Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! - Page 212 - Other Topics Forum - Discuss Pop Culture, Arts and Entertainment

Using incendiary bombs, his mission was to start massive forest fires in the Pacific Northwest near the city of Brookings, Oregon with the objective of drawing the U.S. military's resources away from the Pacific Theater.

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Fujita was invited to Brookings in 1962, after the Japanese government was assured he would not be tried as a war criminal. He gave the City of Brookings his family's 400-year-old katana in friendship. Ashamed of his actions during the war, Fujita had intended to use the sword to commit seppuku if he were given a hostile reception.[4] However, the town treated him with respect and affection, although his visit still raised some controversy.

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01-31-2022 , 04:04 AM

#5278

All-inMcLovin

Wholesome Mod

Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 49,569

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xylocain

The Wikipedia page of Jack Blacks mother:

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

Very interesting stuff.

Shallow Hal is a low key great movie, imho.

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01-31-2022 , 12:25 PM

#5279

that_pope

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A movie that could never be made today, right?

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01-31-2022 , 04:36 PM

#5280

rickroll

oddly catty

Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 22,653

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02-06-2022 , 09:04 PM

#5281

Jimmy Proffett

SE's NFL Swami

Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 22,322

Thought this was interesting with current events taking place in San Fran:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fr...e_of_Vigilance

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WHEREAS it has become apparent to the citizens of San Francisco, that there is no security for life and property, either under the regulations of society as it at present exists, or under the law as now administered; Therefore the citizens, whose names are hereunto attached, do unit themselves into an association for the maintenance of the peace and good order of society, and the preservation of the lives and property of the citizens of San Francisco, and do bind ourselves, each unto the other, to do and perform every lawful act for the maintenance of law and order, and to sustain the laws when faithfully and properly administered; but we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary or assassin, shall escape punishment, either by the quibbles of the law, the insecurity of prisons. the carelessness or corruption of the police, or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice.

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02-07-2022 , 09:29 PM

#5282

REDeYeS00

always sloppy

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 22,773

"woodchuck to gray squirrel, woodchuck to gray squirrel"

Spoiler:

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02-23-2022 , 09:08 PM

#5283

thethethe

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Hvaldimir

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Hvaldimir is a male[1] beluga whale that fishermen near Hammerfest in northern Norway noticed in April 2019 wearing a camera harness; after being freed from the harness, the whale remained in the area and appeared used to humans. Speculation that he had been trained by Russia as a spy whale led to his being dubbed Hvaldimir, a pun on the Norwegian hval (whale) and Vladimir Putin.

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02-24-2022 , 05:35 AM

#5284

thethethe

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Byford Dolphin

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Byford Dolphin was a semi-submersible, column-stabilised drilling rig operated by Dolphin Drilling, a Fred Olsen Energy subsidiary. It drilled seasonally for various companies in the United Kingdom, Danish, and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. It was registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.[1]

The rig has suffered some serious accidents, most notably an explosive decompression in 1983 that killed four divers and one dive tender, and badly injured another dive tender.

The 'Medical findings' section is not advised if you've a weak stomach...

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03-09-2022 , 08:01 PM

#5285

sixfour

should be called sevenfour

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 74,754

Cantor's diagonal argument

There's an enormous rabbit hole you can go down on various high level (at least for the layman) mathematical subjects, but this is one of my favourites. Most people get the concept of infinity and that it's really ****ing big, but kind of just assume it's some kind of theoretical constant or something like that. So to have the argument that's somewhat accessible to the standard bloke in terms of:

- we have this infinite set of stuff, it's called the numbers from 1, 2, 3 or however long you want to go
- we have this other infinite set of stuff, we'll call it every permutation of continual coin flips you can have - we'll map flip list 1 to the number 1, flip list 2 to the number 2, etc etc
- but wait, we can actually make a bigger infinite set by taking our list of flips and then swapping the first coin in list one from heads to tails or vice versa, the second coin in list two, the third coin in list three etc etc, and we now have an infinite set of stuff that is bigger than the other infinite set of stuff

It's like the concept of there being the same number of even numbers as there are natural numbers, except on steroids and in reverse.

