Add this to the list of things I don’t want my students to see/do:
(And once again I invoke the existence of xkcd as proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a benevolent deity/foodstuff)
This post is in: Humorous, Open Threads
Add this to the list of things I don’t want my students to see/do:
(And once again I invoke the existence of xkcd as proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a benevolent deity/foodstuff)
Comments are closed.
quannlace
Does Jack Abramoff have a book coming out? Suddenly his mug is everywhere.
Good Lord, right now he’s on NPR.
gbear
My favorite part of that cartoon is the quote “Google is your frined, people”. That line usually gets delivered with a huge dollop of smug.
Mark B.
This almost flew straight over my head, to the point where I was thinking Chu was pretty cool to be both a physicist and computer scientist. But I think it hit me by the third panel.
I still have no idea what the scroll lock key actually does.
gbear
…and as long as this is an open thread, I just need to say how much I hate Tom Waits. I really, really hate Tom Waits.
The Ancient Randonneur
I am now completely convinced that Al Gore should not have invented the internet.
Baud
Unless you have a better idea for how to alter reality, I don’t think your criticisms of the current process are very convincing.
Trinity
Brilliant.
Frankensteinbeck
Tom, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is old news. Yes, Pastafarians are good people, but it’s a new day on the Internet, a day ruled by the Sun Pony. Celestia, who is both unicorn and pegasus and makes the sun rise in the morning, has taught me that Friendship is Magic.
Samara Morgan
well…..here is my current hobbyhorse.
Why do conservatives think Mitt Romney is electable?
For example…KSA does not allow missionaries into its borders.
Muslims in general detest missionariism– IPOF it is outlawed by the Quran.
KSA is 100% muslim.
KSA is also America’s ally.
Mitt Romney was a mormon missionary.
How could Romney possibly be president and interact with the Saud monarchy?
If he merely visited there he would destabilize their government.
Calouste
@gbear:
Blasphemy!
Woodrowfan
I am so using this cartoon in my class.
DNFT people
Samara Morgan
and the price of oil would go up to 300$ per bbl.
;)
Joel
McMegan is going all Jenny McCarthy on us?
Redshift
@Mark B.:
It pretty much does nothing these days. In the terminal-oriented mindset that the IBM PC emerged from, it was supposed to make it so the arrow keys could be switched between moving the cursor around to scrolling the display of data. (I almost wrote “scrolling the window,” but of course there weren’t windows in those days.)
EZSmirkzz
Hello professor,
Using teh Google, with tongue in cheekiness of course, Wikipedia seems to have a reasonable amount of accuracy, like Britannica, and so 5% margin of error.
Since the Wiki is a rather handy cut and paste reference, etc, etc, lazy blogger’s tool, would you consider it a useful general reference tool?
I can understand wanting students to do research the old fashion way, you know reading books and then citing what they write, but for the general public, what is you opinion there?
twiffer
i love xkcd. today’s was particularly poignant, as i’ve found myself dubbed “the expert” on an old, poorly written foxpro 2.6 system. i find myself desperately looking for answers on this (should fucking be) long-dead language, only to find the ancients were no wiser than i.
EZSmirkzz
@Redshift: During my day it could lso be used during boot-up to see what config.sys and the autoexec,bat files were loading. Basically it paused the screen buffer output.
Loneoak
@Joel:
Revised headline for McMegan: “How Evidence Based Medicine Broke Mah Calculator”.
Redshift
A friend cited the “OWS crackdown coordinated by DHS and FBI” a couple of days ago, and I pointed out that all the articles about this trace it back to one article on an unedited “news” site which attributes it to an anonymous source.
She replied “I thought it sounded a little fishy. I’m sure more information will come out.”
I found that kind of touching (if I’m reading it right.) And this was after I had cited the xkcd cartoon in my response.
Loneoak
@Frankensteinbeck:
Phooey. I worship the Old Gods, marinara be upon them.
Hill Dweller
The clown car caucus in the House failed to pass their balanced budget amendment.
Twenty five Dems voted for it. Losers.
WereBear
@Loneoak: The Fusilli, the Ziti, and the Holy Ravioli, ramen.
Gin & Tonic
@Samara Morgan: Didn’t Amir Khalid answer this pretty definitively a couple of days ago?
Culture of Truth
I can totally see Mitt Romney setting a letter to Heavy D’s funeral.
