The best of Wikipedia
The Best of Wikipedia blog collects interesting entries from Wikipedia. Some recent entries include Lawsuits Against God, Missing White Woman Syndrome, and Dead Cat Bounce.
Cheating on the Rorschach test
After someone posted all ten of the Rorschach inkblots to Wikipedia along with the most common responses to them, some psychologists cried foul, saying that the responses could be used by people to "cheat" on the tests.
"The more test materials are promulgated widely, the more possibility there is to game it," said Bruce L. Smith, a psychologist and president of the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods, who has posted under the user name SPAdoc. He quickly added that he did not mean that a coached subject could fool the person giving the test into making the wrong diagnosis, but rather "render the results meaningless."
To psychologists, to render the Rorschach test meaningless would be a particularly painful development because there has been so much research conducted - tens of thousands of papers, by Dr. Smith's estimate - to try to link a patient's responses to certain psychological conditions. Yes, new inkblots could be used, these advocates concede, but those blots would not have had the research - "the normative data," in the language of researchers - that allows the answers to be put into a larger context.
I was not aware that the inkblot tests were even in use anymore...seems like an antiquated technique.
A short digital ramble
I read Cynical-C everyday; the other day I ran across this post about the Dancing Plague of 1518.
The Dancing Plague (or Dancing Epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace, France (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in July 1518. Numerous people took to dancing for days without rest, and over the period of about one month, most of the people died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.
Wikipedia is great but I like to dig back into the "primary" sources. A Discovery News article tells of a book called A Time to Dance, a Time to Die whose author says that the dancing was a result of mass hysteria caused by high levels of psychological distress in the community. That article also mentions the Tanganyika laughter epidemic:
The epidemic seems to have started within a small group of students in a boarding school, possibly triggered by a joke. Laughter, as is commonly known, is in some sense contagious, and for whatever reason in this case the laughter perpetuated itself, far transcending its original cause. Since it is physiologically impossible to laugh for much more than a few minutes at a time, the laughter must have made itself known sporadically, though reportedly it was incapacitating when it struck. The school from which the epidemic sprang was shut down; the children and parents transmitted it to the surrounding area. Other schools, Kashasha itself, and another village, comprising thousands of people, were all affected to some degree. Six to eighteen months after it started, the phenomenon died off.
That epidemic was covered at length in Radio Lab's Laughter episode from earlier in the year.
But back to the Dancing Plague. That article links to a page on another form of mass hysteria, penis panic.
Genital retraction syndrome (GRS), generally considered a culture-specific syndrome, is a condition in which an individual is overcome with the belief that his/her external genitals -- or also, in females, breasts -- are retracting into the body, shrinking, or in some male cases, may be imminently removed or disappear. A penis panic is a mass hysteria event or panic in which males in a population suddenly believe they are suffering from genital retraction syndrome.
Which in turn guides us to a 2008 article in Harper's, A mind dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves. George Costanza had a personal case of penis panic in the Seinfeld episode entitled The Hamptons.
George is seen naked by Jerry's girlfriend Rachel, to whom he tries vainly to explain that, having just gotten out of the cold water, he is a victim of penile "shrinkage."
Penis panic put me in mind of a similar phenomenon and after a couple of failed searches -- "afraid to pee", "pee in public" -- I finally found it: paruresis, aka "pee shyness, shy kidney, bashful bladder, stage fright, urophobia or shy bladder syndrome".
Paruresis [...] is a type of phobia in which the sufferer is unable to urinate in the (real or imaginary) presence of others, such as in a public restroom. It can affect both males and females. The analogous condition that affects bowel movement is called parcopresis.
Paruresis has been referenced in several movies, TV shows, books, and other media.
Stage fright always puts me in mind of this New Yorker article by John Lahr about the phenomenon (subscribers-only version). From there, it's relaxed concentration all the way down, a topic on which I could digitally ramble all day, so let's stop there.
(I took the title of this post from the online excursions that Rosecrans Baldwin conducts for the NY Times' The Moment. Apologies and thanks.)
Why I love Wikipedia, reason #4193: the entry
Why I love Wikipedia, reason #4193: the entry for buttock cleavage. Also called the "coin slot", "builder's bum", "plumber's butt", or "Dagenham smile".
Why have I not looked at the
Why have I not looked at the Wikipedia page for Ocean's Eleven before now? Best part is the description of the crazy names for the cons referenced in the movie.
Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.
Sadly, the page for Ocean's Twelve has no corresponding list, save for a description of the Lookie-Loo with a Bundle of Joy.
Funny Engrish menu error at a Beijing
Funny Engrish menu error at a Beijing restaurant: "stir-fried wikipedia". (via waxy)
Wikipedia articles about unusual places, names, people,
Wikipedia articles about unusual places, names, people, and cultural artifacts. This could keep Boing Boing running for years.