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03-10-2022 , 03:08 AM

#5286

thethethe

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Like these, and the paradoxes. Believe I'll Will Hunt one one day.
If you've not read Fermat's Last Theorem, I highly recommend it.
Cheat Sheet - only 109pgs

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03-27-2022 , 04:33 PM

#5287

thethethe

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Juan Pujol García

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Juan Pujol Garcia MBE (14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as Joan Pujol Garcia, was a Spanish spy who acted as a double agent loyal to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename Garbo by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him Alaric and referred to his non-existent spy network as "Arabal".

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As Alaric, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class on 29 July 1944, for his services to the German war effort. The award was normally reserved for front-line fighting men and required Hitler's personal authorisation.[48][49] The Iron Cross was presented via radio.[24]

As Garbo, he received an MBE from King George VI, on 25 November 1944.[50] The Nazis never realised they had been fooled, and thus Pujol earned the distinction of being one of the few – if not the only one – to receive decorations from both sides during World War II.

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04-25-2022 , 04:56 PM

#5288

river_tilt

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,969

Cantor's diagonal argument gives rise to the Continuum Hypothesis:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis

There are more real numbers than natural numbers. Are there any sets with an infinite size between them, or are the reals the next size of infinity?

The idea the reals are the next largest is the continuum hypothesis. A fairly standard way of doing set theory is the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerm...kel_set_theory).

Entertainingly, the CH proved to be undecidable in ZF.

(Final wiki link, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3...eness_theorems for a definition of undecidable.)

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04-28-2022 , 08:06 AM

#5289

thethethe

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Y-chromosomal Adam

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In human genetics, the Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor (Y-MRCA, informally known as Y-chromosomal Adam) is the patrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all currently living humans are descended. He is the most recent male from whom all living humans are descended through an unbroken line of their male ancestors.

Mitochondrial Eve

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In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman.

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04-28-2022 , 02:28 PM

#5290

whatthejish

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I learned about Mitochondrial Eve from Battlestar Galactica.

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05-18-2022 , 04:05 AM

#5291

thethethe

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Dreadnought hoax

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The Dreadnought hoax was a prank pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the battleship HMS Dreadnought, to a fake delegation of Abyssinian royals. The hoax drew attention in Britain to the emergence of the Bloomsbury Group, among whom some of Cole's collaborators numbered. The hoax was a repeat of a similar impersonation which Cole and Adrian Stephen had organised while they were students at Cambridge in 1905.

Worth checking out Horace de Vere Cole's other pranks as well.

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05-18-2022 , 02:43 PM

#5292

rickroll

oddly catty

Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 22,653

Dogger Bank Incident

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

Russia's baltic sea fleet was dispatched to Japan after their pacific fleet was destroyed in the russo-japanese war

fear is a powerful drug

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After navigating a non-existent minefield, the Russian fleet sailed into the North Sea. The disaster of 21 October began in the evening, when the captain of the supply ship Kamchatka (Камчатка), which was last in the Russian line, took a passing Swedish ship for a Japanese torpedo boat and radioed that he was being attacked.

Later that night, during fog, the officers on duty sighted the British trawlers, interpreted their signals incorrectly and classified them as Japanese torpedo boats, despite being more than 20,000 miles (30,000 km) from Japan. The Russian warships illuminated the trawlers with their searchlights and opened fire. As the trawlers had their nets down, they were unable to flee. The British trawler Crane was sunk, and its captain and boatswain were killed. Four other trawlers were damaged, and six other fishermen were wounded, one of whom died a few months later.

