doug nelson: DISENGAGE!

Leina’ala: i don’t really understand how the whole ipod wiki business would work, what with no mouse
Leina’ala: i mean, i read what you wrote, but i’m still confused
Doug Nelson: okay, here we go
Doug Nelson: i enter the wikipedia thing, and i have an empty textbox
Doug Nelson: i dial in each letter of ‘dizzy gillespie’ and click the center button to select’em, arcade-style
Doug Nelson: when i’m done, i hit “play”
Doug Nelson: it searches, then goes to dizzy gillespie
Doug Nelson: i use the scrollwheel to move through his article
Doug Nelson: i see something about “songo” jazz, and don’t know what it is
Doug Nelson: and it’s underlined, meaning it links to an article, just like on wikipedia
Doug Nelson: so i click the center button, and one of the linked items on my current screen lights up
Doug Nelson: i scroll to the right so the next one does, and then the next one, like hitting “tab” in a web browser
Doug Nelson: then i reach “songo jazz,” and i click center button
Doug Nelson: and i got to that entry!
Doug Nelson: the initial search is a pain, but the actual browsing and reading is nearly web-speed
Leina’ala: whoa, that’s cool
Doug Nelson: i just wish i could reduce the font-size to apple’s ipod size
Doug Nelson: but i’m sure they’ll fix it
Leina’ala: how big is the whole program?
Doug Nelson: 750 mb
Leina’ala: that’s tiny
Doug Nelson: for 3.5 million pages of encyclopedia
Doug Nelson: i know!
Doug Nelson: when you take the photos and the history and the user stuff out, wikipedia is teeny.
Doug Nelson: also, it could use a scrollbar
Doug Nelson: because i have no way of knowing if i’m halfway down an article or at the end
Doug Nelson: except when it stops moving
Doug Nelson: but. still, man
Leina’ala: funnn
Doug Nelson: it’s crazy. the obscurity-factor of many wikipedia entriesmakes it an even more interesting tool
Doug Nelson: i can find out all the guest appearances on doctor who.
Doug Nelson: even though i would never, ever want to.
Leina’ala: hahah
Doug Nelson: man, i just typed in “william butler” to see if they had the drummer from the arcade fire
Doug Nelson: because i’m a nerd
Doug Nelson: and i have full entries on 9 different william butlers, including him
Leina’ala: are any of the other butlers as famous?
Leina’ala: or, i guess, more so?
Doug Nelson: one ran for president in 1880!
Leina’ala: well hello.
Doug Nelson: one was a militia officer in 1789.
Doug Nelson: he and his family emigrated from ireland sometime before 1760, and settled in cumberland county, PA
Doug Nelson: He was the second of five brothers. Cumberland county, of course, has a population of 213,674.
Leina’ala: my goodness, what knowledge you possess
Doug Nelson: 94.4 percent of the population of cumberland county is white.
Doug Nelson: 56.5 percent is married!
Doug Nelson: China shifted from allowing polygamy to supporting only monogamous marriages in 1953.
Doug Nelson: The evolutionary benefits of monogamy in the animal world are many, as seen in the cave-dwelling oilbirds, where a low temperature doesn’t allow a female to leave her nest, so a monogamous mate provides food and protection.
Doug Nelson: Parrots are monogamous, except, of course, for the Kea and Kakapo (genus: Strigops, species: S. Habroptilus, the world’s only flightless parrot)
Doug Nelson: my god. i have the power to become the world’s most annoying person.