Jason Kottke pointed to an article by Matt Webb that shows where he browsed on Wikipedia. This is a fascinating look into your browsing habits. I've often thought that Firefox is smart enough to track this stuff for me. It's a great extension idea.

I don't usually follow the social memes that travel around, but in this case I thought it'd be neat to look at what I've seen on Wikipedia for the last week or so. Wikipedia is the number one source I turn to when I'm looking for information on something. To make the search easier I have the built in search function of Firefox tuned to a special Google/Wikipedia search.

Here is what I've read about on Wikipedia:

• Convection Oven: The wife was asking if we could describe a new oven we bought with this term. You can.
• Arthur Wood: The former CEO of Sears died today, so I wanted to learn more about his career, but Wikipedia doesn't have an article on him.
• Beaver: I was looking for an organized animal family for an article I wrote.
• Best Buy: I needed to know a little more about the criticisms Best Buy has from customers.
• Cheshire, Ohio: Bryant Gumbel's HBO show did a segment on children's asthma and they featured this city that had been bought out by an electric company.
• Commander Keen: The old game from Apogee was listed in an article I wrote about trying to buy old video games.
• Energy Conservation Strategies: This was an interesting link. It came via Digg, Fark or MetaFilter when someone wrote about the "air conditioning is evil" article from AlterNet.
• GERD: A member of my team was talking about stomach issues at night.
• Holland Tunnel: I don't live in New York, nor have I ever visited, so I wanted to know a little more history of the tunnel.
• Hoover Dam By Pass: I was watching a Modern Marvels episode on horsepower where they mentioned this project.
• Johnny Appleseed: I forget, but I know I was reading about it for a really good reason. Did you know that Johnny was really a businessman?
• Jill of the Jungle: See Commander Keen.
• Ketoprofen: This was a good one. Orudis was an over the counter pain reliever that had this in it. They have quit making Orudis, so I was looking into more information about the drug.
• Mechanix Illustrated: Someone is taking old pages from this magazine and posting them on the web. I wanted to see the history of the magazine.
• Monica Lewinsky Scandal: In the middle of a movie review I needed an example from the 90s that justified what someone said about the US at the time.
• Reciprocating Engine: Modern Marvels horsepower episode again.
• St. Thomas Nevada: When I looked up the bypass project I came across this town that shows itself from beneath Lake Mead from time to time.
• Tags: This article helped to provide inspiration on how to explain tags.
• United States Citizenship: I was researching the legality of bilingual voting cards.

If you look at why I use Wikipedia it's mostly for research followed by fun. This got me thinking about how I learned about subjects I am interested before Wikipedia or the internet. Most of the time I'd write topics down, so that next time I went to the library I could look them up. I can remember times I'd spend four hours a day at the library hunting things down. Amazing how much time Wikipedia has saved.

Then again, when you start reading Wikipedia you bounce between subjects leading to more browsing. You don't really save much time. :-)

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