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Encyc is a free wiki encyclopedia similar to Britannica, World Book, and the other great wiki, Wikipedia. Welcome to our site.

From today's featured article

M1 Abrams tank

The M1 Abrams tank is an American tank. It is large, heavily armored, and has a good cannon and firing systems. It is highly mobile, using a turbine engine more commonly found in helicoptors. This engine makes it incredibly fast, and quiet, but has the disadvantage of being relatively thirsty for fuel and therefore requiring more logistical support.

Did you know ...

• ... that the English language is the official language of the United Kingdom of Britain, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
• ... that a situational comedy or sitcom is a type of television program that puts characters in a recurring setting and tries to get the audience to laugh?
• ... that Zombietime is a website run by a photojournalist who visits political rallies around the San Francisco Bay area?

About Encyc

Main article: Encyc:About

Encyc was established in 2008. :) We would like to thank all of our users for their contributions and support. We couldn't have done it without you. (block of cheese). We have two mascots. The Encyc sloth is named Pancake. The Encyc dolphin is named Butterfly.

Everyone is welcome to read and participate here. Please be aware that like most other wikis we make no guarantee of validity. Read our disclaimer before using this website.

Deep thoughts by Enki

Churchill

What a complete master of the English language. He captures the moment in a word painting every time, cutting out all the distractions and nailing the point home. For example, Churchill's Radio Broadcast, June 22, 1941. "dandified Prussian officers"... "cataract of horrors"... "threshold of their native land"...

The past, with its crimes, its follies and its tragedies, flashes away. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes; their mothers and wives pray, ah yes, for there are times when all pray for the safety of their loved ones, for the return of the breadwinner, of the champion, of their protectors.

I see the 10,000 villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play I see advancing upon all this, in hideous onslaught, the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents, fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, so delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey. And behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who planned, organized and launched this cataract of horrors upon mankind.

Aristotle

Overrated. Take this quote, for example. "We make war so that we may live in peace."

Lists

We love lists. Swayze movies

• Dirty Dancing
• Road House
• Point Break
• Ghost

We really love Point Break. While those poor saps creep along the highway in their steel coffins, we are here writing encyclopedia articles. That's Encyc, keeping the human spirit alive in the 21st century.

Not that Road House is anything to dismiss lightly. Road House closely approximates the early days of Encyc, when we ran a roadside bar and had to stand up against small town thuggery.

Benevolent deity

Enki is known for being on the side of humans. When the other gods figured that humans were worthless and it was time to start over, to wipe the slate clean, Enki undermined their plan and helped people.

So while other projects look at humans with indifference, mistrust, or malice, we try to go the other route. Encyc is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Usually.

Today's movie quote: "You're angry because you got lied to?... Hey, they lie to everyone. They lie to the fish."

Greetings

Hello from your friendly ancient deity / Encyclopedia-runner Enki. So what are we doing here? Jotting down bits of knowledge and organizing them in some way. Of course we are nowhere near as thorough as Wikipedia, which inspired this whole project from the beginning. But why? I know that I have attempted to answer that question many times in the past. On a superficial level, yes there are trust issues with any one information source that can be solved by creating alternatives.

But why do we need to know this stuff at all? Maybe like Asimov's Encyclopedists we are trying to preserve the sum of human knowledge for future generations. But that was revealed to be a misdirection, so it probably is not that. If future generations ever degenerate to the point they really need us, it is probably too late anyway. You can't make up the deficit with a wiki. Maybe we're skeptical of the nature of knowledge itself?

And what's the point of giving humans the tools to continue if they're going to keep burning through natural resources, exterminating thousands of species a year, a problem highlighted in the documentary Pandorum..... but wait the Sun will eventually run out of fuel and destroy the Earth anyway so ok what's left?

Will Encyc serve as a lifeboat of human knowledge when Wikipedia is overrun by AI bots with very little human input? Encyc, written by humans, and that's why it reads this way. Ugh. Human settlers will show up on pristine new worlds armed with knowledge from the early 21st century, including what we write here. Looking for fresh water, knowledge, etc. Enki (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2023 (EDT)