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Slashback: Wikipedia Correction, NASA Tape, BPI Rejected
Reuters offers correction to Wikipedia slam. junger writes "Reuters put out a hit piece on Wikipedia, saying that the encyclopedia wasn't credible in 'covering' the breaking news of the death of Enron's Ken Lay, but then Reuters has to correct their own story because they couldn't properly identify one of their sources."
Lord of the Rings stage show ends. l8f57 writes "After only 3 months, the 'Lord Of The Rings' stage show in Toronto, Ontario Canada is ending early. According to the Globe & Mail, the producers are blaming the critics for giving it a bad review. It looks like the last show is scheduled for September 3, 2006. Ticketmaster still has tickets available for shows up to the end."
Duct tape holds NASA together again. vasanth writes to tell us NASA has solved another problem with their favorite repair device, a roll of duct tape. From the article: "First pressed into service during the homemade repairs that saved Apollo 13 from disaster in 1970, the tape has since been at the center of a variety of ingenious quick fixes dreamed up by the space agency's scientists. The latest patch-up will secure British astronaut Piers Sellers to his jet-propelled backpack today for the final spacewalk of the shuttle Discovery's 13-day mission to the International Space Station."
UK ISP rejects BPI request. Glyn writes "One of the ISPs that the British recording industry tried to strong-arm into terminating customers' accounts on accusation of file-sharing has responded with an emphatic no. From the response: 'You have sent us a spreadsheet setting out a list of 17 IP addresses you allege belong to Tiscali customers, whom you allege have infringed the copyright of your members, together with the dates and times and with which sound recording you allege that they have done so. You have also sent us extracts of screenshots of the shared drive of one of those customers. You state that such evidence is "overwhelming". However, you have provided no actual evidence in respect of 16 of the accounts. Further, you have provided no evidence of downloading taking place nor have you provided evidence that the shared drive was connected by the relevant IP address at the relevant time. Similar requests we have dealt with in the past, have included such information and, indeed, the bodies conducting those investigations have felt that a court would consider it necessary to see such evidence, supported by sworn statements, before being able to grant any order.'"
Maine renews middle-school laptop program. markhb writes "The State of Maine has renewed its controversial 'Laptops for Middle-schoolers' program this week. Apple won the contract once again, this time for $41 million, and gets to provide another 36,000 brand-spanking-new iBooks. New this time around: all districts will be required to let the kids take the laptops home, and private and parochial schools will also be invited to join in the fun!"
British ID cards get a rethink. OutOfMyTree writes "The British ID card scheme will miss its planned roll-out date of 2008, according to leaked emails seen by the Sunday Times. In fact civil servants leading the project are afraid that if government ministers keep on 'ignoring reality' the whole mess may be bad enough to delay the acceptance of ID cards for another generation. The contracts already in place are in difficulties because of 'the amount of rethinking going on about identity management', and the escalating costs."
China to further regulate internet use. anaesthetica writes "Director of the Information Office of the State Council, Cai Wu, has announced that new internet control measures are needed. New initiatives include monitoring blogs and search engines, as well as mandatory cellphone and website registration. With 16 million bloggers and 97 million search engine users, the Chinese authorities see search engines as the 'choke point' for information. From the article: 'The potential new regulations, which are still in the discussion stage, are being considered at a time of exploding Internet and cellphone use that has created the freest atmosphere of communication this country has known under Communist rule, despite strenuous government efforts to contain it.'"
Im confused the bombardment of UV rays from the sun would mean that most plastic materials would turn into goop and become useless. Does that mean duct tape can withstand UV rays or is it just a kludge? I know there is certain tapes developed from NASA that I use every day but it isn't duct tape (It's Kapton tape).
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Obviously the story was intended as a slam on Wikipedia, but I read it as just the opposite. The story was breaking, and within a very short time, the Wikipedia article evolved into something respectable. Sure, it took some wrong turns, but they didn't last for more than a few minutes. Reuters described Wikipedia working exactly the way it is supposed to work.
I still remember some fool critic in the Los Angeles Times years ago criticizing an Iron Maiden album (Somewhere In Time) for having songs about weird topics (Alexander The Great, for example). He went on and on about how such topics were "nothing a teenager can sink their teeth into".
If the dumbass did even 2 seconds of research on Iron Maiden, he would have learned that lots of their songs are like that, and that's, in fact, why a lot of people like them. So he criticized from ignorance, and also put down a whole class of people (teenagers) in the process.
Isn't it strange how while the Chinese people are gaining and exercising new civil liberties despite the government, here in the US we are losing our civil liberties to the government, just about as fast as the Chinese are gaining them.
