Plinky Prompt FAIL

A feature recently added to WordPress is Plinky Prompts, which appear at the screen just after you publish a post. They provide suggestions as to future posts. For my last post, I got these ones (see picture [click to enlarge]):

FAIL

 For those who can’t read the circled writing, the one in the upper left says “349th post.” The one in the lower right says “Do you blog? Why or why not?”

Epic FAIL.

As for those questions, the first one is pretty obvious and is utterly unworthy of wasting any more attention on. As for the second, I blog because if enough people speak up, all will hear us.

As for the Plinky Prompts, this is another example of why dictionaries define human intelligence, animal intelligence, military intelligence, extraterrestrial intelligence, and artificial intelligence and in that order.

Some days it’s not worth getting out of bed

An actual conversation I had today:

Another person: What are you doing on that computer?

Me: Stuff for college. Why do you ask?

A: I tried using it earlier today. All I got when I turned on the monitor was a logo saying that there was no signal.

Me: Did you turn on the box?

A (looking at the CPU part): What was the computer doing turned off?

Me: I’m pretty sure they turn off the computers when the place is closed, so that they save power.

A: Tell them to keep them on all the time.

10 years of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is celebrating ten years today.

This is an example of the amazing democratization of information the internet and Web 2.0 have wrought. Other examples include things such as blogs, social networking sites, and “sharing” services like YouTube. Web 2.0 gives easy access to pretty much whatever information you want (no guarantees of quality, though). Web 2.0 also gives you easy access to other people. In many ways, we all know more facts and more people.

In light of my comments above, Wikipedia is an excellent example of Web 2.0. It is certainly more accurate than some random rant page, if only because so many people see it. This also has disadvantages, as it is obvious that a lot more people are interested in celebrities than in third world legislators. Hence, the surplus of coverage in one area and the deficiency in the other. Other problems might be the bureaucracy and power structure behind the users.

All in all, Wikipedia is far from perfect; one of the reasons it got so big was because it got started first. There are certain to be challenges in the years ahead, as society and the internet continue to evolve.

Wikipedia passes 3 million articles

Wikipedia has surpassed the 3 million article milestone. Article 3 million is Beate Eriksen.

Wikipedia has both good stuff and bad stuff. For example, it covers American roads, recent tropical cyclones, and popular culture very well. And these are some interesting topics. But it is also lacking in the hard sciences; coverage of those is rather deficient.

There’s also the power structure involved. For example, there is a claim that being a sysop/administrator (a kind of user with special privileges) is “No big deal“. That claim is utter nonsense. You see, if being an administrator is no big deal, why is (you or someone else) losing it such a big deal? And again, if adminship is no big deal, why is (you or someone else) remaining an admin such a big deal?

I am not sure whether Wikipedia will be a success in the long term. By its nature it covers current events better as articles can be updated in nearly real time as information becomes available. But this will not improve its coverage of neglected topics; lesser–known countries, more obscure fields, and the like. However, its power structure and hierarchy will simply get worse as users try to pad their egos and have power over others.

Seasteading

The world’s first floating city may be just three years away.

Stem cell policy overturned

United States President Barack Obama has overturned a Bush-era regulation banning most forms of stem cell research (hat tip). Now, better research into cures for several chronic conditions will be allowed. As someone with a medical condition who would benefit from stem cell research, I think this is fantastic news.