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Slashback: Quinn, iBackups, Wikipedia 239

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the closer-scrutiny-usually-reveals-misconception dept.
Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including the exoneration of Peter Quinn, the debut of Honda's new ASIMO robot, Vonage customers now all have 911 access, Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement, an interesting follow up to the recent Wikipedia articles, the Citizen e ink clock makes its first real world debut, and a response for criticism of the $100 laptop - read on for details.

Peter Quinn exonerated. An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Peter Quinn, the man who terrified Microsoft by moving part of the Massachusetts government to ODF, has been exonerated of any alleged impropriety concerning his trips to tell others about Massachusetts' move to ODF."

Honda debuts new ASIMO robot. Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Honda's ASIMO robot has received his annual refit and now has the power to carry objects with a cart, serve drinks, and run with both feet off the ground at up to 10mph."

911 now available to Vonage users. Ben writes "Only a month after Vonage 911 Deadline Passed the VoIP phone service announced today that all of its customers now have access to 911 services."

Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement. Chris Bradshaw writes "iBackups' owner Nathan Peterson pled guilty to two counts of criminal copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling nearly $20 million worth of computer software. The FBI was first alerted to possible software piracy by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) back in 2003. iBackups was selling pirated copies of software over the internet claiming that they were "backup copies" to be used by software owners in case of system crashes."

Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia. AxelBoldt writes "The Australian newspaper The Age reports that Nature has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.'"

Citizen e ink clock makes its debut. Tim Jones writes "The flexible e ink clock that Citizen announced what seems like ages ago is finally making an appearance in the real world. It's apparently going to be displayed at a Tokyo exhibition this week."

$100 laptop not quite so ineffectual. segphault writes "Ars Technica posted a response to Intel chairman Craig Barret's criticism of MIT's $100 laptop. From the article: 'Despite Barret's criticism, interest in the $100 laptop remains as strong as ever, and lightweight, affordable technology continues to weave its way into the classroom with great results. Young students in Olathe, Kansas now read their textbooks on Palm handheld computers. According to survey statistics, 28 percent of American school districts offer handheld computers for student and teacher use. A study done at a high school in South Dakota in 2001 found that the the availability of school-provided handhelds actually improved student grades. Eric Johnson, educational sales director for Palm, says the public schools represent a US$300 million market. If handheld computers can do so well in the public school system, surely the $100 laptop can too.'"

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Slashback: Quinn, iBackups, Wikipedia More

Slashback: Quinn, iBackups, Wikipedia

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  • Interesting encyclopedia comparison (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:04PM (#14260283) Journal
    While I knew Britannica has inaccuracies, and while I know inaccuracies often remain for quite a while there due to their revision model, I didn't believe it would fare that well, and rather that it would have much less but staying for a longer time. 42 entries may be a small sample size though; I'd rather see a few hundreds in a larger test, and also from more than science.

    • Re:Interesting encyclopedia comparison (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ral315 ( 741081 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:30PM (#14260421)
      Well, you have to remember that this was for Nature, so I can understand the bias toward science-related articles. I think where Wikipedia would probably beat out Britannica would be on technology-related articles...not just for recent developments, but because the format of Wikipedia plays to a tech crowd.

    • Re:Interesting encyclopedia comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

      by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @09:01PM (#14260569) Journal
      The list of surveyed entries. The list is obviously leaning heavily towards natural sciences.

      So it's hardly very well-rounded, which is probably good for Wikipedia here, since the natural science entries (In my experience) tend to hold a higher level of accuracy/quality than the humanities ones.

      It'd be more intersting to see a larger survey, and with more obscure topics. In my opinion, an encyclopedia should be judged by its weakest entries, not its strongest.
      • Of course, you still have to be careful. A lot of the unfinished articles in Wikipedia are the types of things that Britannica wouldn't tell you about anyway. For example, who would have thought that David Weber [wikipedia.org] of Honor Harrington [wikipedia.org] fame was also responsible for developing the third editions of the famous Starfire board game [wikipedia.org]? And while you were looking that up, who'd have thunk that Sun had done a promotional video called Starfire [wikipedia.org] about the "Office of the Future" circa 2004? (That was an amusing film.)

