An idea for a weekly section

Here is another piece I have had sitting on my hard drive but haven't really found the right angle to make it interesting yet. This may end up becoming part of a larger article or the introduction to a section of my site that explains some of the technical concepts in an easy to understand way that might interest others in using them in thier own ways.

For the last month or so the Internet has become like new to me all over again. I don’t claim to be on the bleeding edge of Internet technology nor do I believe that any of the technologies that are exciting me right now are that new. What I do believe is that the collective learning curve for utilizing some of these technologies is starting to be overcome. It seems that when a new technology breaks on to the scene every Tom, Dick and Harry trying to find a way to apply it and only a small fraction of the folks who do have a deep enough understanding of how it to do it right. These few are drowned out by the legions of people who know enough to be dangerous and become representative of the technology. Over time though, if the technology is interesting enough more people come along and start playing around with it. Perhaps discovering new possibilities and applications of that technology. Eventually, early adopters who have interesting content but are not interested in the technology are able to utilize it.

Over the next few weeks I am going to touch on some of what I believe, are the most exciting areas of technology where the potential of the Internet is finally being realized. Topics will likely include; RSS, tagging and Podcasts among others. I will try to give an overview of these topics that appeals to the non-techy among us in hopes that they will join the party and find their own novel ways of using these new tools.

Open Source

The first piece I will post I have had sitting on my laptop for a littl eover a week. I wrote it after listening to the third installment of "OpenSource", a new public radi oshow that is being podcast as well. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should.

I listened to the third installment of OpenSource radio the other night and it brought up some really interesting, if not new criticisms of Wikipedia and really the internet in general. The two main criticisms could be boiled down to the following. Firstly that unscrupulous students would copy and paste information from Wikipedia, and other websites without properly citing it. The second was the fear that because of the open nature of Wikipedia (anyone can edit entries anonymously) that the validity of the information was suspect and that individual users were being mislead regarding the validity of the information in Wikipedia.

One the first point there is certainly something to be said for students misrepresenting ideas and text as their own. The internet does seem to make it easier as well. After all you only need to google your subject then copy and paste the bits you like into your word processing application and you are done. In the past I would at the very least have to retype the information. However, won’t there always be an arms race between teachers and plagiarizing students and doesn’t the internet provide teachers with new tools to find these copycats out. A quick google search turned up this for example. Beyond that I just don’t find the plagiarism argument very convincing or interesting.

The second point is where the meat of the debate exists. It essentially was that because Wikipedia is “authored” by many anonymous users the veracity of the information is too questionable to be considered anything but a novelty. I am not sure if the guests who were advocating this position have visited Wikipedia but I can’t say that I agree entirely. I have used Wikipedia as a starting point to learn about many different subjects both technical and not and as “Jimbo” said it serves the purpose of a good encyclopedia which is to give a short primer on a given topic. In addition, for those topics surrounded by some controversy, you can start to get a flavor of the different sides around the debate. As with a traditional encyclopedia article, stopping when you are done does not make you an expert and certainly should not be your only source for a paper.

Since it is anonymously authored encyclopedia it can contain bad information, placed there maliciously or otherwise. I agree with that. What I don't agree with is the conclusion that this type of information source is less useful because of that.
Think about some of the "authoritative sources of information we have used for a long time. The New York Times for example, is the paper of record and yet Jason Blair was able to fabricate stories and pass them off as true.

Perhaps one of the largest lessons the internet can present to us is that all information should be treated with a certain amount of skepticism. Certainly some sources will be more trustworthy than others but true information literacy may require that we be prepared to deal with the most questionable of sources and by doing so we best exercise our critical thinking skills and become better consumers of information.

I think this show will provide ample material to vamp on so I'm thnking I might do this regularly with this show. Unless it turns out to be too much work

Here it comes...

I haven't posted to this blog in a quite a while now. Part of the reason is that I have been busy with other things. Not the least of which is my new site "This is Dearborn". However during this period I have been writing a few different pieces in parallel but didn't really know how they fit into the site. I have decided to post them here and to continue to post anything and everything here until I see some patterns develop and a different method of organization begins to make sense.

This, is Dearborn

Since the last post I have shifted directions a bit and started a new site. The purpose is to provide a public forum for the people who live & work in Dearborn, MI. I hope, in time, it will become a source for news and information that digs a little deeper and offers more diversity in opinion than traditional media sources can offer. In the meantime, this site will remain a side project as I still think it is a solid idea. In fact I just received an email from the podcaster I asked to interview a few weeks back. If all goes well episode 1 should be available some time in July.

And now for something completely different…

So, what exactly have I learned up to this point?

I am not ready to create the podcast I envision in a reasonably short time
I am not altogether convinced that it is the only thing I want to do

Sounds like it’s time to give up, right? Absolutely not, this is an opportunity for reinvention. A time to assess where I am, where I thought I was going, and how I can put a positive spin on this in the meantime. After all America was discovered on an expedition meant to find a shortcut to India. Luckily this voyage was halted well before ending up a world away from its intended target.
If I step back far enough I think the impetus for the entire project can be boiled down to the fact that I need a creative outlet. I’m not entirely sure that I have anything earth shattering to say or a unique way of saying it but that doesn’t really matter. The fact is that in my job does not require me to engage the left side of my brain in anything more than small talk. The creative hemisphere latched upon the idea of a podcast as an opportunity to take center stage and here I am. That is all well and good but know that I am able to think a little more clearly, and realistically about the time requirements I have decided to instead back down to keeping a blog. This will be the grain of sand that will either produce a pearl or irritate the hell of me.
In a way this is still in perfect harmony with the original intent of the show, the idea that the process of creation is just as important as the product. In fact it could be said that the product; a painting, song, building or anything else, is just the artifact that is left over from a really interesting process. Without babbling on at any greater length my new plan is such.

• Continue on with the blog

Posting any and every idea, rant and musing, using it as a clearinghouse for my creative side. This I know is not unique. There are an endless number of blogs that epitomize this approach. So I can not stop there.

• Organize as I go

Rather than set upon a structure or format for my creative outlet before I see what it is I am likely to produce I will instead write, record, take pictures, etc… and throw them into the blog through various means. Over time I hope a suitable structure will become evident to me and I will organize and format where it seems to make sense.

That seems like a good starting point.