But nobody's whining. As always, it's people whining about any possible criticism against Apple - even before it actually happens.
Personally I think it's nice for a Slashdot article to, for once, acknowledge the existence of the vast range of popular and mainstream handheld devices, rather than pretending the Iphone is the only device in existence.
I see the answer is not to put up the evidence, and instead hide any support for Wikipedia with mod abuse. Note to mod: just because you disagree, doesn't make it a troll. Why don't you put up the evidence, if you disagree?
I think this proves that there is no reason to suspect Wikipedia as anymore unreliable than other sources, and you can't trust random posters on a forum who will make stuff up without references, and hide anyone who disagrees. Unlike Wikipedia - putting {{fact}} is the "Put up or shut up" - if you can't put up the reference, the material gets removed. Imagine if it operated such that unsourced material couldn't be removed, and anyone who disagreed had their edits hidden? It'd be a shambles.
Perhaps he's wrong to say that we'd still be sitting around in caves, but technology has still advanced tremedously in the last few hundred years since "the scientific method", so it's not true to say that all this progress happened "long before the scientific practice".
I'd argue that many of the scientific advances before then were still the scientific method in practice, it's just that the process wasn't formalised (this wasn't a sudden thing after all - the method was formalised over a period of hundreds of years and is very much a part of scientific progress itself - e.g., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method ).
The vast majority of our advances in Western society have been due to sheer intelligence - IE, observations
And? Using intelligence to form a hypothesis from observations is the first stage of the scientific method.
Einstein
Einstein fits perfectly with the scientific method. Both relativity and the photoelectric effect came from trying to solve known problems, based on observations that had been made. His theories were then tested (I suppose you could argue that in some sense, testing wasn't required, in that it was already proven from the observed data - I'm reminded of Einstein's reply of "Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord", when asked what if the experiment failed to support relativity. But we cannot always be so sure).
Newton similarly followed the scientific method when he came up with laws of motion, and a theory of gravitation, to explain observed facts. The progress he made was a fundamental part of the scientific method. His dabbling on alchemy and the occult was not so scientific, however - yet would you suggest that these somehow contributed to science and technology?
Socrates was a philosopher - but he himself came up with the Socratic Method, which I would argue is the sort of rational approach that later lead to methods such as the scientific method.
I think you are misunderstanding what the scientific method is. It's not "let's tinker around randomly and hope we find something through trial and error" as you imply - it's precisely the application of intelligence to observation that you describe, followed up with testing to make sure we are right. Hypotheses are not randomly made up, they must still fit the observed data, and theories must provide a model to explain the observed data.
What method do you advocate in place of the scientific method?
But if someone replaces the citation needed tag with a reference, even if you consider it unnecessary, why is that bad?
"Sir NameOfArticle was in his day frequently regarded as a national hero in $COUNTRY.[citation needed]. ".
And that's wrong how exactly? You're seriously suggesting that a weasel worded point of view about someone being a national hero should be better off supplied without references? That's precisely the sort of thing that does need sourcing. And even if you think it doesn't, how on earth does more references make it worse (note, the six paragraphs of explanation can be placed in the footnote, so this wouldn't break the flow of the actual text). The point of an encyclopedia is to be an encyclopedia. If you want unsupported opinions without references or explanation, go read a tabloid.
Hear hear. Wikipedia has done a great job in getting us to think about issues such as where information comes from. E.g., it was Wikipedia that introduced me to the concept of Weasel words, as a sneaky way to introduce unsupported claims. Now I see them all over the place, even relatively good sources such as the BBC. I've also seen them in places like museums, on the information boards they have.
People joke about using the "citation needed" tag, but I think it would demonstrate a point to take typical articles from sources usually considered reliable, and give them the Wikipedia standard of editing.
The sad thing is that this doesn't seem to rub off on people. Instead it's just used as a stick to beat Wikipedia with ("What's that? Wikipedia says the Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church[*]? But you can't trust Wikipedia!"), whilst nonsense peddled by everyone else, from random people on forums, to the media, are swallowed down without question.
