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Operation Northwoods
A plan in the 1960s, during the Cold War, by the U.S. government to commit acts of terrorism against its own civilians and blame it on Cuba using false evidence in order to launch a war campaign. Sound familiar?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
+ Show Spoiler +Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated in 1962 within the United States government, and which the Kennedy administration rejected. [2] The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro.[3] One part of Operation Northwoods was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington."
Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government.
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On June 09 2012 07:14 natalia_shimanchuk wrote:speaking of aliens... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51  wikipedia is so amazingly comprehensive, you can really find anything there. sure, not all of it is 100% factual, but it's about the quest for knowledge, not about what is always necessarily absolutely truth
I read somewhere that wikipedia is actually usually more accurate that most encyclopedias, whether or not thats 100% true i dunno.
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On June 09 2012 22:21 arb wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 07:14 natalia_shimanchuk wrote:speaking of aliens... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51 wikipedia is so amazingly comprehensive, you can really find anything there. sure, not all of it is 100% factual, but it's about the quest for knowledge, not about what is always necessarily absolutely truth I read somewhere that wikipedia is actually usually more accurate that most encyclopedias, whether or not thats 100% true i dunno.
you read that on wikipedia?
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Here's one about a conspiracy theory dealing with the Soviet space program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts
First read about it on cracked.com. Basically says there were other cosmonauts before Yuri Gagarin, but they never made it back to Earth and their deaths were covered up by the USSR. Again, it's a conspiracy theory.
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On June 10 2012 05:06 prplhz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 22:21 arb wrote:On June 09 2012 07:14 natalia_shimanchuk wrote:speaking of aliens... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51 wikipedia is so amazingly comprehensive, you can really find anything there. sure, not all of it is 100% factual, but it's about the quest for knowledge, not about what is always necessarily absolutely truth I read somewhere that wikipedia is actually usually more accurate that most encyclopedias, whether or not thats 100% true i dunno. you read that on wikipedia?
I read in a (paperback) book that wiki is more reliable because articles are updated immediately, as print encyclopedias basically get outdated the moment they're published, and the sheer volume of information simply cannot be printed. Which is why some of these companies are moving towards online editions.
Interesting facts from that book: If you chart the number of articles created, you'll notice a sudden surge literally overnight. Someone decided to use a bot to create a bunch of pages about villages and towns using information readily available from the CIA factbook. The objective was to create an article with simple information to get started, then the residents themselves will furnish more information.
Don't trust everything though. Professors don't really like quoting wikipedia because sources may be dubious. Example: There was this interesting, novel idea that I found, the link led to a paper published by an individual from India, in the African Journal of Biotechnology. If that isn't dubious enough, reading the article showed that it was total crap. That said individual probably edited the article in order to promote himself...
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Another fun game (not sure if it has been mentioned) is to randomly pick an article and see how many clicks it takes you to get to Hitler. More often than not this can occur in 7 clicks or less. Usually much, much less.
I think there's another thing where randomly picking an article and then clicking on the second link on that and every page thereafter (excluding the definition or the word/page you're on) will almost always get you to the philosophy or mathematics (can't remember which) page eventually.
This is, of course, only for when you're bored out of your fucking mind.
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This took me forever to understand, quite awesome though.
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On June 10 2012 06:20 Mjolnir wrote:
Another fun game (not sure if it has been mentioned) is to randomly pick an article and see how many clicks it takes you to get to Hitler. More often than not this can occur in 7 clicks or less. Usually much, much less.
I think there's another thing where randomly picking an article and then clicking on the second link on that and every page thereafter (excluding the definition or the word/page you're on) will almost always get you to the philosophy or mathematics (can't remember which) page eventually.
This is, of course, only for when you're bored out of your fucking mind.
Its philosophy as long as you click the first link that is not in paranthesis (), then you will end up on philosophy, and it is always (assuming that the article you start with has some decent reference).
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On-topic:
Iron. Yes, really.
