My wife, a professor at a local community college, has used Wikipedia a few times to quickly gather sources on a topic she's not too familiar with. Then, she'll use the article to sort out primary and secondary sources if there cited in Wikipedia. She never actually relies on the entries *themselves*. During her work on her Masters Degree, she took a class on Historiography. By studying how History is written, not just what is true and false, she learned a lot about how to tell the difference between well thought out writing, and poor writing [in text books, in others thesis, etc...] and the importance of citing *primary* sources in those entries, and not to rely on secondary sources unless they are known to be trustworthy, or primary sources aren't available anymore (destroyed, stolen, etc.). Wikipedia articles should never be used as a primary or secondary source in the academic world, as I can guarantee if one of her students cites Wikipedia entries in a bibliography on a paper, she will probably laugh and that student will need to work harder finding better sources on the next paper.
Thinking as a legal residential user of Windows XP : Service packs aren't needed. With obligatory increases in bandwidth from the large providers to remain competitive with each other, I'm thinking specifically to changes in methods of distribution. Why were there 7 Service Packs Released for NT4? Why were there 4 for W2K? 2 For XP? With more users finding it easier to allow their computer to download updates automatically from the net, reaching a state of updated equilibrium doesn't require service packs. Service packs for Windows are outdated, and cause confusion. The average user doesn't always realize that after the service pack is installed, they still have to use windows update anyways to obtain security hotfixes, signed driver updates, etc... So Microsoft, let's just say that windows update should be the only way to go from here on (if your not already using yum or apt-get).
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My wife, a professor at a local community college, has used Wikipedia a few times to quickly gather sources on a topic she's not too familiar with. Then, she'll use the article to sort out primary and secondary sources if there cited in Wikipedia. She never actually relies on the entries *themselves*. During her work on her Masters Degree, she took a class on Historiography. By studying how History is written, not just what is true and false, she learned a lot about how to tell the difference between well thought out writing, and poor writing [in text books, in others thesis, etc...] and the importance of citing *primary* sources in those entries, and not to rely on secondary sources unless they are known to be trustworthy, or primary sources aren't available anymore (destroyed, stolen, etc.). Wikipedia articles should never be used as a primary or secondary source in the academic world, as I can guarantee if one of her students cites Wikipedia entries in a bibliography on a paper, she will probably laugh and that student will need to work harder finding better sources on the next paper.
that Steve Ballmer will go crazier than ever. Cause then, I 'll have to buy a copy to see what all the fuss is about! Yeah! Woooooooo!
Thinking as a legal residential user of Windows XP : Service packs aren't needed. With obligatory increases in bandwidth from the large providers to remain competitive with each other, I'm thinking specifically to changes in methods of distribution. Why were there 7 Service Packs Released for NT4? Why were there 4 for W2K? 2 For XP? With more users finding it easier to allow their computer to download updates automatically from the net, reaching a state of updated equilibrium doesn't require service packs. Service packs for Windows are outdated, and cause confusion. The average user doesn't always realize that after the service pack is installed, they still have to use windows update anyways to obtain security hotfixes, signed driver updates, etc... So Microsoft, let's just say that windows update should be the only way to go from here on (if your not already using yum or apt-get).