Indeed, people whine about "People believing information that then turns out to be from Wikipedia", as if that is somehow bad - I think it would be an interesting test to present people with information telling them it's from Wikipedia, then present the same information to another group, pretending its from a media article, and compare how likely they are to believe it.
[*] - Wikipedia incidentally provides a reference, but that still doesn't stop people dismissing it with "But how can you know it's true? Anyone could've edited that article!"
In order to claim that Wikipedia is bad, you'll have to show that Wikipedia is significantly worse than sources that these people were trusting as fact beforehand. And the vast majority of people were surely not relying on Britannica! Partly because many do not have access, but also because many people use Wikipedia for topics not covered by Britannica (e.g., current events in the news, or something too obscure). I bet most people, myself included, relied on sites found through a Google search, be they webpages that anyone could set up, forums, or media articles. Alternatively they just relied on the media full stop.
The first two of these are not accepted as reliable sources on Wikipedia, so its reliability if anything should be better. And even where it does rely on media articles, because you tend to get information from a range of sources rather than just one, this makes it more likely to show up inaccuracies, and separate fact from opinion. Together with the strive for NPOV (unlike the media, where being outright biased is acceptable and something most of them actively strive for), I think this helps make things more reliable than anything before on the Internet.
Not to mention all the "citation needed" and warnings that many articles have. Wikipedia does a much better job of making readers think about accuracy - much better than the media, or Britannica.
The fault of which lies entirely with the news article in question of course, for not citing their sources. The point is that once the news article claimed the fact without attributing it to someone else, then they are the ones that Wikipedia is attributing it to - no matter where it allegedly originally came from. Attribution doesn't mean "This must be true because someone said it was", rather "This person claimed that this is true. How much you trust that person is up to you".
There is perhaps an argument that news articles should simply not be considered a reliable source, but if not allowed on Wikipedia, this would suddenly mean a large amount of material (particularly that concerning current events) would be unsourced, and it would only be possible to cover more academic subjects that have been covered elsewhere.
The point with a reference is that you know who its being attributed to.
Yes, the danger is that even a "reliable reference" may be untrue. But by that reasoning, there's nothing that can be trusted.
The correct answer is to not either outright accept or dismiss anything, but to treat everything with some sceptism, and weigh up the evidence. The current viewpoint that many here seem to have of "Anything is true if it's in the media, or written by someone on Slashdot, but if Wikipedia tells me that water is wet, you'd be a fool to trust it!" is nonsensical, inconsistent, and unworkable.
Citation needed. Because without it, it's your statement which is hearsay.
As always, look at the sources. If it isn't reference, feel free to ignore it or treat it with sceptism (you do distrust everything you read and hear, including all of the media, unless they provide reliable sources, right?) If it has references, then the statement can be attributed to that reference.
If there's a problem that people are being credited as being expert witnesses when they've only read Wikipedia, then that is a problem with the selection. It would be just the same if they'd only read Britannica.
The other MAJOR problem is that it is too easy to fabricate a case. If the police were to start writing Wiki articles about the people they arrest, or the possessions they have when arrested, it becomes a farce.
For heaven's sake, I know RTFA isn't fashionable here, but at least try to do so before making up untrue comical situations. No one is claiming that Wikipedia will be cited. The citation is always to the "expert witness". And certainly it wouldn't be used as evidence that a crime took place. I mean seriously - even if say the BBC reported someone had reported a crime, that still wouldn't be used as evidence. Courts require primary evidence when it comes to proving facts of the case, not secondary or tertiary. Secondary evidence (e.g., expert witnesses) are called up in order to prove additional things from the primary evidence (e.g., scientific evidence claiming that because of primary evidence found at the scene, it must mean the defendant is guilty). And they never rely tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, whether it's Wikipedia or Britannica.
Finally, if citing Wiki is enough to get your university work marked down (or dismissed altogether) it should be inadmissable in law
Nice straw man. It's a good thing no one is claiming that.
