Wikipedia is a cool concept where anyone can enter information about a subject, and thus a "people's reference" comes to life. Unfortunately (as the L.A. Times recently discovered), it also allows any nitwit with a cause to enter, delete, edit and overwrite information about any subject. This means that Joe Bigot can write an entry on the KKK and make it sound like a social club with a few naughty fringe elements who got carried away with the whole lynching thing. Likewise, Daisy Treehugger can pound out a screen on Halliburton and the price of Ozone and to the unaware, it carries the same credibility as actual fact.

I like Wikipedia a lot. I don't trust it at all, but I like it.

This morning I stumbled across this idea and ensuing project to create a tool to track the editing history of a Wikipedia entry:

I'd love to see a tool for animating Wikipedia history for a given entry or block of text (see Udell's screencast for an example). Bonus points for highlighting what changed in each version, and extra special bonus points for a way to scrub backwards and forwards through time.

Check out the link and be amazed as they've made some quick progress towards the goal. I'll have to dig a little deeper, but this sounds like just the thing to help decide if a Wikipedia subject has been hijacked for a cause or not.

Thanks to Dawn for the original link which led to the link where I saw another link to where I found this. Oh, and you get to see a video where Tom Cruise kills Oprah.

Posted by: Ted at 09:23 AM | category: Links
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Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It was founded in 1607 in what is now Virginia. One of the founders was Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, and there is evidence that a skeleton found outside the site of the Jamestown Fort is Gosnold's.

Archaeologists hoping to determine whether an unearthed skeleton belongs to one of the founders of the first permanent English settlement in North America began work Monday to excavate his sister's 360-year-old remains in eastern England.

A DNA match would be confirmation.

British and American researchers on Monday began work to remove a small part of Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney's skeleton from beneath the floor of All Saints Church in the English village of Shelley, 60 miles northeast of London. Scientists working with skeletal remains can only trace DNA through maternal relatives.

I didn't know that part about maternal relatives. Archeologists also believe they've located one of Gosnold's nieces and will attempt a DNA match from her remains as well.

Gosnold, though largely unrecognized historically, is considered a primary organizer and head of the expedition that led to Jamestown's founding. Capt. John Smith's role received most of the attention because Gosnold became ill and died at age 36 - three months after arriving in Virginia.

You can read the whole story here. I also did another post about Jamestown way back, there are good links there too if you're into history.

Posted by: Ted at 04:23 AM | category: SciTech
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I knew that Airbus had been chipping away at Boeing's longtime dominance in the world aircraft market, but I hadn't heard that Boeing has since rallied strongly and has put "Airbus on the ropes".

From Der Spiegel:

While Boeing is practically fighting off demand for its new 787, which consumes significantly less jet fuel than earlier models, Airbus's managers are seemingly ripping each other apart in internal power struggles and intrigues.

Boeing has already received firm orders and commitments for over 260 787 Dreamliners, which is made entirely of lightweight synthetic materials. It's also using the technology and experience gained to update their popular 737 aircraft. Meanwhile, Airbus concentrated solely on it's A380 superjet and a new military jet, all but ignoring its aging small-to-midsize line of passenger jets.

Despite lots of buzz about the superjumbo, Airbus faces heavy customer penalties (measured in the tens of millions of Euros) as they recently announced that first deliveries will be delayed by at least six months. In addition, Airbus was once considered the leader in the competition to supply the US military with new tanker aircraft, but congress has since passed legislation forbidding the award of contracts to companies subsidized by governments, on the theory that such subsidies allow the artificial lowering of bid prices. Airbus now has almost no chance with the contract that they believed they could win.

Airbus isn't nearing collapse or bankruptcy, they've just squandered the chance to continue to grow their share of the world airliner market.

Thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for the pointer. Read the comments there too, because they bring up some points and counter-arguments that I hadn't heard or considered before.

Posted by: Ted at 04:36 AM | category: SciTech
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Sometimes NASA flies balloons.

The westward flight from Esrange [Sweden - RJ] to Alaska will test NASA's new long-lasting balloon vehicle and carries a 5,940-pound telescope at an altitude of 25 miles for six to nine days.

These are huge balloons. For example, an NFL football field is 300 feet long.

The balloon is 396 feet high and 462 feet in diameter. It is made of advanced materials and uses a pumpkin-shaped design to achieve flights up to 100 days. It holds up to 1.3 million cubic yards of helium.

Some interesting stuff happening. Who knew Sweden had a space corporation?

Posted by: Ted at 04:42 AM | category: SciTech
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