Retro Yakking

Fancy lawnmover racing? Image by Fir0002 at Wikipedia.

Rather than shape it, Wikipedia serves to only reflect the world around it. Well, that’s kind of the point of encyclopedias, you see. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Wikipedia is completely serious about itself all the time (that task is more than covered by the administrators) - their Silly Things and Unusual Articles pages are evidence of this.

“But Yak, this is just a complete sell out compilation article, isn’t it?”

Yes, you could call it that. But so what? And anyway, I have a big bumper post coming up this weekend explaining how I bent the rules… er, I mean, expanded the knowledge base of the wiki by adding references which just so happened to be at my website. More on that soon, but for now, here’s a list of some of my personal favourite pages on the whole of Wikipedia.

• Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 was the intended name of a child born in Sweden in 1991. Because the parents never legally named the child before its fifth birthday, they were fined 5,000 kronor (US$600). In protest, the parents attempted to register this 43-character name, but it was subsequently rejected for obvious reasons.
• Foreign accent syndrome, a condition whereby the sufferer’s linguistic capabilities are impaired to such a level that it sounds as if they are speaking in a foreign accent. Also, a quick mention here for alien hand syndrome, where the sufferer’s hand seems to be controlled by an mysterious ‘alien’ force. It would be useful to somehow be diagnosed with this just in case you accidentally shoot someone: “it wasn’t me, it was my alien hand!”
• Nazi UFOs, Hitler’s secret weapon. According to the theory, Germany was running a top secret army base to develop new technology in Antartctica. I also heard a weird, slightly related conspiracy theory that claimed UFOs were coming from the centre of the Earth, but I think the people who propagated that have since been executed for the sake of world sanity.
• Mountweazels are deliberately incorrect pieces of information inserted into maps, directories and (paper based) encyclopedias. These can range from obvious hoaxes to copyright traps which provide a reference point to detect copyright infringement, and famous examples include; Goblu and Beatosu, fictional place names on the 1978-79 official map of Michigan; Zzxjoanw, a completely made up musical term that “fooled logologists for years” and the Stone louse, an invented animal that appeared in a German medical dictionary.
• Hamster racing, Lawn mower racing and of course Yak racing. The latter is apparently a “common sport in Tibet and Mongolia, among other places” and something I wouldn’t mind trying myself.

All of these articles and more can be found at Wikipedia’s Unusual Articles page. If you ever read anything on Wikipedia, make sure it’s this.

A parting note

Remember a couple of weeks ago I featured a post about AOL disk disposal methods? Well, if Wikipedia is anything to go by, it seems some people do the exact opposite and collect them. People will collect anything these days. Fnurdletoot.

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