Happy Birthday Wikipedia. January 15th marks the beginning of Wikipedia’s fifth year. The earliest encyclopedias took decades to produce and didn’t reflect current events or debates. In five years Wikipedia had hit these milestones.

• Just over one terabyte of data in over 1.2 million articles, 450,000 in English.
  
• Over 145 million words. Encyclopedia Britannica claims 120,000 articles with 55 million words.
  
• In October 2004 Wikipedia served up over 13 million page request per day.
  
• As I speak the servers are handling over 1000 requests per second.

• There have been 36,377 contributors to Wikipedia. Are you one of them? Should you be?

It is difficult to imagine what the next five years will produce.

The name Wikipedia is the combination of two terms wiki and encyclopedia.

The term encyclopedia comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia meaning a circle of instruction or education. In Latin the Greek words were combined into one word encyclopaedia and that was used to describe a general education course.

Today the word refers to large general reference work.
The modern encyclopedia format dates to 1704 and its establishment is credited to John Harris, editor of the Lexicon Technicum, or the Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences.

The word wiki is a neologism that doesn’t appear in many, if any, printed dictionaries but I am sure it will. It was coined by Ward Cunningham in 1995 to describe web server software that allows users to create and edit a web page through a web browser. In Ward’s words a wiki is “The simplest online database that could possibly work.” The first wiki was the Portland Pattern Repository, a repository of computer programing patterns.

The term wiki was borrowed from the hawaiian wiki wiki which means quick.

Let’s finish the week off with a quote from Voltaire:

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

I like this quote because Voltaire, very clearly, reminds us that extreme positions are untenable and… absurd.

Voltaire is the pen name of François Marie Arouet. A French author and philosopher whose 18th century writings are some of best of the Enlightenment. He is most famous for writing Candide, a story of a hopeless optimist.

You can download and read many of Volatire’s writings at Project Gutenberg. His Dictionary of Philosophy is available from Hanover College’s website..

What do yeti’s, dragons, Chupacabra, thunderbirds, dodo birds and barking spiders have in common? They are all subjects of today’s word-
cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is the study of mythical or legendary animals. Usually with the goal of establishing or discounting their existence. Cyptozoology can also include the study of extinct animals that still have reported sightings.

I came across this word in a BoingBoing.net post. The post is about a new online exhibit of cryptozoology hosted by the International Cryptozoology Museum.

In case your are wondering yeti’s, dragons, Chupacabra and thunderbirds are all mythical or at least highly suspect. The Dodo on the other hand is an extinct flightless bird but there is no known photos or specimens. You can see an artist/scientist best guess of the bird on the right.

By the way have you seen the very cool new iPod- the iShuffle?

Today’s word, also a request, is apophenia and none of the mainstream dictionaries defined it. But of course wikipedia had an entry.

Apophenia is a noun describing the false perception of patterns within random or meaningless data. It is the act of seeing connections where none exist. According to MedicineNet.com this can a be an normal or abnormal phenomenon.

This suggestion by Will Simpson was inspired by the new Michael Keaton movie, White Noise. A movie in which Keaton contacts his dead wife though the white noise of the TV and radio. I haven’t seen the movie but I’ll bet a therapist diagnosis Keaton with Apophenia.

We all probably suffer a little Apophenia when we see a duck in the clouds overhead or the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast.

Now seeing the Virgin Mary in this toast is not Apophenia.

Today I had an epiphany- let’s do another request. Your suggestions make podcasting a lot easier.

Today’s request is from Eric Jean of Dead White Males, his second. The word is epiphany.
It is a noun that is usually used to describe a sudden realization or understanding of something deep and fundamental. An enlightening discovery.

It also has another less common definition- the appearance of a diving being. Alternatively, when capitalized it refers to a January 6th Christian feast celebrating the first revelation of Christ.