Donald Crowhurst (1932–1969) was a British businessman and amateur sailor who died while competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race. Crowhurst had entered the race in hopes of winning a cash prize from The Sunday Times to aid his failing business. Instead, he encountered difficulty early in the voyage, and secretly abandoned the race while reporting false positions, in an attempt to appear to complete a circumnavigation without actually circling the world. Evidence found after his disappearance indicates that this attempt ended in insanity and suicide. (previously: 1, 2)
posted by Trurl
on Nov 17, 2011 -
11 comments
Video footage of the legendary Doctor Fox lecture. "The lecture that Myron L. Fox delivered to the assembled experts had an impressive enough title: 'Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education'. Those responsible for running the University of Southern California School of Medicine's psychiatry department's continuing education programme had taken themselves off to Lake Tahoe in northern California for their annual conference and a continuing education program. There, Fox - who was billed as an 'authority on the application of mathematics to human behaviour' - presented the first paper.
His polished performance so impressed the audience of psychiatrists, family doctors and general internists that nobody noticed that the man standing at the lectern wasn't really Myron L. Fox from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine but Michael Fox a movie actor who though having considerable experience in playing doctors in TV shows didn't know the first thing about game theory."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Sep 23, 2011 -
37 comments
The Observer ran a series of columns by Richard Geefe, a writer whose work was interrupted by his promise to himself and his editors that he would kill himself before the end of November 1999.
First,
second,
third,
fourth,
fifth,
sixth,
seventh,
eighth,
ninth,
tenth,
eleventh, and the posthumous
twelfth.
Reaction in The Independent. [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast
on Sep 16, 2011 -
14 comments
Coal cares! "Puff-Puff™ inhalers are available free to any family living within 200 miles of a coal plant, and each inhaler comes with a $10 coupon towards the cost of the asthma medication itself."
[more inside]
posted by cmoj
on May 11, 2011 -
23 comments
After Nokia announced its strategic partnership with Microsoft (
here), howls of protest came from various directions, with the one getting the most attention being 'nine young investors' proposing a
'Plan B'. But wait...
[more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop
on Feb 17, 2011 -
42 comments
The “LSER” is a response to longstanding requests from subscription holders for a faster mode of self-ejection from the concert hall...The LSER will be a particularly comforting addition to the concert-going experience for patrons anxious about contemporary music, as in the case next month when music director Alan Gilbert will present “Le Grand Macabre” by the twentieth century master György Ligeti.
NY Philharmonic to install new Speedy Exit Ramp. via
Hell Mouth, the blog of
John Adams.
[more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski
on May 13, 2010 -
22 comments
Don't like those commercials that run before the movies in the theaters? Well, this weekend, Kraft Foods is introducing something new to screens across the U.S.,
"two- to three-minute branded-entertainment vignettes" that promise NOT to "knock you over the head with a bat as a brand commercial", but instead they... well... here's an example: Lunchables kids' meals present:
Alien Field Trip* (Warning: more artificially cheesy than Cheez Whiz). Kraft and other big advertisers are betting that
long-form ads will be "the Wave of the Future", and the perfect audience for them will be the folks who have already paid to see "Iron Man 2", "Sex and the City 2" or "Toy Story 3". What could possibly go wrong?
[more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop
on May 5, 2010 -
74 comments
Jani, a hindu man in western India, claims not to have taken in any food or water for 70 years. He has been under 24 hour surveillance since April 22 by a hospital team.
This video goes into a little more detail.
posted by mdn
on Apr 29, 2010 -
82 comments
It
looked legit and not entirely out of the realm of
possibility in today's heated political climate: an anti-gay resolution being introduced in Utah to expel homosexuals from the state. Except that it was an entire, elaborate
hoax courtesy of the
Yes Men.
posted by Leezie
on Mar 9, 2010 -
28 comments
Bogus! Why do fakes get made? Why do people fall for hoaxes? Greed, pride, revenge, nationalism, pranks, and gullibility mix in an archaeological setting. Archaeology Magazine examines eight classic cases, and more.
posted by amyms
on Dec 23, 2009 -
6 comments
The public's
opinion of the field of climatology has been shaken by the
leaked CRU emails. While it's
arguable that the messages show any
wrongdoing,
many pundits have now reached the conclusion that global warming is a hoax, coverup and conspiracy, years in the making with millions of faked datapoints. Sarah Palin has written an
editorial saying Obama should boycott the Copenhagen
COP15 summit.
posted by mccarty.tim
on Dec 9, 2009 -
270 comments
Mass: We Pray is an exciting new project from Boston based game developer Prayer Works Interactive.
Watch the trailer for examples of the 24 different services you and your family can participate in. Don't listen to the sites that
claim this is a
hoax. Preordering begins today!
posted by scrutiny
on Nov 20, 2009 -
45 comments
Master of the hoax finally goes straight. Clifford Irving, author of the now infamous
Autobiography of Howard Hughes, publishes his own autobiography,
Phantom Rosebuds. Irving has already covered the story of that Hughes forgery pretty thoroughly in his earlier book,
The Hoax, and
Lasse Hallstrom retold the story in a
film starring Richard Gere.
Phantom Rosebuds though makes a case for the rest of Irving’s life -
f for fake, the subsequent novels, the jail time and the dramatic consequences of the hoax which draw him into a world of espionage, renegade presidents, and rogue hitmen.
posted by blimp77
on Jul 11, 2008 -
5 comments
Jean Shepherd has been mentioned
before but WFMU's
Beware of the Blog has finally dug out an mp3 of Shepherd himself telling
the story of "I, Libertine" (mp3 link) (
wiki).
I, Libertine was a literary hoax that began as a practical joke. Shepherd asked his listeners ("the Night People") to go into bookstores and ask for a book that didn't exist. Fueled by bewildered bookstore owners and distributors, I, Libertine eventually did end up as a genuine bestseller, proving his point that the process of choosing bestsellers was flawed.
posted by krautland
on Jun 29, 2008 -
11 comments
The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. During the last week of August 1835, the
New York Sun published a six-part article about the discovery - purportedly by renowned astronomer Sir John Herschel - of fantastical life on the moon, including herds of bison, blue unicorns, "a primitive tribe of hut-dwelling, fire-wielding biped beavers, and a race of winged humans living in pastoral harmony around a mysterious, golden-roofed temple." The public's reaction was a mix of credulity and skepticism. Read the full text of the serialized articles:
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4,
Part 5,
Part 6.
posted by amyms
on Jun 24, 2008 -
37 comments
A fairly convincing website for a fake airline added to the outrage some felt in Philadelphia when newspaper ads promised airfares based passengers' weights. "Philadelphia to L.A., $2.25/pound" read the ads.
posted by polysigma
on Jun 11, 2008 -
90 comments
