May I share Wikipedia's List of Lists of Lists
How about a list of lakes on islands in lakes on islands in lakes?
Woa! That was wild!
That third list is how you can describe high int low wisdom.
Smart enough to get there devices to move, not wise enough to have any safety precautions.
The list of common misconceptions was really interesting. Thanks!
Absolutely awesome page. I've just spent half an hour reading it and will be back to it.
Whoooa, I already knew about Franz Reichelt, but never knew there was actual footage of the test jump. That's almost straight up NSFL, if not for the old timey camera making it hard to see anything.
I don't know if it's the absolute best, but the page for the band The Butthole Surfers is pretty excellent.
In 1986, they first met Lynch (a.k.a. Kathleen, a.k.a. Ta-Da the Shit Lady), who was then working at a strip club called Sex World in New York City.[75] Though never an official member, she became Butthole Surfers' famous "naked dancer", performing intermittently with them through 1989.[9] One show in Washington, D.C., with GWAR saw Kathleen take the stage to dance in nothing but gold body paint and antique wooden snow shoes. At another particularly wild concert in 1986, Haynes and Lynch, by now completely bald, reportedly engaged in sexual intercourse while on stage, as Leary used a screwdriver to vandalize the club's speakers. This came after only five songs, during which time Haynes had started a small fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
Never seen Wikipedia this judgemental before
All relevant scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology contradicts homeopathy
Can you blame them? Quack medical pseudoscience gets people killed.
“that’s what big pharma wants you to think”
—too many people I know
I too think it is justified. Simply not used to this tone on Wikipedia. Which is why I find it funny.
Their finances and how God damn much money they blow every year
Probably the most important part of that page is that Wikipedia asks people for donations when they already have enough money to exist perpetually. All the money people donate simply goes to executives' salaries.
WMF's salary costs have risen from $7 million in 2010/11 to $88 million in 2021/22. Yet, only 2% of the raised money goes towards hosting costs, and the remuneration for the hard-working contributors to Wikipedia remains the same: zero.
That's all untrue or misrepresentation. There aren't that many executives and while money does get misused, that's not where it's going - instead some of it is going to grants and other programs that aren't very important to the mission. However, quite a lot of donations go to very important projects, such as lawyers to keep editors in repressive countries out of jail, programmers to keep the website going, etc etc.
"2%" is a misrepresentation because programmer and operations salaries are a lot more than that and they're equally important to keeping the lights on. If I own and operate a server for a website, then clearly my salary is part of what it takes to run the website even if it's not included in "hosting".
"Renumeration" is a red herring as paying contributors is obviously a non-starter.
It was taken down years ago, but for a while the entry for the song Regulate, by Warren G and Nate Dogg, used to feature a recitation of the story events done in the flowery prose style of a fancy Victorian English gentleman. It was a masterpiece.
Since Wikipedia tracks edits, it wasn't actually "taken down", it's still there if you dig through the edit history. I dug it up:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regulate_(song)&oldid=585931532
This is amazing
A bit morbid, but there's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths. Features stuff like:
Sergio Millán, 59, was alone in his apartment in Torreforta, Tarragona, Spain, when an explosion in a petrochemical plant 3 kilometres (2 mi) away launched a one-ton iron plate into the apartment above him, causing the ceiling to collapse, killing him.
or
Vladimir Likhonos, 25, a student of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute from Konotop, was killed when his chewing gum exploded. Likhonos had a habit of dipping his chewing gum in citric acid to increase the gum's sour taste. On his work table police found about 100 grams (3.5 oz) of unidentified explosive powder which he used for chemistry studies at home. It resembled citric acid, and it is thought that he confused the two, having accidentally coated his gum in the explosive powder before chewing it. The explosive was found to be four times stronger than TNT, and the explosion was possibly triggered either by reacting with Likhonos's saliva, or the pressure exerted by him chewing on the gum and explosive powder.
second one is some loony tunes behaviour
How would they have deducted from his exploded skull that the cause was chewing gum dipped in explosive powder? That is some incredible forensic work. Or maybe they had cameras?
Well when you find a guy with an exploded face, it obviously warrants some further Investigation. I could imagine them looking for a bullet and not finding any, then investigating further. The info about him dipping his chewing gum in citric acid might have been given by friends, they also found the explosive, and from there it's not a huge jump to the explanation they found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ussy is one of my favs
A more meta one - the Wikipedia list of Lamest edit wars is very entertaining. Entries include: is Hummus Israeli or an illegally occupied Palestinian dip, asking snakes what they think of the Israeli-Palenstine conflict, is 3 always an odd number?, Michael Palin vs Sarah Palin, and should we put a picture of a human bumhole in the article for anus and if so which one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human reads like it was written by aliens studying us.
I also like things like:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_names_considered_unusual which for some reason doesn't even list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha!
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est!_Est!!_Est!!!_di_Montefiascone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_scene?wprov=sfla1
It's a tad morbid. I didn't know most of the details about this in/famous era. Read on Dead and Euronymous too if you can. These guys were nuts. Mind blowing to think all this happened only 25 - 30 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Titan%3A_Or%2C_Futility?wprov=sfla1
The novel that was published 17 years before the Titanic sank, about a ship that sank, named Titan. The details are creepily accurate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1775–1795_in_Western_fashion?wprov=sfla1
1775 - 1795 Western fashion, aka Marie Antoinette dominating & influencing the whole scene. It seems everything she did became a new trend and she had the eye for it too. Cool read if you're into fashion history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_Man?wprov=sfla1
Somerton Man, a death surrounded by mystery. There are some recent findings about the mans identity, still fun to read.
I can't pick one thing and my idea of entertainment might be slightly morbid so sue me.
There are a number of fascinating stellar phenomenon on Wikipedia. The one that immediately comes to mind is V838. The short of it is that a star randomly decided to increase its luminosity significantly. The shell around the star isn't ejected matter, what you're seeing is a light echo. Because light moves at different speeds depending on the medium, light travelling through gas travels slower than light in a vacuum. You're literally seeing the progression of light through space. Additionally, what you're seeing is actually the backside of the illuminated space because the light travelling towards earth had less distance to travel and already arrived, while the light you're seeing was reflected off the gas behind the star (or to put it another way, it's like you're looking at a 3d model of a sphere, but the normals were inverted).
the one on the airline of niki
Not so much entertaining as it is "WTF!? Why doesn't anyone talk about this!?"
I always find this one hilarious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
IP Over Avian Carrier: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IP_over_Avian_Carriers&oldid=1073581154 (old version before certain revisions were made to make it more sensible)
And the other April fools RFCs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Comments
It's not entertaining, but it is interesting.
