interesting and/or fun wikipedia articles

[Uncle]

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

[benjipwns]

More "new chronology" dudes:

The entire body of work could be said to stem from an attempt to solve the following problem: that to Velikovsky there appeared to be insufficient correlation in the written or archaeological records between Biblical history and what was known of the history of the area, in particular, Egypt.[27]

Velikovsky searched for common mention of events within literary records, and in the Ipuwer Papyrus he believed he had found a contemporary Egyptian account of the Plagues of Egypt. Moreover, he interpreted both accounts as descriptions of a great natural catastrophe. Velikovsky attempted to investigate the physical cause of these events, and extrapolated backwards and forwards in history from this point, cross-comparing written and mythical records from cultures on every inhabited continent, using them to attempt synchronisms of the historical records, yielding what he believed to be further periodic natural catastrophes that can be global in scale.

The catastrophes that occurred within the memory of humankind are recorded in the myths, legends and written history of all ancient cultures and civilisations. Velikovsky pointed to alleged concordances in the accounts of many cultures, and proposed that they referred to the same real events. For instance, the memory of a flood is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, in the Greek legend of Deucalion, and in the Manu legend of India. Velikovsky put forward the psychoanalytic idea of "Cultural Amnesia" as a mechanism whereby these literal records came to be regarded as mere myths and legends.

Some of Velikovsky's specific postulated catastrophes included:

A tentative suggestion that Earth had once been a satellite of a "proto-Saturn" body, before its current solar orbit.
That the Deluge (Noah's Flood) had been caused by proto-Saturn's entering a nova state, and ejecting much of its mass into space.
A suggestion that the planet Mercury was involved in the Tower of Babel catastrophe.
Jupiter had been the prime mover in the catastrophe that saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Periodic close contacts with a "cometary Venus" (which had been ejected from Jupiter) had caused the Exodus events (c. 1500 BCE) and Joshua's subsequent "sun standing still" (Joshua 10:12–13) incident.
Periodic close contacts with Mars had caused havoc in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.

To explain the fact that these changes to the configuration of the Solar System violate several well-understood laws of physics, Velikovsky invented a role for electromagnetic forces in counteracting gravity and orbital mechanics.

Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis published articles on topics related to the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky,[1] it was "founded, with no apologies, to deal with Velikovsky's work";[2] and as such hosted epigraphs on a wide range of subjects from ancient history, catastrophism and mythology. It ran 44 issues from the Spring of 1975 to the Spring of 1988. The title is an homage to the Greek name for the Roman god Saturn whose planetary namesake Velikovsky believed Earth once orbited as a satellite.

First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history[1] to legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence.[2] According to this scenario, the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is a fabrication, with a "phantom time" of 297 years (AD 614–911) added to the Early Middle Ages.

The relation between the Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar and the underlying astronomical solar or tropical year. The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar, was long known to introduce a discrepancy from the tropical year of around one day for each century that the calendar was in use. By the time the Gregorian calendar was introduced in AD 1582, Illig alleges that the old Julian calendar should have produced a discrepancy of thirteen days between it and the real (or tropical) calendar. Instead, the astronomers and mathematicians working for Pope Gregory XIII had found that the civil calendar needed to be adjusted by only ten days. (The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582). From this, Illig concludes that the AD era had counted roughly three centuries which never existed.

[Joe Molotov]

Boss: "You left three hours early yesterday."

Me: "That's impossible, I always leave on time. The only explanation is that Earth was ejected from Jupiter's orbit because of a comet smashing into Venus 5000 years ago and we got hurled backwards three hours into a time portal that the Vatican covered up to keep us from learning the truth about Charlemagne."

[benjipwns]

In 2020, Bradley Allf, a researcher at North Carolina State University, was invited to submit a paper to the journal US-China Education Reviews A&B, one of many journals run by David Publishing Company. Suspecting the journal was predatory, Allf submitted a nonsense paper espousing the educational benefits of high school students manufacturing drugs in the New Mexico desert, loosely following the plot of the television series Breaking Bad.[2] The paper was authored by Allf as well as fictional Breaking Bad characters Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. In it, Allf claims to have demonstrated that "at-risk" high school students in a chemistry course can benefit from field trips into the desert to make methamphetamine. The paper makes a number of obviously untrue claims, including that Albuquerque is part of the Galápagos Islands, that craniotomy is an effective means of assessing student learning, and that humans did not appear in the New Mexico "fossil record" until 108 years ago.[3] Additionally, the paper's methodology utilizes invented statistical techniques named after Pokémon and, according to the paper, its figures were created in Microsoft Paint. Despite the obvious issues with the paper, Allf's submission was accepted by the journal two weeks after undergoing a supposedly "rigorous" two-person peer review.[2]

