The New Yorker features an article about Wikidpedia that is very complimentary (as well it should be). I was fond of this passage, which showcases the differences between Wikipedia and traditional encyclopedias such as Britannica:
Apparently, no traditional encyclopedia has ever suspected that someone might wonder about Sudoku or about prostitution in China. Or, for that matter, about Capgras delusion (the unnerving sensation that an impostor is sitting in for a close relative), the Boston molasses disaster, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, Bill Gates’s house, the forty-five-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War, or Islam in Iceland. Wikipedia includes fine entries on Kafka and the War of the Spanish Succession, and also a complete guide to the ships of the U.S. Navy, a definition of Philadelphia cheesesteak, a masterly page on Scrabble, a list of historical cats (celebrity cats, a cat millionaire, the first feline to circumnavigate Australia), a survey of invented expletives in fiction (“bippie,” “cakesniffer,” “furgle”), instructions for curing hiccups, and an article that describes, with schematic diagrams, how to build a stove from a discarded soda can.
I’m pleased that the New Yorker article is online, as I have not yet been able to receive subscriptions to the three magazines that I want delivered to my home: The New Yorker, The Economist, and The Modern Drunkard.
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Our magazines just started two weeks ago, and I’m living uptown. My parents in mid-city aren’t getting them in the mail yet.
Ernie, I’ve been getting my New Yorker for a couple of months. Check with them again; there should be no reason you can’t get yours.