this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Today I Learned

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What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Shame you can't manually input a location (not only for privacy, but for tourists and visitors who might want to plan ahead)

[–] [email protected] 65 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can! You just need to construct your URL manually.

For example, let's say you're in Idaho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/43.1896782,-112.3461974

The numbers at the end are latitude and longitude. You can get these numbers from a GPS app, Google Maps, or OpenStreetMap. For example, here's that same location on OSM: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/43.1896782/-112.3461974 . You can see the coordinates at the end of the URL.

Bit of a hassle, but you could potentially write a script or bookmarklet to make this easier.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Thanks, as you say, that's a lot of hassle and not something a random user would be able to know on their own, so I appreciate the info!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can. I

  1. opened gMaps
  2. grabbed my lat/long
  3. corrected the nearby URL because in #Canada it's always wrong when on desktop
  4. found the building I was in is apparently 1.3 km away, which will affect my walk to the loo

But the facility being wrong is secondary; it's possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

What is the structure of the Nearby URL when manually entering coordinates?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (15 children)

It's very American that one of the pages nearby me is a well known mass shooting.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is how you can get offline Wikipedia articles for OSM. Great when traveling.

You can, for example, read articles about things you pass in a plane, train, auto, or bike. Without internet.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Do you mind to elaborate?

Because the post is for Wikipedia website, which is online

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In OsmAnd you can download map data for use offline. In the same download page for thr map data there's also a download for Wikipedia data.

Download data is per country, so someone just bundled all the articles that have GPS coordinates withing the bounds of each country, and you can download all those articles for offline use in the OsmAnd app.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Thank you very much.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The place where I live

The lake I visited once

Two churches

A 14th century battle

A museum

A concentration camp

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not too great a puzzle, as you're having your nations flag in your user name, but...

Kaunas?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Kaunas would have way more stuff around. :)

I live in a middle of historically significant nowhere.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

Lol, bunch of schools, two correctional centers, and some sites of "historic battles".

Welcome to pretty much anywhere in the southeastern US.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

On OsmAnd, go to configure map and enable Wikipedia. All articles with location are visible.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I love OsmAnd so I purchased the OsmAnd+, I highly recommend

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have just been informed you can also see pages nearby other pages with a special URL query (apparently no interface exists for this yet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/page/Utrecht

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

...and I thought of a web game you can make with this, if anyone's bored and looking for something to do: https://brain.d.on-t.work/notes/9on0iba4evg40hic

  • pick a random page
  • find all pages nearby
  • make the player guess the random page from the nearby pages
  • if they haven't guessed the exact page, compare the coordinates and score based on distance to the correct page
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Cool! Its like Geoguessr meets Wikispeedia!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Nearby me is suburb I live in and the nearby suburbs, oh and the electoral district of those exact same suburbs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

cool tip, i didn't know about this either but it's awesome!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

What a cool feature!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I took a look. It's all train stations, schools, and farms.

You'd think I lived in the middle of nowhere.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I have 5 results. An Indian reservation, a little-known geographic feature and 3 unincorporated communities. All of those outside of 5km from me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

yeah same here unfortunately. but then I am currently somewhere I'd consider middle of nowhere

actually there was one plane crash but that's not necessarily an article I'm interested in

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Actually learned a lot I didn't know about the history of the little town I live in - very cool! Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You have denied access to Location Services for Wikipedia. To change this please visit your browser or device settings

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Even if I allowed my browser location access, the location would be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Er. Stupid question. How do I actually tell it where I am so this will work? Or does it only work on mobile?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just posted an answer under a different comment. See https://lemm.ee/comment/8402398

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Lots of railway stations, an old church, and literally just a cliff. Yeah that sounds about right, level-of-excitement-round-here-wise!

Not entirely worth the effort but I appreciate the tutorial nontheless :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

A bunch of schools, parks, and malls is all I really see. The only thing of interest that's happened around here is we had a machete attack in 2016.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

TIL Wikipedia has no page for the 28' Canadian Toonie monument

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

8 schools, an airport, and a hospital. Gripping.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Gold Base 9.7km 😵‍💫

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I live in Copenhagen so this is gonna be a field day!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

awww thats the dream, whats it like. i even lesrned some danish. hej, mange tak, farvel, rodt, hund, hoved, jeg har, du er etc.

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