RE: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of DAve Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:04 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Perrin Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:05 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 05:15:39PM -0400, DAve wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). Of course, I greatly admire the impulse to protect the collected knowledge of Wikipedia from disaster. It's also practical -- because it contains a lot of information that might be of use (including good subsistence gardening information, for those of us who don't have naturally green thumbs). If the crash comes and you don't have 4 - 5 years of experience running a garden on your land, plus your own well, your gonna starve. Veggies are very particular as to the kind of soil they like, and the light and water they get. And it takes several years of trying different ones to figure out the ones that do best in your soil. And most modern veggies are hybrids and the seed is genetically engineered, and patented. Many varieties are, in fact, sterile. Many others require irrigation to produce sizable yields. To put in a heritage garden that will produce given the normally occurring rainfall in your area takes someone with many years of experience in your area growing gardens. By the time you would be able to get one going from info in wikipedia, you would have died of starvation. Ted Some of us will have veggies/skills/water for trade. But what he says is true. It ain't as easy as read a page, plant a row. If I have a question on FreeBSD, Wikipedia is my last resort, after phone calls. While it is useful I suppose to some, I would never base a decision on anything I read there. It is useful for key words and topics to expand a search through better sources, but not much else. It really depends on what your looking up. I have found it an invaluable resource for looking up cultural topics that aren't high on the importance scale, if you know what I mean. For example, when the movie Cars came out, after we bought the DVD one evening after watching it I got curious about all the Route 66 references and looked up Route 66 on Wikipedia. It's trivial knowledge of course - is it really important to know that there's a leaning water tower along I-40, is that something you would pay for a print encyclopedia for? If Wikipedia is killing Encyclopedia sales, it is because people are willing to accept mediocrity over accuracy if accuracy comes at a price and mediocrity is free. People have always accepted mediocrity over accuracy if accuracy comes at a price. Where have you been!?!? :-) But I don't see that the print encyclopedia articles are that accurate either, at least, not after time. Particularly on the controversal stuff. My parents, bless their hearts, bought a set of encyclopedias the year before I was born. Undoubtedly some encyclopedia salesman got at them. I got perhaps 2-3 years of use out of them from maybe 5th grade through 7th grade, before the demands on me for accuracy from school were serious enough that the information in them was mainly worthless. Not to mention that these were bought in '65 and had virtually nothing in them about the Civil Rights movement, let alone the Kennedy assasination, items that by 1978 were major watershed events that still had reprecussions. Items, incidentally, that my parents to this day really don't talk about (very understandable, as Republicans they at the time were convinced by that party that Kennedy was very unimportant) and certainly
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 12:04:10AM -0400, DAve wrote: Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Perrin Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:05 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 05:15:39PM -0400, DAve wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). Of course, I greatly admire the impulse to protect the collected knowledge of Wikipedia from disaster. It's also practical -- because it contains a lot of information that might be of use (including good subsistence gardening information, for those of us who don't have naturally green thumbs). If the crash comes and you don't have 4 - 5 years of experience running a garden on your land, plus your own well, your gonna starve. Veggies are very particular as to the kind of soil they like, and the light and water they get. And it takes several years of trying different ones to figure out the ones that do best in your soil. And most modern veggies are hybrids and the seed is genetically engineered, and patented. Many varieties are, in fact, sterile. Many others require irrigation to produce sizable yields. To put in a heritage garden that will produce given the normally occurring rainfall in your area takes someone with many years of experience in your area growing gardens. By the time you would be able to get one going from info in wikipedia, you would have died of starvation. Ted Some of us will have veggies/skills/water for trade. But what he says is true. It ain't as easy as read a page, plant a row. If I have a question on FreeBSD, Wikipedia is my last resort, after phone calls. While it is useful I suppose to some, I would never base a decision on anything I read there. It is useful for key words and topics to expand a search through better sources, but not much else. If Wikipedia is killing Encyclopedia sales, it is because people are willing to accept mediocrity over accuracy if accuracy comes at a price and mediocrity is free. It has been my experience, maybe things have changed, that a hardbound reference book is the equivalent of asking Bunny Watson for an answer, and Wikipedia is like asking Cliffy on Cheers. Now, if you think Print Encyclopedias and/or Wikipedia are incomplete and inaccurate, try checking out textbooks for Middle school, High school and even undergraduate college. jerry DAve -- Don't tell me I'm driving the cart! ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 02:19:29AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: But I don't see that the print encyclopedia articles are that accurate either, at least, not after time. Particularly on the controversal stuff. Exactly my thought on the matter. One major benefit of Wikipedia over print encyclopedias, for instance, is the fact that it suffers less institutional bias. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Bjarne Stroustrup: An ugly operation should have an ugly syntactic form. pgpgf6534XI9n.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 05:05:27PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my house, we had an encyclopedia because I was in school ... it was useful for research papers. I suspect the usefulness would depend on what one's teachers meant by research, which tends to change with grade level. In elementary and middle school, certainly. In high school, maybe. In college, probably not. Postgraduate, almost certainly not; at that level one should be using primary sources (and likely know enough to be writing articles *for* an encyclopedia :) It was useful in grade school because teachers didn't actually believe anyone at that age would ever go beyond the encyclopedia except in the case of token satisfaction of assignment requirements. It was useful in middle school and beyond the same way Wikipedia is now: it gave me ideas of the sorts of directions to take my research when I sought out more rigorously researched sources of information. I certainly never cited an encyclopedia in any research paper after sixth grade -- because I wasn't an idiot. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Larry Wall: You can never entirely stop being what you once were. That's why it's important to be the right person today, and not put it off till tomorrow. pgpfUC7dCcP7O.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Gary Kline Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 2:42 AM To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 01:50:20AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Steve Franks Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 1:49 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. This is not a silly idea. For many many years people would spend hundreds of dollars on a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book encyclopedia to have it sit on their shelf gathering dust (until their kids used it for school, etc.) The fact that your even asking the question and wanting to do it is to your credit. I really feel the big value of doing something like this is to be able to go back to it, years later, and compare the old entries on a topic with the current entries on a topic to see how they have changed. I also think that solving the technical problems and learning how to create a wikipedia mirror would be a great learning experience for anyone. But, as for the practical value, I would encourage you to read Asimov's Foundation series to really understand that any attempt to catagorize and store the world's accumulated knowledge in a storage medium in a single location is ultimately an exercise in futility. Asimov made the valid point that book knowledge of facts must work hand in hand with experience to be useful, and experience isn't documentable. Terminus itself, the entire planet and everyone on it, was the encyclopedia - the actual encyclopedia that the encyclopediests were working on, was nothing more than a sham. Thanks for thi, Ted. While this is going even further off-topi, I would like to see a ' (non-scholarly) wiki for just about every topic you can think of. By wiki, i mean, in wiki format. over time it could have citations and beome a research tool. On the BSD kernel prio scheduler, for one example. This mighht grow into a wiki-web for unix nerds; or art history buffs, etv. I've got one questioon that I have been meaning to ask for years, but haven't due to the yelps II've asked some off-the-wall here on -questions simply because this is the most intelligent group|list of people I've found. Is there a more appropriate place to ask miscelllaneous questions? [I know about some and will hold my tongue!] Check out Usenet. Be nice to ask, e.g, why homes are not required to have R-50 in the wall; R-90 attics. Very simple. Building codes are regulated by the local jurisdictions, cities, counties, and such, with input from the state government. The only thing the Federal government can do is ban things - for example the Feds can ban use of asbestos - but they cannot set building codes. Because the local jurisdictions are -frequently- not staffed by competent people, lots of them just punt and follow the national electric code, or whatever industry standard that the construction industry has come up with. Insulation isn't required because the construction industry doesen't want the building codes to require anything over and above that which is needed to keep the building from falling down, so they don't put it in their national industry standards, thus the local jurisdictions don't require it either. (although they certainly could if they wanted) If you have ever had a new house built to spec (ie: you bought a lot in a subdivision with a designated builder, for example) you will have a meeting with the builder and discover that for an extra fee he can deviate from the spec plan and add a great many amenities - like extra insulation, additional electrical outlets, heavier duty wiring, extra gas lines, etc. etc. - that if added after the fact would be enormously expensive and disruptive, requiring tearing into the walls and suchlike. Some people do, some don't. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 12:00:50PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: This is not a silly idea. For many many years people would spend hundreds of dollars on a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book encyclopedia to have it sit on their shelf gathering they bought it to HAVE it, not because they need it. In my house, we had an encyclopedia because I was in school and it was useful for research papers. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] MacUser, Nov. 1990: There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production. pgpqqSfJUKDDn.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
