6.28.2006
Most informative encyclopedia entry ever?
I know I JUST posted, but that's irrelevant. What IS relevant is that we all know that Wikipedia is the world's best online encyclopedia, nay, the world's best encyclopedia. It is constantly updated, has articles for nearly everything, and has other sites such as Wikibooks and my favorite, Wikitravel. One of the things I enjoy about their encyclopedia is that at the bottom of whatever entry you're currently enjoying, it has a list of categories. I looked up two people yesterday, Rip Torn and Tony Reali. Rip Torn is a totally awesome actor, most famous for his role as the boss man in Men in Black, but was also in another of my faves, Welcome to Mooseport. At the bottom of his entry, he's under a number of categories including people born in (whatever year he was born), etc., but of higher interest was that I learned he was a Freemason. This is informative. Not so news to me was that he was in the category titled "Living People." Now, this could be useful incase you didn't know whether or not a serial killer had been executed, or didn't get the memo that Lincoln was assassinated, but is it really necessary to have a documented list of living people in your encyclopedia??? You decide.
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2 comments:
I think it is more relevant to have a list of Dead People. You know you've had conversations about some random famous person and said, "What happened to him?" The other person said, "I think he's dead - drunk driving accident or something." You: "No, no, that was the other guy." The only way to resolve this is to look at the Dead People list on Wikipedia. While you're there, you see another name, "I didn't know HE was dead! Dude. I'm so bummed."
It could be the same if you wanted to find out when some living person was born, though, and see someone alive and go "crap, i thought they were dead," or "i bet they eat miracle whip instead of real mayonnaise... yuck. i hate them."
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