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Slashback: Wikipedia Correction, NASA Tape, BPI Rejected
from the renamed-to-nasa-tape dept.
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.'"
Critical vulnerability (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, critics sometimes do miss the point. It's not uncommon for a newspaper to assign the critic who likes family dramas to review the latest sci-fi extravaganza, in which case a bad review means nothing more than that the critic wasn't in the target audience for the film.
That said, if Lord of the Rings: The Musical really was as bad as the reviews suggested, the problem isn't the reviews, but the show. In that case, the bad reviews are only a symptom.
Has anyone here seen the show? I remember the reviews were terrible, but Toronto is a little out of my way...
Re:Critical vulnerability (Score:2, Informative)
Its as marvelous a show as someone could make of LOTR. That being said, after seeing it I think LOTR just doesn't appear adapt well to live theatre. They spent tons of money on it, the choreography is astounding, etc, etc, and portions of it are actually from the books and weren't in the movies (kudos to the writers).
But in the end, they know that its a double-edged sword: they get tickets because of the movies, but they get bad
I *am* a double-edged sword... (Score:3, Funny)
--Gurthang
LotR the musical (Score:5, Informative)
As a show for fans of the stories, I'd recommend it. For people who just love good theatre - this probably isn't it. Everything you'd like in a show - character development, a clear story line, etc. just aren't there.
Parent
Re:LotR the musical (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps they thought they were going to see the sequel to Lord of the Dance.
If that was the case, I'd leave too.
Re:LotR the musical (Score:3, Informative)
I have an overly long post on my blog, but I'm not one for blog-whoring, so no link
Short version:
Pros:
- visually stunning - Balrog, Ents, Riders, etc... excellent. Stage direction is fantastic.
- great sound - theatre with surround sound is great
- Elevators in the stage - makes mountains mountains, and hills are hills, battles range over a changing landscape.
- they try to cover the major points in the book - razing of the shire is th
Critics are REALLY lazy (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Critical vulnerability (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, yes, I would argue that the LOTR onstage was pretty bad. It's long. Three acts. Over three hours. My wife did not make the third act.
Visually, stunning. Seeing the Balrog at the end of Scene 1 was probably the best bit of the entire show. I would argue that
mwa ha ha (Score:2, Insightful)
Yay for ducktape, British ISPs with balls, and the State of Maine (why the hell are they getting iBooks though?).
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:3, Informative)
When reliability is needed because kids are smart and will get around other defenses you don't want windows that break easily. hence why most schools have safety glass for their doors and windows.
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:4, Funny)
Classic blunders.... Ah, yes! As I recall, the most famous is never get involved in a flame war in Asia....
Parent
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:2)
Something something glass houses something something stones.
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:4, Informative)
Remember:
A G4 Mac with Classic support would fit the education market's needs better, for now. Once OS X-ported software gets Universal Binary support, and once people finally let go of Classic, then we'll see the education market adopt the Intel Macs in much larger numbers. (With all PowerPC Macs except for the Power Mac G5 discontinued, Classic users better find or code alternatives to their programs if they intend on upgrading.)
Parent
Re:mwa ha ha (Score:3, Funny)
At least they didn't go in against a Sicilian when death was on the line!
Reuters vs Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
"And journalism has sunk to a new low"? Come down off your high horse, Mr Unger.
Re:Reuters vs Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
The charged and misleading language that appeared on Wikipedia was intentionally put up by some random person.
And? Some people are like that. After that, a great many people intentionally corrected the story and made sure it stayed that way.
