Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
The Wikipedia marked its 100,000th article this past week. It celebrated by getting Slashdotted. And when I checked this morning, its count stood at 101,999.
I visited this evening to try to find some information about Studebaker. In typical Internet fashion, I didn’t find what I was looking for. And then, somehow, I found myself researching for and writing Wikipedia articles about AMC, its Rambler nameplate, and its successor, Eagle.
How’d I end up going from Studebaker to the maker of the Jeep and the Rambler? Well, that brings up the useless trivia question of the day: What four U.S. automakers intended to merge in 1954 to form American Motors Corp.?* And the bonus question: Which of those two companies fell through?**
So now I’ve written about baseball players and New Wave bands (both too numerous to mention), computers and CPUs (I made a number of revisions to some of the articles pertaining to the 8-bit computers of my youth), tycoons (Mark Hanna and a hastily written biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who interestingly, despite founding a university, himself dropped out of school at age 11), my dad’s occupation and his religion, and now, cars.
* Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, and Packard.
** Studebaker and Packard, who merged with each other. Packard would supply engines and transmissions to AMC for a time, but the combined company ceased building Packards in 1958. The combined company merged with a number of other companies and ceased making automobiles in 1966.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.