Global Incident Map

You live in a dangerous world

I'd guess it was nearing an orange alert election day by the number of links I've seen this week to the Emergency and Disaster Information Service's USA alert map. Originating in Budapest, there is also a world alert map. Perhaps less enigmatic and more troubling is the Global Incident Map displaying terrorist acts and (my favorite) suspicious activity. FEMA's Mapping Information Platform lets you enter your home address and see hazards and critical infrastructure in your neighborhood. Want something warm and fuzzy instead, try the Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club's downloadable Mayberry Maps. Who knew Floyd's Barbershop was so close to the Washateria?

USA Alert Map

World Alert Map

Global Incident Map

FEMA Mapping Information Platform

Mayberry Maps

It's a Wiki World

The net was buzzing over the holidays with news of the resurrection of Wikipedia's plans to develop a search engine, Wikisari. In five years Wikipedia has ingrained itself on the internet as the second most popular source of answers after Google. The English version of the collaborative, user written encyclopedia currently hosts 1,597,604 articles and many foreign language wikipedias are available. To name but a few sister projects, there's also Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikiquote, and Wikiversity. Wiki software or wikimedia has also spawned countless encyclopedic sites; amongst the most popular are Muppet Wiki, Wookieepedia, WikiFur, NASCAR, and the satirical parody Uncyclopedia. The user contributed nature of Wikipedia has created wikiturfing, where people attempt to claim internet fame by penning spurious or overblown entries. This and vandalism (especially in the last election) has led to some more stringent rules on submitting and editing entries. A related site which I enjoy is The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump which features submissions that have been deleted or are being considered for deletion by the Wikipedia team. Some recent postings include: List of Celebrity Laser Eye Patients, Prairie Muffins, Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln, List of fictional worms, and appropriately Allodoxaphobia. For more on Wiki, Wikimedia, Wikisari, and the Wikiwikiweb you can always look up wiki on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia

Uncyclopedia

Wikipedia Knowledge Dump