        My point is that Wikipedia is not only going toe to toe with traditional Encyclopedias (sorry, I can't do the ae thing on Slashdot), it's actually surpassing them. Like the Internet was designed to do, Wikipedia is slowly sapping up the sum of human knowledge for all to learn. The process is fraught with difficulties, but it's otherwise a good process.
      • It'd be more intersting to see a larger survey, and with more obscure topics. In my opinion, an encyclopedia should be judged by its weakest entries, not its strongest.

        In which case Wikipedia should do much better than Britannica. After all, there are many obscure topics for which Wikipedia has an articles and Britannica doesn't. Any hard copy encyclopedia is going to get trounced by Wikipedia for articles on popular culture and recent events, for instance.

    • Serious structural difficulties... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Errandboy of Doom ( 917941 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @10:04PM (#14260859) Homepage
      Despite a few areas of marginal success, there are still fundamental structural difficulties in Britannica as a project, that its founder (Colin "Jimbo" Macfarquhar) has yet to address.

      Now, don't get me wrong, Britannica is acceptable for satisfying incidental questions, perhaps a good tool for satisfying children's curiousity, but I wouldn't rely on it as a serious reference tool.

      Some say they prefer the tactile sensation of a book over our more traditional, electronic forms of learning. But I don't think Britannica can rely on such an obvious gimmick for too long.

      It's clear to anyone who thinks seriously about this issue that an encyclopedia which doesn't allow immediate revision of errors by anyone who finds them will never have the credibility of a wiki.

      Britannica's slow production schedule and restriction of edits to a tiny, select group of so-called 'experts' will always plague it with difficulties. I, for one, will have nothing to do with it, and hope they abandon this foolhardy experiment before people begin to hastily grant them an ounce of credibility.
      • Ah yes, children's curiosity! That's precisely the only use, right there. When I was younger (a little over a decade ago, when I hadn't lived a decade yet) I used to get up early Sunday mornings and hang out with Dad in his study. And what did I read? The Encyclopedia, of course! And my life was greatly enriched by leafing through whatever volume took my fancy and reading interesting looking articles - those 1992 edition World Books seemed such a treasure trove of information in a computerless househol

    • So they found four inaccuracies in the wikipedia articles they tested -- did they correct them while they were at it?

      When they found thee errors in the Encyclopedia Britanica article, too bad they couldn't check the discussion page and history of modifications to see when and how they got there.

      -Don

  • Edit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:04PM (#14260285)
    I wonder if the newspaper people then fixed the inaccuracies in the wikipedia articles, making it 0 to 3, which would be a clear win for wikipedia?

    • Re:Edit (Score:2, Insightful)

      by m50d ( 797211 )
      Whenever you do such an analysis, the assumption is you found 20% of them. That makes it 15 for Britannica and 16 remaining for Wikipedia.

    • Re:Edit (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder if the newspaper people then fixed the inaccuracies in the wikipedia articles, making it 0 to 3, which would be a clear win for wikipedia?

      I checked one article to see if that might be the case. In the article for "quark" the only recent edits are one that changed all occurrences of "hadron" to "hardon", and then one that changed "hardon" back to "hadron".

      Of course if the Encyclopedia Britannica had an article on quarks that mentioned "hardons" it would take years before a correction would make its
    • That would negate the point of the study. It would be like nature documentaries stepping in and stopping wolves from eating their prey.

      • "It would be like nature documentaries stepping in and stopping wolves from eating their prey."

        That sounds like it would make a great Reality Television program! Maybe they could get that Australian aligator chap who sticks his thumb up animals' bums to do it.

        -Don

  • But what happens... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cheapy ( 809643 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:06PM (#14260300)
    What happens when the power goes out for Vonage customers? I read the description, but didn't see anything about this.

    • Re:But what happens... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The Warlock ( 701535 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:09PM (#14260314)
      The same thing that happens when your power goes out and the only phone in your house is cordless: you lose 911 service unless you have a charged cellphone handy.
      • The same thing that happens when your power goes out and the only phone in your house is cordless: you lose 911 service unless you have a charged cellphone handy.

        Except with a regular line I have the option of keeping an cheap corded phone around for emergencies and it'll be powered from the central office. That's a BIG advantage for me and a reason I will never go entirely to VOIP. There's simply no major advantages for me since I need to keep my phone line around for DSL anyway.

        • Except with a regular line I have the option of keeping an cheap corded phone around for emergencies and it'll be powered from the central office. That's a BIG advantage for me and a reason I will never go entirely to VOIP. There's simply no major advantages for me since I need to keep my phone line around for DSL anyway.

