was unsuccessful. Losing his publisher and experiencing a succession of downturns in his personal life led him to commit suicide in Florida on April 30, 1959.
Quote
The conjecture then claims that the equipment was not properly re-calibrated, but that in spite of this, the experiment was repeated on October 28, 1943. This time, Eldridge not only became invisible, but it disappeared from the area in a flash of blue light and teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles (320 km) away. It is claimed that Eldridge sat for some time in view of men aboard the ship SS Andrew Furuseth, whereupon Eldridge vanished and then reappeared in Philadelphia at the site it had originally occupied. It was also said that the warship went approximately ten minutes back in time.

CatsCatsCats

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #106 on: July 25, 2019, 08:07:02 PM »
Saw one of these in my yard today and needed to know what it was

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakefly

Tasty

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #107 on: July 28, 2019, 10:33:14 PM »

TVC15

  • Laugh when you can, it’s cheap medicine -LB
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serge

benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #109 on: September 03, 2019, 04:02:47 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Atkinson_Pryor

Quote
During his term, Pryor got into a fierce argument with John F. Potter, a representative from Wisconsin, and challenged him to a duel.[18] Having the choice of weapons according to duel protocol, Potter chose bowie knives. Pryor backed out, saying that the knife was not a "civilized weapon."[18] The incident was widely publicized in the Northern press, which portrayed Pryor's refusal to duel as a coup for the North — and as a cowardly humiliation of a Southern "fire eater".[19]
Quote
Pryor almost became the first casualty of the Civil War - while visiting Fort Sumter as an emissary, he assumed a bottle of potassium iodide in the hospital was medicinal whiskey and drank it; his mistake was realized in time for Union doctors to pump his stomach and save his life.

benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #110 on: September 03, 2019, 06:14:44 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard

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I have continually asked for reliable sources that verify the “constant advocacy for NAMBLA” and pedophilia. There seems to be a massive conspiracy except one lone, but respected LGBTQ journalist. Perhaps that should be also shoehorned into the lead? One of the world’s best known pioneering gay rights advocates whose had dozens of obituaries, articles, interviews, books, and documentaries about him all fail to mention this despite Wikipedia even advertising it, possibly for years. Perhaps because they saw was is plainly evident, a lack of evidence despite NAMBLA themselves posting every scrap of pro-pedophile material they can. I look forward to more people looking into this.
Quote
Accusations of "WP:TROLLING" is a very serious personal attack, especially since clearly that is not at all what's going on. What makes it worse is that your characterization of MMA's statement (FR's version:"Something completely wrong: that Prussia - 18th century Prussia - was part of Poland") is just false. I don't see anything about 18th century Prussia in there. Perhaps you're unaware that "Prussia" generally refers to a region rather than a political entity? If so, that's understandable, but in no way does it excuse your attacks on another editor and the accusations of "trolling"
Quote
Oh please. "Power games"--your article is a terrible piece of fluff. I am an admin, and I am telling you that nothing that contains language like "Chin’s dream of a medical degree was hampered by one reality..." will get into Wikipedia, where we write neutral material that's verified by reliable, secondary sources. If you would start by taking out the "musically inclined" and the squirt gun, we might get somewhere.
Quote
GreenMeansG, please link to or quote the Wikipedia policy that supports your statement "WP:DUE applies to facts". WP:BLPPRIMARY states, "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." WP:BLPPRIMARY is obviously aimed at protecting a living person against doxing (publishing of private identifying/location information about a living person). The questions of Nblund are not related to doxing Gabbard. Nothing I wrote about Gabbard in the article section "campaign finance reform" relates to doxing. Therefore WP:BLPPRIMARY does not apply to the questions of Nblund or the disputed content.
After I explained to Nblund, that WP:DUE's scope covers opinions but not facts, he replied that "WP:DUE applies to views or aspects of an issue", thereby he implied that aspects were facts. Therefore I explained here why aspects are not facts but partial views and therefore also opinions.
Your remark "the high-handed hair splitting over the meaning of the word aspect is silly" is uncivil. You should strike-through that remark.
Quote
DrifAssault has added an extraordinary amount of criticism to the 5-Minute Crafts article, mostly using original research, self-published sources (including Wikia (RSP entry) and other YouTube (RSP entry) channels), and selective quoting of news articles. The addition of the chart at Special:Diff/913019435 is a bit over-the-top.

