educating eric

USATODAY.com - Oscar bids reflect industry's discomfort with religion : "The Oscar nominations announced Tuesday illustrate Hollywood's profound, almost pathological discomfort with the traditional religiosity embraced by most of its mass audience. At the same time, the odd choices for major awards suggest the enormous distance the entertainment industry has traveled from its own populist past." So this means either there's great hope for seeker.TV ... or no hope at all.

About Google Video / Looks like Google jumped on the concept that ATI has had for awhile with their "TV Magazine", which will compile screen captures and the closed-caption text of television programs you record. I thought it was ultra-cool, but I have to admit I rarely use that feature on my ATI All-In-Wonder card. Anyway, point being, video is getting more and more integrated into what has become "common" editing and searching and indexing.

Death of a petty criminal sparks new controversy in the Netherlands / I came across this story while reading up on a report that "Most Dutch see Muslims as a threat". But it seems that the biggest threat to the Dutch are purse snatchers and, more importantly, the prosecutors who press charges of manslaughter against victims who defend themselves.

CNN.com - Biology meets microchips to make tiny robots - Jan 18, 2005 / We're one step closer to the Borg -- or something out the the Matrix. I've always thought of more benign animal/technology integration (attach a camera to a Canada Goose to see what they do, etc.) but this is leaping a few steps beyond that (in its infant stages, of course).

Yahoo! News - Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten / Okay, so it's not like human error causing human beings to die or anything, but this is still really sad.

Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism || kuro5hin.org : "Nevertheless, everyone familiar with Wikipedia can now see the power of the basic Wikipedia idea and the crying need to get more experts on board and a publicly credible review process in place (so that there is a subset of 'approved' articles--not a heavy-handed, complicated process, of course). The only way Wikipedia can achieve these things is to jettison its anti-elitism and to moderate its openness to trolls and fools; but it will almost certainly not do these things. Consequently, as Wikipedia increases in popularity and strength, I do not see how there can not be a more academic fork of the project in the future." Here's another perspective on the Wiki concept (and how it ought to be implemented)...

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 01/18/2005 | Tuning in to regional 'podcasts' This is the third reference to "podcasting" I've come across (or been given) in 24 hours, so something is up with this technology!