          You know that at least here in California, a disconnected line still has a dial tone so that you can order service and call 911 from that line. I switched to Vonage about 2 years ago and I

        • Yeah and with voip you have the option of keeping a cheep ($60) battery backup around which will run your service for at least an hour (constantly on)... or for days if you flip it on only when you need to make an outbound call in an emergency... what's the problem again?
        • You can keep a cheap corded phone around anyways, assuming you didn't rip the wires out of your walls. Any phone plugged into the line can call 911, whether you pay for a plan or no. Same with any cellphone.
        • Except with a regular line I have the option of keeping an cheap corded phone around for emergencies and it'll be powered from the central office.

          Not necessarily. The central office only powers the phones for as long as their back-up batteries last. During the New York/NE regional blackout a couple of years ago POP phone service in NYC only lasted a couple of hours and then was gone. Cell phones may have worked longer, but I couldn't say because my battery ran down after using it as a flashlight to get u
    • This is what UPSes are for...
      • Unfortunately, it is often not enough. For example, in both Marysville and Kelseyville (cities in California, one of which is so small you can fart on one end of town and someone can smell it on the other, the other of which is decent-sized) if the power is off long enough, the cable network goes down. I don't know what it is that goes out, but I suspect it's a repeater or something somewhere.

        You're probably better off depending on a cellphone with no service plan.

    • Re:But what happens... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @09:00PM (#14260562) Journal
      From Their website [vonage.com]
      311 Dialing, 911 Dialing, and Vonage Service DO NOT function during an electrical power or broadband provider outage. While you cannot control a power outage that actually disrupts the broadband Internet service, one method Vonage has found is to use an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)to continue to provide AC power to the cable/DSL modem, phone adapter and the cordless phone base station. A Uninterruptible Power Supply can be purchased at an electronics store near you.

      Vonage also offers the free option of having a Network Availability Number. Now you don't have to be inconvenienced if your Internet connection fails. Your calls will be automatically forwarded to the phone number of your choice in the event your Internet connection is disrupted or your telephone adapter is disconnected. To set up your Network Availability Number, log in to your web account, and click on the "Features" tab on your Dashboard.
      =Smidge=
    • What happens when the power goes out for Vonage customers? I read the description, but didn't see anything about this.

      Depends on whether or not the cable modem and the Vonage-box both have battery backups.

      Time Warner Cable's digital phone comes with a right-to-cable box, that has a built-in battery backup. I had a circuit trip in my computer room that I didn't notice for a good day of phone calls, until I finally tried to turn on my computer.

  • 5 years vs 2 centuries (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dubl-u ( 51156 ) * <2523987012&pota,to> on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:10PM (#14260319)
    The interesting part is that Wikipedia did so well so quickly. Wikipedia's only been around since 2001, but they wrote the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1771. Britannica has had more than 200 years to get their process together, and their accuracy rates are still pretty close to Wikipedia's.
    • That is kind of interesting, but how different is the Britannica model from Wikipedia, anyway? I think they both fundamentally rely upon peer review and the "many eyes" approach. Wikipedia as the serious advantage of having a heck of a lot more eyes available with the power to fix what they see as broken. Sure, some aren't going to be subject experts, but then any given expert in any given field is always going to have personal biases and beliefs that don't quite mesh with actual facts, too, so I'm not s

      • A wikipedia salesman walks into a bar...

        -Don

      • I remember reading an article a number of years ago about how the Velcro corporation almost lost their contract with Ford when their patents expired. This was because quality was inspected into the product, and not engineered (via process) into the product. Even if the end results were the same, a well-engineered process is considered more of a guarantee of future success than a proven track record (all else being equil). It wasn't until Velcro improved their processes that Ford felt comfortable with the
        • Interesting. Yeah, I understand what you mean about designing with quality in mind as a goal. Wikipedia certainly doesn't handle that aspect of things. There's plenty of room in the world for both approaches, I think. The real beef that the "genuine" encylopedians likely have about Wikipedia is that it's free and open to the masses. It's very hard to compete with something like that, so I suspect they feel very threatened by all of the Wikipedia press of late. There's always going to be people who wan
    • What you should be amazed at is that Wiki does more poorly than Brittanica.