Britannica wouldn't and shouldn't be admissisable either. Nor any media source. Courts always require that evidence be attributed to a specific person giving evidence, AIUI.
Put up or shut up: show me the evidence that shows that Wikipedia is no more accurate than random data. Indeed, even show me the evidence that it is significantly unreliable compared with sources that people regularly accept without question (other encyclopedias, the media, people like you posting on Slashdot).
Otherwise I'll just point out that even a broken clock posting on Slashdot might have a point some of the time. The irony is that whilst dismissing and ridiculing material on Wikipedia out of hand, even when it's referenced, people happily swallow up unreferenced unsupported statements from an anonymous poster on an online forum (which, incidentally, Wikipedia does not accept as a reliable source), simply because it fits with their pre-existing prejudice against the site.
Last time I looked, broken clocks didn't give a reference to a working clock. So for any article that is referenced (which these days on Wikipedia, is just about any article on mainstream or non-trivial topics), your analogy is not relevant.
Since when did deciding what the law was come to relying on expert witnesses or references? Even in cases where the interpretation of the law was being questioned, this would be based on legal arguments and previous cases. It would be just as nonsensical to look it up on Britannica.
But the article isn't about citing Wikipedia in court! AIUI, courts rely on "expert witness". That means wherever that information originally came from, it's being attributed to the person in court saying it, and not "because it was written on Wikipedia".
Just as you wouldn't get them citing Britannica in court, or indeed The Telegraph.
So your point isn't relevant: if a policeman wanted to make something up, he could do that anyway. Editing Wikipedia is pointless, as it's not likely the jury will go "hang on, I'll just double-check that on Wikipedia to see if what he says is true".
And given the (usually unfounded) distrust that people have of Wikipedia over any other source, I'd say that citing Wikipedia in court would usually result in a jury being less likely to believe it. Even though there's no evidence that opinions given by a self-appointed "expert", or police officer, is necessarily more reliable than material that is supported by references on Wikipedia.
(And the idea that the media look down upon Wikipedia claiming "its reputation for containing errors and some "facts" invented by members of the public" is hilarious - as opposed to the nonsense peddled by the media? At least Wikipedia gives references, which the media hardly ever do. Indeed, there's an obvious bias here - the media have good reasons to try to put down a free online source of information...)
Who decides what's "normal"? And why should only being an interest of a minority of people make it acceptable to criminalise them? This is the same argument people make of gay material.
If anything, targetting a minority should be seen as worse, not better. I appreciate you don't approve of the ruling, but the sentiment is still worrying - imagine gay material being banned, and someone saying "But it's not like we're talking about anything normal here"?
It's depressing on both sides of the Atlantic... in the US, you go to prison for publishing it, in the UK, you now go to prison for privately possessing it.
(I wonder if this case follows on from the precedent set by the Max Hardcore cases? I remember there being worry that this would open the floodgates, now that people can be prosecuted for material made with consenting adult actors.)
shows Opera in the Number 1 position - which isn't even listed on your link, which makes it suspicious. Moreover, no browser is in a dominant position.
(Since when would most used matter, anyway? By that reasoning, we should all be using and doing what IE does...)
So? Even if the dodgy stats were true[*], all that means is that other people would rather use their phones for other things, rather than "grumpy featurism" lists. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that therefore, the Iphone will be in a better position for viewing video over the Internet.
[*] Aside from the usual criticisms of web browser stats, the link posted above doesn't even mention Opera (Mobile or Mini).
Ah yes, classic. If in doubt, redefine the terms to exclude the competiton. It's like "first 64 bit PC" all over again.
Yes, Opera mini might not do video, but 3G phones have all done downloading video from the Internet for years anyway. And claiming that Apple will have a monopoly on video, when that is not the case now is just wild RDF speculation.
(The only one I've seen is one that claimed the Iphone was the single most popular model, but that's a flawed statistic, as Apple just have one phone, where as most manufacturers have large numbers of models. Not to mention that all these accesses are still a minority compared to desktop browsers, so it's irrelevant. Even if and when that changes, there's no reason to think Apple will be in a monopoly position on it.)
