Experiment HN: If you end up with anything interesting, post the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._11_1/4_Dozen_P...

> a mixture of antimony and potassium tartrate

Antimony was someone else's random article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7758751

This makes me wonder what the longest Wikipedia article title is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_records#Art...

I'm wondering why they didn't say 135 packages instead of dividing them so strangely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitinol_60

"NiTiNOL 60, or 60 NiTiNOL, is a Nickel Titanium alloy (nominally Ni-40wt% Ti) discovered in the late 1950s by the U. S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory (hence the "NOL" portion of the name NiTiNOL). Depending upon the heat treat history, 60 NiTiNOL has the ability to exhibit either superelastic properties in the hardened state or shape memory characteristics in the softened state."

Wow, what are the chances?

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

Looks like 1 in 4,515,321. Nice!

I'd say 1 in 4,515,321 [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia

Increased by a factor because many of us clicked the Random link.

Or they could have cheated.

I learned not a whole lot happened in Spain in the year 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_in_Spain

What do you think is the world's most valuable company?

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

Is Saudi Aramco even a company? What defines and separates companies from governments at that point?

It is unclear in that article where the Saudi Arabian government paid a fair market value in 1980 for ownership of the rest of the company?

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

Reportedly we are going to run out as early as 2020, definitely before 2030.

That reminds me of this timeline on when we're going to exhaust certain natural resources (which has antimony running out at 2020):

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-st...

A bit of a downer, but interesting to think about.

Why all the hubbub about rain forests then?? Running out of phosphorus would be scary!

if you think running out of phosphorus is scary just wait until we run out of rain forest

Denial.

Breaking bad news gently.

"Save the rain forests" has (for most first-world residents not presently part of #OccupyRainForest) a concerned-but-distant feel about it. It raises consciousness without doing too much to cause mental anguish.

Spend some time thinking about how things can fail (not uncommon for tech types, particularly on the ops side), and you start realizing there are a large number of paths to that destination. Some more probable than others.

For complex systems in general, the problem isn't the stuff you've got lots of -- yes, you can fit the human population into the state of Texas with a reasonable amount of breathing space (about 1025 ft^2 -- 32 feet square) -- but what constrains you -- Leibig's Law of the Minimum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum

Turns out there are a lot of things humans (and civilization) depend on which are in fairly short order: energy, environmental sink capacity, topsoil, phosphorus, freshwater, and a whole slew of critical industrial minerals for starters.

And it's kind of a downer to think about it.

But ignoring problems doesn't make them go away.

How close is the tipping point? Good question.

I've been playing with some geometric grown and consumption calculations:

http://consumptiongrowth101.com/RunningTheNumbers.pdf

Turns out that if you take the numbers for oil consumption from BP's Annual Review for 2013 and plug them in, oil at present reserves, rates of growth, and consumption, runs out cold in 2048. What that actually means is that the rate of delivery is going to start getting choked much sooner, and it's peaked as of 2005 with a bit of a bumpy plateau since. Oil fuels 95% of all transporation, which in Richard Heinberg's eloquent turn of phrase is the heart of commerce.

I could go on about oil exploration capex (Steve Kopits), fracking well depletion rates, and a slew of other stuff, but you probably don't want to hear about it.

You're welcome to visit http://reddit.com/r/dredmorbius if you like though.

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

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

We have came a long way when it comes to the chemicals we spray on plants to keep the bugs at bay.

This quite toxic mixture is said "to have burned the trees and the grass around the trees":

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

Then, to a less toxic substance, with lead and arsenic in it:

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

Can you imagine having an apple sprayed with anything more deadly?

Well, we moved onto DDT...

Sadly my 'Wikipedia' history was mostly littered with things I had looked up as a result of something posted on HN. The only other stand out entry was the page regarding 'G G Allin' - definitely interesting but totally not HN!!!

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

I did not know that.

> It is used to increase the apparent size of the hips and buttocks to resemble those of a female. The padding is intended to improve the person's chance of passing as female by altering their apparent waist-hip ratio and shoulder-hip ratio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringhals_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Huh, apparently this plant generates 1/5 of the power of Sweden. I wonder what happens when such an important plant gets shut down temporarily? What would happen to the power infrastructure of the country if this plant melted down, is there some sort of redundancy? I know nothing about Sweden's electricity infrastructure, but would love to read more about it. Anybody got any links or knowledge?

I think this sort of post is perfect for HN. I hope the special:random page becomes a weekly occurrence and promotes a lot of wonderful discussion.

I believe that Europe has a fairly interconnected grid, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental... Also, although the plant is 20% of the energy generated in Switzerland, it is not necessarily 20% of the power generation capacity, and is most likely much less than 20% of the generation capacity of Switzerland. Generation Capacity being the amount of KW that can be generated at a time.

http://www.swedennotswitzerland.com/

Everything on Wikipedia is interesting to someone... what I'm interested in the most right now is what the purpose of this "experiment" was and how it ended up infiltrating the front page.

Instructions unclear: post the link to comments or as a new link?

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

"Davide Cesare, also known as Dax (1977 - March 16, 2003) was an Italian anti-fascist activist from Rozzano (Milano), who was stabbed to death by two far-right activists in Milan, the night of March 16, 2003. Cesare was brought to the hospital but died in the ambulance. Immediately after his death, members of his group tried to enter the hospital but were blocked by the police. This resulted in new riots with several people being injured, damage to police cars, and the emergency department suspending all activities for the whole night."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedug

It's a large drum suspended from a rack and played with a padded mallet, used in gamelan music (see photo).

WW1 flying ace, Oxford Ph.D, author and professor of medieval history

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

Interesting that he was American but served in the RFC (predecessor to the RAF). I didn't know that you could do that. It seems that back then nationality was a looser concept? We didn't yet have the closed border regime that we have now across the first world. But there had to be limits, especially given the war. Inquiring minds want to know...

i've heard of many the european that served in another european army. maybe it's just the u.s. that's missing out.

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

No, not as interesting as the "Quantum" may lead you to think...

"Quantum Care Limited is a company based in Welwyn Garden City, England, that runs both residential and nursing care homes (see residential care home and nursing care home). The company's head office is 4 Silver Court, Watchmead, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England AL7 1TS. Quantum Care runs twenty-eight care homes, all but two in Hertfordshire."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Amadeus_of_Anhalt-Bernbu...

Victor Amadeus of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym (Schaumburg, 21 May 1744 – 2 May 1790), was a German prince of the House of Ascania from the Anhalt-Bernburg branch through the sub-branch of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym and a Russian General under the service of Empress Catherine II the Great.

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

Insect that can damage insect collections.

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

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

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

check out the animation

Very first thing I got is somewhat interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidance_response

Most interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_in_organized_crime

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

I got both the smallest Wikipedia page I've ever seen, and the one with worst "words I understand" to "words that make me go 'huh?'" ratio I've come across.

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

The only US company to still make gum using chicle is http://www.gleegum.com/, most now use a cheaper synthetic rubber substitute.

I'd say this one's kind of interesting by being arguably the most boring thing I could imagine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacie_Orrico_discography

Are we crowdsourcing boredom now?

Isn't that what Reddit is for?

http://www.reddit.com/r/random/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCnd%C3%BC,_Absheron

Only interesting in how uninteresting it is. Only one true sentence on the page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_leaf_area

"Specific leaf area is defined as the ratio of leaf area to dry mass."

Here's a curious one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_with_alcohol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_%28nom_de_plume...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Ride_(Willie_Nile_albu...

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

Interesting part is me being from Bosnia & Herzegovina...