Thursday, October 30, 2008  Why I Love Wikipedia  As a young
child, a favorite pastime was paging through our family's sets
of encyclopedias, reading about whatever article caught my
interest. I am confident this early exposure to the broadest
possible spectrum of random knowledge is what made me such a
voracious addict of, well, random knowledge. So naturally I love
Wikipedia, because it's so easy to stumble across something
you've never heard of. Ten minutes ago, I never knew there
existed such a vegetable as the mangelwurzel. Say it with me,
"mangelwurzel". Isn't it glorious?   elephantschild said...
Sometimes Wikipedia leaves you hanging, though. Take this
enigmatic example,  The mangelwurzel has a history in England of
being used for...the brewing of a potent alcoholic beverage.
What was it called, I wonder? And apparently you can carve
mangelwurzel(en?) as you would pumpkins.  Evan said...  That's
actually how I found it, crosslinked from the jack'o'lantern
entry. Apparently Europeans have been carvin