I suspect that, “beta” release or not, I am late to the wonderfully odd resource that is NNDB. If you have not already been there yourself I must warn you now that, if you follow the link, you may be some time.

“NNDB is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. Superficially, it seems much like a “Who’s Who” where a noted person’s curriculum vitae is available (the usual information such as date of birth, a biography, and other essential facts.)

“But it mostly exists to document the connections between people, many of which are not always obvious. A person’s otherwise inexplicable behavior is often understood by examining the crowd that person has been hanging out with.”

So, for example, you can marvel at the people who Madonna has slept with, dated, or married; you can pity the woman whose main claim to fame is that she has been on the arms of O. J. Simpson, Michael Bolton, and Dolph Lundgren; and you can note that Paula Yates wrote Rock Stars In Their Underpants. You can discover that Michael Powell, Colin Powell’s son, is Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; confirm that Robert Baden-Powell was likely so suspicious of wanking because he was busy being bisexual; and marvel that Colin Firth‘s grandparents were Christian missionaries to India and that he spent four of his childhood years in Nigeria.

[Unfortunately, I can’t explain what’s amusing about all of the site’s content being “copyright Soylent Communications” without giving away the plot of a famous movie, but those who know will smile smugly.]