Weird Universe Archive
March 2009
March 3, 2009
Obsessed with Jews
Neil Keller is "obsessed with Jews." He claims to have "one of the largest collections of Jewish memorabilia on the planet with over 15,000 items." Some trivia from his site:Elvis Presley's mother, Gladys Love Presley, has a Star of David at her tombstone. Many people consider Elvis is Jewish. There is evidence that Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus are Jewish and I am currently researching them.
Strangely, Neil doesn't say if he himself is Jewish.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 03, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Religion
Name That List, #14
What is this a list of? Click on "More" or "Comments" for the answer.- A Roman ruler's head
- $13000 worth of radium
- The keys of the hunted mobster Nicolli
- A live mortar round
- Wilma Viner's watch, lost 39 years ago
- Million-year-old dinosaur bones
- "Miss Lily," a stolen iguana
- The earring of the Princess Nina Mdivani
- Umbilical cords and placentas
More in extended >>
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 03, 2009 -
Comments (6)
Category: Name That List
March 2, 2009
Musical Saws
Can you say you've ever really lived until you've attended a Musical Saw Festival? July 2009 is just around the corner, folks!
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 02, 2009 -
Comments (6)
Category: Music, Tools
Self-Correcting Parking Meters
An interesting statistic: "Two-thirds of all District [of Columbia] parking meters reported broken turn out to be operational when a repair crew arrives on-site."One reason is that people falsely report meters as broken when they're not, but another explanation, according to the DC Department of Transportation, is that the meters are designed to be "self-correcting". They're not really broken. The evil little things are just pretending:
a person who parks at a meter displaying a “fail” message may return an hour later to find a working meter flashing zero time and a ticket on the windshield — a process that may repeat several times a day.
Basically, the parking cops are going to get your money, one way or another. Just resign yourself to that truth.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 02, 2009 -
Comments (7)
Category: Motor Vehicles
Bedposted
Bedposted.com is a web application with only one purpose: to allow you to track how often you "get busy". "Simply log in after every time you have sex and fill out a few simple fields."I can think of many ways that keeping track of this kind of info could backfire on someone.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 02, 2009 -
Comments (9)
Category: Sexuality
March 1, 2009
The Electric Hotel
Electricity can do anything!NOTE: When I first posted this on Sunday morning, the link was bad. My apologies!
Try it now!
Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 01, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Movies, Technology, 1900s
The Baiting Crowd
I believe that the social psychologist Leon Mann was one of the first to describe the phenomenon of the "baiting crowd." He did so in a 1981 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:We assume that most people are concerned for the life and well-being of others. It comes as a surprise to learn that crowds gathered at the site of a suicide threat have been known to taunt and urge the victim to jump... In my examination of the baiting phenomenon, I searched all listings for suicides and suicide attempts in the New York Times Index for 1964-1979... The following extract from the New York Times for June 8, 1964, is an example of the data source:
A Puerto Rican handyman perched on a 10th floor ledge for an hour yesterday morning as many persons in a crowd of 500 on upper Broadway shouted at him in Spanish and English to jump. Even as cries of "Jump!" and "Brinca!" rang out, policemen pulled the man to safety from the narrow ledge at 3495 Broadway, the north-west corner of 143rd Street.
A Puerto Rican handyman perched on a 10th floor ledge for an hour yesterday morning as many persons in a crowd of 500 on upper Broadway shouted at him in Spanish and English to jump. Even as cries of "Jump!" and "Brinca!" rang out, policemen pulled the man to safety from the narrow ledge at 3495 Broadway, the north-west corner of 143rd Street.
Mann identified five factors that contribute to the phenomenon: 1) the anonymity of being in a large crowd; 2) cover of darkness; 3) distance from the victim (but being close enough so that the person threatening suicide can still hear the cries urging him to jump); 4) duration of episode (people get bored and restless waiting too long); and 5) hot temperatures.
My theory is that people are okay until you gather them together into a crowd, at which point they transform into the lowest form of life imaginable.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 01, 2009 -
Comments (4)
Category: Death, Psychology
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