[chronovore]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka,_California#Lynchings

Clyde Johnson and Robert Miller Barr robbed a local business and its patrons in Castella, California.[15] They then stole a car from a patron and drove north to Dunsmuir, California, where they planned to abandon the car and make a getaway by train. Soon after they abandoned the car north of Dunsmuir, they were stopped by California Highway Patrolman George "Molly" Malone and Dunsmuir honorary Chief of Police, 38-year-old Frank R. "Jack" Daw. Johnson pulled out a Luger pistol and wounded both policemen. Malone recovered, but Daw died the next day.[16] Johnson was caught a few hours later by a dragnet and taken into custody. Barr, who was holding the $35 that they got from the robbery, panicked during the shootout and ran off into the woods, then escaped on a freight train. Daw was a beloved figure in Dunsmuir. His title of Chief of Police was given to him because of his cool head and experience as a World War I veteran. The night of Daw's funeral a dozen cars from Dunsmuir, carrying approximately 50 masked men, drove north to Yreka to lynch Johnson. On August 3, 1935, at 1:30 a.m., the vigilante mob reached the Yreka jail and lightly knocked on the door. Deputy Marin Lange, the only guard on duty at the jail, opened the door slightly and was quickly overtaken. He was driven nine miles east of Yreka where he was released, barefoot. The mob searched the jail, found Johnson, drove him away in one of the cars and hanged him from a pine tree.[17][18] Barr was arrested over a year later, on September 4, 1936, in Los Angeles on a burglary charge.[19] During his time on the run, he got a part as an extra in the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald film Rose Marie, scenes of which were filmed near Lake Tahoe. He is credited in the film under his real name.

[Tasty]

https://twitter.com/visualizevalue/status/1491399340354850821

[Tasty]

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

I love the idea of this. If I ever really get my business going I'd love to do this sort of things with other friends who are also founders.

[Uncle]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)

Wojtek (1942 – 2 December 1963; Polish pronunciation: [ˈvɔjtɛk]; in English, sometimes spelled Voytek and pronounced as such) was a Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) bought, as a young cub, at a railway station in Hamadan, Iran, by Polish II Corps soldiers who had been evacuated from the Soviet Union. In order to provide for his rations and transportation, he was eventually enlisted officially as a soldier with the rank of private, and was subsequently promoted to corporal.

Wojtek initially had problems swallowing and was fed condensed milk from an old vodka bottle. He was subsequently given fruit, marmalade, honey, and syrup, and was often rewarded with beer, which became his favourite drink. He later also enjoyed smoking (or eating) cigarettes, as well as drinking coffee in the mornings. He also would sleep with the other soldiers if they were ever cold in the night. He enjoyed wrestling with the soldiers and was taught to salute when greeted. He became an attraction for soldiers and civilians alike, and soon became an unofficial mascot to all the units stationed nearby. With the 22nd Company, he moved to Iraq, and then through Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.

Wojtek copied the other soldiers, drinking beer, smoking and even marching alongside them on his hind legs because he saw them do so. Wojtek had his own caregiver, assigned to look after him. The cub grew up while on campaign, and by the time of the Battle of Monte Cassino he weighed 90 kilograms (14 st; 200 lb).

As an enlisted soldier with his own paybook, rank, and serial number, he lived with the other men in tents or in a special wooden crate, which was transported by truck. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek helped his unit to convey ammunition by carrying 100-pound (45 kg) crates of 25-pound artillery shells, never dropping any of them. While this story generated controversy over its accuracy, at least one account exists of a British soldier recalling seeing a bear carrying crates of ammo. The bear mimicked the soldiers: when he saw the men lifting crates, he copied them. Wojtek carried boxes that normally required 4 men, which he would stack onto a truck or other ammunition boxes. This service at Monte Cassino earned him promotion to the rank of corporal. In recognition of Wojtek's popularity, a depiction of a bear carrying an artillery shell was adopted as the official emblem of the 22nd Company.

 

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Black_(rat_catcher)

Black promoted himself as the Queen's official rat-catcher, but he never held a royal warrant.

