Myself, Coding, Ranting, and Madness

On the News Tonight

Despite doing web design for many a year on and off (and with varying degrees of success), I never really engaged in the internet itself. one of it's biggest problems is that it's a resource that you must go to, rather than one which goes to you. Although this is true of all traditional media¹, it's much more exaggerated: the set of all printed books and of all television programmes is much smaller than the resources of the internet. Yet I suspect that many people visit fewer sites than they watch television programmes, or books by different authors. Is this a waste of the data out there? Or is a continuous education a worthless pursuit?

Anyhow, I digress. My original reason was rooted in the RSS feeds I read. When I first started using RSS, I felt that spoilt the fun of the internet, checking for the latest updates. As I grew more use to it, I founded out how much I was missing. Now, even with nicely laid out titles, I find it difficult to keep up. But some of the things just...shock me.

• Firstly, the news that Microsoft has patented sudo in some way

  The exact specifics vary from site to site where I read this news - pick your favourite, read it's article, and wait and see what actually happens

• Some of the tripe which comes down the BBC Technology news feed³

  Today, there was an absolutely fascinating article entitled "Great writers 'fail' online test"^4,5 about the failure of certain classical texts failing a prototype auto essay marking system. Here at Imperial College, we understand the limitations of current technology, and use (like many universities) anti-plagiarism software (which, with 1Gb to the world, works impressively well at catching people - the FOOLS!). The problem I have is not so much with the content, but the tone. It reads (to me, at least) that the author is surprised at this eventuality. I must confess I can't comment of Golding's work, having never taken the time to read it, but I can agree with some of the machine's objects to 'Churchill's iconic "fight them on the beaches" speech'; however the machine, the designers, the users, and the author all seem to miss that the fundamental point of speech is to convey meaning, not just words. This is described excellently in one of Frank Herbert's short stories, which I've currently both misplaced and forgotten the title of. Another time, perhaps.

Well, that seems like enough of a rant for now. The third point, which related to the worrying discrepancy between the halls of science, the ivory tower of academia, and reality can wait for another post⁶.

Until that time, enjoy your lives, and may Merry's law be at the front of your mind.

1. Not, as some sources would suggest medias. One medium², many media.
2. Yes, strictly a physic is a medium, and should be counted in traditional media. I believe my point still stands. That's if I actually made a point anywhere.
3. Good for reliably reporting the facts. And not much else. Oh, correct use of commas (for the most part)⁴
4. They do have a tendency to overuse single quotes in titles. And lead with slightly odd title. I suppose they're sort of a newspaper, so it's only to be expected
5. One thing I'm willing to go against most linguistic convention on is the hyphenation of online. It looks fine as it is, and probably could be considered a word in it's own right.
6. A post on the topic is not guaranteed. If some desire is shown for it, it may get written and published.