HELIOLITH

Leet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wow. 2 links in one. (read on before clicking above link)
The thing I really wanted to show you was wikipedia, a completely OPEN (ie. editable and user-synthesized) web encyclopedia. It’s pretty cool. Try doing a Wikipedia search on “capeoira” or even on one of your fancy linguistics terms.

It baffles me that the encyclopedia is completely open. That means by just going there, you can edit any page you like. If you create an error, someone will correct you, because there are so very many people watching the changes to verify accuracy. I personally added a link to the bottom of the capoeira page for Lauren, and changed a word error in the entry under “prolactin” which was a word that mom gave me while we were trying to see how good the encyclopedia was. They accidentally put that breastfeeding was good contraception during the first month of pregnancy, whereas I think they meant to write “postpartum.” That error notwithstanding (I use pretentious words just for your sake =P) the encyclopedia seems really kick-ass.

The second part is interesting as I did a wikipedia search on Everquest just to see if it would be listed, and what they’d say, followed the link for “leet” as part of the description of the jargon that occurs in Eq, and found this explanation of something I’d all but fully comprehended. Enlightening history.

The third tech tip of the day is Firefox, which I’d tried to adopt a month or so ago, having read that it was the shit and way better than IE6 for various reasons. I’m enjoying it so far, and customizing it in a way I couldn’t with IE6.

Anyway, I hope your housewarming party went well. Love you sistah.

[edit 7/27/04- check out the wikipedia thread on copyediting!

–michael

p.s. can you believe ucsc still hasn’t taken down my webpage that i last updated in January of 2001? I graduated in 2002… looking at this page, it really feels like ancient history… http://people.ucsc.edu/~water/ Check it now before they nix it for good lol.