Tim Donaghy — gnostek

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01Donaghy bet on 57 NBA games between 2005 and 2007, going 70–80% accurate due to inside information.
02He passed tips to Thomas Martino, a childhood friend with mob connections, using pre-paid burner phones.
03Donaghy served 15 months in federal prison; his allegations that the NBA itself manipulated playoff games were never formally investigated.

Wikipedia Canon

gnostek

01Livermore's 1929 short position netted roughly $100 million — equal to ~$1.8 billion today.
02He went bankrupt not once but three times, each time clawing back a fortune from zero.
03His suicide note, left for his wife Dorothy, consisted of a single handwritten page calling himself a failure.

Wikipedia Canon

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Ferrofluid on glass, with a neodymium magnet underneath

01Ferrofluid was invented by NASA engineer Steve Papell in 1963 as a rocket fuel concept.
02Each spike is a self-organising structure where magnetic force and surface tension reach exact equilibrium.
03Ferrofluids now seal the rotating shafts of hard drives in virtually every computer ever made.

Wikipedia Canon

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01At 18 days, the duck embryo has cartilage, a beak, and partially formed wings visible when cracked open.
02Balut is sold from street carts in Manila after dark, marketed as an aphrodisiac for around 15–20 Philippine pesos.
03Vietnamese balut (hot vit lon) is typically incubated longer — up to 21 days — producing a more developed fetus.

Wikipedia Canon

gnostek

01The 442nd suffered roughly 800 casualties rescuing 211 men of the 36th Infantry's 'Lost Battalion' in October 1944.
02The Texans had been surrounded in the Vosges for a week before Japanese American soldiers broke through.
03The 442nd became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history — largely from this campaign.

Wikipedia Canon

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01Materazzi admitted he insulted Zidane's sister; Zidane said the words were 'very personal.'
02Zidane was voted Player of the Tournament despite the red card ending his final game.
03The headbutt was missed by referees but flagged by a fourth official watching a monitor.

Wikipedia Canon

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01Sue's foot bones show gout — a metabolic disease never before diagnosed in a non-avian dinosaur.
02The jaw lesions match trichomonosis, a parasite that today kills pigeons by dissolving bone from inside.
03Sue sold at auction in 1997 for $8.36 million, then a world record for any fossil.

Wikipedia Canon

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3D illustration of Gabriel's horn

01The horn's volume is exactly π cubic units — a clean, finite number.
02Its surface area is infinite, calculated by the same integral that gives the volume.
03Evangelista Torricelli discovered the paradox around 1643, calling it a 'mystical' geometric object.

Wikipedia Canon

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01Pakistan's planners named the operation after Gibraltar, expecting a similar strategic seizure of territory.
02Kashmiris who were supposed to join the uprising instead led Indian forces to the infiltrators' positions.
03The operation's failure directly triggered the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, which ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire.

Wikipedia Canon

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