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From the Nothing Really Matters wiki article:

Music video

The music video was directed by Johan Renck and filmed on January 9 – 10, 1999 at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, New York. The video showed Madonna in a geisha-inspired look carrying her baby and also in a red kimono dancing to the song. Another part, featuring white-clad Swedes of Asian heritage performing butoh dance moves, was shot in the decommisioned R1 Reactor below the Royal Institute of Technology in central Stockholm.

From the Royal Institute of Technology wiki article:

R1 Nuclear Reactor

After the American deployment of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II, the Swedish military leadership recognized the need for nuclear weapons to be thoroughly investigated and researched to provide Sweden with the knowledge to defend itself from a nuclear attack. At that time, Sweden knew virtually nothing about nuclear physics, as all information and research around were kept strictly confidential by the United States. With the mission to “make something with neutrons”, the Swedish team, with scientists like Rolf Maximilian Sievert, set out to research the subject and eventually build a nuclear reactor for testing.

After a few years of basic research, they started building a 300 kW (later expanded to 1 MW) reactor, named “Reaktor 1″, R1 for short, in a reactor hall 25 meters under the surface right underneath KTH. Today this might seem ill-considered, since approximately 40,000 people lived within a 1 km radius. It was risky, but were deemed tolerable since the reactor was an important research tool for scientists at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien).

At 18:59, 13 July 1954, the reactor reached critical mass and sustained Sweden’s first nuclear reaction. R1 was to be the main site for almost all Swedish nuclear research until 1970 when the reactor was finally decommissioned, mostly due to the increased awareness of the risks associated with operating a reactor in a densely populated area of Stockholm. The reactor hall remains an amusement to many as once it was next door to what used to be Sweden’s first nuclear reactor. Close to the reactor hall is the restaurant Q.

From the Bristol Stool Scale wiki page

The Bristol Stool Scale or Bristol Stool Chart is a medical aid designed to classify the form of human faeces into seven categories. Sometimes referred to in the UK as the “Meyers Scale,” it was developed by Heaton at the University of Bristol and was first published in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology in 1997.^[1] The form of the stool depends on the time it spends in the colon.

The seven types of stool are:

• Type 1: Separate hard lumps, like nuts (hard to pass)
• Type 2: Sausage-shaped, but lumpy
• Type 3: Like a sausage but with cracks on its surface
• Type 4: Like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft
• Type 5: Soft blobs with clear cut edges (passed easily)
• Type 6: Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool
• Type 7: Watery, no solid pieces. Entirely liquid

Types 1 and 2 indicate constipation, with 3 and 4 being the “ideal stools” especially the latter, as they are the easiest to pass, and 5–7 being further tending towards diarrhoea or urgency.

From the Mojave Phone Booth wiki article:

The Mojave phone booth was a lone telephone booth in what is now the Mojave National Preserve in California, which attracted online attention in 1997 due to its unusual location. Placed in the 1960s, the booth was fifteen miles (24 km) from the nearest Interstate Highway, and miles from any buildings. Its telephone number was originally (714) 733-9969, before the area code changed to 619 and then to 760.^[1]

History

The original hand-cranked magneto phone was set up in the 1960s to provide telephone service to local volcanic cinder miners and others living in the area.^[1][2] The government of California mandated that a network of “policy stations” be placed to service residents of isolated parts of the state. The Mojave booth, located at the intersection of two remote dirt roads, probably replaced an earlier booth located 30 miles to the south.^[1] The original rotary phone was replaced with a touch-tone model in the 1970s.^[1]

The phone was probably little-used for the next decades, until it became a sensation on the Internet in 1997.^[2] A Los Angeles man spotted a telephone icon on a map of the Mojave and decided to visit it. He wrote a letter about his adventure to an underground magazine, and included the booth’s number. Godfrey Daniels, a local computer entrepreneur, read the letter and started the first of several websites devoted to the Mojave telephone booth.^[2] Soon, fans called the booth attempting to get a reply, and a few took trips to the booth to answer, often camping out at the site. Several callers kept recordings of their conversations. Over time, the booth became covered in graffiti, as many travelers would leave messages on it.^[3]

