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The Internet

Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth 428

Posted by kdawson from the beware-the-man-with-the-lantern dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Simson Garfinkel has an interesting essay on MIT Technology Review in which he examines the way that Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word 'truth.' While many academic experts have argued that Wikipedia's articles can't be trusted because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. 'But wikitruth isn't based on principles such as consistency or observability. It's not even based on common sense or firsthand experience,' says Garfinkel. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is verifiability — that it appeared in some other publication, but there is a problem with appealing to the authority of other people's written words: many publications don't do any fact checking at all, and many of those that do simply call up the subject of the article and ask if the writer got the facts wrong or right. Wikipedia's policy of 'No Original Research' also leads to situations like Jaron Lanier's frustrated attempts to correct his own Wikipedia entry based on firsthand knowledge of his own career. So what is Wikipedia's truth? 'Since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.'"
First Person Shooters (Games)

The Duke Is Finally Back, For Real 309

Posted by kdawson from the better-be-good dept.
After the first announcement on 1997-04-27 and over eleven years of fresh start after fresh start, Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to your system. At least if your system is an Xbox 360. Jon Siegler, the webmaster of 3D Realms, confirms this on their site: "As has been reported around the net today, we can confirm that the game has indeed passed final certification with Microsoft on Friday the 15th of August (on our first try, no less). That means the game is done — it is now in the hands of Microsoft." Update: 08/19 10:47 GMT by T : Several readers have written with a correction: this announcement is actually about Duke Nukem 3D, rather than Duke Nukem Forever.
Google

The 110 Million Dollar Button 191

Posted by Zonk from the that's-a-big-twinkie dept.
Reservoir Hill writes "The 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button on Google's search page may cost the company up to $110 million in lost ad revenue every year according to a report on American Public Media's Marketplace. Tom Chavez says that since the company makes money selling ads on its search results page, the 1% of users who use the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button never see Google's ads - the button automatically directs them to their first search result. So why does Google keep the button? Marisa Mayer, Google's vice president responsible for everything on the search page, says that 'it's possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money' and the 'I'm Feeling Lucky,' button reminds you that 'people here have personality.' Web usability expert Jacob Nielsen says the whimsy serves another business purpose: 'Oh we're just two kind of grad students hanging out and having a beer and having a grand old time,' not you know, 'We are 16,000 people working on undermining your privacy.'"
Networking

Submission + - Gothenburg to get 270,000-node Zigbee network (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
acoster
acoster writes: "An article at The Register reports that Gothenburg will install a 270,000-node Zigbee network.

Utility company Göteborg Energi AB has selected NURI Telecom to provide Zigbee-enabled electricity meters to every home in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The meters will then link themselves together to allow remote meter reading without infrastructure costs.

Zigbee networks are self forming — each node can also act as a router — so no setup or configuration is required, and when a new house is built the additional node just connects itself to the network and starts reporting usage.
"
Censorship

Submission + - WordPress blocked by Turkey to appease creationist (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
John Hawks
John Hawks writes: "The entire WordPress domain has been blocked by the Turkish government, and the WordPress blog carries a reaction. The blockage comes at the request of Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. Harun Yahya, best known as one of the foremost international promoters of creationism. Oktar alleges that WordPress sites have defamed him, and has demanded satisfaction. The Scientific American blog has more details on this matter and the news earlier this week that ScienceBlogger P. Z. Myers has been sued for libel."

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 Set for December 196

Posted by timothy from the amazing-project dept.
dolson writes sends in a heartening update straight from the Debian project's news page: "The Debian project confirms December 2006 as the date for the next release of its distribution which will be named Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 alias 'etch'. This will be the first official release to include the AMD64 architecture. The distribution will be released synchronously for 11 architectures in total. At this stage, the upcoming release will ship with Linux 2.6.17 as its default kernel. This kernel will be used across all architectures and on the installer. A later version may be selected during a review in October. New features of this release include the GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 as default compiler. X.Org will replace XFree86 as implementation of the X Window System X11. Secure APT will add extra security by easily supporting strong cryptography and digital signatures to validate downloaded packages."

Encrypted Ammunition? 909

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the really-bad-ideas dept.
holy_calamity writes "A patent has been filed for bullets with built-in encryption. Pulling the trigger sends a radio signal to the cartridge in the chamber, but the charge only goes off if the right encryption key is sent. The aim is to improve civilian firearm security." Not sure I'm quite ready to trust the average techno-gadget failure rate on something like this just yet.

How Google's Novel Management System Aids Growth 156

Posted by Zonk from the sprouting-like-weeds dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Gary Hamel, visiting professor at London Business School, argues in a Wall Street Journal commentary that Google's 'novel management system seems to have been designed to guard against the risk factors that so often erode an organization's evolutionary potential.' Among Google's advantages: The 20% rule, an 'expansive sense of purpose' and the credo, 'keep the bozos out and reward people who make a difference.' Hamel also traces the company's evolution from Google 1.0, 'a search engine that crawled the Web but generated little revenue,' to Google 5.0, 'an innovation factory that produces a torrent of new Web-based services, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Base. More than likely, 6.0 is around the corner.'"

Interview With Leader of Sweden's Pirate Party 476

Posted by Hemos from the two-party-system?-never-heard-of-it dept.
CrystalFalcon writes "Linux-P2P has published an interview with Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party which is aiming to gain entry to Swedish Parliament this fall. (The party's founding was previously covered on Slashdot.) The party is totally for real, totally serious, and has seen approval ratings of 57% in some polls, with only four percent needed to gain seats. Its goals are to cut back copyrights, abolish patents, and strengthen the right to privacy."

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