And the idea of playing downloaded videos on your phone? Welcome to 5 years ago. That was all the rage with the hype when 3G phones first appeared. You know, the ones several years before it came to Apple. But I guess most people would rather use their phones for useful things.
The only good news is that Apple owns the mobile web with the iPhone
In a billion phone market - no, it doesn't. Not even close. Even in the "high end" phone market, it's still just one of several. No phone company "owns" the mobile web, but if you want to look at the major players, try Nokia.
Not specifying image formats proved to be a problem
Specifying formats may have its advantages, compared with not specifying formats.
But not specifying formats would still be way better than scrapping them altogether, as has happened here. Imagine if the only way to get images on a web page was for everyone to rely on a proprietary, unstable Adobe plug-in?
There are no end of wannabe designers who want to "design" games, but have no knowledge or desire for programming them. Gamedev is full of "I've got a great idea of a game, I just need someone to write it all for me!"
AIUI, game designers work their way up as developers. And there are plenty of good reasons why a game designer should also have some knowledge of programming, and have some experience with developing games.
It's like me saying "I wanna design cars" without knowing the first thing about how they are made.
But the submitter did talk about programming languages, suggesting he's not in this category.
But I'd also advise him to look into how accepted these "game development" courses are. There's a lot to be said for more traditional computer science[*] courses - you keep your options open, learn a better range of material. And it's not clear to me that games companies prefer "game development" courses - in some cases at least, the reverse might be true.
[*] Or indeed something related - I did maths, and got an offer at a games company. I declined, because there was much better money elsewhere:)
(I agree entirely on the censorship comments, btw.)
Slashdot Mirror
But nobody's whining. As always, it's people whining about any possible criticism against Apple - even before it actually happens.
Personally I think it's nice for a Slashdot article to, for once, acknowledge the existence of the vast range of popular and mainstream handheld devices, rather than pretending the Iphone is the only device in existence.
Put up or shut up
I see the answer is not to put up the evidence, and instead hide any support for Wikipedia with mod abuse. Note to mod: just because you disagree, doesn't make it a troll. Why don't you put up the evidence, if you disagree?
I think this proves that there is no reason to suspect Wikipedia as anymore unreliable than other sources, and you can't trust random posters on a forum who will make stuff up without references, and hide anyone who disagrees. Unlike Wikipedia - putting {{fact}} is the "Put up or shut up" - if you can't put up the reference, the material gets removed. Imagine if it operated such that unsourced material couldn't be removed, and anyone who disagreed had their edits hidden? It'd be a shambles.
Perhaps he's wrong to say that we'd still be sitting around in caves, but technology has still advanced tremedously in the last few hundred years since "the scientific method", so it's not true to say that all this progress happened "long before the scientific practice".
I'd argue that many of the scientific advances before then were still the scientific method in practice, it's just that the process wasn't formalised (this wasn't a sudden thing after all - the method was formalised over a period of hundreds of years and is very much a part of scientific progress itself - e.g., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method ).
The vast majority of our advances in Western society have been due to sheer intelligence - IE, observations
And? Using intelligence to form a hypothesis from observations is the first stage of the scientific method.
Einstein
Einstein fits perfectly with the scientific method. Both relativity and the photoelectric effect came from trying to solve known problems, based on observations that had been made. His theories were then tested (I suppose you could argue that in some sense, testing wasn't required, in that it was already proven from the observed data - I'm reminded of Einstein's reply of "Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord", when asked what if the experiment failed to support relativity. But we cannot always be so sure).
Newton similarly followed the scientific method when he came up with laws of motion, and a theory of gravitation, to explain observed facts. The progress he made was a fundamental part of the scientific method. His dabbling on alchemy and the occult was not so scientific, however - yet would you suggest that these somehow contributed to science and technology?
Socrates was a philosopher - but he himself came up with the Socratic Method, which I would argue is the sort of rational approach that later lead to methods such as the scientific method.