I've started a discussion on the talk page at Talk:5-Minute Crafts § Original research to no effect. It would be nice to see some additional opinions on the content of this article.
Quote
There's a dispute over at Talk:Dave Rubin over whether or not the category "classical liberal" can be applied to his article. Several sources describe him as applying this categorization to himself, but few reliable sources actually use the term to describe him in their own voice (he's commonly described as a libertarian). Outside input would be appreciated. (discussion here)
Quote
The problem is that there are two meanings of classical liberal. There's the academic meaning, and there's the informal meaning as used by the cult of Peterson, which is synonymous with misogynist asshat. Rubin is the latter kind. We shouldn't collude in the intentional appropriation of labels to obscure obnoxious views.

Propagandhim

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #111 on: September 03, 2019, 06:37:46 AM »
 :lol
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 06:47:27 AM by Propagandhim »

Transhuman

  • youtu.be/KCVCmGPgJS0
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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #112 on: September 03, 2019, 06:48:16 AM »
Man the amount of effort that goes into maintaining Wikipedia is staggering. I don't envy anyone who helps edit and maintain it, but they're all heroes.

Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #113 on: September 03, 2019, 08:53:34 AM »
Quote
If you would start by taking out the "musically inclined" and the squirt gun, we might get somewhere.

Never! :maf
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Tasty

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #114 on: September 13, 2019, 02:25:08 PM »

benjipwns

  • your bright ideas always burn me
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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #115 on: September 15, 2019, 06:30:00 AM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_Sam

Quote
Unsinkable Sam (also known as Oskar or Oscar) is the nickname of a real cat, reportedly in service as a ship's cat during World War II both in the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy, surviving the sinking of three ships in total.

Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #116 on: September 15, 2019, 12:17:44 PM »
Oskar or Oscar is a weird name for a cat.
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shosta

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #117 on: October 27, 2019, 03:46:26 PM »
:drudge Jason Unruhe is old news. Now BRACE BELDEN is the Bore internet mascot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brace_Belden

Quote
Belden has identified as a Marxist since his teenage years and protested the Iraq War when he was thirteen. In 2005, when he was fifteen, he and his friends started a satirical right-wing, pro-war punk band called Warkrime. His stage name in the band was President Chaos and they released their first album, Give War A Chance, in 2006. The band, however, broke up in 2008.
Quote
In 2015, he launched a petition to cancel A Prairie Home Companion, a radio show by American Public Media. The petition said it "is a dumb boring show that forces millions of radio listeners under 60 to turn off their radios whenever that stupid old guy starts his rambling crap. All people under like 100 years old should sign this."
Quote
He arrived in Syria in October 2016. He went into training at the YPG's Academy, where he met other Western volunteers including Lucas Chapman and Tommy Mørck. Shortly after graduating from the Academy, Belden was assigned as a machine gunner on a makeshift tank as part of the Raqqa offensive. His unit helped to capture Tal Salman in mid-November. Brace commented that "We pushed up to Tal Saman till we had it surrounded on a half circle. Then we just bombarded the shit out of it." Many refugees fled the town and sought protection behind the Kurdish front line. "Hundreds of civilians coming across for days in a row", Belden said. At night, his unit stayed in whatever building they had just captured and camped out on rooftops in the cold. "The first week we were out it was awful", Belden told Rolling Stone. After capturing Tal Salman, Belden's unit withdrew to Ayn Issa.
Quote
Belden was among seven Western leftist volunteers profiled in Rolling Stone in March 2017. He later described it as "pretty fucking ridiculous, man. They just kind of made up my biography. Which is tight, because I've literally done nothing in my life but jack off before I came here."[12][13][6] It was later announced that the Rolling Stone article was to become a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Daniel Espinosa.
:dead

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In February 2018, Belden began working in San Francisco at Anchor Brewing Company, which had recently been purchased by Sapporo. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he became part of an eight-person organizing committee to form an employee's union at his factory. By early 2019, the unionization effort had gone public and was profiled in Jacobin magazine and an episode of Chapo Trap House.[18][19][20] Workers at the brewery voted 31 to 16 in favor of unionizing.







I had no idea THIS was the guy who unionized that craft brewery in SF :lol
« Last Edit: October 27, 2019, 04:03:09 PM by shosta »
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benjipwns

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #118 on: October 27, 2019, 04:25:26 PM »
Quote
In September 2016, Willamette Week received a resignation email from Belden, saying that he had "accepted a position out of the country."

Joe Molotov

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Re: interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles
« Reply #119 on: October 29, 2019, 04:46:36 PM »
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_(unit)

Quote
The butt was a measure of liquid volume equalling two hogsheads.

“I got a butt load of wine.”

“How much is that?”

“Two hogsheads.”
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