Unsurprisingly, the asteroid named Wikipedia is very well described in the encyclopedia.
Feb 022013
Jan 042013
The wikipedia searches show what was on the minds of people last year.
The list of the english wiki is pretty much predictable – companies, books, movies and news. Only one unknown term – but now I know that One Direction is yet another boy band (and hey, it’s been a good while since the previous).
The list of the finnish wiki, on the other hand, is odd. Half of the terms are as expected, but I really wonder what are the guitarist from Europe, a domestic publish-your-nekkid-pictures-site and Titanic (the ship, not the movie) doing in the top ten.
Jan 022013
Dec 302012
Good to know that there’s a wikipedia article on the concept of applying blunt force to a malfunctioning device.
My personal hall of fame-contribution to the annals of technical tapping is a hairline fracture in the right big toe on account of a television (this was the eighties, a modern screen would burst into atoms at such treatment).
Oct 022012
The persistently static green boat in front of the Nokia House has been a source of multiple espionage-related jokes.
The wikipedia article puts such fears to rest, the story is far more innocent (or even more thoroughly disinformed).
Jul 172012
The classic on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog cartoon from New Yorker has a lengthy wikipedia page of its own.
Oct 072011
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, english language and wikipedia at their finest.
Sep 142011
Yesterday evening I was hit by a sudden memory of a tale from the old woodchuck’s handbook (the copy published by the local Walt Disney company): a mysterious shaft somewhere in the US from which various treasures had been unearthed with great difficulty, since the deep hole kept on filling with water.
Had no idea of the time, place or any real details beyond the above (I probably still own the book, but it’s somewhere at my parents’ place).
Entered a descriptive sentence “mystery hole in the ground that fills with water” into google and was instantly rewarded: the Oak Island mystery remains unsolved to this day.
Aug 172011
1000 entries, everyone’s not interesting, but that’s the par for the course.
May 182011
Educational articles to last an hour.
- Zanclean Flood.
- CSI Effect (my favorite of these).
- Friendly Floatees.
- Deep Web.
- Moscow Metro 2 (awesome urban exploration opportunity.)
- Portmanteau.
- MacGuffin.
- Solar system model (Helsinki’s is one to a billion in scale).
- Tchotchke.
Jan 152011
Wikipedia turns 10 today. Sure, it’s occasionally mired in misinformation and controversy and has been publicly punked multiple times, but wikipedia’s nonetheless a good starting point for most kinds of deeper search.
(Recent topics checked: “witch house” as a musical genre, the names of guest stars on “NCIS: Los Angeles”, the chronology of eighties Macintosh computer releases. And many others.)
Aug 172010
Yay, the tumbleblog that curates the cream of the crop out of wikipedia is back after a long hiatus.
And there was much rejoicing:
Aug 092010
As if the 2155 competing entries on cow tipping, whether it is appropriate to include a picture of a cow with a semi-humorous caption.
Nov 042009
Mamihlapinatapai: “a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start”.
Borborygmus: stomach rumbling.
Neither immediately useful, but both familiar.
Nov 032009
Wikipedia vandalism animated (the page: Nickelback, the most common edit: reference to the band being gay).
Sep 122009
The Best of Wikipedia blog has been on a roll lately.
The daily crop varies in number, but there’s plenty of good items to read up on:
- Bloop (unexplained sound).
- L’esprit de l’escalier (late retort-syndrome).
- D.B. Cooper (mysterious criminal).
- Whale fall (as seen in the Blue Planet).
- Ferret legging (spectacularly dumb sport).
Aug 172009
English language wikipedia hits three million.
The three millionth article is on Beate Eriksen, a Norwegian actress.
Jul 112009
best of wikipedia is a tumbleblog that attempts to provide access to the finest of the fine. Some of the choices are indeed inspired (e.g. color of water), and all in all the selection of two more articles of the day (in addition to the featured article, that is).
Jun 152009
In the continuously growing “never in Britannica”-series: Michael Tritter, a foil character from House, M.D.
Jun 042009
Wikimedia Commons has run a competition for the best pictures posted last year, and the results are filled with variety and awesomity.
Here’s one of my favorites, a macro photograph of Giant Leopard Moth, which neatly proves that it’s not only butterfiles that are brightly colored.
May 082009
Wikipedia does not cease to amaze.
Megamouth shark, a rarely sighted deep sea shark was recently captured in Philippines (and subsequently eaten).
Sightings of this unusual creature are explicitly listed, a practice that probably does not scale up.
Definite bonus item in the article: introduction of a globster concept.
May 042009
Missed the Finnish wikipedia’s breaking 200k articles utterly.
Even though the finnish version nowhere near the quantity nor quality of the original, it’s still a useful reference.
Apr 012009
By far the best I’ve seen this year was about Palm’s sudden follow-up product to the still unreleased Pre: Post. And while some chunks of the proposed feature set are plausible, most are dead giveaways…
Sadly enough, wikipedia has deleted the annual collections of jokes, at least the appropriately named AprilFoolsDayOnTheWeb.com provides insight into what happened across the web.
Mar 082009
Irregular bout of appreciation to the wonders of wikipedia sighted recently:
- Simple english wikipedia was a gift from xkcd the other day. The effort to render complex concepts into form understandable by laypersons is probably much much harder than it seems.
- Unusual software bugs (mostly named after scientists famous for their counterintuitive theories).
- The stippled portraits made famous by Wall Street Journal are known as hedcuts.
- A canonical listing of model railroad scales.
- Every once in a while the domestic wikipedia exceeds the depth of the big original. The article on late Cliff Burton is one such.
Feb 032009
Among the recently featured articles are pearls such as:
- Bone Wars, when paleontologists go wild.
- Year Zero, still the only album accompanied with an alternate reality game. Thus far, that is.
- Edgar Allan Poe, the man who single-handedly kicked off more literary genres than anyone.
- Jack The Ripper conspiracy theories, way more entertaining than Patricia Cornwell’s limp take.
- Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, even murkier than his brother’s (but far less discussed).
In comparison, the selection of chess champions, catholic clergymen and Radiohead albums in the domestic wikipedia pales in comparison. Though this week’s feature on platypus is a pleasant exception.