I think you are misunderstanding what the scientific method is. It's not "let's tinker around randomly and hope we find something through trial and error" as you imply - it's precisely the application of intelligence to observation that you describe, followed up with testing to make sure we are right. Hypotheses are not randomly made up, they must still fit the observed data, and theories must provide a model to explain the observed data.
What method do you advocate in place of the scientific method?
Citation needed.
Citation needed?
Seriously though - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Common_knowledge . Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:You_don't_need_to_cite_that_the_sky_is_blue and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:You_do_need_to_cite_that_the_sky_is_blue for alternate viewpoints on this issue.
But if someone replaces the citation needed tag with a reference, even if you consider it unnecessary, why is that bad?
"Sir NameOfArticle was in his day frequently regarded as a national hero in $COUNTRY.[citation needed]. ".
And that's wrong how exactly? You're seriously suggesting that a weasel worded point of view about someone being a national hero should be better off supplied without references? That's precisely the sort of thing that does need sourcing. And even if you think it doesn't, how on earth does more references make it worse (note, the six paragraphs of explanation can be placed in the footnote, so this wouldn't break the flow of the actual text). The point of an encyclopedia is to be an encyclopedia. If you want unsupported opinions without references or explanation, go read a tabloid.
Hear hear. Wikipedia has done a great job in getting us to think about issues such as where information comes from. E.g., it was Wikipedia that introduced me to the concept of Weasel words, as a sneaky way to introduce unsupported claims. Now I see them all over the place, even relatively good sources such as the BBC. I've also seen them in places like museums, on the information boards they have.
People joke about using the "citation needed" tag, but I think it would demonstrate a point to take typical articles from sources usually considered reliable, and give them the Wikipedia standard of editing.
The sad thing is that this doesn't seem to rub off on people. Instead it's just used as a stick to beat Wikipedia with ("What's that? Wikipedia says the Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church[*]? But you can't trust Wikipedia!"), whilst nonsense peddled by everyone else, from random people on forums, to the media, are swallowed down without question.
Indeed, people whine about "People believing information that then turns out to be from Wikipedia", as if that is somehow bad - I think it would be an interesting test to present people with information telling them it's from Wikipedia, then present the same information to another group, pretending its from a media article, and compare how likely they are to believe it.
[*] - Wikipedia incidentally provides a reference, but that still doesn't stop people dismissing it with "But how can you know it's true? Anyone could've edited that article!"
As the other reply points out - what's new?
In order to claim that Wikipedia is bad, you'll have to show that Wikipedia is significantly worse than sources that these people were trusting as fact beforehand. And the vast majority of people were surely not relying on Britannica! Partly because many do not have access, but also because many people use Wikipedia for topics not covered by Britannica (e.g., current events in the news, or something too obscure). I bet most people, myself included, relied on sites found through a Google search, be they webpages that anyone could set up, forums, or media articles. Alternatively they just relied on the media full stop.
The first two of these are not accepted as reliable sources on Wikipedia, so its reliability if anything should be better. And even where it does rely on media articles, because you tend to get information from a range of sources rather than just one, this makes it more likely to show up inaccuracies, and separate fact from opinion. Together with the strive for NPOV (unlike the media, where being outright biased is acceptable and something most of them actively strive for), I think this helps make things more reliable than anything before on the Internet.
Not to mention all the "citation needed" and warnings that many articles have. Wikipedia does a much better job of making readers think about accuracy - much better than the media, or Britannica.
The fault of which lies entirely with the news article in question of course, for not citing their sources. The point is that once the news article claimed the fact without attributing it to someone else, then they are the ones that Wikipedia is attributing it to - no matter where it allegedly originally came from. Attribution doesn't mean "This must be true because someone said it was", rather "This person claimed that this is true. How much you trust that person is up to you".
There is perhaps an argument that news articles should simply not be considered a reliable source, but if not allowed on Wikipedia, this would suddenly mean a large amount of material (particularly that concerning current events) would be unsourced, and it would only be possible to cover more academic subjects that have been covered elsewhere.
