Wikipedia (i/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or i/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a free, collaboratively edited and multilingual Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 22 million articles (over 0 million in English alone) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site, and it has about 100,000 regularly active contributors. As of June 2012, there are editions of Wikipedia in 285 languages. It has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking sixth globally among all websites on Alexa and having an estimated 365 million readers worldwide. It is estimated that Wikipedia receives 2.7 billion monthly pageviews from the United States alone.
Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Sanger coined the name Wikipedia, which is a portmanteau of wiki (a type of collaborative website, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's departure from the expert-driven style of encyclopedia building and the presence of a large body of unacademic content have received extensive attention in print media. In its 2006 Person of the Year article, Time magazine recognized the rapid growth of online collaboration and interaction by millions of people around the world. It cited Wikipedia as an example, in addition to YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. Wikipedia has also been praised as a news source because of how quickly articles about recent events appear. Students have been assigned to write Wikipedia articles as an exercise in clearly and succinctly explaining difficult concepts to an uninitiated audience.
A link means a single element of a chain. It may also refer to:
Rot or rotting may refer to:
In technology:
Places:
Other uses:
Theo Jansen was born in 1948, in Scheveningen in the Netherlands. He grew up with a knack for both physics and art, and studied physics at the University of Delft. While at Delft, Jansen was involved in many projects that involved both art and technology, including a paint machine and a UFO. In 1990, he began what he is known for today: building large animals out of PVC that are able to live on their own. His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering; in a car company (BMW) television commercial Jansen says: "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds." He strives to equip his creations with their own artificial intelligence so they can avoid obstacles by changing course when one is detected, such as the sea itself.
Theo Jansen has been creating wind-walking examples of artificial life since 1990. What was at first a rudimentary breed has slowly evolved into a generation of machines that are able to react to their environment: "over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water, and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives."
Christoph "Chris" Watrin (born 7 August 1988 in Cologne,Germany) is a German singer and dancer, best known for his work in the boyband US5, which he joined when he was still in school. In 2008, Watrin left the band, citing lack of interest as a major reason.
From a very young age, Watrin had studied both music and dance at school. groups. During his time as a student, he became cast in the reality television show Big in America, and subsequently received a place in the five-piece band US5. Although claiming that his parents were skeptical about his joining the band, he decided to leave education to focus on US5 completely.
Before taking part in US5, Watrin had already been offered a record deal at the age of 14, but due to a combination of youthful inexperience and parent pressure, turned the offer down.
Watrin enjoys many types of music, and was part of a gospel choir before joining US5. When not working, he plays sports such as volleyball and surfing, and spends time working on photography also. Waltrin is a natural blond with natural blue/green eyes, but highlights his hair regularly. He once stated in a magazine interview that fame made him arrogant and that it is hard for him to trust people, as he fears that "they just see the Chris Watrin of US5, not the real me".