Wikigroaning: comparing sparse Wikipedia entries about high
Wikigroaning: comparing sparse Wikipedia entries about high culture topics with the more fleshed-out entries about low culture topics. For instance, compare the entries for Hammurabi, who wrote some of the world's first legal codes, and Emperor Palpatine, who ruled the Empire in the Star Wars movies.
Now witness the firepower of this fully
Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle encyclopedia. See also fully armed and operational battle Cuisinart, fully armed and operational battle shed, fully armed and operational battle blog, and fully armed and operational battle subwoofer.
The McMansion page on Wikipedia is surprisingly
The McMansion page on Wikipedia is surprisingly detailed. Other terms for a McMansion include Faux Chateau, Frankenhouse, Starter Castle, and Parachute Home. The Lawyer Foyer refers to "the two-story entry space typically found on many McMansions which is meant to be visually overwhelming but which contributes little to the useful space of the house".
A suggested entry for New York City
A suggested entry for New York City for Conservapedia, a Wikipedia without the liberal bias. "The city's population is often reported by the mainstream media to be as high as 8 million -- but a rigorous count of actual Americans, using the methods of Adjusted Freedom Demography pioneered by Smorgensen in the Patriot Census of 2005 (i.e., excluding immigrants, Jews, ivory-tower communists, and nonrepresentational artists, and counting only three-fifths of descendants of African slaves, as originally intended by the Framers), reveals that New York City's population of legitimate Americans is actually only 312."
He's not a doctor, but he plays one on the web
The letters to the editor section of the New Yorker this week contains a correction to Stacy Schiff's piece in the magazine about Wikipedia from July 2006. The piece included an interview with Essjay who was described in the article as a tenured professor with a Ph.D. Turns out that Essjay wasn't exactly who he said he was:
At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay's real name. Essjay's entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia administrators and contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from those he had ruled against online. Essjay now says that his real name is Ryan Jordan, that he is twenty-four and holds no advanced degrees, and that he has never taught.
The full editor's note is appended to the original article.
"A sock puppet is an additional username
"A sock puppet is an additional username used by a Wikipedian who edits under more than one name."
What's the meaning of life? Wikipedia has the answer.
What's the meaning of life? Wikipedia has the answer.
Wikipedia explains R&B: "She orders
Wikipedia explains R&B: "She orders a milkshake and begins to blow bubbles into it (a possible allusion to oral sex). She continues to prance throughout the restaurant and walks into the kitchen, 'helping' the chef remove biscuits from the oven as she purposely moves her buttocks (which the biscuits are shaped like) near his face to possibly make him wish to have sex with her, yet he shows no interest in her and she leaves in dismay."
No nofollow
All links on Wikipedia now automatically use the "nofollow" attribute, which means that when Google crawls the site, none of the links it comes across get any PageRank from appearing on Wikipedia. SEO contest concerns aside, this also has the effect of consolidating Wikipedia's power. Now it gets all the Google juice and doesn't pass any of it along to the sources from which it gets information. Links are currency on the web and Wikipedia just stopped paying it forward, so to speak.
It's also unclear how effective nofollow is in curbing spam. It's too hard for spammers to filter out which sites use nofollow and which do not and much easier & cheaper just to spam everyone and everywhere. Plus there's a not-insignificant echo effect of links in Wikipedia articles getting posted elsewhere so the effort is still worth it for spammers.
Related to the rules for calling shotgun
Related to the rules for calling shotgun is the five-second rule, referring to the foods that fall on the ground or chair-claiming rules at parties and not the obsolete ice dancing rule or estimating the distance of a lightning strike. "The five second rule is sometimes called the three-second rule, seven-second rule, 10-second rule, or the 15-second rule, to some extent depending on locale, the quality of the food involved or the intoxication level of the individual quoting the rule." See also cooties: "Other than avoiding those with the fictional disease, there are a variety of ways to cure or prevent cooties. A 'cootie shot' can be administered in a variety of ways. The most common is to draw two circles and two dots with a finger on one's arm, while saying the rhyme 'Circle circle, dot dot, now you have a Cootie shot.'"
The entry for calling shotgun on Wikipedia.
The entry for calling shotgun on Wikipedia. There are almost 60 special amendments to the "official" rules, including "Amendment IX: Australian Shotgun. Originally from Australia, if two people tie for shotgun, then the first person to put their thumb on their head is awarded shotgun. If they both do this at the same time, then an immediate pissbolt (race) to the car is required." (via zach, who says "best Wikipedia entry ever?")