Redshift
@twiffer: Yeah, I’ve hit this one big time on a couple of different topics lately. First there was a problem with the touchpad on my particular model of laptop, for which I could find plenty of “SOLVED!” threads where the “solution” really amounted to B.F. Skinner pigeon-style “I did this and it went away!” (All with different “solutions,” of course.)
But I’ve hit the more exact situation from the comic several times in the past couple of months with problems at work. But the author missed a couple of additional features:
– For techie questions, there’s hardly ever one such thread, there are five or six — all but one of which turn out to be sites that automatically mirror the first one (sometimes with ads and stuff.)
– A fair number of such threads end with a message that says “Thanks, everybody, I figured it out!” but doesn’t include the solution! Grr. And it’s from 2005, so…
Jay S
@Mark B.:
Obligatory “Google is your friend” response from (who else) Wikipedia:
Actually, if people took the “Google is your friend” thing literally, the less gullible wouldn’t rely on it as a definitive cite. And no, I’ve haven’t double checked this, but it sounds correct, so it’s good enough for me.
I lived through the early PC days and I can’t remember deliberately using scroll lock. It was one of those rarely used modal things that get people in trouble, kind of like insert/replace mode, but less destructive.
ETA I see Redshift got here with the information, minus the irony, while I was typing.
geg6
Well, had my first financial aid night at a local high school last night since all hell broke loose and was pleasantly surprised. No one walked out when they heard where the presenter worked, everyone was kind and complimentary, and more than 90% of the attendees requested my business card afterward.
And I just got emails today to schedule two more after the new year at other local high schools. I am happy to see that people are able to see beyond the horrible crimes that happened at University Park and understand that our campus and people are still the same campus and people that they always dealt with and respected. It is a great relief.
geg6
@Samara Morgan:
Well, I’m guessing Mittens would claim that his missionary days are long over, much like the 60s when he was one. I think that is an issue pretty easily dealt with.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Frankensteinbeck: But only the FSM guarantees that if we’re not satisfied we can have our old god back. That’s pretty heavy stuff to compete with. Besides once touched by the FSM’s noodly appendages it really is difficult to deny the FSM boiled for our sins. If we don’t all become pirates how will we ever stop global warming?
Brachiator
@EZSmirkzz:
It’s not so much about doing research the old fashioned way.
Some people, and not just students, treat Wikipedia as the sole authority on everything. Research begins and ends at a Wiki page.
For some, the Wiki and teh google replace critical thinking. People don’t read, don’t assess the quality of information found. Whatever comes up first in a search must be the truth.
Even worse are people who don’t know how to do a search. These are the spiritual descendants of people who did not know how to use the old library Dewey Decimal system.
As a related aside, I am somewhat bemused by the antagonism of some tech heads to the recent Steve Jobs biography. It seems that they didn’t quite realize that it was going to be a book. One guy on a tech podcast noted that he never read books, so it was painful that he felt that he had to read this one. I would imagine that having to read multiple books for any kind of research project would be almost intolerable for these people.
xian
@geg6: of course that reasonable idea is as unlikely to change the commenter’s mind as how unlikely it is that this particular gotcha would be the decisive factor in the mind of a wingnut voting in a primary based on projected electability.
RosiesDad
I have been tutoring my 16 year old son on these techniques in the hopes that if becomes truly proficient, he will be able to parlay his skills to gain admission to an Ivy League university. (Preferably my alma mater, Cornell.)
At least I have him reading XKCD regularly, which is probably notable for a HS sophomore.
catclub
Did anyone else notice the ‘was was…’ in the first panel.
I resemble that mistake. end of one line, start of another.
Even XKCD is not perfect.
Also, it appears that the mouseover text did not get carried
over from xkcd.
gbear
@Brachiator:
They’re too busy leading…
The Ancient Randonneur
Saw a link to a Matt Taibbi rant pop up on Memeorandum a while ago. Just in case you had any doubts the game isn’t rigged against the average citizen:
If only the DOJ and Federal Courts were as inclined to treat the banksters in a similar fashion.
Walker
@RosiesDad:
Except that those of us on admissions committees at Cornell are wise to the ways of XKCD.
cat
@Mark B.:
Back in the old days, back before every operating system had a GUI(Graphical User Interfaces) for users, people used terminals that were basicly TV’s or printers with keyboards and text scrolled from the bottom of the screen to the top.
