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Submission + - History Professor Teaches How to Falsify Wikipedia

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Yoni Appelbaum reports in the Atlantic that as part of their coursework in a class that studies historical hoaxes, undergraduates at George Mason University successfully fooled Wikipedia's community of editors launching a Wikipedia page detailing the exploits of a fictitious 19th-century serial killer named Joe Scafe. The students, enrolled in T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past, used newspaper databases to identify four actual women murdered in New York City from 1895 to 1897, victims of broadly similar crimes and created Wikipedia articles for the victims, carefully following the rules of the site. But while a similar page created previously by Kelly's students went undetected for years, when students posted the story to Reddit, it took just twenty-six minutes for a redditor to call foul, noting the Wikipedia entries' recent vintage and others were quick to pile on, deconstructing the entire tale. Why did the hoaxes succeed in 2008 on Wikipedia and not in 2012 on Reddit? According to Appelbaum, the answer lies in the structure of the Internet's various communities. "Wikipedia has a weak community, but centralizes the exchange of information. It has a small number of extremely active editors, but participation is declining, and most users feel little ownership of the content. And although everyone views the same information, edits take place on a separate page, and discussions of reliability on another, insulating ordinary users from any doubts that might be expressed," writes Appelbaum. "Reddit, by contrast, builds its strong community around the centralized exchange of information. Discussion isn't a separate activity but the sine qua non of the site." If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism (PDF).""

Comment Boeing vs Airbus, massively lacking objectivity (Score 1) 1

by Dante_J (#34636660) Attached to: Boeing, Boeing ... Gone?

Over many occasions, especially during and since the development of the A380 and the ongoing development of the A350, I've witnessed time and time again, in forums and Social networking an almost bloody minded support of Boeing, demanding nothing less than the violent destruction of Airbus & EADS.

To me, this is an unhealthy and self destructive attitude to have towards a competitor, but is it just a natural fruit of "Welchism" ?

Rolls Royce have given Boeing fans something to crow about with the Trent 900 problems experienced, (being used on some A380's) and their sloppy response to it, but this is really just a distraction from the main game.

In global civil aviation over the past 30 years, there has been a great lack of design innovation. This stagnation is ultimately not good for airlines, passengers or aircraft manufactures. For the few that are left, it's a case of innovate or die.

Can Boeing refocus on being a genuine innovator again, and not just a market bully? It would benefit humanity most if at least both Boeing and Airbus continued to be competitive, and continued to be based in separate parts of the planet, under the influence of separate governments.

We all know how unhealthy monopolies can and have been.

Submission + - NX compression technology to go closed source (nomachine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NoMachine has sneakily revealed it is closing its source of the NX compression technology with NX 4.0. ..... This release marks an important milestone in the history of the company. Version 4.0 of the software, in fact, will be only available under a closed source license.http://www.nomachine.com/news-read.php?idnews=331
Firefox

Firefox 4 Beta 8 Up 385

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-the-fish dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has released a new beta of Firefox 4 this morning. Originally intended as a quick update for the feature-complete Beta 7 release, the new Beta includes 1415 bugfixes, a fine-tuned add-ons manager, improved WebGL support as well as URL bar enhancements."
Censorship

WikiLeaks App Removed From Apple Store 338

Posted by CmdrTaco from the dying-of-not-surprise dept.
Stoobalou writes "An 'unofficial' WikiLeaks App which contained published documents from the Cablegate leaks has been withdrawn from the Apple App Store.The $1.99 App created by developer Igor Barinov has been removed from sale without explanation despite the fact that all of the information contained in it is publicly available."
The Internet

Submission + - Military pressuring vendors on IPv6 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: U.S. military officials are threatening IT suppliers with the loss of military business if they don’t use their own wares to start deploying IPv6 on their corporate networks and public-facing Web services immediately. “We are pressing our vendors in any way we can,’’ says Ron Broersma, DREN Chief Engineer and a Network Security Manager for the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. ``We are competing one off against another. If they want to sell to us, we’re asking them: Are you using IPv6 features in your own products on your corporate networks? Is your public Web site IPv6 enabled? We’ve been doing this to all of the vendors.’’
Space

