I'm sure a lot of us have seen this scene happening, if not to us, then to the person insisting that he'll only take a while and finally let you use the computer in "5 -- no make that 10 -- no, I mean 15" minutes. After all, wandering off into completely random places on the internet is pretty much a universal experience (wait, isn't that what they call surfing?). And wikipedia is one of those hyperlink-ridden havens for people who have too much -- or too little (and yet are still easily distracted) -- time on their hands.
Time and again I've fallen prey to the black hole that is wikipedia, just because of some tiny thing I thought I'd like to look up. In a matter of clicks, I find that my "quick" check of one topic has turned into a very long break resulting in a myriad of tabs, a dozen other equally interesting topics, and many more hyperlinks ripe for clicking.
I think one of the most random wikipedia crawls I've ever indulged in started with an image of M.C. Escher's "Relativity" and ended with me installing electric sheep for my screensaver. Now how did that happen? I got lost in a Droste Effect of sorts from clicking on all those links.
Like I was saying: fractal flames are cool. And I believe that androids do dream of electric sheep.
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