If for some reason there was a lot of continuous text being displayed and you wanted to halt the flow you could hit ‘scroll lock’, CTRL-S/CTRL-Q would also work depending on ‘stuff’.
Of course now that I think about it, didn’t typewriters have scroll lock keys as well that kept the little cylinder thingie from advancing to the next line too??
Jay S
@Jay S:
The discussion page for Wikipedia’s “Scroll lock” article references an early incorrect version as well as the self referential nature of Wikipedia sources when trying to verify it’s own information. Almost like xkcd borrowed the plot from the discussion page.
At the end it has a reference to the xkcd cartoon and have locked the article for 2 weeks.
Brachiator
@gbear:
Or, in the case of Herman Cain, pretending.
Paul in KY
@Samara Morgan: Samara, you have posted this at least 4 times. So long as Pres. Romney (ick, just typing that) didn’t try to peronally convert a member of the royal family, I think they’d be OK with his visit.
4jkb4ia
Chris Cilizza: Ron Paul Is For Real In Iowa. Seriously.
It’s good! Two important points are that Iowa may have fewer caucusgoers than last time and that non-Republicans and liberals may come out for Paul. As BTD posted, at the Iowa Republican caucus you don’t have to stay all night. They give you a secret ballot. So Iowa Republican polls can be taken with less of a grain of salt.
(Absolutely written because John took that Bloomberg News poll and made it about Gingrich. If I had been around that day he would have been justified in writing, “because I know that it will make 4jkb4ia scream”.)
JGabriel
Open thread, cool. Got something I’ve saving for an OT:
Republican Presidential Contenders, by age on the January 20, 2013 Inauguration Day
77 Ron Paul
69 Newt Gingrich
67 Herman Cain
65 Mitt Romney
62 Rick Perry
56 Michele Bachmann
54 Rick Santorum
52 Jon Huntsman
For reference, the five oldest presidents at first inauguration were:
69 Ronald Reagan
68 William Henry Harrison
65 James Buchanan
64 George H. W. Bush
64 Zachary Taylor
Does anyone here think any of those five was a good president? There have been 43 presidents, would you put any those guys in the top third, or rounding up, the top 15?
Yeah, I know some people, primarily conservatives, would count Reagan in the top third, but — given that the economic precipice over which we currently teeter is the direct result of policies either advocated by Reagan or started under his administration — I think we all know the historical record is not going to reflect kindly upon him in the future. Further, there seems little doubt that Reagan was afflicted with senile dementia during his second term, and possibly as early as his first.
Of the remaing four, G.H.W. Bush is the only one considered passably competent. Harrison died within his first month from a cold that turned into pneumonia, while historians typically rank Taylor in the bottom dozen and Buchanan in bottom 5.
The next oldest president was Dwight Eisenhower at 62. He’s followed by Andrew Jackson, John Adams, Gerald Ford, and Harry Truman, all taking office between 60-62 years old, and mostly pretty good presidents, excepting Ford who was mediocre (albeit probably better than we could have expected given how he ended up in the office).
I don’t want to be ageist here, but the presidency is a difficult job requiring stamina and focus, over extended hours, everyday, for years. The historical record so far seems to indicate that taking office at 62-63 years old is the cut-off point for doing the job well*.
And all 3 of the GOP frontrunners are above that age now — Romney turned 63 in March and would be 65 by the time he took office. Further, Rick Perry’s gaffes of forgetfulness and confusion suggest his faculties are already declining (for the sake of Texas voters’ slim remaining dignity, I’ll assume for the sake of this argument that Perry’s faculties were not always as bad as we’ve seen on the national stage this year).
(*This is a historical record of male presidents, there being no female presidents so far. Women tend to live longer than men, though, so, if there is such a cutoff point for the effectiveness of women presidents, I would expect it to be a little higher, say somewhere in the 64-68 year old range. Obviously, that’s just a wild-ass guess with no historical record to back it up at all. On the other hand, even the historical record for male presidents only consists of 43 subjects, so one can justifiably dismiss the whole discussion as narrative and anecdote without enough statistical basis for any kind of forecasting reliability.)
.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Way to go! Hope the rest of them go as well as that one.
Doctor Science
Forwarding, for your next animal rescue post:
In which I beg for my best friend’s life:
Itai, a more-than-Tunch-sized loving tuxedo cat, has started stalking and springing at the baby as though he’s prey. Some situations are too dangerous to try to work with, so they are desperate to find Itai a suitable, loving home.
kindness
@gbear: Why? Tom Waits is a good gravel voiced singer.