In 1999 Los Angeles Times writer John Glionna reported on meeting a man at the booth who claimed the Holy Spirit had instructed him to answer the phone. The man spent 32 days there, answering more than 500 phone calls including repeated calls from someone who identified himself as “Sergeant Zeno from the Pentagon.”^[2]

Removal

The booth was removed by Pacific Bell on May 17, 2000, at the request of the National Park Service. Per Pacific Bell policy, the phone number was permanently retired. Officially, the removal was done to halt the environmental impact of visitors, though pressure from locals unhappy with the increased traffic may have contributed.^[1] Additionally, a letter written by the then-superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve mentions confronting Pacific Bell with some long-forgotten easement fees.^[4] A headstone-like plaque was later placed at the site, but it too, was removed by the National Park Service. Fans of the booth also claim that Pacific Bell destroyed the actual enclosure after its removal.^[5]

The story inspired the creation of a motion picture, Mojave Phone Booth.^[1]

From the Clever Hans wiki article:

Clever Hans (in German, der Kluge Hans) was a horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.

After formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.^[1]

In honour of Pfungst’s study, the anomalous artifact has since been referred to as the Clever Hans effect and has continued to be important knowledge in the observer-expectancy effect and later studies in animal cognition.

Hans was a horse owned by a Herr Wilhelm von Osten, who was a gymnasium math teacher, an amateur horse trainer and phrenologist, and something of a mystic.^[1] Hans was taught to add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, tell time, keep track of the calendar, differentiate musical tones, and read, spell, and understand German. Von Osten would ask Hans, “If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday?” Hans would answer by tapping his foot. Questions could be asked both orally, and in written form. Von Osten exhibited Hans throughout Germany, and never charged admission. Hans’s abilities appeared on page six of the New York Times.^[2]

Both von Osten and Hans were notoriously bad tempered and prone to rage when the horse did not perform well. Pfungst suffered more than one horse bite during his investigation.^[2]

Investigation

Due to the large amount of public interest, the German board of education appointed a commission to investigate von Osten’s scientific claims. Philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf formed a panel of 13 people, known as the Hans Commission. This commission consisted of a veterinarian, a circus manager, a Cavalry officer, a number of school teachers, and the director of the Berlin zoological gardens. This commission concluded in September 1904 that no tricks were involved in Hans’ performance.^[3]

The commission passed off the evaluation to Pfungst, who tested the basis for these claimed abilities by:

1. Isolating horse and questioner from spectators, so no cues could come from them
2. Using questioners other than the horse’s master
3. By means of blinders, varying whether the horse could see the questioner
4. Varying whether the questioner knew the answer to the question in advance.

Using a substantial number of trials, Pfungst found that the horse could get the correct answer even if von Osten himself did not ask the questions, ruling out the possibility of fraud. However, the horse got the right answer only when the questioner knew what the answer was, and the horse could see the questioner.

He observed that when von Osten knew the answers to the questions, Hans got 89 percent of the answers correct, but when von Osten did not know the answers to the questions, Hans only answered six percent of the questions correctly.

Pfungst then proceeded to examine the behaviour of the questioner in detail, and showed that as the horse’s taps approached the right answer, the questioner’s posture and facial expression changed in ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the final, correct tap. This provided a cue that the horse could use to tell it to stop tapping.

Even after this official debunking, von Osten, who was never persuaded by Pfungst’s findings, continued to show Hans around Germany, attracting large and enthusiastic crowds.^[4]

The Clever Hans effect

Pfungst made an extremely significant observation. After he had become adept at giving Hans performances himself, and fully aware of the subtle cues which made them possible, he discovered that he would produce these cues involuntarily regardless of whether he wished to exhibit or suppress them. This gives the phenomenon an importance which could hardly be exaggerated. Its recognition has had a large effect on experimental design and methodology for all experiments whatsoever involving sentient subjects (including humans).

Popular culture

Military officer Günther von Kluge was nicknamed Der Kluge Hans (Clever Hans) in admiration of his brilliance. Von Kluge went on to become one of the most able Field-Marshals of the Third Reich.