In the general chaos, Russian ships began to shoot at each other: the cruisers Aurora and Dmitrii Donskoi were taken for Japanese warships and bombarded by seven battleships sailing in formation, damaging both ships and killing a chaplain and at least one sailor and severely wounding another. During the pandemonium, several Russian ships signalled torpedoes had hit them, and on board the battleship Borodino rumours spread that the ship was being boarded by the Japanese, with some crews donning life vests and lying prone on the deck, and others drawing cutlasses. More serious losses to both sides were only avoided by the extremely low quality of Russian gunnery, with the battleship Oryol reportedly firing more than 500 shells without hitting anything.[9]

After twenty minutes' firing, the fishermen finally saw a blue light signal on one of the warships, the order to cease firing.

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05-18-2022 , 02:56 PM

#5293

rickroll

oddly catty

Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 22,653

The Czech Legion

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

wikipedia actually does a piss poor job of detailing their adventures

cliff notes:

legion of czechs and slovakians fighting for russia in wwi
when russia pulls out of wwi it's a contentious issue over what to do with them, both sides want them and it's decided to have them avoid the germans and thus to send them across transiberian rail to vladivostok where they'll board a ship in the pacific and go home
movement through siberia is a logistic ****show, everything is going wrong, super slow and delayed, meanwhile, they are still fully armed
a train containing men from the czech legion ends up pulled up alongside a train of hungarian pows, they apparently hate each other and begin tossing insults back and forth
insults spilled over into actual bloodshed, russia says wtf you need to hand over your weapons now, they don't comply and rebel
they end up capturing vast territories of russia, far more than russia lost on the wwi front
they even captured russias strategic gold reserve
the romanovs were executed because of the approaching czech legion

just an incredible impact on the history of the world all because the czechs don't like hungarians

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05-18-2022 , 03:13 PM

#5294

txdome

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Kamchatka? Should have gone India> Siam> Indonesia instead.

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05-19-2022 , 04:45 AM

#5295

thethethe

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Tarrare

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Tarrare ([taʁaʁ]; c. 1772 – 1798), sometimes spelled Tarar, was a French showman and soldier, noted for his unusual appetite and eating habits. Able to eat vast amounts of meat, he was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him and he was turned out of the family home as a teenager. He travelled France in the company of a band of prostitutes and thieves before becoming the warm-up act for a travelling charlatan. In this act, he would swallow corks, stones, live animals, and a whole basketful of apples. He then took this act to Paris where he worked as a street performer.

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05-19-2022 , 05:07 AM

#5296

All-inMcLovin

Wholesome Mod

Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 49,569

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickroll

The Czech Legion

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

wikipedia actually does a piss poor job of detailing their adventures

cliff notes:

legion of czechs and slovakians fighting for russia in wwi
when russia pulls out of wwi it's a contentious issue over what to do with them, both sides want them and it's decided to have them avoid the germans and thus to send them across transiberian rail to vladivostok where they'll board a ship in the pacific and go home
movement through siberia is a logistic ****show, everything is going wrong, super slow and delayed, meanwhile, they are still fully armed
a train containing men from the czech legion ends up pulled up alongside a train of hungarian pows, they apparently hate each other and begin tossing insults back and forth
insults spilled over into actual bloodshed, russia says wtf you need to hand over your weapons now, they don't comply and rebel
they end up capturing vast territories of russia, far more than russia lost on the wwi front
they even captured russias strategic gold reserve
the romanovs were executed because of the approaching czech legion

just an incredible impact on the history of the world all because the czechs don't like hungarians

People have been disliking their neighbors since the beginning of time.

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05-23-2022 , 10:23 PM

#5297

ramabranch

adept

Join Date: Jan 2014 Posts: 1,074

Maybe this one is more popular for you guys in the US but I just heard of Sister Ping (and the whole snakehead thing) today and found it very interesting.

Quote:

Sister Ping was a Chinese woman who ran a human smuggling operation bringing people from China into the United States from 1984 to 2000. Operating from Chinatown, Manhattan, Ping oversaw a snakehead smuggling ring which brought as many as 3,000 Chinese into the United States, earning her more than $40 million

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

Clicking around also found out about the Golden Venture, a cargo ship that sank off the coast of NY in 1993 bringing in 286 chinese inmigrants.