Interesting Wikipedia articles?

[whatleytom]

Wing Commander said:

The world's biggest diamond heist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp_Diamond_Heist

With a really interesting version from the kingpin of it all

http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-...

Superb, really enjoyed reading that!

[ZOLLAR]

Prev said:

Group of teenagers a few years back took up a new hobby. Murdering people and filming them selves doing it. Got caught in the end, but not after 21 people got killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniac...

Remember that when it was in the media (the trial)
IIRC there's a video online of the hammer attack, not seen it myself.

Edit just saw Wiki mentions the video

[JB!]

Stedman said:

simoid said:

Have we had this chap?

WWII soldier, businessman afterwards. Died last month at a fair age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Macpherson

Got up to a ridiculous amount of mischief in small guerilla groups behind enemy lines which is the interesting part

'He brazenly toured the countryside in a black Citroën with a Union Flag pennant on one side and a Croix de Lorraine on the other'

Just ordered his book, looks like its worth a read!

[DeuxCentCinq]

whatleytom said:

Wing Commander said:

The world's biggest diamond heist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp_Diamond_Heist

With a really interesting version from the kingpin of it all

http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-...

Superb, really enjoyed reading that!

+1

[austinsmirk]

omgus said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in...

70 years today.

My father was a child who had fled Latvia and ended up in Dresden when this happened.

A 5000 lb ? Bomb dropped near enough to him but didn't detonate.

Otherwise I wouldn't have this cool starry bra.

[jogon]

DeuxCentCinq said:

whatleytom said:

Wing Commander said:

The world's biggest diamond heist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp_Diamond_Heist

With a really interesting version from the kingpin of it all

http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-...

Superb, really enjoyed reading that!

+1

Me too. Pretty short prison sentences considering the sums involved.

Surprised they haven't done a film yet would make a great script, Oceans 11 ha, these guys are the real deal.

Thanks for sharing.

[Asterix]

jogon said:

DeuxCentCinq said:

whatleytom said:

Wing Commander said:

The world's biggest diamond heist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp_Diamond_Heist

With a really interesting version from the kingpin of it all

http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-...

Superb, really enjoyed reading that!

+1

Me too. Pretty short prison sentences considering the sums involved.

Surprised they haven't done a film yet would make a great script, Oceans 11 ha, these guys are the real deal.

Thanks for sharing.

I think JJ Abrams is involved in a possible film deal.

I too was surprised at the low sentences, I can only assume it was lenient because there was no danger to anyone.

[Mr_C]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-25_Empire_State_B...

[simoid]

Not wiki, but in the spirit of the thread I feel. Possible repost, apologies if so.

http://higherperspective.com/2015/02/understanding...

Including:

8. John Tyler, America’s 10th President, has two living grandchildren.

[DeuxCentCinq]

Asterix said:

I think JJ Abrams is involved in a possible film deal.

I too was surprised at the low sentences, I can only assume it was lenient because there was no danger to anyone.

And technically, they never found the loot.

[Wing Commander]

Glad you all liked the diamond heist!

How about a young businessman who entered the Sunday Times Golden Globe sailing race around the world, back in the 60s. The guy had never really sailed on the open oceans before, and his boat was unfinished and untested.

He set off, had big problems, pretended to sail around the world whilst loitering off South America for ages, then went mad and is thought to have thrown himself off the back of the boat.

If interested, I can highly recommend "Voyage for Madmen" about this race, and all the other sailors who entered it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst

[DeuxCentCinq]

Wing Commander said:

Glad you all liked the diamond heist!

How about a young businessman who entered the Sunday Times Golden Globe sailing race around the world, back in the 60s. The guy had never really sailed on the open oceans before, and his boat was unfinished and untested.

He set off, had big problems, pretended to sail around the world whilst loitering off South America for ages, then went mad and is thought to have thrown himself off the back of the boat.

If interested, I can highly recommend "Voyage for Madmen" about this race, and all the other sailors who entered it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst

Many thanks, I have seen the (bits of the) boat on Cayman Brac but never knew the story until now. Thanks for sharing.

[The Don of Croy]

Before you could calculate on your phone, there were pocket calculators.

But before the electronic pocket calculator (thank you Mr. Sinclair) there was the portable mechanical calculator - the Curta;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

- a friend has one as a mememto of her Dad, who used it in his insurance job. Fascinating mechanical device.

[43034]

Wing Commander said:

Glad you all liked the diamond heist!

How about a young businessman who entered the Sunday Times Golden Globe sailing race around the world, back in the 60s. The guy had never really sailed on the open oceans before, and his boat was unfinished and untested.

He set off, had big problems, pretended to sail around the world whilst loitering off South America for ages, then went mad and is thought to have thrown himself off the back of the boat.

If interested, I can highly recommend "Voyage for Madmen" about this race, and all the other sailors who entered it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst

Thats pretty cool!

[DeuxCentCinq]

The Don of Croy said:

Before you could calculate on your phone, there were pocket calculators.

But before the electronic pocket calculator (thank you Mr. Sinclair) there was the portable mechanical calculator - the Curta;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

- a friend has one as a mememto of her Dad, who used it in his insurance job. Fascinating mechanical device.

I used to have one of those. Bought off eBay as a curio in 2002-ish, sold ten years later as it was worth ten times what I paid for it. Lovely little things.

[anonymous-user]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people

The Sentinelese (also Sentineli, Senteneli, Sentenelese, North Sentinel Islanders) are an indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal

60k years of pure bloodline or unpure depending how you view it.

[RobinBanks]

DeuxCentCinq said:

I used to have one of those. Bought off eBay as a curio in 2002-ish, sold ten years later as it was worth ten times what I paid for it. Lovely little things.

I've wanted one for a while, but I think it's too expensive for something I wouldn't use and would just be a curio

[vonuber]

This always fascinates me, mainly as I encounter them quite a bit in my work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterranean_rivers_o...

[blade runner]

Another WW2 one.

Operation Anthropoid - the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. If you're ever in Prague and have an hour or so to spare, it's well worth a visit to the church where the final siege took place. A good way to put any first-world problems you might have into some perspective...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid

[omgus]

So, bare with me for this one, i'm on a night shift with nothing to do.

Over on the gif thread there has just been this.



Which reminded me of this:

XKCDs what if said:

A brief story:
The official record for fastest manmade object is the Helios 2 probe, which reached about 70 km/s in a close swing around the Sun. But it’s possible the actual holder of that title is a two-ton metal manhole cover.
The cover sat atop a shaft at an underground nuclear test site operated by Los Alamos as part of Operation Plumbbob. When the one-kiloton nuke went off below, the facility effectively became a nuclear potato cannon, giving the cap a gigantic kick. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving at a minimum of 66 km/s. The cap was never found.
66 km/s is about six times escape velocity, but contrary to the linked blog’s speculation, it’s unlikely the cap ever reached space. Newton’s impact depth approximation suggests that it was either destroyed completely by impact with the air or slowed and fell back to Earth.
Our suddenly-activated hair dryer box, bobbing in lake water, undergoes a similar process. The heated steam below it expands outward, and as the box rises into the air, the entire surface of the lake turns to steam. The steam, heated to a plasma by the flood of radiation, accelerates the box faster and faster.

Rather than slam into the atmosphere like the manhole cover, the flood of radiation heats the air around it, creating a bubble of expanding plasma which offers little resistance. The box exits the atmosphere and continues away, slowly fading from second sun to dim star. Much of the Northwest Territories is burning, but the Earth has survived.
Although we may wish we hadn't.

Which leads me to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob



It's going to be a long night.