Paul in KY
@Doctor Science: Tell them just to smack Itai the next time he trys that. He’ll get the message. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a housecat seriously hurting a baby.
Judas Escargot
@Samara Morgan:
I agree. Mitt Romney has almost zero change of winning the Saudi primary, or getting any of its electoral votes.
JGabriel
@Samara Morgan:
Most royal and political leaders are pretty familiar with the concept of compartmentalism. I see no reason to think the Saudi royal family would be any different — unless Mitt personally tried to proselytize the Mormon faith either in SA or to the royal family. Other than that, if he were elected, Romney would be visiting and interacting with the Saudi royal family as President of the United States, not as a Mormon missionary or member of its hierarchy, and the Saudi royal family would likely do the same.
.
Judas Escargot
@kindness:
Cookie Monster on acid.
I happen to like the sound of CM on acid. Others may not.
WereBear
@Paul in KY: Smacking a cat never leads to anything good.
From the sound of it, Itai used to be The Baby. Now he’s been permanently dislodged, and he knows it. Not that he’s seeking to actually hurt the baby; but he’s not displaying the right attitude of most well-socialized cats, who will put up with a fistful of fur being tugged out without any defensive moves besides hiding.
Rehoming can be best for all concerned. The parents will be radiating anxiety and hostility towards the cat (even if inadvertent) and it sounds like they are trying their best to get him a wonderful home. Kudos to them.
suzanne
@Samara Morgan: No one else cares about the stupid shit you care about.
@The Ancient Randonneur: That makes me fucking ill. The ultimate irony is that the government will be spending a lot more on her room and board now than if they’d just given her the damn food stamps in the first place.
WereBear
In other news, Fox is calling the White House shooter “the Occupy Shooter.”
TooManyJens
@Joel: I hate to say it, but she’s got a good point there, which is that doctors have to look at more than numbers on lab tests to evaluate patients. Of course, good doctors already know this, so the headline should probably be more like “How a lazy doctor kept me sick.”
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I learned the certain knowledge that President Obama is a Good and Honest Man and Best President Ever by reading about him on balloon-juice.com, rather than by seeking evidence of his documented words, actions, and results and then evaluating them fairly.
.
.
lamh31
Let me see if I understand the Romney strategy to combat the flip-flop meme, it’s basically “I’m rubber You’re Glue…”???
The weakest flip-flop defense yet
By Steve Benen
burnspbesq
@gbear:
I don’t have much use for Tom Waits (although he wrote two great songs, “Ol’ 55” and “The Heart of Saturday Night”), but really, really hate? Why?
Adam C
This was already on the door of my office, as a cautionary tale. Don’t trust Wikipedia! (i.e. do as I say, not as I do…)
MeDrewNotYou
OT- I’m still in moderation from using a different email that hasn’t been approved. Can a front pager show pity on me? Pretty please?
Nutella
@Brachiator:
I find Wikipedia really useful for finding info about new technical topics. The latest programming language or technique usually gets an excellent writeup.
It gets less useful on controversial topics although they do try to describe controversies in a reasonably even-handed way so it can be a decent starting place. Or not, depending on the topic.
Wikipedia tells the story of the entry for a mountain on the border of North Korea and China. It’s snowy and remote and deserted but both countries claim the peak. Wikipedia had to shut off editing for that article because they were getting the sentence “The mountain belongs to Korea/China” changed several times every second.
Most articles have missing or poor quality references so it’s never a good idea to depend on those without looking further.
burnspbesq
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Oh Splendiferous Day! Success Is Ours!
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Because the other R’s running for president are stupid like Perry, or ignorant like Cain, or mental like Bachmann, or skeevy like Gingrich, or hung up on fringe ideas like Paul, or obsessed with other people’s sex lives like Santorum, or hopeless at attracting attention like Huntsman. Romney has no backbone whatsoever, but he’s the least unappealing candidate (especially to non-Republican voters) in this preposterous field. Therefore he is the one least likely to suffer a humiliating landslide defeat to Obama. So the party elites want him.
Now, his being a Mormon might turn out to be a deal-breaker for the Teabaggers, just like Chris Christie’s tummy was for you. And they might also resent his being the party elites’ anointed one so much that the party winds up with some other nominee. But if that happens, then that’s the 2012 presidential election given away for free.
Mark B.
