TV hijacking
One Sunday in 1987, two Chicago TV broadcasts were hijacked by someone with a Max Headroom mask, a voice modulator, and an odd sense of humour. He was never caught.
Recent Posts
Phasing pianos
Steve Reich’s piece Piano Phase involves two pianos playing the same melody simultaneously at slightly different speeds.
The Tin Woodman of Theseus
The Ship of Theseus is a classic philosophical thought experiment. L. Frank Baum’s Tin Woodman took it some place rather gruesome.
Hobo doctor
In the early 20th century, Ben Reitman was a hobo, a doctor, and a doctor for hobos.
Smallest skyscraper
In 1919, a construction firm led by J. D. McMahon got investors to commit huge amounts of money for a skyscraper in Wichita Falls, Texas. They thought it would be 480 feet high… but they got 480 inches instead.
Real estate frog
The Emei music frog of China advertises the size and suitability of their underground burrow through the acoustic properties of their croaks.
Reef of heaven
Between 1200 and 1500 CE, the city of Nan Madol was built on a series of artificial islands and a coral reef in what is now eastern Micronesia.
Pope vs. music
In 1324, Pope John XXII issued a papal bull condemning the excesses of modern popular music.
Suffragette medals
When British suffragettes were released from prison, they got medals.
Falling bullets
In many parts of the world it is traditional to celebrate by firing guns in the air. But what happens to the bullets?
Hyperbolic crochet
In 1997, professor of mathematics and crochet enthusiast Daina Taimiņa found a way to join those two passions in order to craft durable sections of hyperbolic surfaces.
Fewest chromosomes and fatherless ants
The jack jumper ant of south-eastern Australia has a nasty sting, can jump five times its own body length, and has the fewest chromosomes of any living thing.
Mona Lisa, shaved
In 1919, Marcel Duchamp drew a moustache and goatee on a postcard of the Mona Lisa, renamed it with a bawdy French pun L. H. O. O. Q., and called it art. Half a century later, he framed an unmodified Mona Lisa postcard and named it L. H. O. O. Q. Shaved.
Eclipse cycle
The saros is a measurement of time equal to 6585 days (plus one third of a day). It is the time between identical eclipses.
Gut parka
Up near the Arctic Circle, the best waterproof parkas are made out of guts.
A fake place becomes real
Cartographers will sometimes insert fake locations in order to catch plagiarism of their maps. But sometimes those fake locations then become real.
The Generalist Academy 