What are some of your favourite wikipedia articles and why?

[ianamartin@thecanadian.social]

@babe
I just read an article bookmarked weeks ago about the CIA’s ‘Stargate Project’ involving researching the efficacy of ‘Remote Viewing’ as an Intelligence Gathering Tool.

The end result of the research, predictably, found that psychic abilities are horseshit (they didn’t use that term, the cowards). I was hoping to get more details about experiments and success rates, but it is actually mostly about the people involved, some of them former Scientologists.

Weird old gov’t programmes, eh?

[dxmacguffin@metalhead.club]

@babe

"a contemporary press account clearly shows that the community was already called "Booger Hole" at the time of the murders."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booger_Hole%2C_West_Virginia

[iain@kolektiva.social]

@babe my high school’s Wikipedia page has a long long list of notable alumni who went on to be scientists, scholars, politicians, sportspeople, but at the end is “Peter Scott - burglar” and his Wikipedia page is amazing

“Scott described himself as having been "sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us"”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scott_(thief)

[finalgirl@blackqueer.life]

@babe (dark) I love looking at proto-Indo-European and after spending time in that rabbit hole, realizing that the entirety of human history is just Indo-European colonization of the entire planet.

[friesen5000@sunny.garden]

@babe "Picadilly weepers"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Dundreary

[breakingnerd@mastodon.social]

@babe i read about this guy some time ago and I found the story incredible

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

[f100@mastodon.social]

@babe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)?wprov=sfti1

[bytebro@mastodonapp.uk]

@babe

Regarding Wiki, I'll guess you might have already heard of the 'Philosophy' game?

For those not in the know, you start from any random Wikipaedia page, and click on the first link in the body of the article which is not a pronunciation guide, tab, or clarification. On the new page, do the same. Repeat. The game is to see how many clicks it takes to get to the main page for "Philosophy".

It's often a shorter path than you might expect!

[internet_george@mastodon.social]

@babe I love them all equally. That being said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatom

[cardinal_reinhardt@mastodon.social]

@babe information about proto Indo-European blows my mind.

[tsvga@ni.hil.ist]

@babe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelema

rocket scientist Jack Parsons did a Thelemic ritual with L. Ron Hubbard, who later founded Scientology

[m3t00@app.wafrn.net]

@babe@glitterkitten.co.uk

every page of Wikipedia is a rabbit hole.

every day a new rabbit hole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:On_this_day/Today

[lockex@ioc.exchange]

@babe Wikipedia article on Brass, the section on Lead Content:
"In laboratory tests, state researchers found the average brass key, new or old, exceeded the California Proposition 65 limits by an average factor of 19, assuming handling twice a day."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass

[jeremy_list@hachyderm.io]

@babe Chlorine trifluoride. Mostly because of the "safety precautions".

[diazona@techhub.social]

@JoBlakely @babe oh lol that is so on point given her role in The Good Place

[nora@blob.love]

@babe i thought you'd never ask. its https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_(concept)

[prozacchiwawa@functional.cafe]

@babe
list of effects
list of star names

[nora@blob.love]

@babe oh you wanted my second favorite? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_British_Isles and the bot i made based on it? https://nora.zone/bots/britishtown.html

[jleedev@mastodon.sdf.org]

@woe2you @babe Guy Standing Sitting

[vaporeon_@glaceon.social]

@babe Look at these weird animals (we don't even know for sure whether or not they were animals or not) from 550 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickinsonia
Relatedly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacaran_Biota