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Conservapedia: an Exclusionist Wikipedia-Clone

Posted on March 5, 2007 ·

And I thought Wikipedia’s deletionists were exclusionist. Oh, boy, was I wrong… the real exclusionists created their own Wikipedia-clone:

“Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American… Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.”

How can it possibly be an objective source of  “historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics” by excluding the views of the majority of the World?

As for Christianity and America, I hate to bring this to the Conservafolks, but Christianity really, really did not originate in America.  Not that Conservapedia’s entry on Christianity explains anything – you’ll have to check out Wikipedia for that. 

Conservapedia doesn’t fare any better on the *minor* [sic] contribution to history, science, culture, architecture ..etc by pre-Christian civilizations like Egypt, China, Greece ..etc.  For example here’s the entire entry on Egypt:

“The oldest non-nomadic civilization in the world which still exists today. Egypt is located in north-east Africa.  ”

Greece does not do any better:

“The collective term for the civilizations of the Greek subcontinent.”

Nice. Concise?  Pathetic.

 

Conservapedia started as a school project.  (Again, we have to visit Wikipedia, not Conservapedia to learn this).  I’m sure eliminating diversity, filtering out most of the World’s knowledge is the best way to improve our kids’ education.  As if America were not already falling behind in education. My advice to the Conservafolks: get Senator Ted Stevens on board.

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Misc, Politics, Software, Technology ·
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In God We Don’t Trust

Posted on March 2, 2007 ·

Indiana bank refuses to cash man’s $50,000 check from the Almighty.  

“Kevin Russell found out it’s not easy trying to cash a check from God. The 21-year-old man was arrested Monday after he tried to cash a check for $50,000 at the Chase Bank in Hobart that was signed “King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant,” Hobart police Detective Jeff White said.”

Unbelievable. What was he thinking?  Full story at the SF Chronicle.

Filed Under: Misc ·
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Deadly Kites

Posted on February 26, 2007 ·

“At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colourful kites, officials said today.


The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops yesterday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival.”

(full story here)

Hm.. for a peaceful, safe kite festival, come to Berkeley this summer.

 

 

Filed Under: Misc ·
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Please Update Your Feed URL

Posted on February 21, 2007 ·

If you are my subscriber, please check the feed URL and make sure it is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/zoli

The Feedburner service is more manageable than the one offered my blog platform, and using it ensures continuity should I change platforms in the future.

And of course if you haven’t subscribed yet, you can always do so by clicking on the

button in the upper right sidebar area.

Thank you for being my reader either way.

Filed Under: Misc ·
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The Scary Thing about Contextual (?) Advertising

Posted on February 19, 2007 ·

No matter how much ad-placement algorithms improve the inevitable mistake happens from time to time.  The article on Yahoo News discusses how Eastern European countries who agree to host  the US missile defense system risk being targeted by Russian missiles.  Now, what better ad to display, than a cute little Yahoo Rocket? smile_sad

Of course this is not as extreme as this ad right after Katrina hit New Orleans:

See also:

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing / PR, Misc ·
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Protecting Children in the 21st Century by Tossing them Back to the 19th Century

Posted on February 15, 2007 ·

I don’t  understand  this  uproar.  Of course Senator Ted Stevens is right.  Social networking sites should be banned. The Internet, too.  And TV. In fact, let’s ban electricity.  Books should be burned, except the Bible.  All children should wear a black uniform, their heads shaved bald.  Libraries, schools closed, children should only go to church.  Wait! Have they not been sent to re-education camps yet?

(I’ll be back with more great ideas after getting some inspiration from here)

 

Filed Under: Humor, Misc, Politics ·
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Is it OK to Check Email During Meetings?

Posted on February 14, 2007 ·

Paul Kedrosky is surprised at the results of the in a WSJ survey on in-meeting email habits:

“This strikes me as unrealistic and “do what I say, not what I do”, but I’m curious what people think. Granted, perpetual in-meeting emailing is bad, but discrete checking once in a while is fine.”

I’m not surprised, in fact the survey asked about “feelings”, which to me translates to “do what I say, not what I do”.  I voted “never OK”, but I do plead guilty to occasionally doing it.

I certainly disagree with Paul on “discrete checking once in a while is fine.” No, it’s NOT fine.  But there is another side of the coin: my time, your time, everyone’s time is valuable – don’t waste it with endless, formal, long meetings.  I would not think of checking email at a well-structured, efficiently run, productive and participatory meeting for fear of missing out on something important. 

(Note: I took a snapshot of the poll 500 votes after Paul did, and the percentages are more or less the same, which indicates a fairly consistent public opinion).

 

 

Filed Under: Business, Misc, Personal Productivity ·
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Prison Offers Family Cells

Posted on February 12, 2007 ·

Aranjuez, a small Spanish town south of Madrid has so far been famous for two things:  the Palacio Real de Aranjuez, a royal residence and Rodrigo’s classic guitar Concierto de Aranjuez.

Now it has a third claim to fame: the only place in the world with a prison offering family cells. 

Not exactly in the Palace pictured here, but the “spacious units, dubbed “five-star cells,” come with cribs, Disney characters on the walls and access to a prison playground.”

“The idea is for children to bond with their jailed parents while young enough not to fully grasp the reality of prison, and to teach parenting skills to inmates seeking rehabilitation. Some parents have two toddlers in the prison, and the total currently stands at 32.”

A really noble thought.  However,  “in this section you completely forget you are in a prison,” said Ramona Montoya, 33, serving 11 years for drug trafficking.”

Hm… I’m not sure *that* is such a good thing.

(Full story at AP)

 

Filed Under: Misc ·
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Snow Buries Small Town in NY

Posted on February 10, 2007 ·

And I thought rain in CA was bad …Storm

Filed Under: Misc ·
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Is Amazon Selling Pirated Books?

Posted on February 10, 2007 ·

he Whenever I see a title “Please Don’t Buy This …” I pretty much expect just the opposite: the author would use the tricky title to promote his product.  Not Seth Godin.  When he says Please don’t buy this book, he really means it.

He wrote the book in 2005, always meant it to remain a downloadable freebie,  did not authorize it to be published, although did not explicitly preclude it, due to the particular Creative Commons licence he picked.

That brings me to answering my own question: the book is probably not “pirated” in the strict sense: Seth Godin is clearly indicated as the author – yet, as Seth says, “there’s no doubt in my mind that marketing a book for money with my name on it is not kosher.”  So if not pirated, perhaps hijacked?

A little digging into the publisher’s background brings us to interesting discoveries: is there a (decent) publisher in the 21st century without a website?   www.bnpublishing.com resolves to this eBay store,  where, not surprisingly we’ll find Seth Godin’s book for $5 more than the Amazon price. 

The only other non-commercial reference to Bnpublishing I’ve found is yet-another story of shady business: apparently they’ve taken a bunch of audio files from a public domain project and are reselling it on Amazon, again, without the author’s permission or even knowledge.  Note: the author calls these *stolen* files – again, I’m not competent to judge if it’s theft from a legal point of view, but to quote Seth, it’s certainly “not kosher.” 

What do you think?  Is Bnpublishing a bunch of shady freeloaders or is what they do simply smart business?  (of course it would be nice if Seth’s blog allowed comments for this conversation…)

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Filed Under: Business, Misc ·
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