I wonder when they'll catch up with us?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Pheersome, you obviously wouldn't know what irony was if it hit you over the head with a hammer. That statement was tongue-in-cheek.
The point is that Reuters slammed Wikipedia for not getting the facts straight, and in the process screwed up their own story.
Reuters and other traditional news organizations are threatened by Wikipedia and news blogs. The original article just looked like an opportunity to take some shots at wikipedia and was pretty lame. They frankly seem scared. It just seems extremely odd for them to report such a non-event.
I think instead of attacking new forms of information delivery they should work on becoming a more credible news source. Mainstream media has become horrible in the past few years.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Which part of 1996? I don't remember which years but if my memory serves me, search quality degraded very rapidly when searching became popular. At one point, before I found out about Google, I had basically given up on search engines because they barely returned anything but garbage. Google was revolutionary, but it's nothing compared to what it would be if they didn't have to fight spammers. It's actually funny to think that there was a time when the "keywords" meta tag in web pages was actually given serious weight by search engines. For a search engine to put major trust in the keywords meta tag today would be about like trusting nobody would steal a pile of cash laying on the sidewalk. If you think Google gives good results today, imagine if nobody tried to fake out the search engines. The results would be massively better.
I've got to agree here. Reuters misidentified the person who gave them the cause of death. It wasn't as if the source originally said "died from alien anal probe" and then later recanted. I love Wikipedia and all, but this guy is doing them a disservice by pretending to understand actual journalism. Wikipedia would be better served by a critical article that shed light on both sides of the issue and offered some solutions or alternatives to the current method, not some tow-the-line, open-for-everyone-is-always-good mentality.
Frankly, I imagine that Wikipedia would be best served by pre-comment acception editors or moderators of some sort during major current event times. Of course it would be difficult (especially given the fact that Wikipedia users aren't tied to some predetermined schedule), but slowing down the flow of information -- even at the expense of correct but uncorroborated fact addition -- would surely be worthwhile during the early hours/days of a current event.
I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I would rather spend the first few hours after a story broke not seeing the whole picture instead of seeing completely conflicting and potentially oddball explanations. Not to say that Wikipedia is always like this during a current event, but the potential certainly exists as things stand right now.
The Reuters story was not wrong. It just said that the family claimed he died of a heart attack when actually the family did not say that. Right.
What's really intesting about this is that most of the critics of Wikipedia are clearly motivated by fear of their jobs. Andrew Orlowski has at least admitted his bias almost openly ("can't _we_ do better") but the rest are just a bunch of trolls. Well, Orlowski is a troll too, but at least he's occasionally a funny troll.
I've never actually had to call Tiscali over a technical matter, but I did have a few comedy moments when trying to sign up.
Me: Hello, I'd like to sign up for your broadband offer please. [Gives name and telephone number]
Tiscali (England): I'm sorry sir. You already have broadband and we can't just take over another company's line.
Me: Ermm... no. I don't have broadband.
Tiscali: Perhaps you've had broadband in the past?
Me: No. I'd like to pay you money for your services... may I please? (I didn't actually say this. I'm paraphrasing for humourous effect).
Tiscali: I'm sorry. You'll have to call British Telecom and sort it out with them.
[I call BT to be told in no uncertain terms that Tiscali are talking out of their arses. I call Tiscali again]
Me: Hello, I'd like to sign up for your broadband offer please. [Gives name and telephone number]
Tiscali: No problem sir.
I gave my telephone number and address. I go through the sign up procedure, and get the sales droid to read it back to me to ensure that everything is correct. One week later a postal letter arrives giving me my estimated connection date. Two weeks later I go to Tiscali's website to check on the progress to find a problem ticket for me saying that "My address is incorrect and does not match the BT record." [mind boggles]. I phone Tiscali's sales line again (freephone) ... and I'm told that they cannot deal with the problem since it's not a sales matter. I'll have to call their (pay) tech support number. I reply that it's not a technical problem. You've just got my address wrong, and you haven't sold me anything yet. I'm still trying to *buy* your service but can't because they can't make records properly. So I call their pay tech support number and get through to a woman with a strong Indian accent... who, much to my surprise, deals with the matter quickly and professionally.
Sorry - did I miss something... did Wikipedia publish a hatchet-job indictment of AP?
No, wait, it was yet another example of Old Media going after New Media.
And proving in the process that while New Media may have its flaws, they aren't anything that Old Media doesn't also often suffer from. And that one of the true major differences between the two is that New Media tends to be more visible, transparent and honest about them when they occur.
What was your point again?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself