I'm a huge fan, But this news rather dismayed me.
Scott Adams is the wonderfully talented creator of "Dilbert." I am a fan not only of that strip but of some of Adams' other writings, as I've established on this blog by regularly employing his list of "tomorrow's headlines."
That has no very close connection to this ... Adams has described evolution as an established fact. But he has also said he expects the notion of "time" will be radically re-formulated in our lifetimes, and that the overthrow of any theory about biological evolution will be one consequence of that. This gives him an interestingly bifurcated view of the subject.
Who cares what a cartoonist thinks about evolution, or for that matter about the physics of time? Well ... nobody much.
Anyway, the minor brou-ha-ha about Adams' sock puppetry came to my attention because I checked Felix Salmon's blog Monday morning and saw this.
So I've been thinking about Adams, and this has led me in turn to think some more about evolution.
Insert some clever joke about the evolution of sock puppets here.
Showing posts with label sock puppets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sock puppets. Show all posts
23 April 2011
20 November 2010
Harry Potter
Harry Potter and his world are back in movie theaters.
Here's a short version.
Okay, too short. Here's a more exciting version, including Snape's poetry as read by and to puppets.
Bit of a surprise ending to that one.
Unfortunately, these aren't really "sock puppets." That's a pity because I have a few posts already in which I have used the label "sock puppet" and this would make a neat addition to that already-idiosyncratic collection.
All right. Who's going to mind? Let's call them sock puppets!
Here's a short version.
Okay, too short. Here's a more exciting version, including Snape's poetry as read by and to puppets.
Bit of a surprise ending to that one.
Unfortunately, these aren't really "sock puppets." That's a pity because I have a few posts already in which I have used the label "sock puppet" and this would make a neat addition to that already-idiosyncratic collection.
All right. Who's going to mind? Let's call them sock puppets!
12 September 2010
For law students
Struggling through that evidence course? Maybe this will help.
Or at least cheer you up.
I'm told that no actual sock puppets were killed in the making of this presentation.
Or at least cheer you up.
I'm told that no actual sock puppets were killed in the making of this presentation.
25 October 2008
I don't break the rules (I'm sneaky that way).
Another dispatch from the lipstick wars, WR battlefront.
I've written of wikipedia and its conflicts over "sock puppetry" here often enough. I'll try not to repeat myself unduly.
I don't think I've ever mentioned Wikipedia Review (WR), which is a website designed by and for those with a wikipedia-related grievance, something of a "shadow site," if you will.
I've only recently discovered that I've become a subject of some discussion at Wikipedia Review. This seems to have been set off by a piece I wrote in the HedgeWorld blog, back when HW was still a semi-autonomous newsgathering organization within the Reuters family and when they still employed the likes of me.
I wrote in that piece about certain wikipedia articles that had a direct or indirect connection with the "naked short selling" debate, and about the contention -- in that context especially hot -- about who was a sock puppet of whom.
I also was explicit in this piece that I have edited wikipedia myself. I gave the name I use in that context, Christofurio. So, just to be clear: the identity of Christopher Faille and Christofurio isn't something that anybody else had to do any detective work to discover. I have been very clear about it.
Another point: within wikipedia, I am always and only "Christofurio," -- so nobody ever has to wonder whether I am using two or more names strategically. There's only the one.
This is all simple enough, and unremarkable, one would think. Yet I find myself mentioned in the Wikipedia Review as if I were being especially sneaky.
Here's a direct quote from someone who writes there with the name Piperdown.
I think the reason Christofurio hasn't been publically curbed on editing Byrne/NSS/Weiss/etc is that he's been very careful to not actually do any editing that could be blatantly cited as breaking any WP rules.
Um ... right. The reason I haven't been disciplined for breaking any rules is that I haven't broken any rules.
Likewise, the reason I've never been imprisoned for burglary is that I've never burgled. Pretty crafty, eh?
I don't know what axe exactly Piperdown is grinding here (actually I think I do, but I'll let it pass) but it does seem that he is oddly perplexed by the spectacle of someone who joins a collective editing enterprise, uses one and only one name, edits as he thinks best, sticks to the spirit as well as the letter of the collective enterprise, gives his reasons for his edits in the Talk pages, and generally comports himself according to Hoyle.
If any of that makes me remarkable, I'll see if I can keep it up.
I've written of wikipedia and its conflicts over "sock puppetry" here often enough. I'll try not to repeat myself unduly.
I don't think I've ever mentioned Wikipedia Review (WR), which is a website designed by and for those with a wikipedia-related grievance, something of a "shadow site," if you will.
I've only recently discovered that I've become a subject of some discussion at Wikipedia Review. This seems to have been set off by a piece I wrote in the HedgeWorld blog, back when HW was still a semi-autonomous newsgathering organization within the Reuters family and when they still employed the likes of me.
I wrote in that piece about certain wikipedia articles that had a direct or indirect connection with the "naked short selling" debate, and about the contention -- in that context especially hot -- about who was a sock puppet of whom.
I also was explicit in this piece that I have edited wikipedia myself. I gave the name I use in that context, Christofurio. So, just to be clear: the identity of Christopher Faille and Christofurio isn't something that anybody else had to do any detective work to discover. I have been very clear about it.
Another point: within wikipedia, I am always and only "Christofurio," -- so nobody ever has to wonder whether I am using two or more names strategically. There's only the one.
