perfidy

Everyone knows wikipedia. While at times its accuracy is less than gold standard, it is typically the most useful place to begin research on a topic. The least you can expect from wikipedia is a cogent summary and a selection of good links. At best, you have a detailed and thorough introduction. Until recently, I was only vaguely aware that there was such a thing as other wikis. Today, I spent my valuable lunch time spinning through some of it.

For some time now, wiki enthusiasts have been creating wikibooks, which takes the idea of the wikipedia to a new and greater level of depth. I was cruising around the site, and found a wikibook Movie Making Manual. While reasing this manual isn't the same as going to film school or an apprenticeship with Steven Spielberg, it does provide a great deal of insight into the movie making process for someone like your 'ol pal Buckethead who don't know movie making from shinola. Of especial interest to me, being the wordsmith that I is, was the section on screenwriting. While the level of information there is, as yet, still rather sparse, I could imagine that something like this crossed with MIT's OpenCourseWare could be a really cool thing indeed.

Also of use are the vasty deeps of wikiquote, where I found this charming little bit I had been trying to remember for ages:

Listen up maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world. We are all part of the same compost heap.

Also chock full of grist for your reading mill is wikisource, where you can find among other treasures, John Buchan's Greenmantle.