This user previously used another account: MrHumanPersonGuy.

Highlights

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I don't mean to brag, but by that, I mean... I completely mean to brag!

Best questions and answers at the reference desk

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  • May 2021: Why is the Babylon allegory from the Book of Revelation called the 5-letter W word that rhymes with chore?
    That word is a translation of the Greek word πόρνη (pornē) which means prostitute. It was also a figure of speech for an idolatress, and in the context of Revelation, Babylon is used as an allegory for Rome, which was considered the chief seat of idolatry.
  • August 2021: How far back has something along the lines of "better forgiveness than permission" been said?
    The phrase "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." was popularized by Grace Hopper, though it goes at least as far back as 1846 with an unclear reference to Francesco Barberini.
  • December 2022: Each of the "games for you from the web" featured on Windows 10's Start menu had an infinity symbol with 5 colors on its thumbnail. What was that about?
    That is the logo of FRVR, a marketing-focused games company.
  • January 2023: What does I like your cut g mean?
    Cut means haircut and g is short for gangster, though this particular phrase could be a variation of the older saying "I like the cut of your jib".
  • April 2023: What's with the extremely long YouTube comments that start off with something like "I'm currently crying so hard right now"?
    Each comment of this sort may have have been the work of a bot or program.
  • June 2023: My mouse sometimes treats one click as a double-click. As it turns out, my mouse button occasionally fails to hold for split-seconds unless I press down on it hard. Why does it act this way?
    This is often caused by dirt getting in the way of the actuator. If it bothers you, you may as well buy a new mouse or, if you use Windows, try something called AutoHotkey.
P.S. When the mouse I use has this problem, I sometimes end up in an edit conflict with myself where it tells me that I'm trying to revert the edit I just made. On the other hand, this problem with holding clicks can be useful for grinding games (e.g. Cookie Clicker) where I would have to click the same thing over and over again, in which cases I would attempt to gently hold the button so I could effectively play a game more quietly.
  • September 2023: What does chille tid mean?
    Chilletid is a Danish and Norwegian Bokmål word that roughly translates to "chilling time". It's also a play on the phrase "chill a tad".
  • November 2023: What is this "I know what you want girl" song that is used in those unoriginal world flag map videos with VHS-like effects?
    "all i want is you" by Rebzyyx
  • November 2023: What does fanum tax mean?
    Fanum is a Twitch streamer who refers to the food he takes from others as his "tax", hence the phrase.
  • March 2024: What would lead someone to say e.g. "I am living in Paris since 1992" when they're supposed to say "I have lived in Paris since 1992"?
    That misuse of the word since is reminiscent of how someone in Continental Europe might phrase their sentences. For example, "I live in Paris since four years" is a way to mistranslate the French phrase "J'habite à Paris depuis quatre ans".

Unique jerryfoolery for April Fools

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717
Sus
septunseptium

2023

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At the Science reference desk, I asked for the abbreviation to the provisional name of a hypothetical element of atomic number 717 and got the answer I expected.

2024

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In an effort to attempt to outdo myself, I started a joke RfC at the talk page for the lightbulb essay. However, a bunch of AfD ideas would come to me throughout the day, leading me to pretend to nominate these pages:

We should get over here and finish him.
If Americans were to ask what they could do for other countries, they might be told to put off some pounds and get over their obsession with feet.
Anyone who imagines the sun setting on the Empire is presumed to be a member of the rebel alliance and a traitor. In the event that the emperor starts training the constables to read minds and starts levying taxes on tinfoil and Faraday cage-like headgear, His Highnesty's subjects may have to learn to censor their mind's eye in order to avoid being caught.
How this city got the works is classified information that the average reader is unlikely to have the required Turkish clearance for. Besides, the name is outdated.
I, in my full official capacity as an editor and contributor to the World Wide Web site known as en.Wikipedia.org, The Free Encyclopedia (henceforth "Wikipedia" or "the Site"), do hereby declare the particular Wikipedia page entitled "Sovereign citizen movement" (henceforth "the page of concern") to be exempt from inclusion on the Site. Furthermore, as the page of concern has been declared exempt from inclusion on the Site, any and all consensus amongst "the Wikipedia community" that the page of concern complies with the Site's "general notability guideline" is hereby null and void.
Objection I mean Keep: Articles aren't deleted because an editor declares them "exempt from inclusion" nor can anyone override consensus. This nomination is a blatant attempt at wikilawyering.
Not only are there outlandish words in its name, it also has many outlandish words within itself and should be thrown out.
The fact that this vehicle was quickly built by hand to save a man who fell into a river in Lego City that one time isn't enough to make it notable.
This article contains incomprehensible abominations that may put readers (especially humans) at a substantial risk of losing their sanity. Besides, Wikipedia already has plenty of articles on large entities that don't give a hoot about how their actions affect the lives of the mortals beneath them.
Just because he says his schemes will "go down in history" doesn't mean that they will. Besides, if anyone is #1, it's Smitty Werben Jaegerman Jensen.
These creatures should at least be partially blocked from freshwater bodies and topic banned from physical contact in order to mitigate further incidents of harassment from them. If they continue to misbehave, further remedies may be pursued.
These brothers from Danville can't get any of their backyard projects to last long enough for their mother to see when she comes home, so how are they supposed to maintain sustained coverage in any source outside of the Tri-State Area?
These bot farms have made or attempted to make disruptive edits to civilizations across the galaxy, recruiting many innocent contributors in the process.
Delete per WP:CRYSTAL and the Outer Space Treaty. Humanity has yet to maintain a crewed presence anywhere further than our own moon, so a military offensive against targets on Saturn's largest natural satellite would be out of the question for now.
This missing island currently belongs to Leafy and is strictly for the birds, not to mention that it sounds like a disease. Delete per WP:BFDI.
Voters, if your comments look like this, we did not count your vote! You have to be more careful!
Please don't argue with the disembodied reggae space voice.
April Fools' Day is over, isn't it? Why can't I move on?

