Real Time Wikipedia Tracking Via Google…Weird
And tell me that things have not started to get very, AI strange on us…
What that page is is a Google map that keeps track of every time someone updates something in Wikipedia, the online Encyclopedia, and tells you who did it, and where they did it from. It’s a very, very strange thing - cool, and a little creepy at the same time.
I found the link over at the website for IF: The Future of the Book
I also find this site a little disturbing. I am not at all certain that the written word IS going to move from paper to phosphor in the foreseeable future, and I am very sure that currently the trend is dumbing down the language, the content, and the value of words. These folks seem to seriously believe that having blogs will give them the edge over people who actually have to show talent to reach publication. What I say is, people will become overwhelmed with inane full-of-themself blogs pronouncing the imminent end of the world of literature. I think news might shift to the web, and I think a lot of other things will evolve (and have evolved) - see Wikipedia above - but I don’t really believe books are going anywhere soon. They still require no rebooting, pretty much always have a display, and are generally of higher quality than what you find out here in cyberspace.
Of course, here I am writing this opinion in a blog…so take that all for what it’s worth…
-DNW
01/22/08, 8:49 AM |
[...] David wrote an interesting post today on Real Time Wikipedia Tracking Via Googleâ
01/22/08, 10:40 PM |
Hard to read a backlighted screen while laying in the sun at the beach . . .
Um, you can always join the cyber underground and post on wikipedia via proxy with an encrypted connection . . . and yes, it’s been done. The same way the RIAA site was hacked.
It’s a new world out there. Just ask your kids what the word “copyright” means.
01/23/08, 9:29 AM |
My kids KNOW what the word copyright means, and if I have anything to say about it it will continue to mean something.
I can’t understand the total brainlessness of the concept that copyright is bad. If you can’t own what you create, then you can’t make a living off of it, and if you can’t do that, then words really are dead.
People are so hot to share their music and their books for free and “why not, man?” and I can tell them why not. Because the bands won’t be able to afford to make any new ones if no one pays them for the music…and the authors will all be unedited morons publishing their own unreadable books if no one pays for the ones that are published…
They said MTV would kill radio, and MTV barely even plays video anymore. Radio is fine. The Internet, blogging, Napster, and all of that won’t kill copyright either…just a bunch of people who think they are cooler than they are…
End rant.