@burnspbesq: Waits’ big money maker was Jersey Girls, which was covered by Springsteen. I actually met him once on the subway, but I wasn’t sure it was him. I said, “Hey, you look just like Tom Waits.” He responded in his typical gravelly tone, “Yeah, I get that all the time.” The train got stuck for about half an hour and we had a nice conversation. It was late on a Saturday night and almost no one else was on the train. I think he’s quite a talented artist, but I have sympathy for someone thinking he’s just a gimmick if they don’t know much about his work.
EZSmirkzz
@Brachiator: Heh
Well I hope they stay away from HFT on the stock market. Of course they may want to stay away from the market anyway.
Mt favorite hiccup in the Dewey was finding Will Durant’s Story of Civilization scattered in Philosophy, and then in various locations of History. The system was accurate, just not intuitive.
Well I guess Job’s couldn’t put a dent in all things. Sometimes you have to wonder if they read the manuals either. I always found it more tolerable to read what I wanted to read for my own edification than to have to read assigned course work, but read them I did. Something about disagreeing with authors agrees with me.
JGabriel
Amir Khalid:
Actually, Huntsman would be the least unappealing to non-Republican voters. Romney is the least unappealing to non-GOP voters who consistently polls above 10% among self-described Republican primary voters — aka, the least unappealing GOP candidate with a chance of winning the primary.
.
fleeting expletive
I’m wondering, now that Cain has Secret Service protection, will they be in charge of investigating the alleged death threats he has received? Also, who would be likely to make threats against him. Doesn’t sound like something Democrats do with any frequency. TeaPartiers? KKK?
RosiesDad
@Walker: @Walker:
awwww…..
Adam C
@EZSmirkzz:
My own view is simply to consider carefully the information you’re getting there. Wikipedia is generally a great source of non-controversial reference information: What is a monotreme? Who were the semi-finalists in the 1982 Stanley Cup Playoffs? What’s the deal with the island of Bouvet?
Other subjects are not so reliable: Mitt Romney, climate change, Wal-Mart, etc. People with an agenda are very interested in having these topics covered in a specific light.
More detailed information can also be difficult; Wikipedia writers can be honestly wrong on highly technical subjects. It still can represent a decent-if-lazy starting point, but don’t just check that a given claim has a reference: go to that reference, evaluate it, and use that as your source.
Walker
@Brachiator:
True story on the reverse problem.
I had a graduate student who was working on a high speed event detection system; I and another colleague decided that it would be good if the student read a relevant theoretical paper from the 1970s.
Two days later, the student comes back dejected-looking. He said that he looked high and low about the Internet and could not find this paper. Of course, it was in a journal in our library. But he would have never thought to have gone there.
Culture of Truth
Romney: “Unless you like glue better. I can be pro-glue…”
Calouste
@JGabriel:
European PMs these days tend to be in their 40s and early 50s when first elected. In the last 30 years the UK has PMs in their mid 50s (Thatcher and Brown) and 3 in their 40s (Major, Blair and Cameron). Spain had 5 PMs since the restoration of democracy in 1978, and only one of them was over 45. Than again, as a PM or opposition leader, you have to work hard to get and keep your party behind you, so you actually make it to the top spot, usually while holding a cabinet position. It’s not like you can just go on a two-year book-signing and talk show tour like presidential candidates in the US can.
Brachiator
@Nutella:
I agree that Wikipedia is a good starting point. The problem is, too many people just stop there.
@Mark B.:
Doesn’t he have a new album out? Anyone like it, or hate it?
redshirt
Tom Waits ain’t no gimmick. “Rain Dogs” is one of the greatest albums of all time. It’s awesome.
Bill Arnold
@catclub:
Yes. Guessed it was either deliberate or a mistake that was caught in proofreading and left because it looked like a plausible typo by a WIKI fact-enterer/prankster. Or, lower odds, an uncaught typo.
Trooptrap Tripetrope
If Mitt Romney actually talked this way, I’d probably vote for him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9L9A1IMTQo
JGabriel
@Calouste: Interesting. No doubt the need to appeal to your peers as an energetic and effective leader within their ranks promotes a relative youthfulness.
I just find it fascinating that most of GOP frontrunners are pretty old compared to the historical record in the US. If elected, Paul(77) would be the oldest president ever, while Gingrich(69), Cain(67), and Romney(65) would all make it into the top three — and, historically, no one over 62 has done a very good job in the office.