In my house, we had an encyclopedia because I was in school ... it was useful for research papers. I suspect the usefulness would depend on what one's teachers meant by research, which tends to change with grade level. In elementary and middle school, certainly. In high school, maybe. In college, probably not. Postgraduate, almost certainly not; at that level one should be using primary sources (and likely know enough to be writing articles *for* an encyclopedia :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Perrin Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:05 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 05:15:39PM -0400, DAve wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). Of course, I greatly admire the impulse to protect the collected knowledge of Wikipedia from disaster. It's also practical -- because it contains a lot of information that might be of use (including good subsistence gardening information, for those of us who don't have naturally green thumbs). If the crash comes and you don't have 4 - 5 years of experience running a garden on your land, plus your own well, your gonna starve. Veggies are very particular as to the kind of soil they like, and the light and water they get. And it takes several years of trying different ones to figure out the ones that do best in your soil. And most modern veggies are hybrids and the seed is genetically engineered, and patented. Many varieties are, in fact, sterile. Many others require irrigation to produce sizable yields. To put in a heritage garden that will produce given the normally occurring rainfall in your area takes someone with many years of experience in your area growing gardens. By the time you would be able to get one going from info in wikipedia, you would have died of starvation. Ted Some of us will have veggies/skills/water for trade. But what he says is true. It ain't as easy as read a page, plant a row. If I have a question on FreeBSD, Wikipedia is my last resort, after phone calls. While it is useful I suppose to some, I would never base a decision on anything I read there. It is useful for key words and topics to expand a search through better sources, but not much else. If Wikipedia is killing Encyclopedia sales, it is because people are willing to accept mediocrity over accuracy if accuracy comes at a price and mediocrity is free. It has been my experience, maybe things have changed, that a hardbound reference book is the equivalent of asking Bunny Watson for an answer, and Wikipedia is like asking Cliffy on Cheers. DAve -- Don't tell me I'm driving the cart! ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Steve Franks Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 2:47 PM To: Gary Kline Cc: Wojciech Puchar; Chad Perrin; FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? You know, the Wikipedia is crap argument is becoming tiresome. Maybe they should have picked a different name. It is not a research tool. However, I use it daily when someone mentions Microsoft's latest TLA, or my daughter wants to see a picture of a blue whale, or I forget what port subversion needs open in my firewall, or the webpage market cap for some obscure company. I consider it to be like the browseable companion to google search. Steve, the problem is that for decades the print encyclopedias fulfilled this function. Have you ever, for example, seen a cite to World Book or some such in a serious professional reseach paper? Of course not. They never used it. The vast majority of people buying those print encyclopedias were folks like you who were using them for casual searches. The reason the academic research community is so up in arms over wikipedia is that all the folks like you stopped buying the print encyclopedias when wiki came out, and the encyclopedia publishers have all gone out of business. Your no longer paying some academic gatekeeper and the academics, for all their talk about information freedom, don't like it. Check out tuition recently? Now tell me college is available to any student who wants it. Yeah, right. The academics want their pound of flesh and they don't like the competition. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Steve Franks Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 1:49 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. This is not a silly idea. For many many years people would spend hundreds of dollars on a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book encyclopedia to have it sit on their shelf gathering dust (until their kids used it for school, etc.) The fact that your even asking the question and wanting to do it is to your credit. I really feel the big value of doing something like this is to be able to go back to it, years later, and compare the old entries on a topic with the current entries on a topic to see how they have changed. I also think that solving the technical problems and learning how to create a wikipedia mirror would be a great learning experience for anyone. But, as for the practical value, I would encourage you to read Asimov's Foundation series to really understand that any attempt to catagorize and store the world's accumulated knowledge in a storage medium in a single location is ultimately an exercise in futility. Asimov made the valid point that book knowledge of facts must work hand in hand with experience to be useful, and experience isn't documentable. Terminus itself, the entire planet and everyone on it, was the encyclopedia - the actual encyclopedia that the encyclopediests were working on, was nothing more than a sham. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
