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  1. Aw I forgot that it was Eurovision tonight so instead spent the evening recording me reading weird WP pages aloud for WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. Hard to pick a favourite quote but “Bacon, with the help of a Friar Bungy or Bungay was said to have spent seven years building one of the devices in order to discover whether it would be possible to render Britain impregnable by ringing it with a wall of brass” was particularly fun.

  2. that Cebuano-speaking Wikipedians are vastly more thorough in cataloguing the world’s various “Goat Islands” than their English-speaking counterparts, although they neglect the more artistic uses of the phrase. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Island vs https://ceb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Island

    English-speaking wikipedians would have you believe that Canada only boasts a measly two Goat Islands, but the admirable Cebuano-speaking wikipedians reveal that the true number is sixteen times greater, coming second only to the US, which clocks in at almost one hundred.

    The map of Chilean Goat Islands is possibly my new favourite wikipedia graphic:

  7. SVG of the week eternity: English Unit Lengths:

    MARVEL AT OUR CULTURE

    Edit: more information about Ramsden’s Chains and Gunter’s chains on ramsden.info, “the gateway to all things Ramsden”

    Edits! Iceland-specific info about Ells and hand measurement diagram

    1. Shaftment (palm and extended thumb) about 2 palms or 6 inches
    2. Hand (In English, a “Hand” or “Handbreadth” is commonly used to represent the width of the palm, sometimes including the thumb when closed against the palm.) about 4 inches
    3. Palm (In English, a "Palm" is commonly used to represent four fingers held together, which is slightly less than the true width of the palm at the knuckles.) about 3 inches or 4 fingers
    4. Span (from little finger tip to thumb tip) about 3 palms, 9 inches or 12 fingers
    5. Finger (or fingerbreadth) about 3/4 inch or 1/16 foot
    6. Digit (In English, “digit” and “finger” are used to represent the width of a finger. However, the value of the digit is slightly less than the value of the finger.)
    7. Thumb (not indicated) about 1 inch or 1/12 foot