What I Learnt Today

When I was a lad, we were told “Go look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls”
Now, in turn, I can look up ‘Funk and Wagnalls’ in Wikipedia, which turns 10 this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_%26_Wagnalls

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopaedia. It contains 17 million articles (over 3.5 million in English), which have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on theInternet, having 365 million readers. (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia )

A BBC documentary to commemorate the occasion asks the question ‘Can Wikipedia be trusted?’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2011/01/110111_wikipedia_at_1…

Given the fact that anyone can edit an entry, **can** it be trusted? In practice, we all trust it all the time.
However, this 2009 version of the Alstonville entry possibly contained some slight inaccuracies about the naming of the town’s ‘Sporting Facilities and Parks’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alstonville,_New_South_Wales&oldid=295753724

Oliver’s claim of sporting immortality was short lived. The page was revised by some spoilsport within 43 minutes.

And this, the very first entry about Caroline Chisholm, was posted in 2004 by an enthusiastic Alexandra, aged 11. It was the only information about ‘the convict’s friend’ in Wikipedia for three months. Now, there have been more than 500 revisions, which have perhaps made it a little more sophisticated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caroline_Chisholm&oldid=2555621

What I Learnt On 1st February in other years

1st February 2012 Awkward Moment : When the Dog is a Better Skateboarder than You Are

There was a long queue at security screening in Terminal 2 Sydney Airport this morning (although not as long as in this photo of the weekend with the ‘Virgin troubles’) (Terminal 2 is the Jetstar / Virgin / Rex terminal)

When confronted by a long line, its worth remembering that there is another, barely used, security screening point at the other end of the terminal.

Go down stairs, and head west, past all the laggage carousels (and the property storage centre), and past the gates where Rex boards (Gate 47), and there it is. Never a line up!

There is a similar sneaky security gateway in Terminal 3 (Qantas domestic), just up the escalators from the baggage carousels at the Western End of the terminal.

Both of these can be lifesavers when you are running late for a connection.

What I Learnt On 31st January in other years

31st January 2012 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 minutes

In case you missed it, this was one of the ten most successful Internet ads for 2010

http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience

What I Learnt On 30th January in other years

30th January 2012 23 and a half hours

“Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that …Great Britain has declared war upon Germany and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.”

“Well may we say “God save the Queen”, because nothing will save the Governor-General!”

Had dinner tonight in ‘The Ginger Room’, which is in Old Parliament House, Canberra, the site of some of Australia’s greatest (political) battles. The Ginger Room restaurant is in the old member’s dining room, where I imagine Bob Menzies and Gough Whitlam would have acted as the host for many an entertaining dinner.

http://www.gingercatering.com.au/area.asp?aID=25

After Federation in 1901, the Australian Parliament first met in Parliament House, Melbourne, which it borrowed from the Victorian parliament (who moved into the Royal Exhibition Building).

Canberra was selected to be the site of the nation’s new capital in 1908. Walter Burley Smith won a contest to design the new city, and construction began in 1913. Work on Parliament House commenced in 1923. It was designed by John Smith Murdoch, the Commonwealth’s Chief Architect, and intended to be a ‘provisional’ building to house parliament for about 50 years.

The Australian parliament sat in Old Pariament House from 1927 until the new building was opened during the bicentennial celebrations in 1988.

By that time, the building was far too small to host the politicians, staff, public servants and journalists who worked there. Many saw this as an advantage – ministers were always accessible, and it was impossible to keep a secret.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the lawns in front of Parliament House in 1972 as a protest against the giovernment’s failure to acknowledge aboriginal land rights. It has been a continuous feature since 1992.

http://www.aboriginaltentembassy.net/

Old Parliament House now serves as the Museum of Australian Democracy

 http://moadoph.gov.au/

A current exhibition is the Best of Australian political cartoons of 2010.

http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/behind-the-lines-the-year-s-best-political-…

Back to the meal –  the Ginger Room is a very formal restaurant, and the service was impeccable.

The food may have been a bit sophisticated for me – I had some trouble identifying the dishes.

Can you work out what the desert in this slideshow is?

What I Learnt On 29th January in other years

29th January 2012 Hotel NUTS: No smorking, you might upsetter the iPod Dog