      If an article has not substantially changed in facts or representation in a few decades, a new version of Brittanica is likely to use the same article, with a cursory once-over to ensure that there's no major errors still - and that I would bet would be more in the way of spelling and grammar rather than factual.

      Wiki, on the other hand, performs worse, and the articles are only four and a half years old at most.

      Copy errors in a docum
      • That brings up an interesting question; data is forever (let's not quibble, it CAN be true) but how exactly does britannica handle copy? When did they go digital? How were they handling things in the pre-digital age? Assuming you have original photostats for articles, you should be able to keep the first generation, and cut up second generation copies for layout. Then, you will have no copy errors from that point...

    • Not so fast ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:46PM (#14260494) Journal
      There are an awful lot of Wikipedia articles (esp. articles on historical figures) which are heavily based on the 1911 edition of Britannica, an edition that is in the public domain. As an example, I found this one [wikipedia.org] with hardly any effort.

      So the question of "which model is better" is not as simple as you make it seem.
    • The interesting part is that Wikipedia did so well so quickly. Wikipedia's only been around since 2001, but they wrote the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1771.

      Well, the articles tested "covered topics including Agent Orange, quarks and synchrotrons". Brittanica hasn't had two centuries head start on any of those.
      • Britannica changes very, very little from year to year. They entirely rewrite it only about once in a lifetime. They did so two times in the 20th century - in 1911 (a famous edition which was much lauded) and again in 1976 (the current version). So the Agent Orange entry has probably been around for going on 4 decades now.

  • Ten mph? wow ... (Score:2, Informative)

    by s20451 ( 410424 )
    run with both feet off the ground at up to 10mph

    For those readers who don't get much exercise, that's a six minute mile pace ... which is not easy even for an average person in good physical shape.

  • Its not 10 mph for ASIMO (Score:5, Informative)

    by Game_Ender ( 815505 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:13PM (#14260331)
    Honda's ASIMO can now run at 6 kph not 10 mph. 6 kph is 3.73 miles per hour. This is doulbe the old 3 kph of ASIMO.

  • Accuracy of Encyclopedias (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:14PM (#14260341) Homepage
    The article lacks important details.

    They looked at 42 articles. How were these chosen? Were they on the same topics for the two encyclopedias? Was this done double-blind?
    the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.
    About a 30% difference (running their numbers of 162 and 123), which is big. More importantly (from the article):
    Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia.


    The article also doesn't comment if corrections were made to the Wiki and submitted to the editors of Brittanica....
  • I would be interested to know if any of the inaccuracies in Encyclopedia Britannica are actually things where we have discovered some new fact or phenomenon since the latest revision was printed. Do they count those?

    • I would be interested to know if any of the inaccuracies in Encyclopedia Britannica are actually things where we have discovered some new fact or phenomenon since the latest revision was printed. Do they count those?

      Even if it does, that shows the strength of Wikipedia. When a new discovery is released, it can take a few years for Britannica to take care of it. On Wikipedia, new discoveries are usually on the site within 24 hours- sometimes just minutes afterward.

  • Nathan Peterson and iBackups (Score:3, Interesting)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:22PM (#14260386) Journal
    I wasn't even aware that this "iBackups" company existed until now. But it occurs to me that his defense; "This software is sold simply to serve as a backup copy.", is as old as the pirate bulletin board system. That used to be a VERY popular "disclaimer" on the "NPD" (non public-domain) boards.

    The thing is, I wonder if it held more water on a free BBS, where you simply couldn't be accused of selling the software?

    If "iBackups" was going to try something this shady, they should have at least tried to obscure what was being paid for. (EG. Pay our price of $X.XX for a copy of our guide to software installation and optimization, and take your pick of a free backup copy of one of the following commercial programs in our library.)

  • Encyclopedias and responsibility. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno@cheapcomp ... s.com minus poet> on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:34PM (#14260433)
    Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia.

    I'd like to see a law stating that you get your money back or a free fixed edition if you buy an encyclopedia with an error.

    That should make the damn overcharging industry start taking the accuracy of their material seriously and stop throwing stones at community efforts. If Wikipedia's wrong - well, I got what I paid for - but if I fork out hundreds of dollars for something it should be held to some sort of standard.

    If not, what is it I'm paying for?

    • If not, what is it I'm paying for?

      Social status.
    • If not, what is it I'm paying for?

