Homestarrunner Wiki
Homestarrunner has a wiki. Now instead of linking to the site and urging people to go there, over and over and over again, I can just explain it by pointing at the wiki instead....
Wikipedia Favorites
Silly fun stuff that I discovered on my favorite reference tool. [19 entries.]
List of Signature Phrases
Wikipedia has a great list of signature phrases -- the unique lines associated with real or fictional characters, and they cover a lot of territory. Read it over; it will bring back some memories. # "Aciao good night!" (Aciao bonsoir!) - P.P.D. the puppet in the French satiric show Les Guignols de l'Info, at the end of most of his...
Congress blocked from Wikipedia
My brother Scott sent me this dandy link to a page on Wikipedia detailing a problem they've had with our elected officials. Seems some of the folks inside the beltway have been vandalizing wikipedia pages by replacing their own politician's pages with slick PR copy, while trashing their opponents pages with derogatory, and sometimes obscene writings. Naughty, Naughty. Now the...
Why the media can't get Wikipedia right
I recently had a short conversation with a woefully misinformed person about Wikipedia, wherein they claimed that "It's going to be shut down!" and "They're getting sued!" Nope, on both counts. They were discussing, without much understanding, John Seigenthaler Sr.'s USAToday op-ed piece about the popular online open-source encyclopedia. David Weinberger analyzes the "controversy" and identifies what the media is...
Wikipedia Fun
Things I've looked up in wikipedia today: Biomimicry While reading a 37 signals article Law of unintended consequences Ditto Chinese water torture While searching for a way to describe how the scar from my surgery feels....
Aptronym
a Wikipedia entry via Kotte.org: Aptronym, a word allegedly coined by United States newspaper columnist Franklin P. Adams, refers to a name that is aptly suited to its owner. Fictional examples of aptronyms include Mr. Talkative and Mr. Worldly Wiseman in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. One of my new cardiologists (who is taking over for Dr. Yee) is named...
Critical Reference Tool: A List of Made-up Words from the Simpsons
I'm not sure how I lived without this list before: Wikipedia's Made up words in The Simpsons. It's cromulent! Note that this Friday is Scotchtoberfest....
The Bilderberg Group
Back in 1997, when I was visiting my friend Cate in Germany, we took a trip down the Rhine River. We started in Cologne , and traveled on a tourist boat to Drachenfels Castle at Konigswinter, where we took a trip up the mountain on the Drachenfelsbahn to see the castle, then walked back down. While we were on the...
Internet phenomenon
Wikipedia lists the major ones....
MacGuffin
Wikipedia definition of the Alfred Hitchcock concept of a MacGuffin. Also, a collection of stills from Hitchcock films, including several MacGuffins. MacGuffin 1 MacGuffin 2 MacGuffin 3...
Washington Post article and logical fallacies
I've never read a printed article so full of logical fallacies before. I'm speechless....
The Long Tail
[Navigated to by way of Steven Johnson's Blog. Johnson is the author of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter which I read recently.] Quoting from Wikipedia: The phrase The Long Tail, as a proper noun, was first coined by Chris Anderson. Beginning in a series of speeches in early 2004 and...
Secret Societies
I'm in the middle of reading: Secret Societies Handbook by Michael Bradley A History of Secret Societies by Arkon Daraul And I'm fascinated, especially by the Handbook, because it lists the Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome and the Council on Foreign Relations; all are real groups that seem to have major influence on world events. Which makes me glad...
American Generations
Great Wikipedia category on the American generations, i.e., "Baby Boomer" and "Generation X." Pretty cool to see how they define "generation x."...
Hanzi Smatter
My friend Lori's site pointed me in the direction of this: Hanzi Smatter is a site that looks at Chinese or Japanese language characters that Americans have adopted as logos or tattoos and analyzes what they really mean. Which is often not at all what the American intended it to mean. Sort of their revenge for all the "Engrish" sites...
Pages I've edited on Wikipedia
Brighton, Iowa Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis Star Nuvo Newsweekly...
I heart Wikipedia
One of the best things about Wikipedia is that now I can read Cat and Girl and actually understand more that 50% of it....
Dr. Who Wikipedia article
Very cool wikipedia article on Dr. Who. I understood very little about the program, other than I caught a few episodes on cable when I was a kid, and had a crush on Sarah Jane Smith. An article like this would have been very helpful when I was young....
Wabi Sabi
I've written about it here before, but here are a few links about wabi Sabi: http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/WabiSabi http://www.stonebridge.com/wabisabi.html And a couple of books available: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879058498/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586850105/...
Commonplacebook.com is the personal website of 