2025

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Good jokes and other kept sense

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Articles with ridiculously long titles

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Article titles with multiple meanings

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Article prose with multiple meanings I thought would be funny

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  • Air Force One photo op incident:
    Although the planes were engaged in a photo op and training exercise, the citizens of New York and New Jersey had not been informed in advance; some thought it could be the makings of a terrorist attack similar to the September 11 attacks. Some people ran out of buildings while others had extra buildings to spare. When all the buildings were used up, new ones had to be built to meet demand.
  • Alliance Defending Freedom:
    In Sweden, a midwife, Ellinor Grimmark, sued the province of Jönköping for discrimination because she was refused employment when, citing "freedom of conscience", she refused to give morning-after pills, perform abortions, or put in copper IUDs. She lost both her hearing before the Discrimination Ombudsman, and at the Jönköping district court, prompting her to get a hearing aid and a sign language interpreter.
  • Santa Claus: The Christmas issue of NOAA's Weather Bureau Topics with "Santa Claus" streaking across a weather radar screen, 1958
    I find it unbelievable that Santa would do such a thing, especially during the winter. Even if all the children are asleep, he should at least put some pants on before he gets on his sleigh, and definitely before going down any chimney. I know the baby Jesus is sometimes shown in his birthday suit, but that doesn't justify such naughty behavior. On the other hand, that would explain why Santa prefers to let kids see him at the mall rather than at their homes on the night before Christmas.

Obscure topics that seem interesting

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Wacky facts I've found

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  • Ganesha in world religions:
    He is honoured with Motaka, sweets and fruit, when business is good, and he is made ridiculous by putting his picture or statue upside down, when business is down.
  • Islam and magic:
    In Iran in 2011, 25 advisers and aides of the then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei were arrested on charges of practising sorcery and black magic. According to "the top sorcerer among Iran's ruling elite" (top "according to associates clients and government officials"), Ahmadinejad met with him "at least twice" (Ahmadinejad denies the charges), and was just one among "dozens" of high Iranian government officials" who consult him on "matters of national security". The "top" sorcerer (claims to) regularly contact Jinn who "work for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, and for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency", and has had 'a long battle to infiltrate the Israeli jinn and find out what they know.'" The sorcerer also claimed that not only did jinn work for the US and Israel, but that some were being used by him "to infiltrate" the intelligence agencies of Israeli and U.S. [sic]
  • Maji Maji Rebellion:
    A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale, who practiced folk Islam that incorporated animist beliefs, claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo. Ngwale began calling himself Bokero and developed a belief that the people of East Africa had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. German anthropologists recorded that he gave his followers war medicine that would turn German bullets into water. This "war medicine" was in fact water (maji in Kiswahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds. Empowered with this new liquid, Bokero's followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion.
    ...
    German troops, armed with machine guns, departed from Mahenge to the Ngoni camp, which they attacked on 21 October. The Ngoni soldiers retreated, throwing away their bottles of war medicine and crying, "The maji is a lie!"
  • March on the Pentagon:
    Not to be dissuaded, Abbie Hoffman vowed to levitate the Pentagon claiming he would attempt to use psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon until it would turn orange and begin to vibrate, at which time the war in Vietnam would end.
  • Ryūjin:
    One legend involving Ryūjin is the story about how the jellyfish lost its bones. According to this story, Ryūjin wanted to eat monkey's liver (in some versions of the story, to heal an incurable rash), and sent the jellyfish to get him a monkey. The monkey managed to sneak away from the jellyfish by telling him that he had put his liver in a jar in the forest and offered to go and get it. As the jellyfish came back and told Ryūjin what had happened, Ryūjin became so angry that he beat the jellyfish until its bones were crushed.
  • The Nose (Gogol short story)
    "The Nose" is divided into three parts and tells the story of Collegiate Assessor ('Major') Kovalyov, who wakes up one morning without his nose. He later finds out that his nose has developed a life of its own, and has apparently surpassed him by attaining the rank of State Councillor.