The Interesting List

05/06/2024

A long explainer and background article about planning and maintaining the maze of undersea data cables that make the Internet possible.

How one crew risked radiation, storms, and currents to save Japan from digital isolation.

05/06/2024

At a testing center in Upstate New York, the US Air Force has mounted a bunch of planes upside down to test their antennae and communications systems.

From fighters to tankers, the Upside-Down Air Force has tested numerous inverted aircraft since the early 1970s.

27/05/2024

For decades, the United States has regularly dropped hundreds of millions of sterilized insects from planes over Central America to prevent a scourge from migrating north.

Inside the U.S. and Panama’s long-running collaboration to rid an entire continent of a deadly disease

21/05/2024

A man on the run for robbery romanced a local woman while living in an improvised space inside a retail store.

Jeffrey Manchester, who became known as "Roofman," lived a secret double life after escaping from prison.

11/05/2024

In 1972, an Italian singer recorded a song which lyrics that were meant to sound like English, but were in fact nonsense. He sought to prove that Italians would love anything that sounded like English.

Rare, Complete!

26/04/2024

Noise and space requirements make it very hard to build new airports, but we still manage to increase passenger capacity through bigger planes, aster turnarounds, and better air traffic control.

Airports are a critical piece of modern infrastructure. Aviation contributes an estimated 8% to global GDP through direct and indirect effects (ie: the businesses and commerce that it enables), and an estimated 25% of companies’ sales rely on air transport. In 2022, civil aviation in the US flew o...

26/04/2024

Details of a brazen hack of the multi-state lottery system by one of the key security employees that resulted in multiple lottery winnings.

While the odds of winning the lottery are astronomical...what if you could control the odds and put them in your favor? Illegally Winning over $24 Million do...

09/03/2024

Winning an Oscar often comes down to very shrewd awards marketing by film studios.

Harvey Weinstein may be gone, but the devious Oscar campaigning he masterminded remains alive and well. Geoffrey Macnab digs into the Academy Award manoeuvring that ensures the films with the biggest financial backing always come out on top on Oscar night

04/03/2024

A group of Wikipedia editors broke off, and the reasons why give an interesting look into how Wikipedia works, and how different people and subjects can come into conflict.

A group of Wikipedia editors wrote 15,000 articles on US roads and highways. But after a fight over the platform's rules, they went rogue.

04/03/2024

Swiss mapmakers have an odd habit of hiding secret images in maps, for no particular reason.

Find the Easter eggs—or the naked lady.

03/03/2024

An enlightening interview with the head of a firm that recruits home staff for billionaires.

A recruiter for the ultrarich on the upsides — and dark sides — of a notoriously secretive industry.

01/03/2024

With the help of Red Bull, a team builds a camera fast enough to follow an F1 car around a very fast track

This is Formula 1 like you’ve never seen it before. The follow Max Verstappen’s brand new RB20 F1 car for a full lap of Silve...

25/02/2024

There are “bar codes” printed on the ground in multiple places around the United States, used to calibrate spy satellites.

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25/02/2024

Pretending to have native heritage is not uncommon in Canada, where financial incentives are often involved. This is the story of how a mother and her two daughters played the system for gain.

Karima Manji wanted it all for her twin daughters, Amira and Nadya. And she found a way to help them get it: financial aid earmarked for Indigenous kids. The fact that they weren’t remotely Indigenous wasn’t going to stop her

23/02/2024

Due to a change in investigative policy, it’s become much easier to determine the root cause of air incidents. The key was to not try and blame anyone.

The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen.

22/02/2024

Some US currency have a star a the end of the serial number because they were reissued to correct a manufacturing error.

Most U.S. currency contains a serial number that ends with a letter, but some end or begin with a star instead. What does the letter stand for? What is the significance of the star?

21/02/2024

This news report from 2009 is an experiment that proves short men have significant challenges romantically compared to taller men.

29/01/2024

For various reasons, some actors who appear to interact in the same movie, never actually meet each other.

Sam Heughan had several scenes with Celine Dion in the movie Love Again, but it turns out they never even met and everything was filmed with a green screen.

04/01/2024

When movies and TV shows need to do a close-up of some object, they often have the object created or printed at two or three times the size.

One type of movie and television prop we didn't expect to find at The Earl Hays Press are these comically oversized props, like a giant tennis racket and mag...

01/01/2024

A domain name forever enshrined on license plates accidentally expired and was picked up by a very different organization.

A URL on the license plates of 800,000 Maryland cars now redirects to an online casino based in the Philippines.

19/12/2023

In 2016, a single hedge-fund manager moved from New Jersey to Florida. He made so much money, and paid so much in taxes, that this move threatened to throw the NJ budget out of whack.

The hedge fund manager David Tepper’s relocation to Florida is a case study in how tax collection changes when income becomes concentrated in the hands of a few.

15/12/2023

A group of artists collaborated with the showrunner of Melrose Place to insert Leftist political art as props in the show.

Abortion activism, anti-gun propaganda, and HIV awareness, smuggled onto prime time.

15/12/2023

Gold from a lot of different countries is stored in a vault under New York City. Exchanging funds many countries therefore just involves moving gold from one shelf to another.

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10/11/2023

Breeding chili peppers for hotness has resulted in the hottest food known to man, yet people some people just love to eat them.

From hot sauces to eating competitions, chilli peppers have become a global obsession – and the hottest one ever has just been announced. But why would anyone choose to eat it?

10/11/2023

A solid backstory about the undersea cables that you don’t think about, but that move all your data and make your digital life possible.

Laced across the cold depths of the world's oceans is a network of multimillion-dollar cables, which have become the vital connections of our online lives.

10/11/2023

Wales has a library combined with a hotel, so you can sleep next to the books.

For more than 100 years, clergy, scholars and ordinary people have spent their days studying and their nights sleeping in this unique institution.

31/10/2023

Judi Dench recites a Shakespearean sonnet, on the spot, from memory.

As if we all didn't need another reason to love Dame Judi Dench! us here:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/t...

19/10/2023

In 1954, a Japanese finishing boat accidentally wandered into an active U.S. nuclear test. One crew member died in the immediate aftermath, and the rest suffered health problems, mostly dying young.

Daigo Fukuryū Maru (第五福龍丸, F/V Lucky Dragon 5) was a Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.

08/10/2023

A pass migration and a glass building in the flight path were not a good combination.

McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, is largely covered with glass, making it a lethal obstacle for birds

02/10/2023

It takes a lot to launder the linens products by the largest hotel in the United States.

MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas is the largest single-standing hotel in the United States. In one year, the hotel’s laundry division tackles 24 million pounds o...