gnostek‹›1 / 2WannaCry ransomware attack1910%Malware programsNSA's stolen EternalBlue exploit encrypted 80,000 NHS devices in May 2017, forcing British hospitals to turn away ambulances. The kill switch was found by a 22-year-old researcher who registered a $10.69 domain.+ See More01WannaCry used EternalBlue, an NSA-developed exploit leaked by the Shadow Brokers hacker group.0280,000 NHS devices were hit; surgeries were cancelled and ambulances diverted across England.03A 22-year-old named Marcus Hutchins halted the attack by registering a $10.69 domain name.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Monique Wittig800%Revolutionaries in Queer Theory'Lesbians are not women' — Monique Wittig said it plainly in 1981 at the MLA conference, scandalizing the room. She meant: woman is a class, and lesbians have already defected.+ See More01Wittig delivered 'The Straight Mind' at the 1980 MLA conference, declaring heterosexuality a political regime, not a preference.02Her 1969 novel 'Les Guérillères' featured an army of women burning every text that named them.03She argued 'lesbian' is the only subject position outside the male/female binary — not a third gender, an escape.
gnostekCharles G. Abrell100%Craziest events of the Korean WarOn June 10, 1951, nineteen-year-old Marine Corporal Charles Abrell threw himself onto an enemy grenade in Korea, absorbing the blast entirely. His squad lived. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.+ See More01Abrell was 19 years old and had enlisted from Terre Haute, Indiana, when he died at Hangnyong, Korea.02His Medal of Honor citation records that he acted 'with full knowledge of the consequences' — a bureaucratic phrase for a boy's deliberate death.03Abrell is one of 145 Medal of Honor recipients from the Korean War, 94 of them awarded posthumously.
gnostek‹›1 / 4Emperor Xian of Han1407%Chinese emperors who met an untimely demiseEmperor Xian reigned for thirty-one years as Cao Cao's hostage. He watched Cao Cao personally drag Empress Fu from her chambers and execute her inside the palace walls in 214 CE.+ See More01Empress Fu was dragged past Emperor Xian in the corridor to her execution; he could not intervene.02Cao Cao forced Xian to marry his own daughter after murdering Empress Fu, consolidating control through the bedchamber.03Emperor Xian outlived the Han dynasty by fourteen years, dying peacefully in 234 CE as a feudal prince.
gnostek‹›1 / 8Doom (1993 video game)1407%Stories about legendary video game developmentid Software built Doom in a rented suite above a pizza shop in Mesquite, Texas, in 1993 — John Carmack's renderer was so fast it broke every benchmark tool the team tried to measure it with.+ See More01The id team rented office space in a Mesquite, Texas strip mall directly above a little Caesar's pizza.02Carmack's BSP rendering engine was so fast the team's benchmark software could not time it accurately.03Doom was installed on more PCs than Windows 95 within its first year, according to Bill Gates's own team.
gnostek+7‹›1 / 14Toys "R" Us800%Legendary private equity dealsKKR, Vornado, and Bain Capital bought Toys 'R' Us in 2005 for $6.6 billion, immediately saddled it with $5 billion in debt, and spent 13 years watching 33,000 employees lose jobs as the debt ate the stores.+ See More01The 2005 buyout left Toys 'R' Us paying $400 million per year in interest — money that could have funded e-commerce.02When it filed for bankruptcy in 2017, all 735 U.S. stores closed, eliminating 33,000 jobs.03After public pressure, the PE owners paid $20 million into a severance fund — less than $1,000 per laid-off worker.
gnostek‹›1 / 6Francisco Macías Nguema000%Nuttiest African republic and their leadersFrancisco Macías Nguema killed or exiled roughly one-third of Equatorial Guinea's 300,000 citizens, banned the word 'intellectual,' and had the country's last lubricating oil poured into the ocean to prevent escape by boat.+ See More01Macías banned fishing boats and private radios, sealing 300,000 people inside his personal terror state.02He declared himself 'God' and had churches display the slogan: 'There is no God other than Macías.'03An estimated 80,000 people were killed during his eleven-year rule — roughly a quarter of the population.
gnostek‹›1 / 2A Jake and Dinos Chapman fused mannequin piece from the exhibition Come and See at the Serpentine GalleryJake and Dinos Chapman500%Critically acclaimed modern artThe Chapmans bought a complete set of Goya's 'Disasters of War' etchings — 80 prints of dismembered soldiers — and painted Ronald McDonald and clown faces over the victims' heads. They called it 'rectification.'+ See More01The original Goya plates date from 1810–1820; the Chapmans overpainted them in 2003.02They titled the defaced series 'Insult to Injury,' inverting Goya's humanitarian intent entirely.03Jake Chapman said ruining the Goyas was more creative than making new work from scratch.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Parmalat200%Craziest financial crimesParmalat's CFO produced a Bank of America account statement confirming €4 billion — it was a photocopied forgery. The dairy company behind your supermarket milk had a $14 billion hole in its books. Europe's Enron, assembled with a scanner.+ See More01The forged Bank of America letter was exposed in December 2003 when the bank confirmed the account did not exist.02Parmalat's total debt hole reached roughly €14 billion — nearly twice the GDP of some EU member states at the time.03Founder Calisto Tanzi admitted diverting at least €500 million into family-owned businesses and was sentenced to 18 years.