Ever wanted to know what a Mongolian yurt is called? (ger) or what fighter plane changed the war for the allies in world war 2? (Spitfire) or even learn about a fake chess playing machine from the 1700s? (The Mechanical Turk)

Then look no further than Wikipedia! this is my shameless plug for the best part of the internet. I have spent wayyy too long going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole on this website learning things that are honestly useless outside of a jeopardy game or bar trivia.

I think it just appeals to my sense of curiosity about things and places and people too well. I often find myself “just looking” at the start of my workday only to find myself come lunch time having a near complete understanding of the War of the Roses (only to forget it not long after). And I love it!

Its truly one of the best things humans have put on the internet. Sure its got its quirks, but nothing is perfect. I find it way more annoying that a large portion of the internet is trying to sell me something, and it feels like an increasingly rare thing to have a virtual space where that isn’t happening. (looking at you YouTube, you’re lucky I’m hopelessly addicted to watching tiny desk concerts).

I will be honest here. 99.9% if the non-profits that ask me for money I ignore, but you can bet I donate every single time Wikipedia asks for money. I’m sure they make better use of it than I do.

I mean, without Wikipedia I wouldn’t have learned what a Castrato was, and I will remember these poor fellas for the rest of my life.

In case you were wondering, a Castrato is a type of male singer who underwent castration (yeeouch!) before puberty so their damn voice would still sound like a hot tea kettle. You can even listen to a clip of one of these guys singing on the Wikipedia article. They have a picture of him and boy howdy does that voice not match AT ALL to the portrait.

I am very glad this is not a thing anymore, and I would probably not have ever learned about it without clicking the random article button and finding out about this crazy practice. I feel sorry for those fellas.

Man! Wikipedia is sick!

Did you know you can just download ALL of Wikipedia? its only about 23 GB without media. That’s crazy! you can bet your sweet butt that’s the first thing I’m doing when the alien-zombie-mole-people alliance invades.

I mean what other entity would just give that all away for free??? certainly not any major corporations that’s for sure.

So yeah, Wikipedia is the best. give them money. read an article (or ten). Learn some shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato