Tag: wikipedia

Wikimedia

I think I mentioned once before that one of my sister’s uni lecturers once punk’d her class by banning the use of wikipedia in assignments and then placing false information in the relevant entries to track who ignored their instructions.

The growing reliance of mainstream media on the user generated encyclopedia has been beautifully exploited by one man’s little piece of poetic justice.

Shane Fitzgerald edited the entry for French composer Maurice Jarre hours after his death to include the following quote:

“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear.”

This quote hit obituaries in major media outlets all over the country almost immediately – although it was removed from the wikipedia entry within hours.

Fitzgerald came clean – and here’s the story being reported in the SMH – with this quote:

“I am 100 per cent convinced that if I hadn’t come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up,” he said. “It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact.”

While I’m not suggesting that there’s a culture of feeding purposefully false information into wikipedia one only has to look through the history of changes to Scott Minto’s profile to know that it’s a pretty regular occurrence.

The bit in Fitzgerald’s quote about stuff being printed becoming “truth” is interesting, and it makes Wikipedia an important element of a PR campaign if you want a nice endorsement of your key messages. Wikipedia is a triumph in post-modern market driven thinking where truth really is up in the air and able to be determined by the market – which is perfect if your job is to manipulate or shape a message.

That is all.

May 12, 2009

Invention fail

Being an inventor is such a glamourous career path. Coming up with new and exciting things seems so noble – every one of the products I post here as an inventor or designer.

Sometimes inventions go bad. Sometimes they kill their creator. Here’s a list of people killed by their inventions courtesy of list repository “Listables“…

A couple of my favourite dead inventors…

Franz Reichelt

He invented a parasuit – a parachute in a suit. It didn’t work.

William Bullock
In a bizarre accident, Bullock was killed by his own invention. On April 3, 1867, he was making adjustments to one of his new presses that was being installed for the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper. Bullock tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley. His leg was crushed when it became caught in the machine. After a few days, gangrene set in. On April 12, 1867, Bullock died during an operation to amputate the leg.

And now, some of my favourite lists from listables:

List of words you should never, ever say.

Fonts most used by designers.

List of words only journalists use.

List of words containing the letter x.

March 27, 2009

Unleavened bread

Have you ever thought about how many different types of “flatbread” there are? Bread varieties that are essentially the same thing just used different ways by different cultures? Profound hey. One man’s Yiros is another man’s burrito. Here’s the list from Wikipedia.

March 21, 2009

Evolution over time

The war between creationists and evolutionists is long running and intense. It’s perhaps most hotly contested at Wikipedia – which is, as we know, representative of the prevailing views of a particular topic.

The conflict has been visualised. Here. And is now included in reduced form below for your viewing pleasure and edification:

February 10, 2009

Lies, dam lies, and statistics

The mighty Ross River is filled to bursting and the dam gates are being opened to reduce pressure on the dam wall. 

This presents a sticky situation for the Townsville City Council – flood the streets or risk the structual integrity of the dam. Tough call. Not what I’m writing about though.

When I moved here I was really excited to be living life on the edge. Crocodiles, stingers, etc – you know the drill. And the dreaded Ross River Fever – named for Townsville’s iconic waterway. Or so I thought. Until a couple of old, wise, boaties in Hinchinbrook “set me straight.”  They laughed at me. To my face. They told me that Ross River Fever was named after a Ross River in Darwin. I was adamant they were wrong.  But they swore black and blue that the it were true… and I believed them. Any time it came up in conversation at future points I spouted this fallacy fed to me by two wizened fishermen. I staked my reputation on it. I scoffed at those ignorami perpetuating the viscious slur on Townsville’s reputation. I apologise. Ross River Fever is in fact named after the river in Townsville. For that we can be truly thankful. 

I’ve learned a lesson here. Never believe a fisherman, and if something sounds dodgy you should look it up on wikipedia. 

Perhaps Bill Gates needs to visit Townsville to release a swarm of mosquitoes on those paid to promote the city, who clearly know so little about the local landscape.

February 8, 2009

On shoes

Lesson in PR from this week:
If you can dodge a journalist’s questions with consumate ease – you
should be expected to be able to dodge their shoe with the same, if
not more, ease. George Bush has obviously learned that lesson early.
He handled that situation with grace and composure. The reporter
probably deserved a tongue lashing – he’ll be lucky to be spared a
literal lashing in Iraq. Ironically, if Saddam was still in power he
probably would have been executed. That’s the best shoe pun I could
come up with because the Facebook George Bush already used “sole
searching.” The Facebook George Bush is not me.

Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about shoe tossing. Including an
interesting look at “shoefiti” the act of throwing shoes onto a
telegraph wire. Which I was always told was to indicate drugs could be
bought nearby.

