title: interesting wikipedia articles

date created: 2025.03.07
last modified: 2025.06.13

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NAND Logic [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAND_logic#Making_other_gates_by_using_NAND_gates ]
You can make every logic gate out of NAND gates. 

English as She Is Spoke [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke#Phrase_examples ]
A hilarious but terrible Portuguese-English phrase book. For example, "This lake looks full of fish. Let's have some fun fishing" was translated as "That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing". The writer of this book could not speak English, but still decided to make a guide to speaking it.

Rebracketing [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebracketing ]
An interesting linguistic phenomenon where the divisions between words get blurred. Reading this reminded me of the confusion we had in one of my classes between the lecturer saying 'a NAND gate' and 'an AND gate'.

Ig Nobel Prize Winners [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners ]
The Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes, and are awarded for achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". For example, the 2024 prize for Biology was awarded to Ely and Petersen for "repeatedly exploding paper bags next to a cat that was standing on the back of a cow and finding that it caused the cow to produce less milk".

List of Common Misconceptions [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions ]
Because goldfish don't have short memories, Einstein never failed maths and allspice is not a mixture of spices.

Scunthorpe Problem [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem ]
The Scunthorpe problem is the unintentional blocking of online content by a spam filter or search engine because their text contains a string of letters that appear to have an obscene or otherwise unacceptable meaning.

MKUltra [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra ]
Project MKUltra was a human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the CIA to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.

Kentucky meat shower [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower ]
The Kentucky meat shower was an incident occurring for a period of several minutes on March 3, 1876, where what appeared to be chunks of red meat fell from the sky in Bath County, Kentucky. 

Cotard's syndrome [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_syndrome ]
Cotard's syndrome is a rare mental disorder in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. (See also: Capgras delusion, Fregoli delusion)

Matrix defense [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_defense ]
The Matrix defense is a legal defense based on the premise of the film franchise 'The Matrix'. A defendant using this defense claims that they committed a crime because they believed that they were in a simulated world (the Matrix), and not in the real world. This has actually worked.

Genie [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) ]
Genie is the pseudonym of an American feral child who was a victim of severe abuse, neglect, and social isolation. When she was approximately 20 months old, her father began keeping her in a locked room. The extent of her isolation prevented her from being exposed to any significant amount of speech, and as a result she did not acquire language during her childhood. 

Auto-brewery syndrome [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-brewery_syndrome ]
Auto-brewery syndrome is a rare medical condition in which intoxicating quantities of alcohol are produced through endogenous fermentation within the digestive system.

Tay [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot) ]
Tay was a chatbot that was released by Microsoft in 2016. The bot began to post offensive tweets through its Twitter account, causing Microsoft to shut down the service only 16 hours after its launch.

Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics -- Men's marathon [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1904_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_marathon ]
The whole thing was a mess. While Frederick Lorz was greeted as the apparent winner, he was later disqualified as he had hitched a ride in a car for part of the race. The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was near collapse and hallucinating by the end of the race, a side effect of being administered brandy, raw eggs, and strychnine by his trainers.