      No one *made* you purchase that encyclopedia. You saw it. You felt it was a good investment you purchased it. It all comes down to the same argument Pontious Pilate made to Christ - "What Is Truth"? Some things are concrete fact, yes. Some things are evolving events, others are ideas and not set in stone. The print edition you buy is the best stab at capturing the world as we knew it at time X. Encyclopedia are *never* an acceptable reference for a paper. They are a first
    • I'd like to see a law stating that you get your money back or a free fixed edition if you buy an encyclopedia with an error.

      The Britannica has been publishing its hardcover Book of the Year since before World War Two. Britannica, full text, on CD/DVD costs about $20-$40.

      what is it I'm paying for?

      Historically, among other things, signed and credentialed, peer-reviewed, articles, often book-length essays, by authors as significant as Einstein and Freud, essays that can stand on their own merits as prime

    • In other words, because it's free beer, Wikipedia should not be held to any standards? Because it doesn't cost anything people should ignore its flaws?

      Gee, imagine that attitude extended to the rest of the universe:

      "This pie was terrible! It tastes like shit!"

      "Shut your hole you freaking ingrate! It's not like it's Sarah Bloody Lee that you had to pay for!"

      "But it had a dead rat in it!"

      "It was free so shut up about it!"

  • iBackup (Score:3, Informative)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:38PM (#14260451) Homepage
    iBackup? iWish iDthoughtathat..

    Peterson has agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $5,402,448.

    Yeah that sucks, except..

    Documents submitted by the US Attorney state that Peterson made $5.6
    million selling pirated software with a total retail price of just under $20
    million.

    I triple checked my work, but I keep coming up with a $198 thousand dollar profit. That'll teach him.
  • As a member of the Wikipedia community, I'd like to make another announcement. Some of you may remember earlier in the year when The Slate published an article stating that seven out of ten instances of plagiarism are from Wikipedia. Jimbo responded:

    "Wikipedia is now the source for 7 out of 10 instances of classroom plagiarism. We hope to reach 8 of 10 by next year."

    I'm proud to announce that we have achieved our goal -- 8 out of 10 instances of classroom plagiarism can now be attributed to Wikipedia. Cong
  • Nature's comparison of the science articles in Wikipedia and Encylopaedia Britannica is here [nature.com].

    One new interesting tidbit: about 12% of all nature authors consult Wikipedia on a weekly basis. I wonder how many consult EB on a weekly basis...

  • * * Beatles-Beatles (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:51PM (#14260520)
    I propose an additional topic for Slashback tonight: * * Beatles-Beatles. I consider Slashback to be the most appropraite forum for this topic, and perhaps there is a chance that the editors actually read these comments.

    What I think many of us want to know can be stated simply: What in the world is going on with * * Beatles-Beatles? Here are some of the facts of concern:
    - * * Beatles-Beatles does post some nice, thought-provoking articles.
    - * * Beatles-Beatles posts often come in clumps of two or more, with three straight (two on the front page) on December 11th.
    - The vast majority of his submissions are posted by ScuttleMonkey.
    - Rather than posting the original article summary (if there even is one), ScuttleMonkey uses the "* * Beatles-Beatles tells us . . ." formula to introduce his own summary of the article.
    - * * Beatles-Beatles links to a number of sites, mostly the George Harrison one, which seem "shady" to put it lightly (that is they have a bare-bones amount of content and a lot of links, news feeds, and popups).
    - * * Beatles-Beatles is utilizing all these Slashdot posts to increase his Google page rank (Googling for George Harrison puts him result number 5 on the second page).
    - Despite a growing chorus of complaint by loyal Slashdot readers, we have had absolutely no communication (that I am aware of) from the editors on this issue.

    I (and some others, I think) would like to use the Slashback forum to get some answers from any editor. This situation stinks of unethical behavior (or just plain ineptitude on the part of the editors,) and it makes me question the integrity and professionalism of the Slashdot system. If there is no response, I think I will take my concerns directly to CmdrTaco (malda@slashdot.org) through email, and from there (assuming the issue is not addressed) I will have to contact OSTG (editors@OSTG.com). I encourage anyone else who shares my concern to do the same. This is all motivated by the fact that I love Slashdot. I hate to a wonderful community-driven site corrupted by such an influence.

    P.S. If the * * Beatles-Beatles thing is just leading up to the best April Fool's post of all time, I am cool with that.

