wikipedia - crack for the new millenium

[h^2 O]

I spend about 4 hours a day on Wikipedia, mainly because one article has a link to another article, and it gets deeper and deeper and then all of a sudden hours have gone by. Today I was looking up the monks twho burned themselves in protest to the war in Vietnam. This led me to self immolation. This led me to a story about a spy the Soviets caught and cremated alive. This then led me to Heinrich Muller and Klaus Barbie. Turns out Barbie was working for the cia in Bolivia, and he may have been responsible for the murder of Che Guevara. Heinrich Muller led me to a us navy guy who spied for the Soviets. This led me to the us navy ship taken by north Korea in 1968, and the ship is now a museum. This led me to the joint security area along the dmz, which has many anectodes about fights breaking out and defectors making a run for it.
Wikipedia is awesome.

 

[genkisan]

I feel the same way about my Oxford English Dictionary.....




And unlike Wiki....it never goes offline.

 

[h^2 O]

I hear you genki...hey I wonder what the Wikipedia article on your dictionary says? Probably says it was created in the middle ages for the king or something...ill check it out

 

[angustotse]

When I was finishing college all the professor's were bitching about people using wikipedia because 'anyone could write it'.

I bought a laptop a few weeks ago from a teacher at a local university. She didn't clear her history so I killed some time scrolling through the last couple of weeks. Her only resource for her lecture plans is wikipedia! This is a history professor on salary!

 

[Stoner4Life]

I spend about 4 hours a day on Wikipedia, mainly because one article has a link to another article, and it gets deeper and deeper and then all of a sudden hours have gone by. Today I was looking up the monks twho burned themselves in protest to the war in Vietnam. This led me to self immolation. This led me to a story about a spy the Soviets caught and cremated alive. This then led me to Heinrich Muller and Klaus Barbie. Turns out Barbie was working for the cia in Bolivia, and he may have been responsible for the murder of Che Guevara. Heinrich Muller led me to a us navy guy who spied for the Soviets. This led me to the us navy ship taken by north Korea in 1968, and the ship is now a museum. This led me to the joint security area along the dmz, which has many anectodes about fights breaking out and defectors making a run for it.
Wikipedia is awesome.

get a job.......

 

[genkisan]

I hear you genki...hey I wonder what the Wikipedia article on your dictionary says? Probably says it was created in the middle ages for the king or something...ill check it out

Nope...not that early. Dictionaries themselves only started around the mid 1700s.

But you will enjoy the article on the OED......it really is nothing less than the most ambitious scholarly endeavour ever attempted by humans.

 

[rick shaw]

Oxford English tomes,hours on Wikipedia...ah,you know that there is porn.

 

[genkisan]

Oxford English tomes,hours on Wikipedia...ah,you know that there is porn.

One can only beat off so much before callouses become an issue....

 

[ShroomDr]

But ivan the terrible is so interesting...
he killed his eldest son, then the kingdom fell to his mentally retarded son Fedor... who left no heir,
leading to the time of troubles..

I have the same problem H^2O

 

[genkisan]

So....didja read the OED article yet?

 

[ShroomDr]

no i did not.

I like reading encyclopedias from the 70's that talk about WW2, korea, etc, seeing their slant, and how things have changed (finding Eichmann, Bormann, and the info gained after the cold war thaw, etc).

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Y'all are gonna mess around and miss Beavis and Butthead.

 

[h^2 O]

So....didja read the OED article yet?

I did! It's intense man. They started out at Oxford in a room called the scriptorium, and all the entries were hand written and put on shelves...something about pigeon holes.
Seriously a huge undertaking. Like 120 years worth of typing. Guess there's a Dutch equivalent called Woordenbok which is even bigger, but isn't complete.
I would go to bed reading a different volume every night.

 

[h^2 O]

no i did not.

I like reading encyclopedias from the 70's that talk about WW2, korea, etc, seeing their slant, and how things have changed (finding Eichmann, Bormann, and the info gained after the cold war thaw, etc).

Hell yeah man. Was it published before they kidnapped Eichman? I had a book on space from the 80s that showed theoretical creatures on each planet in the solar system....Pluto had a roadrunner creature with organic ice skates.

 

[h^2 O]

But ivan the terrible is so interesting...
he killed his eldest son, then the kingdom fell to his mentally retarded son Fedor... who left no heir,
leading to the time of troubles..

I have the same problem H^2O

Hell yeah. I once looked up Dracula and within a few hours had a complete grasp of Wallachia history. Had never even heard of it.

 

[genkisan]

I did! It's intense man. They started out at Oxford in a room called the scriptorium, and all the entries were hand written and put on shelves...something about pigeon holes.
Seriously a huge undertaking. Like 120 years worth of typing. Guess there's a Dutch equivalent called Woordenbok which is even bigger, but isn't complete.
I would go to bed reading a different volume every night.

70 years for the first edition, 50 odd for the second....and the OED3 will be ready in 2037.

Me personally I am starting on A......will go thru it in order.


Should take me a few of years....mebbe 3 or 4.

 

[genkisan]

And what is really mindblowing is Sir James Murray (the main editor of Edition I) edited 7202 pages of the 15 000+ pages in the first edition.....personally.

 

[h^2 O]

Yeah man its crazy....7,000 pages, that would cause me to go insane like the guy in Pi and have to labotomize myself. you should make note of the obscure insults and swears and work them into conversations with strangers
Still mesmerized by fanny... Has to be some really good stuff in there.

 

[BudToaster]

i love wikipedia, too ... i can spent many enjoyable hours following the links ... i even donate to support it ... taught me what i needed to go from through-hole pcb

to surface mount technology

-- plus some youtube videos for technique -- to make the Bud Toaster computer temperature controlled vaporizer:

 

[h^2 O]

Bud toaster that's bad ass. Does it vaporize or burn it? Either way its cool