Maybe I'm strange, but I find it, particularly the history of ironworking, to be fascinating. The article leads into so many topics.
Off-topic:
On June 10 2012 05:53 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2012 05:06 prplhz wrote:On June 09 2012 22:21 arb wrote:On June 09 2012 07:14 natalia_shimanchuk wrote:speaking of aliens... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51 wikipedia is so amazingly comprehensive, you can really find anything there. sure, not all of it is 100% factual, but it's about the quest for knowledge, not about what is always necessarily absolutely truth I read somewhere that wikipedia is actually usually more accurate that most encyclopedias, whether or not thats 100% true i dunno. you read that on wikipedia? I read in a (paperback) book that wiki is more reliable because articles are updated immediately, as print encyclopedias basically get outdated the moment they're published, and the sheer volume of information simply cannot be printed. Which is why some of these companies are moving towards online editions.
It's the nature of errors that is different between the two. Print encyclopedias are more likely to be wrong due to out-of-date information. That is, at some point in time, it was accurate, but is no longer so. Wikipedia's errors are more likely due to either deliberate trolling/vandalism, or just dumbasses who don't know what they're talking about. Both are easily corrected, though edit wars can still happen.
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On June 10 2012 07:14 NicolBolas wrote:On-topic: Iron. Yes, really.Maybe I'm strange, but I find it, particularly the history of ironworking, to be fascinating. The article leads into so many topics. Off-topic: Show nested quote +On June 10 2012 05:53 Heh_ wrote:On June 10 2012 05:06 prplhz wrote:On June 09 2012 22:21 arb wrote:On June 09 2012 07:14 natalia_shimanchuk wrote:speaking of aliens... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51 wikipedia is so amazingly comprehensive, you can really find anything there. sure, not all of it is 100% factual, but it's about the quest for knowledge, not about what is always necessarily absolutely truth I read somewhere that wikipedia is actually usually more accurate that most encyclopedias, whether or not thats 100% true i dunno. you read that on wikipedia? I read in a (paperback) book that wiki is more reliable because articles are updated immediately, as print encyclopedias basically get outdated the moment they're published, and the sheer volume of information simply cannot be printed. Which is why some of these companies are moving towards online editions. It's the nature of errors that is different between the two. Print encyclopedias are more likely to be wrong due to out-of-date information. That is, at some point in time, it was accurate, but is no longer so. Wikipedia's errors are more likely due to either deliberate trolling/vandalism, or just dumbasses who don't know what they're talking about. Both are easily corrected, though edit wars can still happen.
Well, wikipedia can lock popular/controversial articles (eg Iran) so random people can't edit it. Trolling still occurs but can be pretty easily reset due to the ability to restore to older versions.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster
This has been my WTF article of choice for a while now
"The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 and 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa).[6] The molasses wave was of sufficient force to damage the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and tip a railroad car momentarily off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm)."
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Russian Federation748 Posts
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdős–Bacon_number
Apparently some people have gotten so good at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon that the only way they can challenge themselves now is to do it with mathematician Paul Erdős at the same time. Why does this even exist?
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On June 08 2012 20:18 Vivax wrote:So many serial killer articles, the sickness award goes to Albert Fish, seriously.My favorites I didn't know so far are the radio intrusion, the permanent broadcasts, the headless chicken and the mass psychogenic illness phenomena. Here's mine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unexplained_sounds
Holy crap, Albert Fish!
Just read the entire page about him. When I was reading his 'letters', I imagined Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter reading them :S
As for this thread, awesome way to waste my time reading countless articles lol. *Clicks on every suggestion*
Usually for me it starts off innocently enough, looking something specific up and then it turns into clicking almost everything blue until you find yourself going from the history of exploration to the dinosaurs, somehow!
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Russian Federation748 Posts
Interesting obituary page. They forgot to mention that, after Bertrand Russell was reported to be dead by the Japanese press and it turned out he was not, they asked for an interview and he had his wife answer them that since he was dead, he was hardly in a position to agree.
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EPT