December 17, 2008

Irony, Irons and other stuff

A little while ago someone suggested I write about the misuse of the word irony in the lexicon. Well I would, but ironically I don’t know anything about the topic (See that was funny on a couple of levels). I will point out my favourite example of this societal abuse of the word – Angst ridden Canadian Balladeerette (is that a female singer of ballads?) Alanis Morissette’s song ironic. The only irony in that song is that it doesn’t actually contain irony…

“A traffic jam when you’re already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”

No Alanis I don’t think… and clearly neither did you. I’d suggest that’s more like poetic justice… as found in the correctly titled song Poetic Justice – written by Tom Kimmel and covered by Jane Saunders.

“I feel like the king when the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
While the whole palace slept, and I never rang the bell.
Maybe that’s poetic justice, but it’s pretty hard to tell.”

Actually – perhaps ironically that doesn’t sound like poetic justice to me – but perhaps that’s due to a lack of context. Ironically, again, Jane Saunders released an album called Poetic Justice – with the Tom Kimmel song as the title track. The song contains these lines:

“I feel like the king
When the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
And declare what was mine
I stole from someone else
Maybe that’s poetic justice
But it’s pretty hard to tell”

So if her album is named after the song, and she sings the song, could she not be declaring something as hers that she stole from someone else… Guilty as charged I say.

So as you can see it’s almost impossible to learn anything ironic from a female song writer… or in fact from anyone at all. Except perhaps H.W Fowler who is quoted on Wikipedia (note: I understand the irony of claiming it’s hard to learn about irony from anyone and then turning to the source of all “reputable”* information**) as saying

“Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that “more” and of the outsider’s incomprehension.”

So there you have it. An ironic insight*** into irony.

My iron beeps when it’s been left on for too long. Isn’t that a useful function. I discovered this while preparing to attend the races (of the equine variety) yesterday. Perhaps ironically*** (after my post last week) I did place a bet on a horse and it was quite literally pipped at the post. I bet $5 and lost – I figure the $5 goes a small way towards repaying Jupiters Casino for kindly inviting me into their corporate marquee for the day and feeding me seafood and cake. They would have provided me with free beer too (or heavier stuff) if I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested still. I had a day last week where I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested but then I got up at 4.55am to host the Today show breakfast people up here and the lack of sleep didn’t help my cause. (Look how I tied four pieces of information into the one paragraph – watch and learn people… For those at home wondering what the four pieces of information are: 1. My iron beeps, 2. I went to the races, ate at the corporate tent and placed a bet (all one topic (but three pieces of information I guess)), 3. I am sick, 4. I had the Today show up here last week). Wow. Are you awestruck yet? Probably not. I should point out that I’m actually not as arrogant as I sometimes sound…

* “” Denotes sarcasm
** referring to Wikipedia
*** used ironically

July 30, 2006

Finding Emo

What is the deal with Emo? This is a blog by request for Joel. He doesn’t understand emo people. Neither do I. Emo used to be a classification of a branch of punk music. Apparently now it’s so much more. Some people (Jon Ray) debate emo’s right to hold its own place in the spectrum of musical genres. Some people love email. Some spell checks don’t like the word emo. These people wear black make up, have crap hair and wear clothes at least 4 sizes too small. Apparently they like self harm and stuff now too. Back when I was a young lad, well back in the 90s anyway, people who cut themselves and wore funny black clothing were called goths. As far as I can tell the only difference between emo people and goths is taste in music. For a complete guide to being emo check out this site here. It’ll create an emo identity just for you.

Emo used to be a label for any emotional rock. Weezer are an oft mentioned example of this first wave of emo acts. Weezer are cool. Just because Weezer are emo, and Weezer are cool doesn’t make all emo bands cool. That is a fallacious syllogism. Syllogism is a cool word. I just wanted to use it in my blog.

The new wave of emo is darker… edgier… according to wikipedia common elements include dark colored hair (often dyed either black or an unnatural dark hue), males wearing pants tailored for females, lots of piercings, and dark make-up on males and females. In short, emo people are weird. Wikipedia also notes they may have a tendency towards self harm. They also like fringes. What’s with that?

Now that you all know how to identify an emo there are certain rules for approaching them in social situations. The first principle of approaching an “emo” is that you should never expect any form of response or interaction from said emo. Unless you’re talking about how wonderful AFI is. Emo’s love AFI, or My Chemical Romance, or any of those punk bands who write emotional songs. Emo is just a category for people who aren’t hardcore enough to be goth and are too stupid to be normal. There’s something sad about a group of non-conformists who all dress the same.

May 30, 2006