That Wales couldn't fufil his expressed desire to unmask the perpetrator sounds less a case of "too hard to do" than one of "can't be bothered, mate".

So we come to the question of responsibility. We've promised to deal with the ethics of Wikipedia before, and it's no longer possible to ignore in the elephant in the room, so we must.

The Reg excoriates Wikipedia.

This is a somewhat complex issue. I find myself agreeing with some of the positions this author takes, but I still find Wikipedia a useful tool that should continue to exist.

For instance, I agree that it's a little presumptuous to call it an Encyclopedia, given it's obvious non-authoritative nature. And yet, most of the articles I've read are reasonably valuable and accurate, even if they aren't authoritative.

Also, I think the author's contention that it's unreasonable to expect people to treat information sources with skepticism is, well, unreasonable. Of course, at some level we seek authority, otherwise, we wouldn't be confident about anything. But I don't see anything wrong with asserting that users should read everything with a grain of salt. It may be a dodge, but it's not false.

The potential for Reputation to solve some of these issues is one that I don't need to state here, but I'm not sure the rest of the world gets it yet. We've reached a point where "authority" is a diminished commodity, for better or worse. We've reached a point (and blame politics if you like) where even "experts" are suspect because you don't know their motivations. I *do* feel like i have to do actual research to discover the reality of *any* situation. I remain unconvinced, however, that this is a bad thing. Were the newspapers of the 1900's so authoritative? So accurate? Better than some wikipedia entires, perhaps, but less so than others, with an added concern - Presumption of Authority. I'd rather live in a world where all sources are considered suspect, and human beings use their own reason and an array of resources to arrive at a true picture, than a world in which sources X, Y and Z are considered Truth and no one looks much beyond them. It may be scary and confusing to live in such a world, but dammit, the world is scary and confusing a lot of the time. I find it extremely powerful that we find research and critical thinking to be the tools for quelling our fears and making sense of our world.

Presumption of Authority is one of the most fundamentally dangerous attachments we can make, and it's a major reason why Reputation, and robust tools for assessing it, can be ever so much more powerful than handing our trust to a small number of presumptive kings over our knowledge landscape.

There's no Wikipedia entry for 'moral responsibility' | The Register

Fried mayonnaise? Hot ice cream? Chocolate pudding that can be sliced and cut? This year witnessed the flourishing of an unusual culinary fashion: dishes that, with the addition of certain chemicals, turn hot into cold or moist into dry or create an invisible boundary between the two.

Crazy!

Gastronomic Reversals - New York Times

The Federal Communications Commission has warned the nation's two leading cable TV companies that unwanted conditions could be imposed on their proposed acquisition of a rival if they do not agree to curb the proliferation of sexually explicit programming, according to company sources.

Faced with what some are describing as an ultimatum, Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. have sought to satisfy FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin's demands by pressuring the rest of the industry to come to a consensus on how to respond, said these sources, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the regulatory approval process.

Ugh.

Cable TV Pressured to Clean Up Offerings - Los Angeles Times

Matthew sez, "According to this BBC News story, Warner Chappell's legal threats against the creator of PearLyrics are just a preview of a campaign to be launched in 2006 by the Music Publishers Association. The MPA is seeking to take lyrics and tabs sites offline and-- get this-- 'Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can 'throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective'.'"

This shit is getting out of hand.

Boing Boing: Music publishers: Jail for lyric-sites

Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they've cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.

Good article. And this site is very informative in general...

The most destructive crop on earth is no solution to the energy crisis | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

But Philip Pullman, who wrote fantasy book trilogy His Dark Materials, has dismissed CS Lewis as "blatantly racist" and "monumentally disparaging of women".

How bout a link to more information on that, BBC? That's their closer. Seriously. Now i'm curious, but they've given me no avenue to pursue further. Thanks, jerks.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Royal premiere for Narnia movie

After he discovered a false biography on Wikipedia that claims he was responsible for the death of JFK and his brother Bobby, John Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today refuting those claims and rebuking Wiki admins and the ISPs that host them. Now, in light of Seigenthaler's outrage, the once open access Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles to the English language version of the site.

Seigenthaler spent a tonne of time and resources to track down the writer of the wikipedia article. He also considered filing a John Doe suit and kicked up a gigantic shitstorm with his Op-Ed.

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but instead of wasting what I assume to be days and weeks of his time, why didn't he just correct the entry?

Agreed, to a point. To some extent, damage had already been done, perhaps, and so he felt the need to correct the damage done retroactively. That's understandable.

In the meantime, he could've made an edit saying "I'm this guy, and that's not true... here's why : " Perhaps he was advised not to by his lawyer. I don't know. Anyway, the handling of libelous or outright false content is something wikipedia certainly has to deal with somehow. I think registration is an ok minimal requirement, honestly.

Wikipedia: The Rules Have Changed | MetaFilter

Thank you New York Times. Jesus, it's about time for this article to come out.

The truth of the matter is that ID isn't supported by science. It *is* a political issue and it *is* a religious issue. And one supported only by a relatively narrow religious viewpoint too.

John G. West, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design, said the skepticism and outright antagonism are evidence that the scientific "fundamentalists" are threatened by its arguments.

"This is natural anytime you have a new controversial idea," Mr. West said. "The first stage is people ignore you. Then, when they can't ignore you, comes the hysteria. Then the idea that was so radical becomes accepted. I'd say we're in the hysteria phase."

...

"The future of intelligent design, as far as I'm concerned, has very little to do with the outcome of the Dover case," Mr. West said. "The future of intelligent design is tied up with academic endeavors. It rises or falls on the science."

This guy's pretty savvy, because he knows that if you make your opponents look unhinged, you undercut their credibility. It's good politics. But then, if the scientific community is hysterical, it's because there are actually people claiming to be scientists working as hard as possible to destroy the very notion of science. That makes me angry too. But that doesn't mean i'm unable to make a rational argument. I'd like to think he's right about his last statement, because it works to the advantage of the scientific standpoint. This segment from earlier in the article is very telling :

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

That says an awful lot to me. You keep hearing about the "science" behind ID, but I don't see it being produced. Here's an organization who's dedicated to reconciling science with religion *asking* to spend money on this research. But no, nothing. So the claim that the liberal academic elite have been blocking ID from the journals falls a little flat. If the science was there, someone could have published it by now.

But that's not the point is it. Mr. West's claims not withstanding, this issue has almost nothing to do with teaching science or doing science. It's a fron... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

Welcome to the world of Deflexion, the game that combines lasers with classic strategy for an experience enjoyed by players of all ages. Players alternate turns moving Egyptian themed mirrored pieces around the playing field after which they fire their low powered laser diode with the goal of illuminating their opponent's pieces to eliminate them from the game.

Cool!

Deflexion

A woman named Sam Buck opened a coffee shop in Astoria, Oregon in 2000, two years before a Starbucks opened down the road. She named her shop Sambuck's, and the judge in her case said that she willfully infringed on Starbucks's trademark in so doing.

Hm. Normally, this is the kind of thing where I'd be 100% for the independent owner, and I still hate starbucks, but they're not too far off the mark here. She clearly intended her logo to be a jibe at starbucks. If it was only the name, then this would be bullshit, but she poked the bees nest. That being said, I certainly don't think it's *confusing* and if that is the metric (ostensibly) then I still think the ruling is wrong.

Anyway, it kind of sucks for her, but she didn't do herself any favors, for sure.

Boing Boing: Sam Buck sued for naming her coffee shop after herself