I'm thinking of going on a cruise for New Year's, Eastern Caribbean, Carnival cruise line. If there are any Memestreamers that would like to join me, let me know. :)

Elonka

A survey of Wikipedia editors and readers, being run by the Wikimedia Foundation.

The survey seems to be fairly well-written, so I am encouraging anyone else who has ever used Wikipedia or any of the other Wikimedia projects, regardless of whether or not you've actually made a change to any page, to participate.

Elonka :)

Wikipedia survey

Neat tool to check number of hits per day, on any particular Wikipedia page.

Wikipedia article traffic statistics

Not just searching current headlines, but now being able to search Google News archives going back years. Yum. :)

The link is sometimes a bit hard to spot. It's on the main Google News page as a link off to the right, or if you're in search display screen already, then click on "All dates" on the left, or "Advanced news search" at the top, to get to a link to the new feature on the search screen. Some of the entries it pulls up list prices that press organizations will charge for a reprint. However, I find that all it really takes to get free access is a library card number, and I can use my local library's website to get at Newsbank or Gale or EBSCOhost and can usually find most of the articles for free that way. Having a quick Google search telling me where to look though, makes searching much easier.

Searching books and periodicals and databases still has a way to go, even with this feature. As I'm doing research, I often find that I need to check multiple databases via library websites to find what I'm looking for, and there is not yet one central "Type your search term here" entry box that will search all the databases for me. But if anybody can do it, Google can. I'm already using Google Books and Google Scholar on a routine basis. Google Books is especially handy. I search for a book, click on "Find this book in a library", to access WorldCat, enter my zip code, and it not only tells me which are the closest libraries that have the book, it'll even tell me if the book is checked out or not. Nice stuff!

Elonka :)

Google News Archive Search

This goes into that category of, "What do you give to someone who already has everything"?

How about a handblown glass faucet?

Glass Faucets by Jim McKelvey

Video clip with Jon Stewart's irreverent take on the Congressional hearings about virtual worlds, and whether or not terrorists might be using them.

Personally, I don't think either side gets it yet, but I still found the clip amusing.

Elonka :)

The Daily Show : Congressional hearings on virtual worlds

There is, I fear, a common rumor
That this group has no sense of humor
We test this out each April first
Which some think the best day, and others, the worst
For Wikipedians of all ranks
On this day launch their jokes and pranks
On the main page, through RfAs,
And in all sorts of other ways

Multiple administrators on Wikipedia had their account access blocked on April 1 for pulling pranks which other members of the community did not find funny (enough). As part of the uproar, Newyorkbrad, one of the members of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee (sort of the WP Supreme Court) wrote a wonderful poem about the situation. Passing it along for those who enjoy following wiki-culture.

BTW, I don't think I blogged about it at the time, but as of December 2007, I too am now one of the 1500-odd Wikipedia admins. Took three tries, and the last two of them were both on the list of the most controversial noms in Wikipedia history, but I finally squeaked in. :)

Elonka :)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/April Fools' poem

Acidus wrote:

Chabrery wrote:
I deciphered the paper N 1 of the treasure of Beale. 2 years of effort.
And now, what to do ?
To indicate here the place ? Bof, I would just as soon go there, but I live in France.
To write a book ? I wrote already one on decipherings in Roman art, another on decipherings in Bible and one more on the magic square in Melancolia of Albrecht Dürer.
Have you an idea ?
The final thing : in Beale, there is well a deciphering and there is well a place to discover.

Chabrery Emmanuel

Talk to Elonka, of Kyrotos fame (and active Memestreamer).

Can you provide more info? I believe someone did a statistical analysis a few years back of the Beale Ciphers and made a good case that they were not enciphered text.

I get emails from people every week or so, claiming that they've "solved" a famous code. They almost never pan out. Usually it's a case that someone moved some letters around, Scrabble-style, and they found the word "the" or something, and so they feel that they've solved the code, and it's up to other people at that point to "finish the job". ;)

Sometimes people come up with a random set of characters and type it into Google, and find out that it means something, so again they think they've "solved" a code.

And often they just move letters around to form an anagram of some phrase, and then conveniently disregard the rest of the unused letters.

To really mark a code as solved, we need:
* A readable plaintext
* A method by which the plaintext was derived
* Sufficient information about the method, such that an independent third party can duplicate the method, generate the same plaintext, and confirm that it is a solution (I once had a guy write to me with complete gibberish plaintext, but he argued that since it was duplicatable gibberish, it should count as a solution). ;)

If anyone can come up with a plausible plaintext and method, I'm interested in looking at it. But just "claiming" that a code is solved? Sorry, talk is cheap. ;)

Elonka :)

RE: Beale's treasure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis

Interesting data on the Wikipedia growth curve.

Slashdot | Has Wikipedia Peaked?

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

* ...that the Mosque of Amr" in Fustat, originally built in 642 CE, was the first mosque ever built in Egypt?

Cool.

When not following Virgil's latest press , my current hobby has been writing Wikipedia articles on medieval Egyptian history. One of the articles I just created a few days ago, on the Mosque of Amr, was considered to have an interesting factoid (first mosque built in Egypt) and got listed in the "Do you know" section on the Main Page today (August 22, 2007). It's a nice bit of recognition. :) I also wrote about 90% of the article on Fustat, which has a pretty interesting story too.

I'm also looking forward to October 13, when an article that I put a *lot* of work into, will be listed as "Today's Featured Article" on the Wikipedia mainpage. FAs are a powerful status indicator in the culture of Wikipedians, and I'm pretty proud of this one. I'm also proud of the date that I requested. It means that an article I put a lot of work into, on the Knights Templar will be featured on the mainpage of Wikipedia on October 13, 2007, which will be the 700-year anniversary of 10/13/1307, the famous date (no, not the origin of the Friday the 13th legend) that King Philip IV of France simultaneously had many Templars arrested and tried for heresy. For more details, read the article. ;)

I also *may* be giving a talk on the Knights Templar at Dragon*Con. We'll see! :)

Elonka :)

Mosque of Amr: 'Did you know?' on Wikipedia