The Atlantic Monthly tackles the subject of
The Atlantic Monthly tackles the subject of Wikipedia, with a thorough telling of its beginning, one that's lighter on Jimmy Wales' role than usual.
New Yorker article on Wikipedia. If you've
New Yorker article on Wikipedia. If you've been paying attention, there not a whole lot of new information, but it's a nice summary. "Whereas articles once made up about eighty-five per cent of the site's content, as of last October they represented seventy per cent. As Wattenberg put it, 'People are talking about governance, not working on content.'" By authoring the piece, Stacy Schiff earned her very own Wikipedia page.
A fake biography of cereal monster Count
A fake biography of cereal monster Count Chocula made it into the Wikipedia entry but has since been axed. "Ernst Choukula was born the third child to Estonian landowers in the late autumn of 1873..."
Update: From what I understand, this is a photo taken of the bogus update of the Chocula page. Note the similarities between the Chocula update and the John Trumbull memorialization of another significant moment in history. (thx, mikey)
Wikipedia contrails
Matt Webb recently posted his Wikipedia contrail, a record of his recent travels among the pages of the online encyclopedia. Neat idea. When I was a kid, we had a World Book encyclopedia which I read at any possible opportunity, and I would have loved to look back at where I'd been. Actually, it would be nice if Wikipedia kept track of this for me as well...maybe it does if you're logged in? (I don't have a Wikipedia account, so I don't know.)
Anyhoo, here's my Wikipedia contrail:
- Jason Kottke - I'm working on a bio for a conference and I checked in to see what I've been up to recently. Apparently I'm married and working on kottke.org "part time".
- Cabinet of curiosities - Doing some research for an upcoming talk.
- Stigmergy - Didn't know there was a term for it.
- Capote - Saw the film, went to read up.
- Groove Is In the Heart - Couldn't remember who sang this and "What is Love". (A: Deee-Lite.)
- Harper Lee - Truman Capote's childhood friend, wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, won a Pulitzer for it, and then barely wrote anything public again.
- Jack Dunphy - Author, companion of Truman Capote.
- Truman Capote - Wrote for the New Yorker, most famous for his "non-fiction novel", In Cold Blood, subject of the film, Capote, threw wicked parties.
- Ann Coulter, Internet troll - These two are related.
- .htaccess - Brushing up on password protecting directories.
- Keratitis, Phlyctenule - Part of my eye went all weird and squishy one evening and I was trying to find out what was going on. Wikipedia was not helpful in this regard.
- Taxicab geometry - Geometry of the driving cab, not the flying crow.
- Perplex City - Linked into this from somewhere...don't even really know what it is.
If you want to find your own contrail, type "en.wikipedia.org/wiki" into your browser and see what comes up in the autocomplete list. Here are contrails from Adrian McEwen, Tom Stafford, and rodcorp.
Chris Anderson has one of the best
Chris Anderson has one of the best descriptions I've read of collective knowledge systems like Google, Wikipedia, and blogs: they're probabilistic systems "which sacrifice perfection at the microscale for optimization at the macroscale".
Wikipedia closes its open doors just a
Wikipedia closes its open doors just a little bit and now requires people to register before they can edit entries on the site create new entries on the site, a change made due to recent complaints.
Update: Wikipedia requires registration to create new entries...anyone can still edit an existing entry. (thx, marco)
Lorem ipsum
Sorry for the lack of updates...we've been having some trouble with the internet and I've been wrestling with my email for the past two days (I finally pinned it in the 8th round). If you sent me mail, I think I got it, but expect a slower than normal response...most of it will probably wait until I'm back in the States.
Been doing some reading up on Vietnam (we're heading there in a couple of days). I'm finding that Wikipedia (Vietnam, Vietnamese cuisine) and WikiTravel (Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City) are good sources for the 50,000 view of things, taken with a grain of salt. The guidebook is better, but it takes a lot longer for you to get the gist. Reading Wikis Pedia and Travel and then the guidebooks seems a good strategy.
Also, we've been Flickring photos while we're in Asia (thank you T-Mobile for finally fixing my International Roaming), check out Meg's and mine for off-blog goings-on. (Completely off topic, here's some Flickr photos tagged "comic sans".)
Tom Coates fills us in on the
Tom Coates fills us in on the Annotatable Audio project he worked on at the BBC. Basically, you select a timed section of an audio file (music, newscast, etc.) and then you write a little something about it, Wikipedia-style.
"The hairy ball theorem of algebraic topology
"The hairy ball theorem of algebraic topology states that, in layman's terms, 'one cannot comb the hair on a ball in a smooth manner'". Heh. Looks like Wikipedia has some new measures in placeto deal with spam/trolls: "This page has been protected from editing to deal with vandalism."