Bummer and Lazarus were two stray dogs that roamed the streets of San Francisco, California, USA, in the early 1860s. Recognized for their unique bond and their prodigious rat-killing ability, they became a fixture of city newspapers, were exempted from local ordinances and immortalized in cartoons.
August 10, 2012, 11:02pm
![thedailywhat:
Everybody Needs A Hobby of the Day: One man, 1,000,000 edits: Justin Knapp, a 30-year-old Wikipedia editor from Indiana, has spent the bulk of his free time since 2003 giving the open-source encyclopedia the ol’ spit-and-polish, and he’s finally hit seven digits. And that’s easier said than done, considering the site is the sixth most-visited in the world.
Among his crowning achievements on the site is the bibliography on the George Orwell entry, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world; it took Knapp more than 100 hours to complete. He also has tasked himself with keeping the site’s information on music albums up-to-date. And all for what?
“I’ve never accepted any restitution for my work on Wikipedia — it’s purely voluntary. … Far be it for me to say that it’s an act of love to edit Wikipedia. But I really do feel like it helps other human beings. That makes me feel good — knowing that somehow I can be a small part of helping someone who I’ll never know.”
[gizmodo]
From Indiana, no less.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2spwdFSih1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Everybody Needs A Hobby of the Day: One man, 1,000,000 edits: Justin Knapp, a 30-year-old Wikipedia editor from Indiana, has spent the bulk of his free time since 2003 giving the open-source encyclopedia the ol’ spit-and-polish, and he’s finally hit seven digits. And that’s easier said than done, considering the site is the sixth most-visited in the world.
Among his crowning achievements on the site is the bibliography on the George Orwell entry, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world; it took Knapp more than 100 hours to complete. He also has tasked himself with keeping the site’s information on music albums up-to-date. And all for what?
“I’ve never accepted any restitution for my work on Wikipedia — it’s purely voluntary. … Far be it for me to say that it’s an act of love to edit Wikipedia. But I really do feel like it helps other human beings. That makes me feel good — knowing that somehow I can be a small part of helping someone who I’ll never know.”
[gizmodo]
From Indiana, no less.
April 21, 2012, 5:38am
Analog Glitch Image on Wikipedia Article: Television encryption
A scrambled cable channel (possibly VideoCipher II or Oak ORION) as viewed without a decoder. The scrambled image is an old version of the Paramount Pictures logo.
October 22, 2011, 8:50pm
Just browsing and came across this article.
That map is clearly false. Do you really think Sweden and other EU-countries have more suicides than, for example USA? We have very good social security here in Sweden. I never have to worry about starving or not have a roof over my head, while at least 50 million people in USA have a lack of social security, health care, etc..
This article must somehow address the fact that in many countries there are strong reasons for reporting a suicide as something else. There are social, religious, insurance policy reason to avoid reporting a suicide as a suicide. In many countries the system for statistics for suicides are flawed or intentionally falsified. Sweden became known for having a lot of suicides because we are a secular country where a suicide is not hidden for religious or social stigmata reasons, and because we were among the few countries which published true statistics already in the 1950’s.
Also, just out of curiosity, checked the statistics for the search term “suicide” on Google. In interests me in how the conversation surrounding it exists. It’s so taboo, and yet I feel like I just read the other day that American soldier suicide rates had increased in 2010—but I have no comparison and contrast to qualify statements like that.
Also, just started looking after reading an article titled: “Why Facebook makes you sad”.
Also, speaking of Wikipedia, check out “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List”.
February 01, 2011, 7:48pm
And so it begins.
January 1 – Civil partnerships will become legal in Ireland
March 18 – NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mercury.
March 18 – NASA’s Pluto probe New Horizons will cross the orbit of Uranus, after a five-year journey. This will be faster than Voyager 2, which took eight years.
December 31 – All United States troops are scheduled to leave Iraq
California will open the world’s largest solar power plant.
Several electric vehicles are expected to enter the U.S. market, perhaps most notably the Tesla Model S and BYD e6.Predicted solar maximum (also predicted by other research groups for 2012).
The IPv4 unallocated address pool is projected to be exhausted.
The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany will be completed.
Blue Waters, a petascale supercomputer being designed and built as a joint effort between the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and IBM is expected to be completed in this year.
A new definition of the kilogram, based on universal constants, is likely to be announced at the 24th General Conference on Weights and Measures.
Computer games on the subjects of climate change, medical innovation and women’s rights will be developed in 2011.
December 31, 2010, 10:12am
“Every new symbolic order requires a taxonomist to make sense of it. When Renaissance paintings and drawings first became fashionable in the art market in the early 20th century, the primary task of critics like Bernard Berenson was to attribute them, classify them and create a taste for them. Art collectors had to be introduced to the dynamics of the paintings, the names of the painters and the differences among them. Without descriptions, attributions and analysis, Titian’s “Salomé With the Head of St. John the Baptist” is just a clump of data.”
—
The Medium: What Wikipedia is Best at Explaining in the New York Times (as always) by Virginia Heffernan.
This blog/column is probably my favorite weekly reading source from the New York Times, beautiful written, always fascinating, and sometimes profound—as in this particular excerpt which lends an inspiring historical exemplification.
November 07, 2010, 10:56am
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” is a grammatically valid sentence in the English language, used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs.
via Patrick
October 17, 2010, 2:06pm
World’s Largest Buildings Circa 1884
This was on Kottke awhile back, the photographs you can find on wikipedia these days are incredible.
October 11, 2010, 5:15pm
