Where Wikipedia works

Where Wikipedia works | Technology | Guardian Unlimited: "One of the areas where it stands out is in providing episode guides to popular TV series such as Friends, House and The Simpsons. How many encyclopedias have a 1,400 word entry devoted to Homer's Duff Beer? When it's a labour of love, it gets done."

A good article about Wikipedia, written in a 'this is what it's useful for, non-hysterical' sorta way... but blimey, that closing paragraph doesn't half pain the picture of a trivial geeks' paradise! Personally, I think Wikipedia is good for getting a flavour of a subject, but if one of the areas where it really stands out is for episode guides then the alarm bells ring loud an' clear about how far its information can be trusted and how much faith we have to put in the benevolent nerds (sorry any non-nerdy Wikipedians... but... really... the sun is shining, you're not getting paid for it... ermmm... it is a smidge nerdy) who compile and tussle over its minutiae. Experts on trivia do not experts make overall. Good, bad, accurate, inaccurate. Wikipedia is a zeitgeist taster of knowledge, but for academic purposes should it really ever be treated a definitive source if it's simply not meant to be definitive??

Vague error messages

From Facebook's Visual Bookshelf application...

'Something went wrong'. Ahhhh. Excellent. Somebody will be looking into something, sometime or other. Efficiency prevails... :-)

Old web pages

Aaaaaargh!  I hate reading old web sites.  I've been looking at some sites from 1996 - 2001 and they are dreadful to read.  For example, Shaping and Being Shaped is an interesting article on attitudes towards technology... but blimey it's hard work to navigate.  You have no idea where you are, no idea how much there is still to read, no easy way of taking notes on it online as it's not a single document.  It does raise an interesting question about technology and the way in which it's used though.  If I experienced those sites as being typical of documents on the web I'd question whether or not the web itself would be suitable for use as a learning medium.  But... if I experience content delivered well via the net then the question doesn't even enter my head.  I don't actually even notice the medium, it just 'is'.  I wonder if the position of utopia or dystopia when it comes to technology isn't really about the technology but about the way the implementation of a technology has coloured a person's viewpoint?  Context is king?  Don't know, but the love or hate of technology is a blurry concept at best.

Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English | Common Craft - Video Production and Consulting: "Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English"

Useful little resource on using social bookmarking sites courtesy of the Common Craft peeps. Nicely done and not too geeky... oh to have organised my Del.icio.us bookmarks in a way that would make them really useful from the outset. Sadly, I was lazy and they're a mess. Tagging = good. Bad tagging = dreadful!

Directory firm wants ex-workers' Facebook page shut down | Technology | The Guardian

Directory firm wants ex-workers' Facebook page shut down | Technology | The Guardian: "The social networking website, which has mushroomed to 30 million users worldwide, is being asked to close down the Survivors of 118 118 page because of its high level of abuse."

If ever there was a message that was going to send you scurrying off to Facebook to see out a particular group...

Mind you, it does make you wonder exactly how much influence any company can really have on what is or isn't on Facebook. Does a company own you and your opinions about them forever??

Information overload

My rampant enthusiasm for various websites means that I'm overloaded and then some with stuff bimbling its way into Google Reader.  I love having the news brought to my virtual door... but blimey, some days I wish I could nail the letterbox shut and switch off the constant flow headed towards me.  How do you stay up to date without starting to drown?  There has to be a better way...

elearnspace: World Almanac of Educational Technologies

elearnspace: World Almanac of Educational Technologies: "World Almanac of Educational Technologies"

... that'd be 'world' in the sense of a handful of countries and no mention of the UK then...

Ah, the world is a small place... and growing dramatically smaller all the time... :o)

Why do we have to die in games?

Why do we have to die in games? | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology: "Dying in real life is - religious beliefs aside - the end, the last event you'll take part in. Not so in computer games, where it's never worse than briefly infuriating. In World of Warcraft, the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) that 8.5 million people play every day, your death just means you have to spend several minutes trekking back to the point at which you died. And your avatar is temporarily weakened. It's an inconvenience.

But why is in-game 'dying' necessary at all? Alternatively, why isn't dying in a game as final as it is in real life? In MMORPGs, the latter is in part at least simply answered: it's economics. From Blizzard's point of view, if in-game death were final, people would stop coughing up their monthly subscription. And the vibrant in-game economy depends to a certain extent on death and regeneration: when your avatar comes back to life, your weapons are damaged and need repairing - for which you pay a fee."

Interesting little article about 'dying' in games. It strikes me that death in games is the equivalent of a toddler's interpretation of what death is all about. Gone today, here tomorrow. Death is just a word to a little one and fairly meaningless at that. But it also occurs to me that there's nothing really new as far as computer games are concerned. What about traditional games. Chess? Don't you 'kill' the other player's pieces? Or hangman. The poor guy dies if you're not successful! Maybe the answer isn't too deep at all? We die in a game because it's easier to make a symbolic clean break so we can start afresh? We die in a game because it's make believe and games are about invention and imagination.

By the way... can you die in Second Life? Or is a 'real' computer game death too unpalatable?

Chris Jordan's photos of disturbing consumer stats: interview

Boing Boing: Chris Jordan's photos of disturbing consumer stats: interview: "Chris Jordan renders American consumer statistics as art. For instance: above, 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day."

I find this figure absolutely shocking for so many reasons. Multiply it out a bit and you have...

12,780,000 per month (for an average 30 day month)
155,490,000 per year

Isn't that just the slightest bit depressing?? 155.5 million phones thrown away every year... just in the US. Not even worldwide. What on earth is happening to the world when a simple communication device becomes as disposable as scribbling a note on a piece of scrap paper? I sometimes wonder whether the world has gone mad. Some days a statistic pops up which confirms that it actually has.

Long Tail antidote

If you've read 'The Cult of the Amateur' by Andrew Keen and need a bit of balance... 'The Long Tail' by Chris Anderson gives a much more balanced and thought-provoking view of the current state of the internet.  It probably appeals to the inner Economist in me as well, but it's a good consideration of what's happening to a supply and demand world where the potential for both is becoming unlimited.  I question whether it is in fact unlimited right now since there will always be physical or financial constraints which present fairly immovable barriers (the world will never be 100% digital nor will it be 100% free), but it's a fascinating concept and a gentle meander through what can at times feel like a bewildering fast set of changes in the online world.

Definitely recommended.