Photo: Flickr user lifeontheedge

Friday, May 12, 2006

Baidu Baike (aka Baidupedia) just launched -- it's billed as a "Chinese Wikipedia" (though it's not actually a wiki -- users submit content and administrators must approve it). Censorship, of course, since it's a Chinese endevour: no mentions allowed of Tianammen Square, democracy, human rights, etc. The launch coincided with a crackdown on attempts to access Wikipedia from the Chinese mainland.

It's not all bad. Baidu Baike could act as an interesting testing ground: a highly publicized, widely used system somewhere (structurally) between Wikipedia and Everything2.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Wikipedia is more popular than Jesus (who is himself more popular than the Beatles).

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Bōsōzoku were first seen in the 1950s as Japanese youth began to see more products of industry, such as cars and bikes. The first bōsozōku were known as kaminari-zoku or "Lightning Tribes".

Monday, May 08, 2006


Tame Silver Foxes
are the results of an experiment to domesticate the silver fox, started many years ago in Russia. Notably, the foxes did not only became more tame, but more dog-like as well.