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February 28, 2016 7:54 PM   Subscribe

The best link on wikipedia. Better on mobile. (non-mobile link here)
posted by the man of twists and turns (94 comments total) 141 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh my god this is amazing. Thank you.
posted by Gaz Errant at 8:03 PM on February 28, 2016 [5 favorites]


Doesn't seem to do anything on iPad Pro. What's it supposed to do?
posted by cjorgensen at 8:07 PM on February 28, 2016


It provides a list of wikipedia pages sorted by distance from your current location.
posted by Gaz Errant at 8:08 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


thaaaaaaaaat's awesome!

cjorgensen it uses your location to tell you wikipedia articles about things near where you are. You might have to enable location broadcast.
posted by numaner at 8:08 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Very nice.
posted by inconsequentialist at 8:09 PM on February 28, 2016


I got two different train crashes, so that was heartening.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:10 PM on February 28, 2016 [17 favorites]


And the closest thing to me is the local train station.
posted by numaner at 8:12 PM on February 28, 2016


I am going to be using this every time I travel. And hell, every time I'm just walking around the city.
posted by Gaz Errant at 8:13 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Metro station, bus stop, bus stop, airport, well fuck me.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:14 PM on February 28, 2016 [11 favorites]


Any way to manually fill in the location (in the URL or otherwise)? The link apparently has no interest in functioning for me.
posted by komara at 8:14 PM on February 28, 2016 [7 favorites]


I just put this on the home screen of my iphone with the rest of my location services, thanks.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:17 PM on February 28, 2016


I've been using Wikihood for this for years!
posted by escabeche at 8:20 PM on February 28, 2016


I get a bunch of museums, plus The Rat. Not bad.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:20 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh, I found something like this years ago. Sadly my neighborhood had almost zero notable attractions.
posted by miyabo at 8:25 PM on February 28, 2016


90m from Jacob's Ladder.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:29 PM on February 28, 2016


This is going to be so much more interesting when I'm not sitting at a desk in the CBD...
posted by pompomtom at 8:32 PM on February 28, 2016


Now I know the official name of my neighborhood, but the Wikipedia page is very long, in part because of what is apparently a long history of violent crime. Well... shoot.
posted by teponaztli at 8:33 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, an option to input an address would be quite nice...
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 8:33 PM on February 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


My town, the county seat, and the local train station, end of list. Can you change the "local" radius?
posted by zeptoweasel at 8:48 PM on February 28, 2016


Is this a new feature on Wikipedia itself? I wrote a hack five years ago using the GeoNames API, and I know I've seen the same thing in a bunch of Wikipedia 3rd party apps. It's remarkably useful, particularly when you're a tourist.

Wikipedia is such a marvel for travellers. I spent a whole hour in a single room at the Louvre just working my way through the Marie de Medici cycle. Without Wikipedia they just would have been another set of grand paintings. Ok sure they're Rubens so obviously they must be Great Art. But that Wikipedia article conveys what they meant, and reading through it while in the room with the paintings was an amazing education. Didn't find that one via geolocation though; I imagine "all Wikipedia articles relevant to inside the Louvre" is sort of an unmanageable result set.
posted by Nelson at 8:50 PM on February 28, 2016 [21 favorites]


oh cool! subway stations!
posted by bigendian at 8:52 PM on February 28, 2016


Oh my god this Etobicoke is amazing. Thank you.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:57 PM on February 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


I learned that the Keystones Cops, and the Tommy Burger, were invented less then 1.3 km from my house.
posted by sideshow at 9:05 PM on February 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


Link #2 for me was "The <place where I live> Massacre", so uh, there's that.
posted by kiltedtaco at 9:07 PM on February 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


Top of the list. So proud.
posted by bondcliff at 9:10 PM on February 28, 2016 [5 favorites]


Mine is almost entirely train yards and public transit stations. Apparently they don't call this neighbourhood the Junction for nothing.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:15 PM on February 28, 2016 [4 favorites]


It's a little bit of a hassle, but you can change the location your computer reports to websites if you want to see results for a different place.

In Chrome in Windows, press control-shift-I, then escape, then the triple-dot button in the new panel, then "Sensors", and then you can enter your desired latitude and longitude (which you can find with Google Maps).
posted by alexei at 9:24 PM on February 28, 2016 [7 favorites]


The article on the skyscraper 90m from my home does not make a case for why it is notable, by like saying anything interesting at all.

