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Building a Fast Wikipedia Offline Reader
ttsiod writes "An internet connection is not always at hand. I wanted to install Wikipedia on my laptop to be able to carry it along with me on business trips. After trying and rejecting the normal (MySQL-based) procedure, I quickly hacked a much better one over the weekend, using open source tools. Highlights: (1) Very fast searching. (2) Keyword (actually, title words) based searching. (3) Search produces multiple possible articles, sorted by probability (you choose amongst them). (4) LaTeX based rendering for mathematical equations. (5) Hard disk usage is minimal: space for the original .bz2 file plus the index built through Xapian. (6) Orders of magnitude faster to install (a matter of hours) compared to loading the 'dump' into MySQL — which, if you want to enable keyword searching, takes days."
Programming something new to some people is like playing a video game. I love programming useless things just for the challenge. People who don't understand that have never had a true love for programming.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
how to evolve a Pikachu into a Raichu
Well, if that isn't something a hitchhiker needs to know, it at least sounds like something they would need to know!
Does it also give the probability of the Pikachu turning into a bulldozer?
I think Wikipedia does in fact release diffs, but I wouldn't swear it.
A PSP is very portable (fits in your sweater/backpack), hackable, and has up to 8Gb of storage. I have been dreaming for an year about porting wikipedia to it. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the kind of programming needed and I could never find the time...
I was that way, once. Then other hobbies came along, and now I rarely do any programming thats not work related.
Its funny how time changes you.