The GOP really should be giving Huntsman another look. Everyone else seems to be either too dumb, too crazy, or too old — frequently all three.
.
EZSmirkzz
@Adam C: Agreed. But other than controversial topics, I was just wondering if anyone found it any more problematic than any other encyclopaedia.
TooManyJens
The first trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special is up!
tcinaz
I’m a retired high school English teacher, who used to teach seniors how to do real research as a prep for college. This is the best take I’ve ever seen on the pseudo sources so many of my students fell for. I’d have to do the unraveling of those circular references to show them the flaws. Levenson explains it four panels. Genius.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@burnspbesq:
You forgot “Step Right Up.”
.
.
Amir Khalid
@JGabriel:
I stand corrected on that point. (I had no idea how popular Huntsman was, if at all, among non-Republican voters.) But it remains my guess that Teabaggers resent Romney more for being the party elites’ favorite candidate than for being a Mormon. Is there polling data to confirm/refute this?
burnspbesq
@RosiesDad:
Speaking of admissions committees, the kid found out an hour ago that he has been accepted at his first-choice school.
To say that we are pleased would be a real understatement.
Adam C
@EZSmirkzz:
I do: I think it’s unlikely that EB would allow an unqualified layman to write about a highly technical topic, and Wikipedia has no such filter. Nevertheless, for me this is made up for by convenience and my own confidence/arrogance in assessing the quality of an individual article. Wikipedia is very easy to use.
gene108
@geg6:
Bah…I don’t think the Saudi’s buy it…
When Air Force One sets down with President Romney, the Saudi’s will rush the plane, drag him out and behead him on the tarmac for preaching against Islam.
This will of course demand swift reprisals by the USA, so V.P. Perry will demand immediate saturation bombing of all important sites in Saudi Arabia, without realizing bombing Mecca (and Medina to a lesser extent), is a big no-no with all Muslims, even those who don’t like the Saudi’s.
The end of it will result in the U.S. being at war with Islam and end in a catastrophic End Times scenario, where every religion gets it right and not only does Jesus return, but so does Vishnu’s 10th incarnation Kalki and any other religions End Times savior, thereby forcing Man to stop their own fighting, while the Gods duke it out for supremacy.
A Romney Presidency is truly frightening indeed.
gene108
@JGabriel:
Outside of Paul, the rest of them have such nice hair. Though Cain maybe an exception, since he’s a bit bald, but like the rest, he too only has a touch of gray.
I am personally jealous about how nicely the GOP field’s hair has held up for them, as they have aged.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
There’s a Michael Bay movie just waiting to be made out of this scenario.
JGabriel
@gene108:
Right? Republicans always have that thing with good hair, like how Reagan’s hair all of sudden turned brown circa 1978 when he hit his late 60’s.
.
Linnaeus
@Walker:
The historian in me is like, “Wha…?”
jl
@EZSmirkzz: If you look at the discussion pages and notes on sources for traditional encyclopedia topics, a lot Wikipedia articles are mostly copies public domain encyclopedia entries with some updating and bells and whistles added. From what I have seen the 1913 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica is particularly popular.
That won’t help for the most important part of Wikipedia, which is collecting celebrity bios and trivia, tracking down old song titles and lyrics, and doesn’t do much for stuff after around the 1920s (when public domain stuff seems to peter out).
But it does account for a lot of encyclopedia type stuff in the Wiki, and probably affects a random sample of article content on history and culture. So, I take these accuracy results for Wikipedia with a grain of salt.
Jeff
I really HATE the stupid, stupid people who don’t understand how Wikipedia works (and Randall is high on that list). If you don’t think something is right on a page, head to the Discussions. It’s probably been debated, and what’s on the page is the result of consensus.
If not, change the damn thing. I’ve done it several times.
EB has been found to have “Professionals” with an axe to grind. Wikipedia’s NOR prevents that.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Bill Arnold
@Linnaeus:
The historian in you doesn’t full understand that if it’s not easily available in electronic format, it is prehistory. :-)
Seriously, digitization (including OCR) of old (pre-softcopy) material is increasingly key.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: He forgot “Fumblin’ with the Blues”, my all-time Waits favorite because of the opening lyrics:
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Oh, and “New Coat of Paint” just for this:
Brachiator
@Jeff:
That it represents consensus does not mean that it is true or accurate.
