On 3 Mar 2009 at 11:49:01 -0500, Gwern Branwen wrote:
All of those are pretty interesting things - what side
of the road
tells you both historical information, and also is terribly practical
if you're there*
* Although one certainly hopes that anyone driving in a particular
country will not need Wikipedia to tell them something like this!
I could see the Simpsons cartoon doing something around this... The
Simpson family has just landed in a foreign country, and Homer has
rented a car, a new high-tech model with built in Internet access.
He suddenly realizes he doesn't know whether to drive on the left or
the right in that country, and brings up the Wikipedia page to look
it up. At that moment, back in Springfield, one of the school
bullies (isn't one of them named Jimbo?) has just vandalized the
country's Wikipedia article to change the driving side to the
opposite of its correct value, and thus Homer starts driving on the
wrong side, honking and cursing out all the other drivers who he says
are all doing it wrong. "Hey, you guys, you're supposed to be
driving on the left! Wikipedia says so!" Then the other drivers,
prompted by Homer's advice, pull up the Wikipedia page in their own
Internet-enabled cars, and realize they've been driving wrong all
their lives, and all switch to the opposite side.
--
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