gnostek‹›1 / 8Marina Abramović700%disturbing art workIn 'Rhythm 0,' Abramović lay passive for six hours while strangers chose from 72 objects — including a loaded gun and rose thorns — to do whatever they wished to her body. She was cut, kissed, and aimed at.+ See More01The 72 objects included a scalpel, a whip, honey, a feather, a rose, and one loaded pistol.02By hour four, a stranger had cut her throat with a razor blade and licked the blood.03She was weeping silently when the six hours ended — unaware she had been crying the whole time.
gnostek‹›1 / 4Margaret Atwood000%People who would be the ultimate dinner party guests (living today)Margaret Atwood co-invented the LongPen — a robotic signing device transmitting her pen strokes in real time from anywhere on earth — so she could "be" at book signings without flying. She filed the patent in 2004 and the company still operates.+ See More01Atwood co-founded Unotchit Inc. in 2004 to commercialize the LongPen, which transmits handwriting via tablet in real time.02She has published over sixty books across poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism across six decades.03Her novel 'The Handmaid's Tale,' published in 1985, spent 52 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after the 2016 U.S. election.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Iamblichus5805%Most obscure philosophersHe rose ten cubits off the ground — glowing gold — while his students watched twice. A Syrian Neoplatonist who made ritual magic philosophically respectable. What do you do with a man who keeps floating?+ See More01Students witnessed Iamblichus levitate ten cubits, bathed in golden light, on two separate occasions.02He systematized theurgy — divine ritual magic — as philosophically superior to mere intellectual contemplation.03His commentary on Pythagoras described numerical mysticism as the architecture underlying all reality.
gnostek+8‹›1 / 15Mycenae000%City walls of antiquityThe limestone blocks at Mycenae's walls weigh up to 6 tonnes each, fitted without mortar across a circuit that stood 900 years before the Greeks of Thucydides's era declared their ancestors could not have built it.+ See More01Individual blocks in the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae weigh up to 6 tonnes, stacked without mortar or binding agent.02The Lion Gate lintel stone alone weighs approximately 20 tonnes and has remained in place since around 1250 BCE.03Ancient Greeks named the construction style 'Cyclopean' because they believed only one-eyed giants could have lifted such stones.
gnostek+25‹›1 / 32Phineas Gage600%the 10 most interesting wikipedia articles everIn 1848, a 3.5-cm iron tamping rod blasted through Phineas Gage's left cheekbone and out the top of his skull. He survived, walked to a cart — and became an entirely different man.+ See More01The 13-pound, 3.5-foot tamping iron entered below Gage's left eye and exited through the top of his skull.02Before the accident, Gage was a reliable foreman; after, he was profane, impulsive, and unable to keep any job.03Gage kept the rod for the rest of his life; both he and the iron are now at Harvard Medical School.
gnostekGödel's incompleteness theorems9011%trippy findings in mathGödel proved in 1931 that any system strong enough to do arithmetic contains true statements it cannot prove. Mathematics cannot certify its own foundations. The proof fits in a single paper published at age 25.+ See More01Gödel was 25 when he published the incompleteness theorems in 1931, ending Hilbert's formalist program.02He encoded mathematical statements as numbers — 'Gödel numbering' — so a system could talk about itself.03The Second Theorem: no consistent system can prove its own consistency — foundations float free.
gnostek‹›1 / 4Titanfall 2300%Best first person shooter games ever madeOne level drops players into a factory mid-demolition, then hands them a device that rewinds time — walls rebuild, catwalks reappear, fire retreats — letting a player walk across a collapsing structure by running backward through its own destruction.+ See More01The level 'Effect and Cause' is widely cited as one of the greatest single game levels ever designed.02Titanfall 2 sold modestly on release in 2016, sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty launches.03The time-rewind mechanic runs both environments simultaneously in memory, swapping the player between them in real time.
gnostekTimothy Wilson Spencer100%Most significant murders in Virginia since 1900Timothy Spencer was executed in Virginia in 1994 as the first person in U.S. history put to death on DNA evidence alone — evidence that also exonerated David Vasquez, who had already confessed and pled guilty to one of Spencer's murders.+ See More01Spencer's DNA conviction in 1994 was the first execution in U.S. history based solely on genetic evidence.02His DNA simultaneously exonerated David Vasquez, who had falsely confessed and served five years for one murder.03Spencer killed four women in the Richmond area between 1987 and 1988; he was called 'The Southside Strangler.'
gnostek‹›1 / 3Ed Gein800%most gruesome serial killersEd Gein upholstered chairs with human skin and wore a vest stitched from a woman's torso — all sourced from Plainfield, Wisconsin graves. He inspired Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, and Norman Bates, yet killed only two confirmed victims.+ See More01Gein crafted a full 'woman suit' from skin to wear while dancing under the moonlight.02Police found ten skulls — some sawn open, some used as bowls — at his farmhouse in 1957.03He killed only two confirmed people; his most disturbing trophies came from exhumed graves.