In fact most of the 50 things on this list (topping out at 800m away) are kind of boring. Though it is cute to see the Wikimedia Foundation on there
posted by aubilenon at 9:24 PM on February 28, 2016


There used to be a Wikipedia layer in the Google Maps app that placed little Wiki link icons on the map in the relevant locations and it was one of my favorite things about owning a smartphone. Unfortunately they dropped that feature.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:26 PM on February 28, 2016


Interesting! My top result is wrong on wikipedia's end! It's a San Buenaventura in Peru, not CA. Whoops!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:53 PM on February 28, 2016


There used to be a Wikipedia layer in the Google Maps app that placed little Wiki link icons on the map in the relevant locations and it was one of my favorite things about owning a smartphone. Unfortunately they dropped that feature.

Osmand the open-source map app, does Wikipedia Points of Interest.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:53 PM on February 28, 2016 [8 favorites]


My unincorporated bedroom community in the richest county in the US—and the place where Patton Oswalt grew up—is subtitled "human settlement." That about sums it up.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:01 PM on February 28, 2016 [10 favorites]


Good God I miss that Wikipedia layer in Google Maps. It's was truly a sad day when they dropped it.

Thanks for the Osmand tip!
posted by intermod at 10:02 PM on February 28, 2016


Interesting... It showed me a few local places of interest that I hadn't learned about in the 10 years I've lived here...
Closest location, Avila Beach, got it... 2nd closest, Port Harford which USED TO BE just next to Avila Beach...
Some obvious San Luis Obispo landmarks: Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Madonna Inn, Octagon Barn, Bubblegum Alley, Ah Louis Store, but a couple surprises: Pacific Coast Railway Company Grain Warehouse ("the only surviving building from the Pacific Coast Railway's headquarters as well as the only extant grain storage building in San Luis Obispo"... grain storage?!?) and Kundert Medical Clinic (a medical building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, currently housing a Cardiologist who's not in my PPO, darnit).
The "Dalidio Ranch Project Controversy" is in Wikipedia, but no page for the "Tank Farm Fire of 1926" ('localwiki' has it)
And I'm not sure of its geolocating, since the Diablo Canyon Power Plant didn't make the '11 miles' cut, but I KNOW I'm only 7 miles away from it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:03 PM on February 28, 2016


There are apparently so many noteworthy things around my house that my browser can’t even load them. It’s just that cool around here.
posted by bongo_x at 10:06 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


My little neck of the woods has such keen features as the site of the 1861 and 1863 Battles of the Fairfax Courthouse, the tasty 29 Diner, and the home residence of Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the deposed King of Rwanda. Huh.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:14 PM on February 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is so cool! Some of the historic buildings near me don't have photos, I know what I'm doing tomorrow!
posted by books for weapons at 10:20 PM on February 28, 2016 [7 favorites]


Thanks for the Osmand tip!

There's three versions; the full-feature one installed via fdroid for free, the full-feature one installed via google play for some small sum, and a reduced-feature version for free from google play.

I think.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:21 PM on February 28, 2016




I'm leaving for a trip to London on Friday. Bless you, the man of twists and turns, I'm gonna wear this sucker out.
posted by WidgetAlley at 10:27 PM on February 28, 2016


This is so cool!
posted by SisterHavana at 10:30 PM on February 28, 2016


Oooh, it works on the travel guide Wikivoyage and on the media repository Wikimedia Commons, too. And, for those inclined towards structured data, Wikidata.
posted by brainwane at 10:30 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


This plus Hermit = homescreen app!
posted by weewooweewoo at 10:34 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is like one of those magic eye pictures where everyone can see it but meeeeeeeee.
posted by mochapickle at 10:41 PM on February 28, 2016


I've got SpaceEx No. 5 and Beach Boys Memorial No. 6.
posted by SLC Mom at 11:01 PM on February 28, 2016


That's amazing That's amazing That's amazing.

This is happening at every place I ever stop moving forever.

Thank you!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:02 PM on February 28, 2016


That's pretty darn cool. Looks like this is the regular, non-mobile link.

