Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

For a while now I've been bookmarking some of the interesting Wikipedia entries that I've come across. I like to think of it as “random knowledge”. Now that I've reached 60 bookmarks it's time to do a status-check on the social aspects of a social bookmarking service. You can see all the bookmarks under my wikipedia tag.

• 23 of the 60 entries have not been bookmarked by others (38%)
• The top 5 entries are bookmarked by 340 ‘other people’ (72%)

Below the bookmarks are ranked by the amount of other people who also have bookmarked that entry.

1. Godwin's law (105)
2. Blog (100)
3. Milgram experiment (75)
4. Internet troll (34)
5. Stanford prison experiment (26)
6. Astroturfing (14)
7. American Civil War (10)
8. African American Vernacular English (9)
9. Leonardo da Vinci (9)
10. Newspeak (8)
11. Posse Comitatus Act (8)
12. Mary Sue (6)
13. Spear of Destiny (6)
14. John Doe (5)
15. Argyria (4)
16. D. B. Cooper (4)
17. Electric guitar (4)
18. Frankenstein (4)
19. Roma people (4)
20. Three Mile Island (4)
21. War of Currents (4)
22. Amicus curiae (2)
23. Aptronym (2)
24. Count of St Germain (2)
25. Crunk (2)
26. Leopold and Loeb (2)
27. Mata Hari (2)
28. Mockumentary (2)
29. Moonshine (2)
30. Tecumseh's curse (2)
31. Toledo War (2)
32. Bubble Bobble (1)
33. Camelcase (1)
34. Dead man's hand (1)
35. Fire balloon (1)
36. New Deal (1)
37. Troy McClure (1)

And here are the entries where I'm the only bookmarker.

• 1992 Los Angeles riots
• Big Ten Conference
• Bob Sacamano
• Bootlegging
• Bowdlerise
• Buffoon
• Cinéma vérité
• Détente
• Dixieland
• Gunpowder Plot
• Hybrid vehicle
• Hot dog
• J. D. Salinger
• Jim Crow laws
• July 20 Plot
• Lou Gehrig
• Manhole cover theft
• Miracle on Ice
• Mustang (horse)
• Potato chip
• Red Scare
• Roy Bean
• Sweater

At least for this little sample it really is a long tail of bookmarks. Of course it would be more valuable to look at del.icio.us in general, but I wanted to look at Wikipedia entries only. Traditional historic entries, something that I have almost exclusively used encyclopedias for in the past, generally aren't bookmarked by others (American Civil War and Leonardo da Vinci are the exceptions) and the few contemporary geek articles I've bookmarked are all scored high.

It's also interesting to see the social experiments Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment being very popular. Anyway, one shouldn't put too much into these numbers. After all, I'm probably the only one who've bookmarked Potato chip for a reason, although it does surprise me that I'm the only one who've bookmarked Manhole cover theft and Hot dog — both great articles.

Just look at the lists above and marvel at the diversity of the Wikipedia entries. Historic event, geek and regular vernacular, famous people (good and bad) and 80s computer games all mashed together. So many good stories, so little time.

Yesterday I accidentally poured some water into the keyboard of my laptop. I cannot recommend it. Fortunately the only thing broken is the ‘a’ key, but after signing my first e-mail as “ndres” rather than “Andreas” I've come to realize how important a letter ‘A’ is. Now I've bought an external keyboard while I figure out which computer to buy next.

I've been looking at Dell laptops. My present laptop is a Dell and I've been very happy with it. If anyone has any recommendations I'd love to hear them. My current list of requirements is short:

• No Macs, I have to be able to afford food
• Screen no bigger than 15"
• Screen resolution no smaller than 1280x1064. This point and the one above limits choices considerably.
• No shared memory on graphics card.
• Water-proof keyboard