From the Death by Burning wiki page:

Death by burning (also known as burning alive or burning to death) is death (often execution) brought about by combustion. As a form of capital punishment, burning has a long history as a method in crimes such as treason, heresy, and witchcraft. (Burning, however, was actually less common than hanging, pressing, or drowning as a punishment for witchcraft.)^{[citation needed]} This method of execution fell into disfavor among governments in the late 18th century; it is considered cruel and unusual punishment today.^[1] The particular form of execution by burning in which the condemned is bound to a large stake is more commonly called burning at the stake. According to the Talmud, the “burning” mentioned in the Bible was done by melting lead and pouring it down the convicted person’s throat, causing immediate death.

Modern burnings

One of the most notorious extrajudicial burnings of modern times occurred in Waco, Texas in the USA on May 15, 1916. Jesse Washington, a mentally-retarded black farmhand, after having been convicted of the murder of a white woman, was taken by a mob to a bonfire, castrated, doused in coal oil, and hanged by the neck from a chain over the bonfire, slowly burning to death. A postcard from the event still exists, showing a crowd standing next to Washington’s charred corpse with the words on the back “This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe”. This event attracted international condemnation, and is remembered as the Waco Horror.

Modern-day burnings still occur. During periods of unrest in South Africa for example, extrajudicial execution by burning was done via a method called necklacing where kerosene- or gasoline-filled rubber tires are placed around the neck of a live individual. The fuel is then ignited, the rubber melts, and the condemned is burnt to death.^[7][8] In Rio de Janeiro, burning people standing inside a pile of tires is a common form of murder used by drug dealers to punish those who have supposedly collaborated with the police. This form of burning is called microondas, “the microwave”. The movie Tropa de Elite (Elite squad) has a scene depicting this practice.^[9]

According to a former Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate officer writing under the alias Victor Suvorov, at least one Soviet traitor was burnt alive in a crematorium.^[10] During the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, a number of inmates were burnt to death by fellow inmates, who used blow torches.

At the end of the 1990s, a number of North Korean army generals were executed by being burnt alive inside the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea.^[11]

In Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, there were 400 cases of the burning of women in 2006. In Iraqi Kurdistan, at least 255 women had been killed in just the first six months of 2007, three-quarters of them by burning.^[12]

It was reported on May 21, 2008, that in Kenya a mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft.^[13]

From the Red Pill wiki page:

The term redpill is a pop culture term that was popularised in science fiction culture via the 1999 film The Matrix. The movie relies on the premise that an artificial reality that is advanced enough will be indistinguishable from reality and that no test exists that can conclusively prove that reality is not a simulation. This ties in closely with the skeptical idea that the everyday world is illusory. In the movie, a Redpill is the term used to describe a human who has been freed from the Matrix, a fictional computer-generated world set in 1999. Bluepill refers to a human still connected to the Matrix.^[1]

Borrowing from the movie, the terms blue pill and red pill have become a popular metaphor for the choice between the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue) and embracing the sometimes painful, sometimes pleasant, truth of reality (red).

Analysis

An essay written by Russell Blackford discusses the red and blue pills, questioning whether if a person were fully informed they would take the red pill, opting for the real world, believing that choosing physical reality over a digital simulation is not clear-cut. Both Neo and another character, Cypher, both take the red pill over the blue pill, with the latter showing regret for having made such a choice, having stated that if Morpheus fully informed them of the situation, Cypher would have told Morpheus to shove the red pill up his ass. While Blackford argues that while The Matrix trilogy sets things up so that even if Neo failed, the taking of the red pill was worthwhile due to him living and dying authentically, he and science-fiction writer James Patrick Kelly feel that The Matrix stacks the deck against machines and their simulated world.^[4] In the book “The art of the start: the time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone”, author Guy Kawasaki uses the red pill as an analogue to leaders of new organizations, in that they face the same choice to either live in reality or fantasy. He adds that if they want to be successful, they have take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.^[5]

From the Cameltoe wiki page:

Cameltoe is a slang term that refers to the outline of the labia majora seen through tight clothes.^[1][2] Male organs showing through clothes at the crotch may be called moose knuckle.^[3]

Common circumstances

The causes of cameltoe are not always obvious.^[4][5] Cameltoe commonly occurs as a result of wearing tight fitting clothes, such as jeans, shorts, hotpants, or swimwear.^[5] Due to a combination of anatomical factors, the snugness of the fabric in the region surrounding the cleft of venus may result in the area of the crotch taking on the appearance of the forefoot of a camel or other even-toed ungulate.