I really feel the big value of doing something like this is to be able to go back to it, years later, and compare the old entries on a topic with the current entries on a topic to see how they have changed. nothing to solve - compressed database are available for download. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 01:50:20AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Steve Franks Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 1:49 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. This is not a silly idea. For many many years people would spend hundreds of dollars on a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book encyclopedia to have it sit on their shelf gathering dust (until their kids used it for school, etc.) The fact that your even asking the question and wanting to do it is to your credit. I really feel the big value of doing something like this is to be able to go back to it, years later, and compare the old entries on a topic with the current entries on a topic to see how they have changed. I also think that solving the technical problems and learning how to create a wikipedia mirror would be a great learning experience for anyone. But, as for the practical value, I would encourage you to read Asimov's Foundation series to really understand that any attempt to catagorize and store the world's accumulated knowledge in a storage medium in a single location is ultimately an exercise in futility. Asimov made the valid point that book knowledge of facts must work hand in hand with experience to be useful, and experience isn't documentable. Terminus itself, the entire planet and everyone on it, was the encyclopedia - the actual encyclopedia that the encyclopediests were working on, was nothing more than a sham. Thanks for thi, Ted. While this is going even further off-topi, I would like to see a ' (non-scholarly) wiki for just about every topic you can think of. By wiki, i mean, in wiki format. over time it could have citations and beome a research tool. On the BSD kernel prio scheduler, for one example. This mighht grow into a wiki-web for unix nerds; or art history buffs, etv. I've got one questioon that I have been meaning to ask for years, but haven't due to the yelps II've asked some off-the-wall here on -questions simply because this is the most intelligent group|list of people I've found. Is there a more appropriate place to ask miscelllaneous questions? [I know about some and will hold my tongue!] Be nice to ask, e.g, why homes are not required to have R-50 in the wall; R-90 attics. --I'd ask here, but not only would someone toss a fit, but I doubt that even gven our level of xpertness, no one would know. ---Anyway, apologies for this quasi-ramble and completely OT post. have a good 4th/july, gary Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
This is not a silly idea. For many many years people would spend hundreds of dollars on a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book encyclopedia to have it sit on their shelf gathering they bought it to HAVE it, not because they need it. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Perrin Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:05 PM To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia? On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 05:15:39PM -0400, DAve wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). Of course, I greatly admire the impulse to protect the collected knowledge of Wikipedia from disaster. It's also practical -- because it contains a lot of information that might be of use (including good subsistence gardening information, for those of us who don't have naturally green thumbs). If the crash comes and you don't have 4 - 5 years of experience running a garden on your land, plus your own well, your gonna starve. Veggies are very particular as to the kind of soil they like, and the light and water they get. And it takes several years of trying different ones to figure out the ones that do best in your soil. And most modern veggies are hybrids and the seed is genetically engineered, and patented. Many varieties are, in fact, sterile. Many others require irrigation to produce sizable yields. To put in a heritage garden that will produce given the normally occurring rainfall in your area takes someone with many years of experience in your area growing gardens. By the time you would be able to get one going from info in wikipedia, you would have died of starvation. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
references and 'buy it now' links, I can find out a layman's introduction to nearly anything in one click. in most cases bad introduction. but of course for intelligent people it is not a problem. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. in EVERY article i watched in area i have knowlege there were bugs. in most - big nonsenses. in others - probably too, i just don't have required knowledge to check it. snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... wget should do. select an option to limit downloads to wikipedia, but with unlimited recursion, start from almost any place. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. exactly :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [freebsd-questions] Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 10:21:22PM -0400, Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET wrote: Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). And where better to get knowledge on constructing firepower (and gardening for that matter) than wikipedia ;) All part of my integrated plan...did I mention we are going to occupy our local library as well? Guys, you seem to be jumping the gun a bit. Theres plenty of time until 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem) Bah. That's basically a solved problem. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] C. Hoare: Two ways of constructing software: (1) make it so simple that there are obviously no bugs, (2) make it so complicated that there are no obvious bugs. Making it simple is far more difficult. pgpa3fXR1ZfH8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 10:36:22PM -0700, Kurt Buff wrote: We're advising our clients to stock up on canned goods and shotguns - Brain Gremlin Seriously? What kind of business are you in that makes that an appropriate bit of advice? -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Malaclypse the Younger: 'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds. pgpChKbxB86ve.