But as I noted, this is not my main issue. I love Wikipedia. I wish that more people donated to it. But it is not, as some students and others want to treat it, the sum of all knowledge. The Wiki and the Internets is still staggeringly incomplete.
Lazy students who solely reference Wikipedia can become incredibly shallow with respect to what they actually know. They also come to depend upon the consensus of others, and do not know how to judge material for themselves, or to participate in consensus forming.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: just like Chris Christie’s tummy was for you
step away from the crack pipe, brother.
i was never going to vote christie.
his gross visual obesity is a deal breaker for the electorate, and even for his own base.
@Amir Khalid: the GOP base is 50% WEC (white evangelical christian) . 34% of them are less likely to vote for a mormon, and half of those SAY they not vote for Romney, in particular.
anti-mormon sentiment in the US has remained consistant since 2008.
But in 2008 WECs only made up 40% of the GOP base.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: And in 2008 when McCain was considering Romney for his VP, some evangelical pastors took out a full page add threatening to stay home and to tell their flocks to stay home if Romney was on the ticket.
that is why i dont understand why Romney is percieved as electable.
Some of the core GOP voters dislike him because he is a mormon, some because he is a flipper, some because the GOP elite is cramming him down their throats.
If just a few voters from each of those groups stay home, Obama wins.
It seems pretty risky….unless they really dont want to take back the WH.
;)
Samara Morgan
@Gin & Tonic: huh?
link please, i musta missed it.
Samara Morgan
@geg6: Not an issue? that wont fly with the 100% muslim Saudi population. Part of the citizens of KSA are shi’ia. They would love to make trouble with the ruling monarchy.
the Saud monarchs are already walking a tightrope by allying themselves with AmerIsrael.
EZSmirkzz
@jl: Thanks for the observation, I appreciate that.
EZSmirkzz
@Adam C: Also too. I prefer confidence because you have to trust yourself first. Thanks for the responses. Yours.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: here is Rick Perry’s warmup act from one of the debates.
Samara Morgan
@Paul in KY: but i dont think so.
its fine with you juicers…. so you can show how broadminded and unbigoted you are, like suzanne rapturizing over the insignificance of Christies weight.
Mulsims hate proselytizers and missionaries.
Wouldn’t be sort of embarrassing to have a missionary-president?
Frankensteinbeck
@Loneoak: and @WereBear: and @The Ancient Randonneur:
Gentlemen, I admire the depth of your faith and your grasp of Pastafarian dogma, but resistance is futile. You will be assimilated into the Herd.
Why? I will answer that by providing a helpful guide to genuflecting before Celestia.
Samara Morgan
@Paul in KY: its not the royal family that would object.
its the citizens that would object. A President Romney visit would destabilize the Saud monarchy.
and that would crack open the door for the Arab Spring.
;)
Samara Morgan
haha, like suzanne evangelizing obesity. that was just moronic.
lulz.
Samara Morgan
@Paul in KY: and i know no one is interested in this but me…..but SHOULDN’T people be interested in what having a missionary President would do to our currently dreadful relationship with dar ul islam?
you know……the people that HAVE THE OIL?
Frankensteinbeck
@Samara Morgan:
It’s not that no one is interested per se, MC. It’s that no one is interested because it’s something ridiculous you’re making up. It’s the SAUDIS who will not give a flying fuck. You are not representative of other Muslims. No one is representative of Muslims. It’s a religion spanning many diverse cultures, within which you have the vast breadth of human individuality. Your attempts to stick a label on them and say ‘This is what Muslims are like’ is racist enough, but your declaration that somehow an obscure piece of background information in one president will make Saudi Arabia rise up in revolt if he visits is silly. No one but you cares, MC. The Saudis don’t care. 99% of them won’t ever know, and that’s a conservative estimate. They put up with much, much more offensive shit from US presidents than ‘Romney was once a missionary’.
This just isn’t important. You’ve grabbed an obscure fact and are trying to pretend it is a big deal.
Jebediah
@Samara Morgan:
I think it is because the GOP is counting on their base hating Obama more than they hate Mormons. They may be wrong, but I think that is their calculation.
Jebediah
@Brachiator:
Listening to it right now for the first time… so far I think Waits fans will like it, those who dislike him will probably not be convinced. I am liking it quite a bit.
Samara Morgan
@Frankensteinbeck:
It is not racist. Racially arabs are semites, like genetic jews. Muslim is a religion, not a race.
And I am just saying what is in the Quran, and the Constitution of Saudi Arabia IS the Quran.
