From Cyberwar to Swimwear

Satori, wikiadventures — Stephen on 28 April 2009 @ 8:27 AM — 1 comment

Today I got caught up in another mini wikiadventure. It started innocently enough, with a fascinating article in the New York Times on cyber security. In the article, they mention the setting up of a “National Cyber Range” for testing attacks against the internet and computer targets. They compare this with the post WWII nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. This of course led me to some Wikipedia articles on those tests, which in turn led me to a history of bikini swimwear. I had no idea how the swimwear got its name until today. There was  apparently an “arms race” among swimwear manufacturers to make the smallest swimsuit possible. Just prior to the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, a swimwear maker had released the world’s smallest one piece called the “Atome”. In response, french engineer Louis Réard, releasing his even smaller two piece design soon thereafter, named it the “Bikini” because it had “split the Atome”.

I am really not certain what I will do with this information in the future, but I assume it will involve cocktails and the filling up of uncomfortable silences.