    • P.S. If the * * Beatles-Beatles thing is just leading up to the best April Fool's post of all time, I am cool with that.
      Yeah, like Beatles-Beatles replaces his website with a combination of goatse and tubgirl, along with anything from rotten.com.
    • We never got any resolution on Roland articles which were FAR worse (the guy was scummy enough to not link to the original site and only linked to his blog), what makes you think we'll get any resolution on this. By the way, does anybody know if there was an editor who tended to post the majority of Roland articles? Wouldn't that be some coincidence if it was also Scuttlemonkey.

    • Re:* * Beatles-Beatles (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @11:12PM (#14261265)

      Despite a growing chorus of complaint by loyal Slashdot readers, we have had absolutely no communication (that I am aware of) from the editors on this issue.

      Jamie responded [slashdot.org].

      • Who exactly is Jamie?

        He gets flamed pretty hard for his (non)explanation & since it seems like he hasn't accepted any articles since October, I wonder if he's in the loop.

        I'm wondering why we should care what he has to say...
        just to put his words into some kind of context.

        Here's his list of recent articles [slashdot.org], courtesy of /.'s search function. At best he seems like a part time editor.

    • Re:* * Beatles-Beatles (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Hosiah ( 849792 )
      Is it too late to suspect that Beatles-Beatles is a script running on Scuttle-Monkey's home server?

      I was trying my own hand at a hand-rolled newsfeed aggregator, once, with an eye towards including it in my blog as a sidebar newsalerter. This was extensive Bash, sed, awk, grep, and lynx + Tcl/Tk/Expect work (and a couple of parsing algorithms in C), and the results were quite interesting, but I never got it past beta (it really wasn't worth the time for me, I might pick it back up later). With the right A

  • Wikipedia Vs. Britannica (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @08:54PM (#14260537)
    It's not just a matter of accuracy, but of how exhaustive they are. Does Britannica have these articles?

    - $100 laptop [wikipedia.org]
    - ASIMO [wikipedia.org]
    - Vonage [wikipedia.org]
    - OpenDocument [wikipedia.org]

    I take every piece of information with a grain of salt. If I want to know something, I try to find a primary source [wikipedia.org]. Just because something is called CNN [cnn.com], Britannica, or NYTimes [nytimes.com] doesn't mean you should trust their information blindly.

    Supposedly, Wikipedia is no good because it's not accountable. Oh, and Brittanica is? From their terms of use:

    Limitation of Liability: IN NO EVENT SHALL BRITANNICA, ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, SHAREHOLDERS, PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, AGENTS AND LICENSORS, OR CONTENT PROVIDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE USE, INABILITY TO USE, PERFORMANCE OR NONPERFORMANCE OF THE SERVICES, EVEN IF BRITANNICA WAS PREVIOUSLY ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH DAMAGES ARISE IN CONTRACT, TORT, UNDER STATUTE, IN EQUITY, AT LAW, OR OTHERWISE.

    Indemnification: To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold Britannica, its directors, officers, shareholders, parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, and licensors harmless from and against all losses, expenses, damages, and costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of the use or unauthorized copying of the Services or any of their content, the violation of these Terms of Use or any applicable laws or regulations.
    • Disclaimers aren't worth shit if they (Encyclopaedia Britannica) have broken the law. For instance, if EB has defamed someone, then that someone would be entitled to seek redress regardless of any disclaimer. The disclaimer is so you don't sue EB because you didn't get an A+ on your book report.

  • edit this page (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @09:10PM (#14260613)

    Wikipedia much more effective than normal encyclopedia. AxelBoldt writes "The Australian newspaper The Age reports that Nature has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in all encyclopedias other than Wikipedia and among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was phenomenal: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained no inaccuracies; Britannica, around three hundred.'"

    Wow! The wikipedia model does work!

  • Everyone (well, a lot of people) will want one. They all come with Linux.

        This is a potentially huge market that Windows would be at least temporarily shut out of.

        Seems like there's a real opportunity for mainstream Linux inroads there...

    • a potentially huge market that Windows would be at least temporarily shut out of.