However, some fashion analysts have also identified clothing design as a cause, rather than its size. Cameltoe may thus be exacerbated by jeans or other garments with a tight central seam that serves to divide the labia majora.^[6][7]

Cameltoe vs. bulge

Uncleft “bulges” are more often visible. The degree to which a woman’s mons pubis protrudes depends on a number of factors, including weight and anatomical variation.^[8]

See also

• Cleavage (breasts)
• Wedgie
• Whale tail
• Muffin top
• Wardrobe malfunction

From the Pareidolia wiki page:

Pareidolia (pronounced /pærɪˈdoʊliə/) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.

Religious

Further information: Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes, especially the faces of religious figures, in ordinary phenomena. Many involve images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the word Allah.

In 1978, a New Mexican woman found that the burn marks on a tortilla she had made appeared similar to the traditional western depiction of Jesus Christ’s face. Thousands of people came to see the framed tortilla.^[1]

The recent publicity surrounding sightings of religious figures and other surprising images in ordinary objects, combined with the growing popularity of online auctions, has spawned a market for such items on eBay. One famous instance was a grilled cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary’s face.^[2]

In September, 2007, the so-called “monkey tree phenomenon” caused a minor social mania in Singapore. A callus on a tree resembled a monkey, and believers flocked to the tree to pay homage to the Monkey God.^[3]

From the Japanese War Crimes wiki page

Japanese war crimes occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism. Some of the incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust^[1] and Japanese war atrocities.^[2][3] Some war crimes were committed by military personnel from the Empire of Japan in the late 19th century, although most took place during the first part of the Shōwa Era, the name given to the reign of Emperor Hirohito, until the military defeat of the Empire of Japan, in 1945.

Cannibalism

Many written reports and testimonies collected by the Australian War Crimes Section of the Tokyo tribunal, and investigated by prosecutor William Webb (the future Judge-in-Chief), indicate that Japanese personnel in many parts of Asia and the Pacific committed acts of cannibalism against Allied prisoners of war. In many cases this was inspired by ever-increasing Allied attacks on Japanese supply lines, and the death and illness of Japanese personnel as a result of hunger. However, according to historian Yuki Tanaka: “cannibalism was often a systematic activity conducted by whole squads and under the command of officers”.^[45] This frequently involved murder for the purpose of securing bodies. For example, an Indian POW, Havildar Changdi Ram, testified that: “[on November 12, 1944] the Kempeitai beheaded [an Allied] pilot. I saw this from behind a tree and watched some of the Japanese cut flesh from his arms, legs, hips, buttocks and carry it off to their quarters… They cut it small pieces and fried it.”^[46]

In some cases, flesh was cut from living people: another Indian POW, Lance Naik Hatam Ali (later a citizen of Pakistan), testified that in New Guinea:

the Japanese started selecting prisoners and every day one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died.^[47]

Perhaps the most senior officer convicted of cannibalism was Lt Gen. Yoshio Tachibana (立花芳夫,Tachibana Yoshio), who with 11 other Japanese personnel was tried in relation to the execution of U.S. Navy airmen, and the cannibalism of at least one of them, in August 1944, on Chichi Jima, in the Bonin Islands. They were beheaded on Tachibana’s orders. As military and international law did not specifically deal with cannibalism, they were tried for murder and “prevention of honorable burial”. Tachibana was sentenced to death, and hanged.^[48]

From the Vadoma wiki page:

The Vadoma, also Wadoma (singular Mudoma) are a tribe living in the west of Zimbabwe, especially in the Urungwe and Sipolilo districts on the Zambezi river valley. They have few contacts with the Bantu majority.

A substantial majority of this tribe has a condition known as ectrodactyly in which the middle three toes are absent and the two outer ones are turned in, resulting in the tribe being known as the “two toed” or “ostrich footed” tribe. This is an autosomal dominant condition resulting from a single mutation on chromosome number seven. It is reported that those with the condition are not handicapped and well integrated into the tribe. Indeed it may help in tree climbing. The Kalanga of the Kalahari desert also have a number of members with ectrodactyly, and may be related.

The Vadoma are a popular example of the genetic effects of small population size on genetic defects and mutation. Due to the Vadoma tribe’s isolation, they have developed and maintained ectrodactyly, and due to the comparatively small gene pool, the condition is much more frequent than elsewhere.