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Wikipedia Surfing

Wilson WilsonHas anyone else noticed you can visit Wikipedia, view an article, and pretty much end up surfing on Wikipedia for hours? I’ve done this several times now. Just reading and “oh, that looks interesting [open in new tab]”, and by the time I read an article, 2+ new tabs are open. After a while I have a dozen things I want to read. It just goes on and on. A million +1 topics, a semi-coherent pattern, though still pretty random.

If I keep going at this rate, I’ll eventually be like Wilson (pictured right) from Home Improvement, rather than continue to have Tim Taylor like wisdom. Maybe that’s a good thing? I’m pretty sure it can’t hurt to read about various topics, at a minimum it’s mundane conversation ;-).

Did you know that France once awarded the Croix de Guerre to a Homing Pigeon? Before you laugh, keep in mind “he delivered 12 important messages, once despite being shot”.

7 replies on “Wikipedia Surfing”

Man, that’s exactly what I do. Look up an article on Wikipedia, get distracted; and then, about a half-hour later, I wonder what I was looking for in the first place. πŸ™‚

The bigger question is…

Do yo contribute to wikipedia? I contributed a little something on kayak.

I often end up wandering aimlessly through wikipedia, but it wastes so much time that I try not to.

Ever since I first discovered wikipedia, I wanted to contribute something. I tried but found that I didn’t know enough – when people objected to my changes I couldn’t say “I’m right” because I wasn’t completely sure. Just recently though I prepared a talk for my maths degree on an obscure bit of maths called ostrowski’s theorem. I picked it because the proof had been skipped in lectures and was in several books. While looking it up online I found that wikipedia didn’t have a page on Ostrowski’s theorem – well it does now. I’ve just put basic statement and definitions up and I don’t think a detailed proof is what wikipedia needs.

Owen

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