Wikipedia’s 10th Anniversary

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Wikipedia's 10th Anniversary

La 15 Ianuarie 2001 a fost lansat oficial proiectul Wikipedia.
Prima idee de înfiinţare a unei enciclopedii online a avut-o Rick Gates în 1993, dar conceptul de enciclopedie online open-source a fost propus de Richard Stallman prin 1999. Jimmy Wales şi Larry Sanger lansează efectiv acest proiect, folosindu-se de conceptul şi tehnologia wiki promovate de Ward Cunningham.
E de prisos să mai vorbim acum de dezvoltarea, dar şi de importanţa Wikipedia.

Cu această ocazie Time prezintă un fel de clasament al celor mai interesante articole din aceşti ani:

1. List of Common Misconceptions
The easiest way to waste away hours of your day, this page is not only fascinating but almost endlessly informative. This page offers the “facts” (it is Wikipedia after all) and dispels common myths like humans have five senses, drowning victims wave their arms for help and men think about sex every seven seconds.

2. List of Cryptids
Cryptids are animals and plants that might have anecdotal evidence of their existence but aren’t recognized by mainstream scientists (think Big Foot). This handy guide helps you determine whether a creature’s existence is still unconfirmed or discredited. Sounds odd, and it is, but oh so interesting. And, FYI, Nessie is still unconfirmed.

3. Semantic Satiation
We’ve all done it, whether it was a part of a meditation ritual or out of plain old boredom: repeated a word over and over again until it lost all meaning. Well this phenomenon actually has a name, semantic satiation, as well as a handy, cognitive neuroscience explanation for why it happens.

4. Fan Death
As far as urban legends go, the myth of fan deaths is particularly interesting if only for its perseverance. The myth, popular in South Korea, is that if an electric fan is left running in a sealed room overnight, anyone inside the room will be killed. Though the possibility has been scientifically disproven, the legend persists, so much so that electric fans in Korea come equipped with timers, so they aren’t left running all night long.

5. East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry
This page offers a rundown of the major players and their roles in the feud that is thought to contribute to the deaths of two major hip-hop icons, Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. Though the battle began in the early 90s, its legacy is still palpable in today’s hip-hop, which of course, is all the more noticeable once you’ve brushed up on the history of the feud.

6. Longest Word in English
Though it’s a contested choice, the longest word in the English language is 189,819 letters long (that’s 189,679 characters longer than the longest tweet) and the chemical name of titin. And don’t even get us started on pronunciation.

7. List of Unusual Deaths
This page, which doesn’t claim to be complete, lists examples of unique or rare circumstances in which people have died. Gruesome? Yes. Distasteful? Perhaps. Fascinating? Definitely.

8. Nix v. Hedden
Perhaps the most important Supreme Court case regarding food, Nix v. Hedden was the case that addressed whether tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable or a fruit. Yes, that really happened.

9. 6174 (number)
Also known as Kaprekar’s constant, the number 6174 is significant because of this little party trick: Take any four-digit number, that has at least two different digits; arrange digits in ascending order and descending order so you have two figures; subtract the smaller number from the larger; repeat step two. It should take no more than seven rounds to end up at the number 6174. Math!

10. Dancing Plague
The dancing plague refers to phenomenon in the middle ages where groups of people who dance erratically for hours on end, until the literally collapsed from exhaustion. Sometimes groups of people would dance for weeks (even months) on end. Creepy. Maybe this is what the townspeople were so afraid of in the movie Footloose?

La mulţi ani Wikipedia!

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