And hey, the Transit Hotel has a Wikipedia page! They even mention the gerbil races. That page needs photos so bad.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:11 PM on February 28, 2016


The very first link was the murder of a woman, shot in the head by her husband while she slept - apparently a hundred or so metres from my house. Thanks, wikipedia!
posted by Jubey at 11:21 PM on February 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


o, wow. I live 540 meters from the Eurovision Song Contest 1970!
posted by ouke at 11:58 PM on February 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


Only 5.4km from the world's steepest street (according to the Guinness Book of Records), but I knew that anyway.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 12:23 AM on February 29, 2016


I changed the "en" to "no" at the beginning of the URL and it pulled articles from the Norwegian language WP in place of English. It might work for your local language as well.
posted by Harald74 at 2:33 AM on February 29, 2016


My wife's aunt recently bought a house (well, half of a duplex) in the National Register of Historic Places, and it's one of the closest places to our house with a Wikipedia page.
posted by graymouser at 3:23 AM on February 29, 2016


Don't Panic!
posted by radwolf76 at 3:39 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


I live near the 2002 Midwest to Mid-Atlantic United States tornado outbreak, which covered 14 states!

(I live very near — within walking distance — of a degree confluence, so a number of articles that cover a very large area, and use integer degree coordinates as a rough center of that area, show up at the top of my list.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:56 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


My little neighborhood, then the local train station, then the borough that contains them both. Mmmm, that's some good boring.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:11 AM on February 29, 2016


The first article for me is "2009 Pittsburgh Shootings." :-/
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:29 AM on February 29, 2016


I'm on the train right now and it's different every time I reload the page! Pretty neat commute entertainment.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:21 AM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


90m from Jacob's Ladder.

Nice Turbid Dahlia, I'm about 1km from there. Do you live in the old windmill?

For some reason it thinks I'm in Sydney, probably because I'm on a desktop.
posted by adept256 at 5:22 AM on February 29, 2016


I forgot that my apartment is in a building that has a Wikipedia entry (it's a prime example of the shift in 1920's Seattle architecture), so that was a nice "the webpage is coming from inside the house" moment for me.
posted by palomar at 5:36 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Apparently I am in the most boring part of St. Louis right now. The most interesting bit is that my desktop has displaced me 5.4km from the building I'm sitting in.
posted by Foosnark at 5:43 AM on February 29, 2016


(also nearby: donut shop, upscale dildo shop, greek orthodox church. i'm gonna miss this neighborhood when my lease is up, despite the hipsters and the guy currently sleeping under my windows.)
posted by palomar at 5:44 AM on February 29, 2016


You will never guess what it found nearby me in Minnesota: A lake. (!)
posted by Wolfdog at 5:53 AM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


For another nifty mobile app for "Cool stuff near me now," check out Niantic's Field Trip in your local app-o-matic.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:02 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


I WISH I lived in a "human settlement." I'm stuck in this dumb old "census-designated place."
posted by rlk at 6:19 AM on February 29, 2016


Another comment from someone who can't use it. Would be very happy if I could just enter my latitude and longitude, or town, or intersection (as in Craigslist) and get a cool list.
posted by amtho at 6:43 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


The official Wikipedia iOS app has this built in and integrated with the phones's compass. (so you can see in what direction the thing is.)
posted by Spumante at 7:04 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


(Is everyone fine with their browser giving their current GPS coordinates to every web site they visit? Because hell no.)
posted by davel at 7:09 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Davel, on iOS Safari you have to grant permission for Web sites to use your location on a case-by-case basis.

As for me, I was excited to discover that every day I walk by the Charles Shultz house, only to be disappointed to discover it's not the Charles Schulz house.
posted by ejs at 7:29 AM on February 29, 2016


Mod note: added the non-mobile link; thanks, duffell!
posted by taz (staff) at 7:55 AM on February 29, 2016


It works even better using the Nearby feature in the iOS app, like brainwane said above.
posted by slogger at 8:04 AM on February 29, 2016


Predictable train and subway stations. What's not so predictable are the compendious entries for light rail stations that won't even be open until 2020, and a series of articles with a nasty sectarian bent on high schools closed after the amalgamation.
posted by scruss at 8:06 AM on February 29, 2016


Meters? Kilometers? I don't live in Europe.
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:45 AM on February 29, 2016


You know that meters do exist in America, even if y'all prefer not to use them, right?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:06 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


Would be very happy if I could just enter my latitude and longitude, or town, or intersection (as in Craigslist) and get a cool list.
amtho, I'm looking around for tools like this that use the GeoData bit of the API and I don't see anything that is exactly what you want, because everything seems to require a lat/long, but GeoHack (written and maintained by volunteers; source code) is close. You enter a latitude and longitude and you get a bunch of options, one of which is "Wikipedia articles" -- if you choose "Layer in OpenStreetMap" then you'll get a map with a bunch of pins in it. Click on a pin to find out more and get a Wikipedia link (example in Berlin, example in New York City).