      Well, Windows may not come as OEM, but I'm sure you can install it, (there are installers now that give you a minimal Windows for efficiency or lower-powered boxes) it's standard x86 hardware. And as they say there will be commercial versions of the laptops (at a higher cost), they probably will come with the choice of an OEM Windows. It will be interesting to see MS having to actually compete as an after-market product agai

  • Wikipedia vs Britannica: Raw errors vs error rate (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @09:32PM (#14260715) Homepage
    The Wikipedia vs Britannica comparison appears to have been on the raw error number alone. A far more valid measure would be on the error rate, the ratio of errors per unit of content.

    Which raises the question, how did Wikipedia and Britannica compare on quantity of material on each subject? If Wikipedia articles are on average twice as long with twice the content, then a 4-to-3 raw errors would translate into a 2-to-3 in favor of Wikipedia. If Britannica articles are on average twice as long with twice the content, Wikipedia would fare far worse with an 8-to-3 rate.

    It would have been nice if they had asked the experts to rate the articles for overall content and quality as well.

    The story only reported three of the 42 subjects on which they did their analysis: Agent Orange, quarks and synchrotrons. Does anyone have a recent Britannica encyclopedia handy? And if so could they do a comparison of length and content on those three subjects and reply with their results?

    -
  • I'm still skeptical of the $100 laptop. Granted, given that my sub $100 Zire was powerful enough for the 10 months that it worked, I have no doubt that a $100 laptop can be designed... What keeps me skeptical is listed below:
    1. Manufacturing semiconductors is HARD. Manufacturing millions of semiconductors is even HARDER. Where are the chips for all of these going to be made? I doubt AMD can handle the load without dropping their high-profit chips. If we are to see millions of these units, the fabs to
    • Manufacturing semiconductors is HARD.
      Umm... complex, yes, hard? no. Actually, just look at the per/unit cost of the chip. That's all that matters. If it is a $100 computer it doesn't need to be a high end Pentium M. There are many CPU's out there that are faaar chaeper. If you can make a CPU for $5/chip then that's how much it costs. Create a BOM for the laptop and add everything up. You do realize they manufacture tens of billions of semiconductors every year right? And there are alread fabs all over the w

      • If it costs $70/month for data services on cellphone networks in the U.S. with existing infrastructure,

        Okay, there's the if statement. Where's the else? T-Mobile sells unlimited GPRS for $20/mo on top of your cellphone bill, and even has a data-only plan for $25/mo. At least one other provider offers internet for the same price, but won't let you use it for a computer under their AUP, just one of the devices they sell you.

    • I think we're both speculating about the economics of chip manufacturing. But it doesn't seem like a couple million chips is an impossibly large fraction of AMDs capacity, especially if this project is stretched out over five years or so. Also, it's unlikely that the chips being used are anything AMD isn't manufacturing in fairly large quantities anyways. A special order processor would be prohibitively expensive.

      As for the Internet, these things are supposed to come pre-equipped with wireless equipment,

  • Australian schools could use the $100.00 laptops.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by marcushnk ( 90744 ) <senectus@nOSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @10:05PM (#14260862) Journal
    Although a 1st world country our education system is very third world in some area's.
    If you offered this to our schools and their parents I believe you would see a MASSIVE uptake in the devices.

  • Nature editorial asks experts to edit Wikipedia (Score:4, Informative)

    by AxelBoldt ( 1490 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @10:06PM (#14260867) Homepage
    This Nature editorial [nature.com] asks scientific experts to kick in: "Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."

  • Great. A flexible clock! (Score:3, Informative)

    by munpfazy ( 694689 ) on Thursday December 15, 2005 @01:42AM (#14262188)
    For years we've dreamed of doing away with those power-hungry and unpleasantly rigid clocks that line our walls.

    Remember when we used to throw our hands up in desperation and say, "if only there were some way to make a clock that's flexible, and one which doesn't consume a whole 1/4 watt, the world would be a better place."

    Now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the time has finally arrived.
    Seriously, folks, what gives? e-ink is awesome. A wall clock made with an e-ink display, on the other hand, is just silly.

    And, while I'm firing meaningless rants into the void, why do so many people seem surprised to learn that Britannica suffers from such inaccuracies? Anyone who has ever read an encyclopedia article in a field about which they know something ought to know better than to expect accuracy from an encyclopedia. They're great for getting a very brief intro to a subject one has never heard of before, and for picking up enough keywords to find more information, but only a lunatic would rely solely on an encyclopedia article for anything.

    Ah well, enough ranting.

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