Missionaries cannot enter KSA. Nor bibles.
Romney was a missionary. Paul is right that the royals may not care– but the mutaween will.
:)
Samara Morgan
@Frankensteinbeck: 99% of them won’t ever know
that might have been true BEFORE.
It is not true now.
The jihaadis are tech savvy and ‘net savvy.
Dar ul Islam will know all about Mitt’s stint as a missionary.
It will be amazing propaganda for these guys for example.
this is an Americancentric blog.
trust meh, dar ul Islam will care bigtime about Romney’s mormon missionariism.
the jihaadis can use it lather up the masses and bring down the royals.
Samara Morgan
wallah.
you guys are worse than conservatives.
hello? the Arab Spring.
the world has changed.
of course the saudi royals wont care.
but the muslim people sure as hell will.
Samara Morgan
i dont understand this.
would a mormon missionary be an appropriate ambassador to Saudi Arabia?
and Romney isnt an “ex-missionary”….he is still a mormon …the mission is for life.
America doesnt get to impose their world view on other cultures ANYMORE.
Iraq is KICKING US OUT.
Americans should at least understand that while YOU PERSONALLY might not have a problem with mormon missionaries, ISLAMIC CULTURES DO.
the issue is at least worth discussing.
Samara Morgan
@Frankensteinbeck:
thnx for that, Noble Big White American Bwana. those ignorant brown muslim peoples dont know what is good for them, do they?
Samara Morgan
how can the juicitariat not understand what the 2012 election is all about?
the world has changed.
America has not.
Conservatives believe that if they can just get rid of Obama, everything will go back to “normal.”
Andrew Bacevich nails it.
The End of the American Century
Samara Morgan
@Frankensteinbeck: and im not saying that America cant elect a mormon president– im sayin’ a mormon president CANT GO TO KSA AND HOLD HANDS WITH PRINCE BANDAR LIKE GEORGE BUSH DID.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
It could be worse.
What if Cheyney had had a pig xenotransplantation heart transplant, and he was consequently haraam?
THE
@Samara Morgan:
First: USA gets less than 20% of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf.
Secondly: The world is changing in ways you are not aware of.
More here.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
dude. that is completely disinegenuous.
Saud sets the PRICE of oil.
the world is changing because of the internetz and social media.
because people can take pictures with their cell phones like these.
that pepper spray is going to leave a mark, and not on the protestors.
“Stop what you are doing, watch this video, and reflect on what it means to be an American.”
how ideologically far away from Kent State are we?
Samara Morgan
hahahaha!
solar will take off when there is no more oil, spock….or when the price is prohibitively expensive.
THE
1.There will never be a time when there is no more oil. There will always be a price when oil is available either by natural oil, or by expensive oil like tar sands, deep ocean, etc. Or by synthetic biofuels, or by synthesis from cheap methane or solar hydrogen as that becomes available.
2. Solar is taking off now. The market price is always set at the margins. So every time the price falls, the market grows. The growing market in turn drives falling prices, through the economies of scale, and the technological learning curve.
The solar industry has been growing at 56% per annum installed capacity averaged over the last 5 years (up to 2010 the most recent data – my trend fitting to IEA PV data). At this rate, doubling every 1.55 years, tenfold every ~ 5 years.
There is some difference in the different estimates because the market is booming so fast that data is often out of date when it gets included, and data varies in quality internationally.
The important price mark that the market is currently fixated on is grid parity for daytime peaking generation in sunbelt regions. That is the point at which solar is the cheapest energy source for daytime peak generation. Here in Australia, we think solar is now at or near grid parity in WA, Qld, NSW, NT. Carbon taxes will push it far over the edge.
When we install solar it replaces other fuels: coal, natural gas, oil. Consequently those other fuels become available to the world market and help to hold down the cost of fossil fuels. In the end as solar becomes cheaper and cheaper it will drive down all other fuel prices too through arbitrage and substitution effects.
As the price drops below cost of production, the different producers drop out of the market and the supply of fossil fuels will shrink. Thus solar replaces other energy sources by undercutting them in price, to the point they become uneconomic to produce.
THE
Do you understand Samara? It is not being driven by the price of oil?
It is being driven by the ever-falling price of solar, driving everything else off the market.
Samara Morgan
@Judas Escargot: no dude. He cant GO TO KSA. because that would destabilize the royals.
So how do we artificially suppress the cost of crude?