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Squeezing a Wikipedia Snapshot Onto an 8GB iPhone

Posted by timothy on from the but-you'll-miss-the-latest-edit-wars dept.

blackbearnh writes with this excerpt from O'Reilly Radar "Think about Wikipedia, what some consider the most complete general survey of human knowledge we have at the moment. Now imagine squeezing it down to fit comfortably on an 8GB iPhone. Sound daunting? Well, that's just what Patrick Collison's Encyclopedia iPhone application does. App Store purchasers of Collison's open source application can browse and search the full text of Wikipedia when stuck in a plane, or trapped in the middle of nowhere (or, as defined by AT&T coverage...)"

1 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Complete human knowledge? by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I go to Wikipedia for two things; when I want summarized descriptions of fictional stories, and information about weights and measures and official standards. And boring details nobody has any opinion about which are so chipped in stone, I don't have to worry about how fractured and tangled up the editors' various emotional/intellectual states were at the time of the entry inclusion. Stories are safe because they're not real, and it's hard for Official Culture to get along when it distorts the way you convert miles to kilometers. (Though it would bloody do so if it thought it could get away with it!)

    Other than that, Wikipedia is Humanity's dream-state navel-gazing summary of what it WISHES were real and not what IS. There is so much content on Wikipedia I disagree with that I barely even notice the red-light flashing in my brain when I scan any given article, or as more often happens, the lack of an article.

    No wonder you can cram that thing into 8 gigs. Hell, I was flipping through an encyclopedia from the 40's, and under "Dynamite", it had detailed instructions on how to MAKE it yourself and how to blast rocks from your property. --Wikipedia isn't even as informative as a general knowledge set of dead-tree books from last century. But it IS smaller and more portable. I guess that's good.

    And sorry, XKCD fans, but the Hitchhiker's Guide, (fictional though it is), isn't hamstrung with political correctness and facts washed out of existence by human insecurities. Maybe when humanity grows up and can handle looking at reality straight on will Wikipedia become something to be proud of. At the moment it's merely the litmus test for social maturity with embarrassing results.

    Sorry for ranting, but honestly!

    -FL