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snopes.com's David Mikkelson Interviewed
pipingguy writes "Online Journalism Review interviews David Mikkelson of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. While the Internet has taken its share of knocks for helping scammers perpetrate e-mail and Web hoaxes (the Bambi hunt reportedly was staged to sell videos on the proprietor's Web site), not enough credit is given to the folks who are using the Internet to debunk them. Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."
It's still useful. They've been debunking articles hours after they've started, especially handy in the recent "Metallica sues Canuck band for the use of E and F chords".
You want to learn how to troll? GO HERE
Or the false nostradamus prediction, debunked on snopes.com:
:)
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.
*NOSTRADAMUS 1654
Written by a student to show how vague prophecies can be misinterpreted easily. Popped up after Sept11... now applies only a couple of years later to Uday and Qusay Hussein.
Just thought that curious
A good article at CommonDreams.org about how the fact that it turned out to be a hoax seemed to make it 'acceptable' according to mainstream news sources.
Right-wing misogynists need not apply....
The problem is that according to my wife, a podiatric (foot) surgeon, the recovery period following a phalangectomy (ampution of a toe (or finger)) is almost nil. The big toe, let alone a vestigial "pinky toe", is not crucial for balance or stability. You can verify this yourself; lift up your big toe and walk around. Bet you can still do it, can't you? Sure you can, especially if you're wearing a shoe with a sole that is even moderately stiff, which would replace some of the big toe's stabilizing influence.
I reported this via the Snopes.com comment form. After a couple of days, I received a reply that basically said "everyone knows you can't walk right if you have a toe cut off", and my wife's qualified medical opinion was pretty much ignored. Now, I really don't think that Marilyn Monroe had six toes. However, I stand by my assertion that at least one of the reasons they give opposing such an idea just doesn't work.
Why do I think that's important? Because I don't know anything at all about a lot of the subjects that they speak authoritatively about. Since I know of at least one topic where they discarded the opinion of a subject matter expert, I have no reason to believe that they haven't done so elsewhere.
An old saying, paraphrased, is that "the news is accurate, except for the parts you personally know about", and I now kind of feel the same way about Snopes.com. I agree with a lot of their findings, but I have to take it all with a grain of salt.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
What is THE strangest story that you thought couldn't POSSIBLY be true, but upon further research, was?
:)
BTW excellent site, been reading it for years
I found two major problems with this:
The funny part, to me, is that I pretty much agree with the conclusion he reached. The offered evidence, however, had little bearing on the theory being proved.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Seems to be where new legends are discussed before they create a page for them.
Some of the other material is interesting as well.
I've been playing on the Foresight Exchange for a couple months now, and while it's no crystal ball it's an interesting way of making public polls that are weighted both towards how successful a prognosticator a respondant is and how strongly he feels about a particular issue. I'd expect that adding money to the mix in the case of terrorism forecasts would both make the game "more serious" and allow it to act as a sort of anti-terrorism insurance.
What I couldn't believe was that this was the mistake that forced Poindexter to resign! The man waded through Iran-Contra, tried to create Big Brother, but now he's finally getting pensioned off because he wanted to start an idea futures market? That's just weird.
I have to say I really agree.
I think some of the poster are better than others. Sure, link the parent site, but if you link the interview, the link should be embedded in the word 'interview' or better yet, 'interview with ###'. If you link somebody's name, that link should point to a bio or vanity page of that person.
Hey editors, maybe some guidelines on links in posts?
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
Interestingly enough, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis recently addressed the issue of corrections and accuracy. Ironically, newspapers that report more corrections are perceived as less trustworthy, even though they are often more accurate for the effort! Another story on this issue found here.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The closest I know to this was a radar system that used to sit on top of the Ford Aeroneutronic building in Newport Beach, CA in the 1980s. This was the development test unit for the DIVAD gun system (a disappointing weapon), and it had a powered gun mount, but no gun. Instead of a gun, the test system had a telescope and a TV camera, and would produce good pictures of aircraft flying into LAX.
The DIVAD was supposed to engage low-flying helicopters, so the system could look down to the horizon. where it could see a freeway. It was usually set to ignore ground traffic below 100mph, but occasionally at night, some speeder would exceed the threshold and be identified as a possible target.
I heard that once the system picked up a speeding car and identified it as hostile. Apparently the car had a "radar jammer" to fool police radar. To a military radar, that helps mark the target better; it's like waving a flashlight around.
But that test system couldn't do anything more than videotape cars; it had no weapons whatsoever.
I stumbled upon snopes.com for the first time while trying to determint whether the Peter Lynds story above was a hoax. I was searching for info about his publicist Brooke Jones, an Independent Communications Consultant. The google search leads to numerous links about urban legends. One site in particular http://www.truthminers.com/truth/jones.htm has a further link to snopes. Cool, eh? 6 degrees of internet separation.
-Tom