This still works!

Yes, though clunky. When I try the example:

  % host -t txt foo.wp.dg.cx

it looks like the "foo" in the domain name gets converted to FOO, then goes to the Wikipedia entry for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOO which is redirected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_observer#British_For..., causing host to respond with text from the image caption:

  foo.wp.dg.cx descriptive text "thumb|240px|A U.S. Marine artillery
  forward observer in a tree to get a better view of the battlefield in
  1942.]thumb|240px|British and French artillery observers of Langemarck
  (1917)|Battle of Langemarck, 1917] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  Artillery_obse" "rver"

That's not what the I (or the original author) expected.

It does handle Greenland correctly, so yes, it does work!

  % host -t txt greenland.wp.dg.cx | fold
  greenland.wp.dg.cx descriptive text "Greenland (\"Land of the Kalaallit\"; ) is
  an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic
  and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiograph
  ically a part of the continent of North America, Green" "land has been political
  ly and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and later Denmark)
  for more than a... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland"

On the other hand, Wikipedia redirects "cosine" to "sine and cosine", but host reports:

  % host -t txt cosine.wp.dg.cx
  Host cosine.wp.dg.cx not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

While the serving code still works the code to download Wikipedia dumps and summarise them has bitrotted.

The database is circa 2013, so you’re exploring a nearly 11 year old summary of Wikipedia!

I see what you mean - the quoted "Greenland" text does not match the current form but does match the one ca. 2013.

It looks like FOO (all caps) redirected to Forward Observation Officer on July 2008‎, says https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=FOO&action=histor... so there was a narrow window when your "foo" example worked as described, before you updated the dump to the then-new redirect.

one of the great benefits of perl is that it still works

don't fix it if it ain't broke!

no seriously don't change it. nobody knows perl around here anymore

How sad we live in a world where this has to exist. To be frightened of an encyclopedia!

I read the article and the slides. No where was it mentioned that this was to circumvent censorship.

A sibling comment to this one is about Florida (though, the author appears to be in London). But, the only places I’ve experienced Wikipedia being blocked is on airplanes (well, unless you pay, everything is blocked).

Why do you think this is about censorship?

That’s Florida for ya.

"Associative array": how to identify a PHP developer :D

or, in this case, a perl4 developer (though obviously in 02008 he was writing in perl5, not perl4)

Sadly it doesn't support paging :D

DNS over Wikipedia is a thing too

wait, what now?

So i can get Wikipedia over Wikipedia?