Wikipedia, mainstream encyclopedias and news make errors for differing reasons. All three have correction mechanisms that mostly work. Nobody would have made a big deal of the Reuters correction at all if it hadn't been dripping with irony. It's as if a grammar naz
Re:Reuters vs Wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Reuters threatened (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
We can (Score:3, Informative)
I think the bottom line, which everyone has so far missed, is that you should be checking your sources on Wikipedia before trusting it completely. I know I do, and I
Re:Reuters vs Wikipedia (Score:3, Funny)
Way to go (Score:3, Insightful)
iBooks? (Score:2)
Re:iBooks? (Score:4, Informative)
No, they are really getting iBooks. (The online Apple Store for Education at my school is still selling iBook G4s, even today). An end-of-the-line iBook would give you better performance at running PowerPC applications than a MacBook would (PPC emulation on a x86 results in a performance hit, although Rosetta seems to be handling the task well; and most big software packages won't have Universal Binaries until 2007). Remember that many education users still use Classic applications; you can't run Classic on an Intel Mac.
Buying a PowerPC Mac today isn't a crazy idea, especially if you want something proven to be reliable (have you heard about the problems plauging the MacBook and MacBook Pro lately?) and works flawlessly with existing (and old) software.
Parent
Re:iBooks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why?
There's no need for the State of Maine to pay more money for hassles and reduced performance just to be on the bleeding edge. In four years, the kinks will be
Re:iBooks? (Score:3, Informative)
ISP v BPI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ISP v BPI (Score:4, Informative)
Due to the Privacy regulations in the U.K. it wouldn't matter if they wanted to provide the data or not.
They are not allowed.
They need a court order.
Parent
Re:ISP v BPI (Score:5, Informative)
the ISP is simply not going to be sued by their customers for canceling accounts when no proof of illegal activities were done. Provide the evidence, and they will comply.
Parent
Re:ISP v BPI (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, they said 16 completely lacked evidence, and one had crappy evidence. They responded with a no for all 17.
Is duct tape rated for outer space? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is duct tape rated for outer space? (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, they did actually use Kapton tape [octanecreative.com] for the repair. It appears that somehow the news reports have confused it with duct tape because both are carried on shuttle missions.
I seriously doubt that duct tape is rated for outer space. It can withstand a wide temperature range (after all, it was designed to tape ducts, right?) but surely not as wide as Kapton (see the linked article.) Also, the adhesive on the tape has to be space-rated, and I'm not sure duct tape satisfies that requirement.
Another issue for materials used in space: they must not release gasses when exposed to a vacuum. This is not so much of an issue for the shuttle and the astronauts (the space environment around the shuttle is pretty filthy already) but it is important for unmanned satellites with sensitive instruments that can pick up such gasses as false readings of the space environment. Even a fingerprint on a surface exposed to a vacuum can cause a problem -- another good reason to assemble everything in a clean room and wear gloves. IIRC, Kapton satisfies all of these requirements, and I really doubt duct tape would. You can smell duct tape, so I suppose it would outgas in a vacuum like crazy, especially if you let it heat up.
Parent
Re:Is duct tape rated for outer space? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, nope. [wikipedia.org] Duct usage came later, and really isn't a good idea.
Re:Is duct tape rated for outer space? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is duct tape rated for outer space? (Score:2)
Story was pro-Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia is unreliable but great (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia is unreliable but great (Score:4, Insightful)
the same kind of manipulation that ravages the search engines
Not displayed two nerve cells to rub together. Sesame Street goes to a lot of trouble to teach "same" and "different". They only fail in one respect: to point out that it is a lifelong learning project.
What search engine has a centralized, permanent revision history log with a "one click" undo-abuse button? What makes the Wikipedia situation the same as the search engine or spam or blog abuse problems? I can answer that question: approaching the situation with roughly the same level of intellectual accuity required to analyze the plot in Pirates of the Caribbean. They are good guys trying to get something done. There are bad guys who would like to game the system to their advantage. The bad guys have a revenue stream from their sales of creams and extensions. Good guys respond valiantly. Bad guys scale up faster than good guys, because they have more money to burn, and fewer scruples. Good guys hang heads and mope and tell teary stories about the sad end of the good old days.
