WikiPedestrian

[digitS']

Autumn is the time for me to be taking walks.

Probably, waaay too often - my fingers are doing the walking rather than digitS' actually being out there, shuffling along ...

Here's a way to do first one, then the other!

It must be true with any mobile device; maybe true on the desktop (I'll check). Wikipedia's home page -- I sometimes do not like the random articles they put there. So, I just decided to go to those 3 little bars that are in the upper left corner and pick my own random article ... instead, I clicked "Nearby."

!! Wikipedia wanted to know where I was !! Okay, one of the few nonprofits I give anything to, they've already got ID ...

Bingo! I'm wherever I need to be ... to go somewhere else . Sure, they are mostly schools, with links to articles but there are parks and historic buildings amongst the Wikipedia articles. I bet that there is a lot of interesting history located nearby for some of you!

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

With my slow system, I'm lucky to get through my mail and this group each day. Not likely that I will go traveling with my fingers anytime soon.

 

[digitS']

I do NOT find it on the desktop ... will check more thoroughly.

A ramble is needed - more of an errand - that will take me out and about for awhile. I'll take the "mobile device" and see how my "nearby" changes and advice from Wiki does, too!



Steve

 

[digitS']

No problem!

At first, I thought it was stuck on a location - maybe, the address associated with the desktop. Then, I saw the pin & circling arrow at the top of the page. Reset!

Of course, every elementary school shows up. But, so do historical settings I knew nothing about and wouldn't even have known to look for them.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Walll, I don't use a mobile device, but on my laptop the Wikipedia pages, articles and edit pages, none of them seem to use much bandwidth. The main bandwidth hog I tend to use is music, mainly from MySpace music.

@Smart Red the wikipedia articles don't need to be logged in on to read. Easier even than the simplest email page.

@digitS' I'm doing traveling history on Wikipedia while it rains too hard to work outside. Right now I'm 2,200 years ago on the silk road on a caravan meeting up with Zhang Qian and his delegation on their way to the Seleucid empire to make trade agreements. (Hoping to meet up with Maria Muldaur there to have some midnights at the oasis. First I better send my camels to bed.)

So Wikipedia helps me travel long ways, and with a time machine at my fingertips. Who'd'a ever thunk such a thing possible when I was in third grade?

So those were the days when the Persian empire of the Parthians was done with, Alexander the great took it over, then died young, and all the Greeks were thinking about moving in, taking some free land, being the big cheeses there, set up some fancy rich noble dynasties such as the Ptolemies, adding silent P's to their names, and Hellenizing the populace by making it popular to act Greek.
And discovering that, hay(!), there's an old highway here that goes east to where there is a lot of adventuring to be had. But got to watch out for those southern Huns and highway robbers who arrive in hordes on their short horses. No wonder those far out and exotic Han dynasty folks will give anything for bigger horses. Zhang Qian even promises to fix up the silk road and extend it. Ya oughta see how he writes things. Up to down, and usually one or 2 letters is a whole word, and they have a bazillion of those letters. Looga that silk material! Let's learn how to make that stuff. Don't show that to the wife. She'll break the bank loading up on it...

 

[Ridgerunner]

So far my wife has not tried silk on her loom. As far as I know she has only used natural fibers though. Cotton is harder to spin into thread than wool, but wool is harder to weave. It has to do with those tiny hooks on the wool fibers. They tend to stick together. I can't remember any specific comments on the alpaca wool, though she has only used it once.

Steve one of my treasures as a kid was when I found a box of old school books in a neighbor's barn when I was helping him put up his tobacco crop. This was over five decades ago. It had a bunch of out of date history books in it for different ages. He let me have the books to take home. I read those things front to back.

That neighbor was our local atheist, communist alcoholic. He's pretty much work on Sunday and rest the rest of the week. Usually he could not work the rest of the week since he was an alcoholic, though he religiously did work on Sundays. If the weeds were out of control on one part of his crops and the other wasn't too bad, he'd take care of the not too bad first, figuring that by the time he got the bad under control, the not too bad would be pretty bad too. Once he was bitten by a copperhead. His treatment was to not tell anybody and stay drunk for about a week. He lived.

He had a collie named Brownie. He loved that dog and the dog lived him. That was a really good dog. Very well behaved.

Thanks for the memories this morning Steve. I really enjoyed reading those history books that were out of date over five decades ago.

 

[digitS']

One never knows what direction one will take or where these threads will lead ...

Here are a few pages of books I found in an unused room, upstairs in the old farmhouse: LINK

I remember my imagination being especially captured by the illustrations of the constellations ... with those old books were National Geographics ..!

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

Oh, the adventures to be found in hidden places filled with dusty pages from the past. . .
I, too, have discovered treasured books stored by some distant word lover patiently waiting for their pages -- like Pandora's box -- to be opened and let the long lost ideas free once again.

A series of books for the earnest young gentleman in his teen-aged years full of proper behavior tips for every occasion dated 1904.

A precious 1834 volume that my dad had treasured, filled with poetry and stories to be shared with the students state wide -- early Common Core -- it was my first introduction to the world of Shylock. Certainly not PC reading for today.

My favorite was a series of 10 books -- something about the Great Minds of the 19th Century. Full of ideas to set a reader's heart flying.

Thanks for the memories. There were many others I've read and passed on, but these seemed special to me.

 

[digitS']

@marshallsmyth , take your Pandora's Box with you the next time you visit the Mendocino Library .

Pop on Wikipedia, click those 3 bars and "nearby."

You may find the Mason-Dixon trail stretching right across the continent. There are several oases for you with bookmobile stops - check scheduling and wireless availability ...

Unlike Shakespeare, you won't have to travel outside the country to meet a money lender so be careful about financing your adventure and horse purchases - you want any Appaloosa to take??

Steve