The point with a reference is that you know who its being attributed to.
Yes, the danger is that even a "reliable reference" may be untrue. But by that reasoning, there's nothing that can be trusted.
The correct answer is to not either outright accept or dismiss anything, but to treat everything with some sceptism, and weigh up the evidence. The current viewpoint that many here seem to have of "Anything is true if it's in the media, or written by someone on Slashdot, but if Wikipedia tells me that water is wet, you'd be a fool to trust it!" is nonsensical, inconsistent, and unworkable.
The problem is that Wikipedia == hearsay.
Citation needed. Because without it, it's your statement which is hearsay.
As always, look at the sources. If it isn't reference, feel free to ignore it or treat it with sceptism (you do distrust everything you read and hear, including all of the media, unless they provide reliable sources, right?) If it has references, then the statement can be attributed to that reference.
If there's a problem that people are being credited as being expert witnesses when they've only read Wikipedia, then that is a problem with the selection. It would be just the same if they'd only read Britannica.
The other MAJOR problem is that it is too easy to fabricate a case. If the police were to start writing Wiki articles about the people they arrest, or the possessions they have when arrested, it becomes a farce.
For heaven's sake, I know RTFA isn't fashionable here, but at least try to do so before making up untrue comical situations. No one is claiming that Wikipedia will be cited. The citation is always to the "expert witness". And certainly it wouldn't be used as evidence that a crime took place. I mean seriously - even if say the BBC reported someone had reported a crime, that still wouldn't be used as evidence. Courts require primary evidence when it comes to proving facts of the case, not secondary or tertiary. Secondary evidence (e.g., expert witnesses) are called up in order to prove additional things from the primary evidence (e.g., scientific evidence claiming that because of primary evidence found at the scene, it must mean the defendant is guilty). And they never rely tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, whether it's Wikipedia or Britannica.
Finally, if citing Wiki is enough to get your university work marked down (or dismissed altogether) it should be inadmissable in law
Nice straw man. It's a good thing no one is claiming that.
Britannica wouldn't and shouldn't be admissisable either. Nor any media source. Courts always require that evidence be attributed to a specific person giving evidence, AIUI.
Put up or shut up: show me the evidence that shows that Wikipedia is no more accurate than random data. Indeed, even show me the evidence that it is significantly unreliable compared with sources that people regularly accept without question (other encyclopedias, the media, people like you posting on Slashdot).
Otherwise I'll just point out that even a broken clock posting on Slashdot might have a point some of the time. The irony is that whilst dismissing and ridiculing material on Wikipedia out of hand, even when it's referenced, people happily swallow up unreferenced unsupported statements from an anonymous poster on an online forum (which, incidentally, Wikipedia does not accept as a reliable source), simply because it fits with their pre-existing prejudice against the site.
Last time I looked, broken clocks didn't give a reference to a working clock. So for any article that is referenced (which these days on Wikipedia, is just about any article on mainstream or non-trivial topics), your analogy is not relevant.
Since when did deciding what the law was come to relying on expert witnesses or references? Even in cases where the interpretation of the law was being questioned, this would be based on legal arguments and previous cases. It would be just as nonsensical to look it up on Britannica.
But the article isn't about citing Wikipedia in court! AIUI, courts rely on "expert witness". That means wherever that information originally came from, it's being attributed to the person in court saying it, and not "because it was written on Wikipedia".
Just as you wouldn't get them citing Britannica in court, or indeed The Telegraph.
So your point isn't relevant: if a policeman wanted to make something up, he could do that anyway. Editing Wikipedia is pointless, as it's not likely the jury will go "hang on, I'll just double-check that on Wikipedia to see if what he says is true".
And given the (usually unfounded) distrust that people have of Wikipedia over any other source, I'd say that citing Wikipedia in court would usually result in a jury being less likely to believe it. Even though there's no evidence that opinions given by a self-appointed "expert", or police officer, is necessarily more reliable than material that is supported by references on Wikipedia.
