Wednesday, August 08, 2007

strange loopiness

So douglas hofstadter talks a lot about "strange loopiness" in his still delightful book "Godel Escher Bach". There is something amazingly delightful and strangely loopy about the fact that the featured article on English wikipedia's front page today is their article about encyclopedia britannica, who rumor has it, wikipedia has to some extent displaced. And if the rumor is true, you can certainly understand why. Just compare the article on any subject from brittanica and wikipedia. The wikipedia articles are invariably far easier to read and more informative. Plus wikipedia has 4 times as many articles. Plus wikipedia infinitely less expensive for the end user.

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