[Tasty]

The Atlantic: How Charles Dickens Made the Novel New

Dickens once complained that without the buzzing life and teeming crowds of London, his imagination grew cramped. London, he wrote, was his “magic lantern”; his characters “seem disposed to stagnate without crowds about them.” Dickens needed the city, and the city needed Dickens. As we re-stitch urban life after two years of dislocation, Bleak House might reveal the secret principles that underlie the city as a system.

[Tasty]

A few things to know before stealing my 914

[Tasty]

wait for it

[benjipwns]

Incident
William Linkhaw attended the Methodist church in Lumberton, North Carolina.[1] He sang hymns very loudly and very poorly.[2] Deviating from the correct notes, he continued singing well after the congregation reached the end of each verse.[3] This provoked various reactions from his fellow congregants: one portion of the church found Linkhaw's singing hilarious, while others were considerably displeased.[4] On one occasion, the pastor simply read the hymn aloud, refusing to sing it because of the disruption that would inevitably occur.[1][5] The presiding elder refused to preach in the church at all.[2] Upon the entreaties of a prominent church member, Linkhaw once stayed quiet after a particularly solemn sermon.[5] Yet he rejected the repeated pleas of his fellow congregants to remain silent altogether, responding that "he would worship his God, and that as a part of his worship it was his duty to sing".[6]

Trial
A Robeson County grand jury handed down a misdemeanor indictment against Linkhaw, charging that he had disturbed the congregation.[7] The case went to trial in August 1872,[1] with Judge Daniel L. Russell – who later was elected governor of North Carolina – presiding.[8] Several witnesses, including the church's pastor, testified that Linkhaw's singing disturbed the church service.[1] One witness, being asked to describe the way in which Linkhaw sang, gave an imitation of it.[5] Singing a hymn in Linkhaw's style, the witness provoked what the court described as "a burst of prolonged and irresistible laughter, convulsing alike the spectators, the Bar, the jury and the Court".[7] Witness testimony also showed, however, that Linkhaw was a devout and spiritual man, and the prosecution admitted that he was not deliberately attempting to disrupt worship.[2] Linkhaw asked the court to instruct the jury that it could not find Linkhaw guilty unless it found intent to disturb the service.[9] Russell, however, rejected this request, ruling instead that the jury only needed to determine whether Linkhaw's singing actually disrupted the service.[7] Russell contended that a lack of intent did not excuse Linkhaw because he presumably should have known that disruption would result from his singing.[9] The jury found Linkhaw guilty, and Russell fined him one penny.[1]

[Tasty]

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

Spooky.

[Borealis]

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

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1547299017977204737

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/mathaiaus/status/1551431732078919680

[Tasty]

Probably the best thread for this... I just donated $3 to Wikipedia and you should too! Especially if you enjoy reading interesting and/or fun articles.

https://donate.wikimedia.org

[Tasty]

Also, fuck advertising.

[Tasty]

https://web.archive.org/web/20060511234852/http://www.geocities.com:80/wohennankan/me.html

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/Xaniken/status/1558666318114705409

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/bizarre_names/status/1564004190908993536

[chronovore]

…arrest this man…

[Uncle]

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

[chronovore]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L%C3%B3pez_(serial_killer)

Child killer with purported 300+ victims released for good behavior. Current whereabouts unknown.

[Tasty]

NASA Can Now Reliably Produce a Tree’s Worth of Oxygen on Mars

[Joe Molotov]

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

[Joe Molotov]

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

Dude was building a "supergun" for Iraq and got murked by Mossad. He just really wanted to fire stuff into space for anyone that would give him the money to do it.

[Uncle]

clickbait title, but well-reasoned rant

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/Griptread/status/1571264574602760192

[Tasty]

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

Dis guy shud b in jail

[benjipwns]

Oh, shit, that's the guy in that Super Pumped book who they tried to give a positive spin because he was one of their sources and he still came off like a sociopathic criminal. Book came out too soon to include the part about that pardon, classic Trump!

[Joe Molotov]

During the sentencing, Alsup said, "this is the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.  This was not small.  This was massive in scale."[59] He also described Levandowski as a "brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs. We need those people with vision. I'm going to give him that."

We need smarter criminals, with vision.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1577711613070790738

[Tasty]

House of the Dragon got me down a Wikipedia hole for British successional crises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusion_Crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_Crown_Act_2013

TIL that Catholics were explicitly excluded from holding the Crown for like 400 years, until 2011/2013. I knew about the absolute primogeniture when it happened which was pretty cool to see, but the legally-enforced religious intolerance past 1900 or so feels so off to me as an American lol.

