Over at Loomware Mark Leggott has linked to a fascinating look at the evolution of a Wikipedia article as demonstrated by John Udell. Using the heavy metal umlaut entry, he shows how certain threads go through life cycles, how vandalism is swiftly corrected and the way in which the famous Wikipedia self-correcting NPOV mechanism […]
In fall 2002, the Bush administration stepped up a campaign to publicize the dangers of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. At the center of the campaign was an argument that Saddam’s Iraq was an “urgent” threat because of its “massive stockpile of biological weapons … thousands of tons of chemical agents,” […]
Google is now strongly backing developers and open source with Google Code. Nice to see that the code is also hosted on SourceForge. There’s also an Updates from code.google.com blog over at blogger.
A book locating/lending phenomenon known as the “Dewey Decimal System” — enabling users to get access to copyrighted text for free — has sent shockwaves through a panicked publishing industry.
“Why would anyone pay for a book once it’s accessible for free?!” - Publisher’s spokesman Brent Aullett
continue reading @ Salon…
from turtleyclub.net
What it does:
removes ads on most Google pages
fixes fonts on most Google pages
Google web search:
adds links to other search sites (”Try your search on…”)
in news results, adds links to other news sites
in movie results, adds links to other movie sites
in weather results, adds links to other weather sites
in product results, adds links to other product […]
Here’s a collection of links to Doctorow DRM/Web 2.0 stuff from Boing Boing over the past few days.
EFF paper: Digital Rights Management: A failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world
Excerpt:
The “DRM hypothesis” is that the public is dishonest, and will do dishonest things with cultural material if given the […]
TangognaT suggests some good online resources for librarians.
Catalogablog notes that the Open WorldCat deep linking tutorial has been updated. By setting your library up in the system, users will be able to see your holdings when a Yahoo! or Google search matches something in the WorldCat database. See the OCLC Open WorldCat page for more info.
The NYTimes ran an article today discussing the future of the online newspaper model. There has been quite a bit of criticism of the way online news sites give free access to current news and either make users pay for archives or not have them complete (or not have archives at all). I’m […]
This is PSA for the non-programmers:
It’s pretty often that I’m on a web page and want to know when it was last modified in order to see if the info is out of date. By typing this command into the address bar when you are on a page or saving it as a bookmark […]
I don’t have many of the same complaints a lot of folks have about Perl. It’s a powerful language that’s simple to use once you have the basics down and is full of shortcuts that allows for a lot of creativity. However, I’ve really wanted to look at Python for a while, largely […]
Google’s addition of customization features to Google News follows this pattern they are developing of offering really cool, simple and user-friendly web apps. It works great and makes the service much more powerful. I was concerned about how to get my customizations into Firefox from Safari and to my PC, but I see […]
From the BBC:
Police in Mexico City, one of the most crime-ridden capitals in the world, have been told they must read at least one book a month or forfeit promotion…If they do not read at least one a month, they lose their chance of being promoted…The policemen will be regularly tested to make sure they […]
Barbara Fister makes a number of great points in this Library Issues article. On online books:
Evidence suggests people will pay for the convenience of reading sustained texts offline. After all, the 9/11 Commission’s report became a bestseller even though it was available for free on the Web. The National Academies Press, which makes the […]
University of Texas’ Dennis Dillon wrote this short article in the December Chronical of Higher Education discussing the problems libraries face in an electronic future. As he points out, journal subscriptions are skyrocketing while simultaneously growing in number and becoming more specialized, creating a situation where libraries may be forced to become more specialized […]
Don’t mess with the librarians at Burlington Library.
A Burlington, Washington man has been ordered to pay a library $150 and do community service after he was arrested for overdue library books.
The arrest was for failure to appear before a judge to answer charges of “Detaining Property.” The property was library books the man had checked […]
Just a quick pointer to the O’Reilly History of Programming Languages poster, the O’Reilly language poster wiki, and the original creator’s site for it.
How cool is that? Reviews, hours, phone, etc. This thing is starting to save me so much time. Internet OS indeed…
As communities start understanding the importance of providing free Wi-Fi, we are beginning to see resistance from legislators and industry.
Telecommunications companies have taken notice as cities, nonprofit organizations and startup companies have begun using these technologies to offer free or steeply reduced Internet access, said Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist with […]
Here’s a PDF link to the EFF brief. As quoted on Copyfight, Eben Moglen lays it out wonderfully:
At the heart of Petitioners’ argument is an arrogant and unreasonable claim–even if made to the legislature empowered to determine such a general issue of social policy–that the Internet must be designed for the convenience of their […]