Do you like integer sequences? Do you like poking around in the
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? Do you think, whoa, wait, okay, actually I like integer sequences but the OEIS is a goddam intractable maze of numbers? Do you think, man, what I wish is that someone would make an accessible blog that discusses some of the interesting entries in the OEIS for the casual fan of integer sequences? Well, that's an amazing coincidence; you should take a look at
The On-Line Blog of Integer Sequences, by our very own
Plutor.
posted by cortex
on May 5, 2011 -
26 comments
Here’s what we think the Editor Trends Study tells us: Between 2005 and 2007, newbies started having real trouble successfully joining the Wikimedia community. Before 2005 in the English Wikipedia, nearly 40% of new editors would still be active a year after their first edit. After 2007, only about 12-15% of new editors were still active a year after their first edit. Post-2007, lots of people were still trying to become Wikipedia editors. What had changed, though, is that they were increasingly failing to integrate into the Wikipedia community, and failing increasingly quickly. The Wikimedia community had become too hard to penetrate. -
The Wikimedia Strategy March 2011 Update discusses wikipedia's declining ability to retain new editors. Meanwhile the case of the
deletion (and restoration) of the article on the
remarkably notable Old Man Murray highlights the bad decisions that can occur when insular admins and editors favor deletionist sentiment and bureaucratic rule-waving over the input of outsiders and a basic level of research.
posted by Artw
on Mar 11, 2011 -
96 comments
Everybody knows
TVTropes is the best and most
time-
killing-est way to learn about the clichés and archetypes that permeate modern media. But dear reader, there is
so much more. Enter
Useful Notes. Originally created as a place for tropers to pool factual information as a writing aid, the subsite has quietly grown into a small wiki of its own -- a compendium of crowdsourced wisdom on a staggering array of topics, all written in the site's signature brand of lighthearted snark. Though it reads like an irreverent and informal Wikipedia, its articles act as genuinely useful primers to complex and obscure topics alike, all in service of the project's five goals: "To debunk common media stereotypes; to help you understand some media better; to educate, inform and sometimes entertain; to promote peace and understanding (maybe); and... to facilitate world domination." Sounds about right. Click inside for bountiful highlights... if you dare.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 26, 2010 -
43 comments
Snippets of poetry from the Imperium; a sample folk tale from the Oral History; brief biographies of over a dozen Duncan Idahos; two differing approaches to Paul Muad'Dib himself and to his son Leto II; Fremen recipes; Fremen history; secrets of the Bene Gesserit; the songs of Gurney Halleck -- these are just some of the treasures found when an earthmover fell into the God Emperor's no-room at Dar-es-Balat. Out of print for more than two decades, disavowed by Frank Herbert's estate, and highly sought-after by fans, the legendary
Dune Encyclopedia is now available online as
a fully illustrated and searchable PDF [direct link].
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Sep 1, 2010 -
55 comments
WiserEarth is a user-editable relational database that aspires to list, categorize, and describe every non profit and civil society organization on Earth. It currently includes
104,
304 organizations which can be viewed by
name,
location, or
areas of focus. You can perform
complex searches. You can post (or search)
jobs,
events, and
resources. You can discuss areas of focus, such as
Urban Forestry,
Evolutionary Ecology, or
government oversight and reform. You can also
visualize the networks connecting these areas of focus and
the various organizations.
posted by alms
on May 9, 2007 -
6 comments
Pliny's Natural History, the first encyclopedia. Featuring chapters like
"Other wonderful things related to dolphins" and one mentioning the
lynx and the sphinx in a single passage. Obviously he got a lot
very wrong, but it launched a tradition of authoritative encyclopedias. More recently, you hopefully know that the
forty-four million word eleventh (1911) edition of Encyclopedia Britannica is online, later volumes are not, but you can still find elsewhere
Trotsky's article on Lenin,
Freud's on psychoanalysis,
Houdini on conjuring, or
Lawrence of Arabia on guerillas. Britannica also offers a
series of articles from its archives showing how views on
Mars or the debate in 1768 over whether
California was an island. Other fascinating encyclopedias online include the
1906 Jewish Encyclopedia and the
1908 Catholic Encyclopedia, and the
Encyclopedia Mythica.
posted by blahblahblah
on Jul 5, 2005 -
16 comments
Cellphedia is a
thesis project created by Limor Garcia (NYU). It's a cell phone application that allows to send and receive encyclopedia-type inquiries through Text messaging. A user will be able to get all the information they need – from “how old is the queen of England?” to “how many miles is the Brooklyn Bridge?” – through a real-time social network, while walking in the street.
posted by stbalbach
on May 3, 2005 -
6 comments
The Jewish Encyclopaedia. 'This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations.'
posted by plep
on Jul 4, 2004 -
9 comments
The Insectlopedia has proven to be a fun distraction from human-based work today. Not too many places keep so much info on bugs handy and updated. Mostly a page of links to off-site content, yet it keeps drawing me back for more. Everything from the Social Wasps of Siberia to Live Beecams can be found here.
posted by salsamander
on Mar 1, 2004 -
3 comments
The Encyclopedia of Arda A reference guide to Tolkien-can't tell an orc from a Uruk-hai? Stumped at what the three kinds of hobbits are? This website has the answers. Nicely laid out site, too.
posted by konolia
on Jan 4, 2004 -
7 comments
The 1911 Encyclopedia, or the LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia, is advertised as "what many consider to be the best encyclopedia ever written. As a research tool, this 1911 encyclopedia edition is unparalleled - even today." But what about the definition for
Negro? It reads in part: "A dark skin, varying from dark brown, reddish-brown, or chocolate to nearly black; dark tightly curled hair, flat in transverse section,1 of the 'woolly' or the 'frizzly' type; a greater or less tendency to prognathism; eyes dark brown with yellowish cornea; nose more or less broad and flat; and large teeth." Can an encyclopedia with definitions like these be considered useful at all?
posted by josephtate
on Nov 24, 2003 -
40 comments
Can you stump the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? Every identifiable sequence known to man, including:
Name: Busy Beaver problem: maximal number of steps that an n-state Turing machine can make on an initially blank tape before eventually halting.
Comment: The sequence grows faster than any computable function of n, and so is non-computable.
Keywords: hard,huge,nice,nonn,bref
If your sequence does not appear there, you might want to try the
Super Seeker.
posted by vacapinta
on Apr 15, 2002 -
9 comments
WhatIs - Definitions for thousands of the most current IT-related words.
Not everyone knows about this site. It is pretty helpful for a quick lookup for anything computer related.
posted by sikander
on Jul 11, 2001 -
3 comments
