Wikipedia

You've all heard of Wikipedia, right? I hope so. If not, check it out. In short, it's an online encyclopedia. As it describes itself, "Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers and operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation based in St. Petersburg, Florida." But it's so much more than that. It's a source of nearly infinite entertainment and mental wandering.

Each article in the Wikipedia has links to other relevant articles. Let's say I'm interested in Halloween, for example. I search for "Halloween" and am rewarded with a large article on the holiday:

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31, usually by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting candy. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most commonly in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada and sometimes in Australia and New Zealand. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The form "Halloween" derives from Hallowe'en, an old contraction, still retained in Scotland, of "All Hallow's Eve," so called as it is the day before the Catholic All Saints holy day, which used to be called "All Hallows," derived from All Hallowed Souls.

The article goes on to discuss Halloween traditions, religious perspectives on Halloween, and characters that are commonly associated with the holiday. Let's say that I'm interested in Dracula, one of the characters listed in the article, so I click on the link to the Wikipedia entry on Dracula. The article begins with a basic description:

Dracula is a fictional character, inarguably the most famous vampire in literature. He was created by the Irish writer Bram Stoker in his 1897 horror novel of the same name.

Since I don't know much about Stoker, I click on his name and read the article about him. It turns out that he was born in a suburb of Dublin; I don't know much about Dublin so I jump to the Wikipedia article about it. I learn that that St. James's Gate Brewery (which produces Guinness) is in Dublin, so I click on the article on Guinness. One passage mentions a common misconception about Guinness:

Despite the "meal in a glass" reputation the beverage has among some non-Guinness drinkers, Guinness only contains 198 calories (838 kilojoules) per imperial pint (1460 kJ/l), less than an equal-sized serving of skimmed milk or orange juice.

From here I could go on to dozens of other articles. So, to recap, Wikipedia allowed me to learn in a stream-of-consciousness fashion:

Halloween -> Dracula -> Bram Stoker -> Dublin -> Guinness -> ???

And that's one reason why I love Wikipedia. The other reason is that I can find articles on the most ridiculous of topics. I'll post my thoughts on that tomorrow.

Enjoy the weekend!