Wikipedia Hack

Enter a search for month and year and it will return world news for that month. Try it for your birthday. Try it for a family member or friend who is having a birthday, print it out and give it to them as an interesting gift.

The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, says that some years the most births occur during July or September. Worldwide birth statistics vary with climates and cultural factors that influence the timing of conceptions and births.

Incidentally, in the US, February is the month with the least births and August has the most.+

What's in a Name, Wikipedia

Wikipedia is based on two words, the Hawaiian word Wiki, meaning quick and encyclopedia, with pedia being the Greek term for knowledge: “quick knowledge.”

What's in a Name

Microsoft’s search engine, Bing was named “Kumo,” during development, but Microsoft went with Bing after focus groups said it reminded them of “the moment of discovery.”

Yelp  - The “yel” in “Yelp” comes from “yellow,” and the “p” comes from “pages.” The business listings and ratings site is like an Internet version of the Yellow Pages.

Twitter - It is a microblogging site and users’ posts cannot exceed 140 characters. Those short messages reminded company founders of birds chirping or twittering. Individual posts are known as tweets and the logo is a bird.

Wikipedia - “Wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick,” and “pedia” comes from “encyclopedia.” It is a quick encyclopedia added to and edited by almost anyone.

The Onion - It began as a college newspaper, and founders Tim Keck and Chris Johnson had so little money they ate onion sandwiches. While planning the paper, Keck’s uncle saw them eating onion sandwiches and reportedly said, “You should call the newspaper The Onion.”

Skype - The video phone via Internet service got its name from a shortening of the phrase “sky peer-to-peer,” as users connect person-to-person via the cloud (Internet).

Etsy - Rob Kalin, founder of the marketplace where users buy and sell vintage and handmade goods, wanted a nonsense word, but as he was watching an Italian film, he noticed characters often said “etsi”, which means “oh, yes.”


Pinterest - The name is a combination of “pin” and “interest,” which reflects how the site functions. It is a social network where users share pictures of things they find interesting by “pinning” them on their pin board.

Difficult to Read

When looking up a particularly complex topic on Wikipedia, you might try replacing the “en” (for English) with “simple” in a Wikipedia URL. You will then get information written using simple English words and grammar that should make the most complex topics easy to understand.

International Bacon Day

Bacon Day is an official observance held on the Saturday before Labor Day in the United States. (Labor Day is traditionally the first Monday of September). This year is it celebrated August 31. The first Annual Bacon Day was held about 2005. It's celebrated by having a bacon party and eating bacon in every way imaginable.

Did you know that bacon is a cut of meat taken from the sides, belly, or back of a pig, then cured, smoked, or both? Meat from other animals, such as cow, lamb, chicken, goat, or turkey, may also be cut, cured, or otherwise prepared to resemble bacon, and may even be referred to as "bacon" too, although this is just wrong.

Wikipedia says "Bacon Day is the traditional day on which bacon lovers express bacon mania. This is typically exhibited during social gatherings during which participants create and consume creative dishes containing bacon, including breakfasts, lunches, dinners and desserts. All are welcome at a standard Bacon Day celebration, even vegetarians, with consumption of soy bacon or turkey bacon encouraged for inclusiveness."

Last year Bacon Day was celebrated in the US, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, and more.

Time

The new year is a good time to think about time. In 1903, the Wright brothers performed their first successful flight.

In 1941, 38 years later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. (Mount Rushmore was completed in 1941).

In 1969, just 28 years after that, man landed on the moon. In 66 years man went from flight a few feet off the earth to flying to the moon.

In 2012, 109 years after the Wright brothers flight we landed a craft on Mars and it is communicating back to us with pictures.

Wikipedia lists the names of 41 people born during or before 1903 that are still living.

List of Lists

It is finally here, more information that you never knew or cared about. However, every now and then you need a list to prove a point. Here it is from Wikipedia LINK.

Or you can wait a few weeks and get more interesting information from my upcoming 49th book 'Amazing Facts and Bite Sized Brain Food'.

Google Voice and Image Search

Two very cool new ways to make your life easier while searching. For Google Voice Search, click on the microphone icon to the right of the search box and start speaking. For Google Image Search, you can use a photo from the web, from your PC, or scan a photo in. To use this, you need to click on 'images' while on the Google page, then click on the little Camera icon on the right of the search bar. It will provide any information it can find, such as location, history, or whatever.

I used voice and it works as well or better than typing, and there were no mistyped words. Tried images and had interesting results. First used a photo of myself and it found many pictures with the same pose and coloring, but the people did not look similar and it did not find any pictures of me, although there are many on the web. Next I tried a picture of a church and it found similar colored pictures and many buildings, but also showed pictures of beaches, people with camels, etc. Next, I tried a logo, using the IBM logo. It immediately came up with 'best guess' and guessed IBM logo. It then gave history, company facts, Wikipedia info, and a thousand other results.

Bottom line, Google voice is easy, fun, and works if you have a mic on your PC (most laptops and all phones (duh) have a mic built in). Google image is not yet ready for prime time, except in limited situations, such as finding info on famous locations, buildings, logos, etc. Google Image is available now , but Voice is not available to the whole web yet. You will know when you can use it, by looking for the microphone icon in the search bar.

Cyberchondriacs

They have increased from 50 million in 1998 to 175 million today, according to market research firm Harris Interactive. And they are also getting more active. 32% of all adults who look for health information 'often', is up from 22% last year.

A cyberchondriac is a person who looks for healthcare information online. The net is replete with medical information (and anything else you can possibly imagine). Just as with wikipedia, it is all not good information, but the masses of contributors level it out, so the good overcomes the bad.

People in record numbers use the web to look up information about a condition, treatment, a physician's credentials, or alternative forms of treatment, along with successes and failures of each.

PS - Some doctors do not like being questioned, so tread lightly with your new found information and questions. It is never a good idea to upset a waiter or a doctor.