Fast forward to reality. Bad guys orchestrate 10,000 spambots to hack the Wikipedia. Really pissed of Wikipedia PHP programmer writes script to auto-revert wholesale damage. Another small roadblock is soon erected to prevent "new user" accounts from making certain kinds of edits visible immediately. Bad guys crawl back into dark hole and return to their original campaign of identity fraud against the hopeless banking establishment that came up with the idea that making purchases over the phone by reciting a fixed string of credit-card digits was a good security mechanism.
Get a grip, people. Wikipedia is far harder to abuse than the payment system adopted by the world's richest and most powerful banking institutions. Yes, there will be some outages and growing pains. No, Wikipedia will not degenerate into a spam slum overnight, or anytime soon. Wikipedia is presently most vulnerable to DOS attacks not outright manipulation. Until Google volunteers to host the front-end squid-cache layer. The edit layer can be partially filtered to prioritize access from long-time editors in good standing. Collatoral damage to long-time Wikipedians trying to edit from behind the AOL proxy server. Great outpouring of grief. World comes to an end.
Parent
Re:Search engines are better now. (Score:3, Interesting)
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 spamme
Expensive darn laptops! (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure some of you are going to say "Mac OS", but I'm not at all convinced that Mac OS is a win for educational users, as there appears to be a far better selection of educational software for Windows.
If I was a Maine taxpayer, I think I'd be calling and writing my state legislators demanding an investigation.
Re:Expensive darn laptops! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Expensive darn laptops! (Score:2)
Are you using iBook ($949 for 12", $1199 for 14"; those are education prices) prices or MacBook prices? If you were using iBook prices, then I would definitely agree with your argument. If you were using MacBook prices, then that would be unfair. Your Pavillion isn't dual core and doesn't have the features that the MacBook has. (Now, if that Pavillion had a dual core processor of that speed for that price, then I'll make a special trip to Fry's one of these weekends....).
Re:Expensive darn laptops! (Score:2)
and while many defend it as "wiring the schools and training the teachers, etc". If you bought 36,000 laptops at $650 a pop (thats retail you'd definitely get a better price buying bulk) Its only 23,040,000. thats 18,000,000 in "wiring fees".
at 300 kids per middle school (rough estimate) thats 120 schools. Setting up wireless access points and 120 servers should not cost 18,000,000.
Even if HP only knocked the price down $50, thast another 1.8 million. No apple i
Triple irony (Score:3, Funny)
I guess a good source is impossible to find.
civil liberties (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder when they'll catch up with us?
Re:civil liberties (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, it's literally impossible to gain new civil liberties despite the government. By definition, civil liberties are laws that protect the individual from the government. If the government does not pass laws that protect the individual (or it chooses not to abide by such laws) you can try to step out of the way of the jackboot, but that doesn't mean you're exercising new civil liberties.
Second, what the hell
Tiscali does something right for a change!! (Score:5, Funny)
But in this case, I think Tiscali did only one thing wrong in their letter The British Phonographic Industry Limited [craphound.com].... they should have added "please feel free to phone us to discuss this further"
I can just imagine the conversation now:
Re:Stupid critics (Score:2)
Re:And here's the difference (Score:2)
Your "point" has little to do with Reuters. If noone bothers to correct errors in Wikipedia, and some amazingly big errors have stood untouched in it for a long time, it'll remain like that forever.
Lest you think I'm a WP-hater, quite the opposite - I'm a regular cont
Re:Robots in space (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time that a fault on a robot/remotely controlled craft cost human lives? Robots are expendable.
When was the last time that a robot craft had to make the dangerous and expensive return journey to the Earth's surface? Robots have the advantage of not needing to do so unless there is a sample to return.
When was the last time that a craft with humans on board went to the surface of Mars or among the moons of Saturn? Robots have done both.
Robots are not "just as good as humans at space exploration" - their proven track record is that they have done so very much more. And that gap will only widen - the standard of robots is improving faster than the standard of human.
Parent