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 02:37:20PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. Meanwhile, in print encyclopedias, I see that with restricted writing access and strict editing processes there are typically systemic biases and subtler mistakes that are much easier to overlook -- and the mistakes not only persist until the next edition, but often exist for decades, whereas finding a mistake in Wikipedia is fixable within five minutes. in EVERY article i watched in area i have knowlege there were bugs. in most - big nonsenses. The key is that an encyclopedia should never be the *end* of your research. It's basically just a place to look for key terms to research elsewhere, and to get a general overview of some common takes on various subjects. That's as true of Wikipedia as it is of any other encyclopedia. snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... wget should do. select an option to limit downloads to wikipedia, but with unlimited recursion, start from almost any place. Bad idea. Just get one of the periodic database dumps. Using recursive wget downloads is a good way to consume mass bandwidth and get your IP banned from accessing it. Please be aware of others' needs, and courteous in your treatment of those needs. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Friedrich Nietzche: Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. pgpfV8fr8GMGD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. Meanwhile, in print encyclopedias, I see that with restricted writing access and strict editing processes there are typically systemic biases and subtler mistakes that are much easier to overlook -- and the mistakes not only persist until the next edition, but often exist for decades, whereas finding a mistake in Wikipedia is fixable within five minutes. and 3 others are added. The key is that an encyclopedia should never be the *end* of your research. It's basically just a place to look for key terms to research actually what i do - to get the first glance on subject, THEN checking more precisely. but quite often it's crap even at the first glance ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 09:12:33PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. Meanwhile, in print encyclopedias, I see that with restricted writing access and strict editing processes there are typically systemic biases and subtler mistakes that are much easier to overlook -- and the mistakes not only persist until the next edition, but often exist for decades, whereas finding a mistake in Wikipedia is fixable within five minutes. and 3 others are added. The key is that an encyclopedia should never be the *end* of your research. It's basically just a place to look for key terms to research actually what i do - to get the first glance on subject, THEN checking more precisely. but quite often it's crap even at the first glance I'll add my dime's worth, given the years of pure research I've done in recent years. wiki-anything is usually *not* my first choice; but if there are citations that i can find on-line or at my local library in a wiki article, I'll use them. point of fact: i just spent some 45 minutes tracking down an obscure quote. the citation (from the Feb. 1981 ACM) was in a German PDF file. no help from wikipedia, but an example of how much effort it takes to get things right. (or as close-to right as possible.) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
You know, the Wikipedia is crap argument is becoming tiresome. Maybe they should have picked a different name. It is not a research tool. However, I use it daily when someone mentions Microsoft's latest TLA, or my daughter wants to see a picture of a blue whale, or I forget what port subversion needs open in my firewall, or the webpage market cap for some obscure company. I consider it to be like the browseable companion to google search. Instead of 100,000 useless references and 'buy it now' links, I can find out a layman's introduction to nearly anything in one click. I fail to see how this makes people so angry. Several of my best friends are english teachers, and they teach all their students 'use wiki, but don't cite it'. This seems to be the defacto social/professional rule for wiki usage, at least in the western USA. I fail to see where the moral panic is. I know it's another slippery argument, but I think there's an interesting observation to be made that the majority of my google searches lately have been putting the wikipedia article for a given topic in the top 5 links. Or maybe I'm just the American Idol poster child. It's a social product, not a professional one. We have those already. Steve On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 09:12:33PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. Meanwhile, in print encyclopedias, I see that with restricted writing access and strict editing processes there are typically systemic biases and subtler mistakes that are much easier to overlook -- and the mistakes not only persist until the next edition, but often exist for decades, whereas finding a mistake in Wikipedia is fixable within five minutes. and 3 others are added. The key is that an encyclopedia should never be the *end* of your research. It's basically just a place to look for key terms to research actually what i do - to get the first glance on subject, THEN checking more precisely. but quite often it's crap even at the first glance I'll add my dime's worth, given the years of pure research I've done in recent years. wiki-anything is usually *not* my first choice; but if there are citations that i can find on-line or at my local library in a wiki article, I'll use them. point of fact: i just spent some 45 minutes tracking down an obscure quote. the citation (from the Feb. 1981 ACM) was in a German PDF file. no help from wikipedia, but an example of how much effort it takes to get things right. (or as close-to right as possible.) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Gary Kline [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Steve Franks, KE7BTE Staff Engineer La Palma Devices, LLC http://www.lapalmadevices.com (520) 312-0089 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Chad Perrin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 10:36:22PM -0700, Kurt Buff wrote: We're advising our clients to stock up on canned goods and shotguns - Brain Gremlin Seriously? What kind of business are you in that makes that an appropriate bit of advice? Not seriously. It's a movie quote - Gremlins II, The New Batch. Very funny movie, IMO, with many many quotes and references to other movies within it. Kurt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 03:38:48PM -0700, Kurt Buff wrote: On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Chad Perrin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 10:36:22PM -0700, Kurt Buff wrote: We're advising our clients to stock up on canned goods and shotguns - Brain Gremlin Seriously? What kind of business are you in that makes that an appropriate bit of advice? Not seriously. It's a movie quote - Gremlins II, The New Batch. Very funny movie, IMO, with many many quotes and references to other movies within it. It has been so long since I've seen it that I don't remember anything much about it. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Nat Torkington, on Perl internals: . . . an interconnected mass of livers and pancreas and lungs and little sharp pointy things and the occasional exploding kidney. pgpeAQ6VWSy7x.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 09:12:33PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: wikipedia is just a pile of junk. everyone can put in it, and unfortunately do. Meanwhile, in print encyclopedias, I see that with restricted writing access and strict editing processes there are typically systemic biases and subtler mistakes that are much easier to overlook -- and the mistakes not only persist until the next edition, but often exist for decades, whereas finding a mistake in Wikipedia is fixable within five minutes. and 3 others are added. Do you really think such absurd exaggeration makes a valid point? The key is that an encyclopedia should never be the *end* of your research. It's basically just a place to look for key terms to research actually what i do - to get the first glance on subject, THEN checking more precisely. but quite often it's crap even at the first glance I guess your definition of quite often must be much more permissive than mine -- or you just have a real knack for finding bad information. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Albert Camus: An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. pgpsLtrKDyTJD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). And where better to get knowledge on constructing firepower (and gardening for that matter) than wikipedia ;) All part of my integrated plan...did I mention we are going to occupy our local library as well? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 09:45:19AM -0700, Steve Franks wrote: Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). And where better to get knowledge on constructing firepower (and gardening for that matter) than wikipedia ;) All part of my integrated plan...did I mention we are going to occupy our local library as well? No, you didn't, but that sounds like an excellent idea. How zombie-defensible is it? -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. pgpGClpYi4gnY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [freebsd-questions] Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). And where better to get knowledge on constructing firepower (and gardening for that matter) than wikipedia ;) All part of my integrated plan...did I mention we are going to occupy our local library as well? Guys, you seem to be jumping the gun a bit. Theres plenty of time until 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem) Tuc ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 2:15 PM, DAve [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. DAve We're advising our clients to stock up on canned goods and shotguns - Brain Gremlin ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
In response to Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED]: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. DAve -- Don't tell me I'm driving the cart! ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: anyone been crazy enough to mirror wikipedia?
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 05:15:39PM -0400, DAve wrote: Steve Franks wrote: So call me a sociopath, but times are a bit scary. I'd like to do the 2000's equivalent of the 1960's bomb shelter, and have my very own snapshot in case of major local/regional internet disruption, etc. What would be the best way to go about this. I see with 1T words, it appears doable on current technology. Maybe they should offer a snapshot on DVDs or disk as a fundraiser? I'd drop $300 for some sort of officially licenced copy, I suspect there are other freaks that would too... When the world gets that bad, Wikipedia is the least of my concerns, slightly ahead of who is winning American Idol. If it comes to the point the internet goes down for a long period of time, that $300 is better spent on a garden. Just my thoughts. Actually . . . if things get that bad, you're going to need some firepower to protect your garden (and everything else you don't want taken from you by force). To properly protect a garden, you'd need to make it a community farm, with community members who have and will use firearms to protect it (and your Wikipedia mirror). Of course, I greatly admire the impulse to protect the collected knowledge of Wikipedia from disaster. It's also practical -- because it contains a lot of information that might be of use (including good subsistence gardening information, for those of us who don't have naturally green thumbs). Them's are just *my* thoughts. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ] Larry Wall: Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as 'Unix'. pgpwbxt7qg8xl.pgp Description: PGP signature