I know conversion is a pain in the ass but Protestantism makes it pretty easy compared to other religions (see also: George Costanza converting to Lutheran Orthodox, etc.) Not sure about Anglicism specifically. In my head it's basically "Oh yeah, I'm Protestant now, fuck the apocrypha bro!"

I also always forget Canada is subservient to the Crown as well. So weird to see in 2022.

[chronovore]

Vomiting was not a regular part of Roman dining customs.[243] In ancient Rome, the architectural feature called a vomitorium was the entranceway through which crowds entered and exited a stadium, not a special room used for purging food during meals.[244]

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

[Uncle]

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

[benjipwns]

Stanton is credited with naming Washington Territory, later the state of Washington, during an 1853 debate over the territory's preferred name of "Columbia". He argued that the proposed name would easily be confused with the nation's capital, the District of Columbia. Congress later approved the "Washington" name change and President Millard Fillmore signed the bill into law on March 2, 1853, officially creating the Washington Territory.[2]

Well, he sure got that one wrong didn't he?

[Joe Molotov]

[benjipwns]

Discovered why Tasty wants us to donate to Wikipedia so much, he probably gets a cut for one of his many scams:
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579776106034757633

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579777080426139649
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579779644555137024
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579780594686627841
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579781547213062144
https://twitter.com/echetus/status/1579890684374708224

[close]

[Tasty]

The Atlantic: What Moneyball-for-Everything Has Done to American Culture

Cultural Moneyballism, in this light, sacrifices exuberance for the sake of formulaic symmetry. It sacrifices diversity for the sake of familiarity. It solves finite games at the expense of infinite games. Its genius dulls the rough edges of entertainment. I think that’s worth caring about. It is definitely worth asking the question: In a world that will only become more influenced by mathematical intelligence, can we ruin culture through our attempts to perfect it?

[Tasty]

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

Maaaaaan it's so satisfying discovering that these things are... things.

[Uncle]

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

In the 1990s, a new bypass road and a second bridge was planned for the city. The new Choluteca Bridge, also known as the Bridge of Rising Sun (Spanish: Puente Sol Naciente), was built by Hazama Ando Corporation between 1996 and 1998 and became the largest bridge constructed by a Japanese company in Latin America.[5]

In the same year that the bridge was commissioned for use, Honduras was hit by Hurricane Mitch, which caused considerable damage to the nation and its infrastructure. Many bridges, including the old bridge, were damaged while some were destroyed, but the new Choluteca Bridge survived with minor damage.[6] While the bridge itself was in near perfect condition, the roads on either end of the bridge had completely vanished, leaving no visible trace of their prior existence. At this time, the Choluteca River, which is over 100 metres (300 ft) at the bridge, had carved itself a new channel during the massive flooding caused by the hurricane. It no longer flowed beneath the bridge, which now spanned dry ground.[7] The bridge quickly became known as “The Bridge to Nowhere”.[8] In 2003, the bridge was reconnected to the highway.[9]

[Joe Molotov]

Glorious Nippon Steel outlasts both the road and the river.

[Tasty]

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

Holy shit this would be so fucking awesome. We'd get the return message in my lifetime. Omg. Does Proxima Centauri b have aliens??

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-cult_hypothesis

I need to become an authority on a historical subject based on "this would be huge if true".

[benjipwns]

In 1886, Republicans, hoping to exploit divisions in the Democratic Party between the pro-farmer and Bourbon factions, nominated Alfred Taylor for governor. (The office then had a two-year term.) Democrats, realizing they needed a unifier and effective campaigner to counter Alfred, nominated Robert Taylor as their candidate, pitting the two brothers against one another. The Prohibition Party offered its nomination to the Taylors' father, Nathaniel, but he declined.[3]: 50 

The 1886 gubernatorial campaign is remembered for the Taylor brothers' relatively light-hearted political banter and entertaining speeches. Canvassing together, they spent the first part of each campaign stop "cussing out each other's politics" and telling stories and the second part playing fiddle tunes while the crowd danced.[3]: 8

[Uncle]

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

[Uncle]

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

The Trivia Encyclopedia (ISBN 0-441-82412-9) was first released in the early 1970s. Written by Fred L. Worth, it was the author's own personal collection of trivia. It also contains "Worth's Law", his own personal creation, which states that something automatically works the minute the repairman arrives.

