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Long before Beth Harmon saw visions of chess boards on her ceiling in the Queens Gambit series, Canadian Hans Jung was experiencing the very same thing at home.

His parents insisted he go to bed early on school nights, but hed spend the time analyzing imaginary positions. It led to a career as a chess master and a practitioner of blindfold chess.

Jungs most impressive performance came in 1993 in London, Ont. when he played 26 people simultaneously without ever looking at any board. He was pumped right after, but suffered bad vertigo over the next two days.

Its like the Ironman of chess, says Jung of blindfold play. Now in his 60s, he says blindfold ability declines with age, but hes confident he could still do five boards at once.

Jung worked for years as the City of Kitcheners chess co-ordinator, and hopes to be organizing more activities soon in his current role at Waterloo Public Library. Blindfold play always draws a crowd, but the number of people who can do it is very small.

Timur Gareyev holds the current world blindfold record. He played 48 simultaneous games in Las Vegas five years ago, winning 35 and drawing seven.

15. Nf7! If the Black Queen moves, 16. Qxe6 is deadly. But if Kxf7 then White plays 16.Qxe6+ anyway, because Kxe6 17.Ng5 is mate, and other Black moves lose as well.

See the article here:
Chess is hard; blindfold chess is much tougher - The Globe and Mail

Iceland (Niklesh Jain) A performance of the female Grand Master Tania Sachdev, who is called the Chess Queen of India in the 35th Reykvek International Grand Master Chess Tournament, became the center of discussion around the world, in fact in the 7th round of the tournament, the host Iceland's Grand Master was in front of Tania. Master Stangrimson was Hadeen and Tania is about to face the Black Pieces.

Nimjo was left with only pawns and a wazir after the moves at the Indian Opening and the situation was balanced but by the time 60 moves approached, Tania lost control of the game and thought the match was going to end anytime.

Let us tell you that Tania, who has always been known for her fighting ability, did not lose hope and some last-minute mistakes by Haydeen and Tania's brilliant replies with a tear of the center gave her an unexpected victory in 94 moves. With this win, Tania has moved straight to the joint second place.

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The rest is here:
Tania returns with a thumping win in the Reykvek International Chess - News Track English

There's a Wikipedia page just for toilet paper folding techniques at hotels.

There's also a Wiki list dedicated to sexually active popes. Another list focuses on future astronomical events.

Annie Rauwerda is well aware. The 22-year-old University of Michigan student spends about an hour each day scouring the web for anything delightful or weird. Then, she shares those findings to her viral page, Depths of Wikipedia.

Rauwerda, a Grand Rapids native, started Depths of Wikipedia in 2020 while she was bored during COVID lockdown. Now, it has more than one million followers across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

WKARs Sarah Lehr spoke with Rauwerda about her favorite corners of the internets largest crowdsourced encyclopedia.

Interview Highlights

On how casual browsers should approach Wikipedia

On the fan base and sensibility of Depths of Wikipedia

Interview Transcript

Kevin Lavery, host: Did you know Wikipedia has a page just for toilet paper folding techniques at hotels? Or that Wikipedia keeps a list of sexually active popes?

Annie Rauwerda knows. The 22-year-old University of Michigan student scours the web for anything delightful or weird and shares those findings to her viral page, Depths of Wikipedia.

Rauwerda, a Grand Rapids native, started Depths of Wikipedia in 2020 while she was bored during COVID lockdown. Now, it has more than one million followers across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

WKARs Sarah Lehr spoke with Rauwerda about her favorite corners of the internets largest crowdsourced encyclopedia.

Sarah Lehr: If you're just meeting someone and they're not extremely online, how would you describe what Depths of Wikipedia is?

Annie Rauwerda: I screenshot things on Wikipedia that I think are interesting or funny or make you slow your scroll just a little bit.

Lehr: Have there been posts from Depths of Wikipedia that really took off in a way that surprised you you didn't think they would necessarily be so popular?

Rauwerda: One that was popular that I didn't quite expect was, there is this photo of popcorn and they showed two different types of popcorn kernels and one is called a mushroom it's a circle, and the other has little things sticking out of it more wispy and they call it a butterfly. And I've eaten popcorn many times. I have thought a little bit about the different shapes of popcorn. I have never known that there were names. And it started a big debate and Twitter and Instagram (people) were arguing about the merits of the mushroom and the butterfly-shaped popcorn.

Lehr: Do you have any advice for other people for using Wikipedia and vetting what they're looking at? What should they be looking out for?

Rauwerda: I think Wikipedia is one of the most incredible things that exists the way that it self-moderates, the way that it allows for democratic discussion. I think Wikipedia has like this ethos of the early internet before we had these big giants that were capitalizing off of it and I think it's the best site ever.

Obviously, Wikipedia has inaccuracies on it. It's the encyclopedia that everyone can edit. So, definitely don't believe every single thing you read on Wikipedia. But the best way to engage with it is to read everything with a grain of salt. If you're not sure about something, check the citation that's on Wikipedia. And if you if you're not quite satisfied with the way something is discussed on Wikipedia, look into editing it and changing it.

Lehr: Are there aspects of Wikipedia that you think could be improved as someone who's very, very familiar with the platform?

Rauwerda: Oh my gosh, yes. Editing Wikipedia is never ending. And sometimes people wonder they're like, Okay, well, I mean, Wikipedia has, like, almost 7 million articles in English at least. What else do you need? But, in reality, like the world is always changing. Every article needs updating.

For example, you know, the population of Battle Creek. I was just looking on Wikipedia and the last citation was from 2019. And I was like Oh, I gotta quick update this. Another problem with Wikipedia, I would say, is that it can be very hard to start editing. The Wikipedia editor demographics do not represent the English speakers in the world. Right now, the percentage of Wikipedia editors that are male, it's somewhere in the 80s, in the 80 percents, which is a little bit better than it used to be, but it's certainly still not equal. And so there are projects like Wiki Women in Red that are working to get more female editors.

Lehr: How would you describe the sense of humor that your pages have and do you think there are any generational aspects and who your fans are?

Rauwerda: I do. I have statistics from Instagram of who my followers are and the demographics are pretty interesting. The gender distribution is pretty down the middle and the ages are mostly like 15 to 35. I have a friend and her mom told me, she's like, Annie, I don't get it, but my daughter loves it. And I do think that's true. It skews young.

I think the humor is kind of subtle, and there's no clear punch line. And it's less about like a ha-ha, knee- slapper joke and more about like a, oh, you kind of breathe heavily out of your nostrils because this thing is kind of interesting and a little bit funny. One example of is there's this molecule. It's an organic compound and its just the way that this molecule looks exactly like a teenage mutant ninja turtle. And so I posted it and I said, forbidden Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and people thought it was really funny. I would say that the humor is subtle, maybe is the best word.

Lavery: That was WKAR's Sarah Lehr talking with Depths of Wikipedia creator Annie Rauwerda.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Original post:
Depths of Wikipedia: Meet the Michigander who scours the web for anything weird and wonderful - WKAR

What does this mean for the worlds accumulated knowledge?

For more than 20 years now, people can look up online answers to all manner of questions. With some 50 million articles in almost 300 languages, Wikipedia would appear to be a treasure trove of knowledge. Anyone can contribute. But little is known about the individual creators of this enormous pool of information. What motivates them to devote unpaid time in the service of human knowledge?

And what happens if the collective is infiltrated by contributors with a hidden agenda in the pay of nations or industry giants? Why is 85% of the content provided by whats become known as stereotypical "angry white men contributing content that they consider relevant for the planet? And will artificial intelligence soon take over? This film provides a critical appraisal of the pros and cons of the online encyclopedia.

Broadcasting Hours:

DW English

TUE 31.05.2022 01:15 UTCTUE 31.05.2022 04:15 UTCTUE 31.05.2022 18:15 UTCWED 01.06.2022 09:15 UTCSAT 04.06.2022 08:15 UTCSUN 05.06.2022 12:15 UTC

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DW Deutsch+

WED 01.06.2022 09:15 UTCSAT 04.06.2022 08:15 UTC

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world.wide.wikipedia - Whos Feeding the Hive Mind? - DW (English)

Steven Pruitt, the Virginia resident who has made over 3 million edits on Wikipedia.

For every article that you read on Wikipedia, there is a writer and an editor. A towering figure among them is Steven Pruitt, the Virginia resident who has made over three million edits on the "free encyclopedia".

Mr Pruitt made the news back in 2017 when TimeMagazine named him one of the 25 most influential people on the internet, alongside former US President Donald Trump, JK Rowling and Kim Kardashian. Since 2006, he has made over three million Wikipedia edits, more than any other English-language editor. He has personally also written hundreds of new articles on influential women in order to correct Wikipedia's gender imbalance and also strengthen the backbone of the platform itself.

Wikipedia is such an incredible tool because it makes so much information accessible to so many people at once, he told Time.

Mr Pruitt was named one of the most influential people on the internet in part because one-third of all English language articles in the online encyclopedia have been edited by him. He goes by the name Ser Amantio di Nicolao on Wikipedia, the name of his favourite Opera character. In an interview with CBS News, Mr Pruitt revealed that he is deeply obsessed with historyand his first article was about Peter Francisco, who was his great great great great great great grandfather.

Mr Pruitt's primary profession is at the US Customs Office, where he organises documents. However, in the evening, after completing his duties, he spends more than three hours a day researching, editing and writing for the online portal. He doesn't receive any compensation for his work, but he has remained true to his interests.

"The idea of making it all free fascinates me. My mother grew up in the Soviet Union... So I'm very conscious of that -what it can mean to make knowledge free, to make information free," he said.

Further, speaking to CBS News, Mr Pruitt revealed that the longest he has gone without editing Wikipedia is two or three weeks. In fact, WikiMedia's vice president of communications, Kui Kinyanjui, had also stated that the site would not exist without the dedication of its volunteers, especially Steven Pruitt.

We're very excited about projects like Women in Red, which seeks to identify and place more content on women on our platform... Steven has been a large contributor to that project," Kui Kinyanjui said.

Several of the other top 10 Wikipedia editors also agree that Mr Pruitt's contributions have been remarkable.He is notable not just for the sheer number of articles and edits he has contributed, but for what he chooses to highlight as well. For example, he learned that women were the subjects of just 15 per cent of biographical articles on the site, and worked to fix that imbalance by writing hundreds of articles about influential women.

To put into perspective what it took for Mr Pruitt to become the top editor, he has been dedicating his free time to the site for more than 13 years now.

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See more here:
Steven Pruitt, The Man Who Has Freely Edited Over 3 Million Articles On Wikipedia - NDTV