UK Seeks Stronger Partnership In Space Technology With India 47

Posted by samzenpus from the together-again dept.
tanujt writes "David Willett, British minister for Universities and Sciences has called for a stronger partnership between Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and UK's space program. As of now, Willetts invited ISRO to partner the UK in its TechDemoSat program. TechDemoSat is an industry-led technology demonstration satellite which aims to provide a low-Earth-orbit test bed to help demonstrate the technical maturity and commercial viability of innovative new space technology. TK Alex, director of ISRO Satellite Centre, invited the UK to partner India in training space scientists through academic exchanges between the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and leading UK universities. This follows US President Obama's recent visit to India, wherein he signaled ending the ban on high-end technology exports and removal of Indian organizations, including ISRO and Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO), from the Entity List."
Science

LHC Scientists Create and Capture Antimatter 269

Posted by samzenpus from the I-want-my-warp-drive dept.
Velcroman1 writes "Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have created antimatter in the form of antihydrogen, demonstrating how it's possible to capture and release it. The development could help researchers devise laboratory experiments to learn more about this strange substance, which mostly disappeared from the universe shortly after the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. Trapping any form of antimatter is difficult, because as soon as it meets normal matter — the stuff Earth and everything on it is made out of — the two annihilate each other in powerful explosions. 'We are getting close to the point at which we can do some classes of experiments on the properties of antihydrogen,' said Joel Fajans, a University of California, Berkeley professor of physics, and LBNL faculty scientist. 'Since no one has been able to make these types of measurements on antimatter atoms at all, it's a good start.'"
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook introduces one-time passwords (goodgearguide.com.au) 4

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Worried about logging into Facebook from a strange computer? There's now a way to get into the popular social network without entering your regular Facebook password. It's called a temporary password. To use it, users must list their mobile phone numbers with their Facebook accounts. They can then text a number from their phones and Facebook sends back a temporary password that is good for 20 minutes. The service will be available worldwide in the next few weeks."
Iphone

iPhone 4 Screens Break 82% More Than 3GS 348

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-that-kind-of-crack dept.
A surprising number of readers have submitted linkage to a story discussing a recently released study that proclaims that iPhone 4 glass breaks way more often than the 3GS's. Although the chart that I found more surprising was the one that said almost 9% of iPhone 3GS screens crack after a year.
Moon

Countries Considering Circumlunar Flight From ISS 170

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-they-can dept.
FleaPlus writes "The BBC reports that the space agencies of Europe, Russia, and the US are in (very) preliminary discussions about a potential collaborative mission where astronauts would assemble a small spacecraft at the ISS, then fly it around the Moon and back. This is somewhat similar to previously-proposed commercial missions, with many elements adapted from spacecraft systems already in existence. This would also be a testbed for eventual asteroid and Mars missions, which would likely require modules to be launched on multiple rockets and assembled in space."
Space

Submission + - Recently Discovered Habitable World May Not Exist (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Two weeks ago, U.S.-based astronomers announced the discovery of the first Goldilocks planet circling another star: just the right size and just the right temperature to harbor alien life. But yesterday at an exoplanet meeting in Turin, Italy, Switzerland-based astronomers announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet in their observations of the same planetary system.
Data Storage

Florida Town Builds Data Center In Water Tank 104

Posted by Soulskill from the zombie-proof-computing dept.
miller60 writes "The Florida town of Altamonte Springs has converted an old water storage tank into a new data center. The decommissioned tank previously held up to 770,000 gallons of water, but its 18-inch-thick walls provided a hurricane-proof home for the town's IT gear, which had to be relocated three times in 2004 to ride out major storms. The Altamonte Springs facility is the latest example of data centers in strange places, including chapels, shopping malls, cargo ships, old particle accelerators and caves."

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