A best-selling book in its day, The Trivia Encyclopedia was brought back to public consciousness in the 1980s, when author Worth unsuccessfully sued the makers of Trivial Pursuit for copyright infringement. Worth claimed that they had sourced their questions from his books, even to the point of reproducing mis-prints and typographical errors. The "smoking gun" was Trivial Pursuit's assertion that the TV character of Lt. Columbo had the first name "Philip". This "fact" originally appeared in Worth's book, but it was actually an invention of Worth's that was entirely untrue.

Lt. Columbo's first name was never spoken aloud in the TV series Columbo. When pressed, he would insist that it was "Lieutenant".

The "fact" that the Lieutenant's full name was "Philip Columbo" was planted by Worth in his book (and its sequels) in an attempt to catch out anyone who might try to violate his copyright.

In 1984, he filed a $300 million lawsuit against the distributors of the board game Trivial Pursuit, claiming that they had stolen their questions from his books. The apparent ace up his sleeve was a Trivial Pursuit reference to the TV character of "Philip Columbo"—despite the first name "Philip" being an invention of Worth's.

The makers of Trivial Pursuit did not deny that they sourced material from Worth's book. Instead, they argued that a) facts themselves are not copyrightable, and b) there was nothing improper about using Worth's book simply as one of the many sources from which the game's fact-based material originated. The judge agreed, also noting that Trivial Pursuit was a substantially different product from an encyclopedia—the board game used and arranged their fact-based material in a very different manner from any of the sources it used. The judge ruled in favor of Trivial Pursuit. The decision was appealed, and in September 1987 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling.[1] Worth asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case, but the Court declined, denying certiorari in March 1988.[2]

However, the "Philip Columbo" misinformation lived on in popular culture, at least for the next several years. Several sources cited the name "Philip Columbo" as the Columbo character's full name, variously claiming that the name was either in the original script for the Columbo stage play Prescription: Murder or that it was visible on his police badge. Neither assertion is true. In fact, close-ups in two episodes of a signature on Columbo's police badge reveal that his name is Frank Columbo. Peugeot even ran a 1980s advertising campaign that mentioned "Lt. Philip Columbo" as the most famous driver of the Peugeot convertible.

[Tasty]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunstone_(medieval)

I knew Wildfire was based on Greek Fire, but I didn't know about Dragonglass's inspiration. If this is that.

[benjipwns]

Kinda goes in here I guess:

In 2011, Chief Justice Roberts commented that if you "pick up a copy of any law review that you see," "the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria, or something, which I'm sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn't of much help to the bar.” No such article exists, of course -- until now. This short essay explains why, in all likelihood, Kant’s influence on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria was none.

Two pages long (two pages of citations) and you should be able to read the PDF for free/no login if you'd like to finally get informed.

[Joe Molotov]

Rekt

[Joe Molotov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Uganda_cult_massacres

On 17 March 2000, 778 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in Uganda. The theory that all of the members died in a mass suicide was changed to mass murder when bodies were discovered in pits, some with signs of strangulation while others had stab wounds.

[Joe Molotov]

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

In mid-April, a tiger shark was caught 3 km (1.9 mi) from Coogee Beach and transferred to the Coogee Aquarium Baths, where it was put on public display. Within a week, it became ill and vomited in front of a small crowd, leaving the left hand and forearm of a man bearing a distinctive tattoo floating in the pool. Before it was captured, the tiger shark had devoured a smaller shark. It was this smaller shark that had originally swallowed the human arm.

[benjipwns]

After three years of service, he was given permission to study physics at the University of Berlin, 1917–18, where Albert Einstein was a newly appointed professor. Carnap then attended the University of Jena, where he wrote a thesis defining an axiomatic theory of space and time. The physics department said it was too philosophical, and Bruno Bauch of the philosophy department said it was pure physics.

annihilated

[Tasty]

A History of the American Grid in 4 Minutes

Window Seat: The Art of the Circle Field

[Uncle]

this is as well-researched and mildly fascinating as a wikipedia article

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/miss-piggy-cellophane-cover-let-me-do-it-for-you

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/saintrizla/status/1620504321199857664

[Tasty]

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

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908135906.htm

Somewhat comforting. Earth-based life can survive in the vacuum of space.

From now on I'm calling these dudes "Frieza bugs."

[Uncle]

tardigrades are awesome