If you want a list of articles, unselect all the photo-related stuff from this "Geotagged pages needing images" tool (also maintained by a volunteer), tell it the radius you want it to cover (in miles OR kilometers!), and click Submit. It only fetches from the English Wikipedia; here's the source code in case anyone wants to modify it.

And the Wikidata tempo-spatial display shows you a map and a timeline of related events over time. The example, on the Franco-Prussian War, took a while to load for me. Again, maintained by a volunteer -- source code, I think.
posted by brainwane at 9:40 AM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


...or you can just play Ingress.
posted by maryr at 9:45 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


Well, I just learned that the town I'm staying in was the site of a battle during the Civil War in which the First Maryland Infantry from the Union fought against the First Maryland Infantry from the confederacy. Talk about brothers fighting brothers, holy crap.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:00 AM on February 29, 2016


I've been walking past the birthplace of house music several times a week for the past 2 1/2 years and I didn't even know. How cool is that!
posted by 912 Greens at 10:07 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow Paris public transport is dense, 18 metro stations within 2km!
posted by ellieBOA at 11:42 AM on February 29, 2016


If it's not working for you, check your browser privacy settings. My copy of Safari at work had "Website use of location services" set to "Deny without Prompting." Once I changed this and reloaded, it worked fine.
posted by xedrik at 12:08 PM on February 29, 2016


You know that meters do exist in America, even if y'all prefer not to use them, right?

The problem is we're so damn backwards here, we can never remember how many furlongs to a meter.
posted by xedrik at 12:10 PM on February 29, 2016


I am apparently near the remains of Bobo the gorilla, whose skull's possession was disputed for a while.

This is so great. It's on my phone's first home screen now right next to Maps and One Bus Away.
posted by egypturnash at 12:22 PM on February 29, 2016


Oh, man. That link is kind of a bummer when you work in lower Manhattan.
posted by ella_minnow at 12:54 PM on February 29, 2016


Except that my current location is dreadful.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 1:32 PM on February 29, 2016


The top 20 or so links for my location are TV and radio stations. Not because I live near their studios, but because I'm in the midst of an antenna farm.
posted by sixpack at 1:56 PM on February 29, 2016


hah crazzzy the closest thing to me is apparently the void, there must be some sort of bug
posted by threeants at 2:30 PM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Where I am right now is not well covered (at least in terms of location accuracy) by English language Wikipedia. I guess a tool like this isn't just useful for travellers but could also be useful for people who want to contribute corrections.
posted by jpziller at 4:08 PM on February 29, 2016


This is making me feel all puffy about where I live :) though it does seem to be off by at least 15m for my location. (And it's funny that the distances are in metric).
posted by Salamandrous at 5:47 PM on February 29, 2016


Washburn Park Water Tower, which is now the climax of my Tangletown hill runs. I had been meaning to learn more AND NOW I HAVE. Stone guardians of health!
posted by gregglind at 6:46 PM on February 29, 2016


Support Wikipedia folks! It makes a difference.
posted by anadem at 10:07 PM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


After I temporarily undid my 47 levels of security I find that I have a couple of High Schools and a couple of creeks nearby. Whoo hoo!
posted by bongo_x at 10:37 PM on February 29, 2016


Support Wikipedia folks! It makes a difference.

The feature in the post is great, but no way is a cent of my money going to an institution as sexist as Wikipedia.
posted by Pallas Athena at 12:30 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


A similarly cool tool via Reddit: YouTube Geo Search. Lots of real estate videos, apparently.

Also neat: Panoramio, for photos. It's a Google property, though, so enjoy it while it lasts.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:38 AM on March 1, 2016


The article on the skyscraper 90m from my home does not make a case for why it is notable, by like saying anything interesting at all.

Excellent! Time to add some details!
posted by spbmp at 7:08 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Details like:
  • Near aubilenon's home
  • It's construction was very noisy

    But really I'm not complaining about the lack of details. Really I'm obliquely complaining that other stuff that's more interesting than the least notable of skyscrapers has been deleted for nonnotability.

  • posted by aubilenon at 1:14 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


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