(And the idea that the media look down upon Wikipedia claiming "its reputation for containing errors and some "facts" invented by members of the public" is hilarious - as opposed to the nonsense peddled by the media? At least Wikipedia gives references, which the media hardly ever do. Indeed, there's an obvious bias here - the media have good reasons to try to put down a free online source of information...)
Who decides what's "normal"? And why should only being an interest of a minority of people make it acceptable to criminalise them? This is the same argument people make of gay material.
If anything, targetting a minority should be seen as worse, not better. I appreciate you don't approve of the ruling, but the sentiment is still worrying - imagine gay material being banned, and someone saying "But it's not like we're talking about anything normal here"?
It's depressing on both sides of the Atlantic ... in the US, you go to prison for publishing it, in the UK, you now go to prison for privately possessing it.
(I wonder if this case follows on from the precedent set by the Max Hardcore cases? I remember there being worry that this would open the floodgates, now that people can be prosecuted for material made with consenting adult actors.)
But wait - weren't you just being sarcastic when you said "sarcasm off"??
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-daily-20080701-20090703
shows Opera in the Number 1 position - which isn't even listed on your link, which makes it suspicious. Moreover, no browser is in a dominant position.
(Since when would most used matter, anyway? By that reasoning, we should all be using and doing what IE does...)
So? Even if the dodgy stats were true[*], all that means is that other people would rather use their phones for other things, rather than "grumpy featurism" lists. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that therefore, the Iphone will be in a better position for viewing video over the Internet.
[*] Aside from the usual criticisms of web browser stats, the link posted above doesn't even mention Opera (Mobile or Mini).
Opera mini isn't a web browser
Ah yes, classic. If in doubt, redefine the terms to exclude the competiton. It's like "first 64 bit PC" all over again.
Yes, Opera mini might not do video, but 3G phones have all done downloading video from the Internet for years anyway. And claiming that Apple will have a monopoly on video, when that is not the case now is just wild RDF speculation.
Citation needed?
(The only one I've seen is one that claimed the Iphone was the single most popular model, but that's a flawed statistic, as Apple just have one phone, where as most manufacturers have large numbers of models. Not to mention that all these accesses are still a minority compared to desktop browsers, so it's irrelevant. Even if and when that changes, there's no reason to think Apple will be in a monopoly position on it.)
And the idea of playing downloaded videos on your phone? Welcome to 5 years ago. That was all the rage with the hype when 3G phones first appeared. You know, the ones several years before it came to Apple. But I guess most people would rather use their phones for useful things.
The only good news is that Apple owns the mobile web with the iPhone
In a billion phone market - no, it doesn't. Not even close. Even in the "high end" phone market, it's still just one of several. No phone company "owns" the mobile web, but if you want to look at the major players, try Nokia.
Not specifying image formats proved to be a problem
Specifying formats may have its advantages, compared with not specifying formats.
But not specifying formats would still be way better than scrapping them altogether, as has happened here. Imagine if the only way to get images on a web page was for everyone to rely on a proprietary, unstable Adobe plug-in?
It seems that the probability of any given thread on Slashdot eventually being hit by the RDF is approaching 1.
To be blunt - yes.
There are no end of wannabe designers who want to "design" games, but have no knowledge or desire for programming them. Gamedev is full of "I've got a great idea of a game, I just need someone to write it all for me!"
AIUI, game designers work their way up as developers. And there are plenty of good reasons why a game designer should also have some knowledge of programming, and have some experience with developing games.
It's like me saying "I wanna design cars" without knowing the first thing about how they are made.
But the submitter did talk about programming languages, suggesting he's not in this category.
But I'd also advise him to look into how accepted these "game development" courses are. There's a lot to be said for more traditional computer science[*] courses - you keep your options open, learn a better range of material. And it's not clear to me that games companies prefer "game development" courses - in some cases at least, the reverse might be true.
[*] Or indeed something related - I did maths, and got an offer at a games company. I declined, because there was much better money elsewhere :)
(I agree entirely on the censorship comments, btw.)