This is all simple enough, and unremarkable, one would think. Yet I find myself mentioned in the Wikipedia Review as if I were being especially sneaky.
Here's a direct quote from someone who writes there with the name Piperdown.
I think the reason Christofurio hasn't been publically curbed on editing Byrne/NSS/Weiss/etc is that he's been very careful to not actually do any editing that could be blatantly cited as breaking any WP rules.
Um ... right. The reason I haven't been disciplined for breaking any rules is that I haven't broken any rules.
Likewise, the reason I've never been imprisoned for burglary is that I've never burgled. Pretty crafty, eh?
I don't know what axe exactly Piperdown is grinding here (actually I think I do, but I'll let it pass) but it does seem that he is oddly perplexed by the spectacle of someone who joins a collective editing enterprise, uses one and only one name, edits as he thinks best, sticks to the spirit as well as the letter of the collective enterprise, gives his reasons for his edits in the Talk pages, and generally comports himself according to Hoyle.
If any of that makes me remarkable, I'll see if I can keep it up.
18 April 2008
Wikipedian Puppets
More on wikipedia and and on yours truly.
One regular source of dispute on the wikipedia talk pages is the urgent question, "who is a sock puppet of whom?"
When editors (anyone with an internet connection and an interest in a question under discussion is an 'editor') dispute issues on the Talk pages, it frequently happens that one will try to gang up on the others by pretending to be two or more different people. When Joe says, "we should change the opening sentence of this article," but Moe replies, "No, we should leave that sentence as it is," then Joe creates Larry who says, "Joe is right, the sentence needs more work."
Ideally, that fools Moe into thinking, "gee, if Joe and this other fellow agree, maybe I'm wrong."
That's the simple version, there are endless variants. But in the case I've posited, Larry is a "sock puppet" of Joe.
The accusation "Joe uses sock puppetry" can be a devastating one, and the Joes of wikipedia resist, causing endless brouhahas.
In one endless, or just endless-seeming, debate over alleged socks, somebody wrote that two or more regular posters frequently use the otherwise uncommon phrase "putting lipstick on a pig," which sounds so idiosyncratic that they just must be the same person in reality.
Wiser heads prevailed on that proposed test, though. "Yes, the sampling problem will exist for any sort of style analysis. For example ... the expression 'lipstick on a pig' is not all that uncommon, and it would be hard (maybe impossible) to determine what percentage of editors at large use that expression."
Indeed. It was to prove this point that one of the warring editors cited the work of one Christopher Faille, specifically a book review I wrote in July 2006.
The review was of a book written by finance journalist Gary Weiss, called WALL STREET VERSUS AMERICA. My review, as it happens, was titled Lipstick Brands Change, the Pig's the Same.
As it happens, Gary Weiss himself (the biographical wiki article about him, as well as references to him in various other articles on matters discussed in that book) is the center of much wikipedia controversy. Controversies over what the articles should say quickly become controversies over who is using socks and who is falsely accusing who else of using socks. So the fact that my review was a review of that particular book seems to have made it especially valuable in spreading recognition that "pig/lipstick" is a fairly common trope among those of us who follow and write about financial matters. Putting the idea that sharing this trope makes one editor the puppet of another ... back in the sty where it belongs.
I'm glad to help. Cash will be accepted in lieu of more symbolic expressions of gratitude.
Those of you to whom this is all Greek -- you're missing nothing. Those who think I'm making it all up in the desperate need to create a bogus entry for my blog, your suspicions are easily put to rest.
One regular source of dispute on the wikipedia talk pages is the urgent question, "who is a sock puppet of whom?"
When editors (anyone with an internet connection and an interest in a question under discussion is an 'editor') dispute issues on the Talk pages, it frequently happens that one will try to gang up on the others by pretending to be two or more different people. When Joe says, "we should change the opening sentence of this article," but Moe replies, "No, we should leave that sentence as it is," then Joe creates Larry who says, "Joe is right, the sentence needs more work."
Ideally, that fools Moe into thinking, "gee, if Joe and this other fellow agree, maybe I'm wrong."
That's the simple version, there are endless variants. But in the case I've posited, Larry is a "sock puppet" of Joe.
The accusation "Joe uses sock puppetry" can be a devastating one, and the Joes of wikipedia resist, causing endless brouhahas.
In one endless, or just endless-seeming, debate over alleged socks, somebody wrote that two or more regular posters frequently use the otherwise uncommon phrase "putting lipstick on a pig," which sounds so idiosyncratic that they just must be the same person in reality.
Wiser heads prevailed on that proposed test, though. "Yes, the sampling problem will exist for any sort of style analysis. For example ... the expression 'lipstick on a pig' is not all that uncommon, and it would be hard (maybe impossible) to determine what percentage of editors at large use that expression."
Indeed. It was to prove this point that one of the warring editors cited the work of one Christopher Faille, specifically a book review I wrote in July 2006.
The review was of a book written by finance journalist Gary Weiss, called WALL STREET VERSUS AMERICA. My review, as it happens, was titled Lipstick Brands Change, the Pig's the Same.
As it happens, Gary Weiss himself (the biographical wiki article about him, as well as references to him in various other articles on matters discussed in that book) is the center of much wikipedia controversy. Controversies over what the articles should say quickly become controversies over who is using socks and who is falsely accusing who else of using socks. So the fact that my review was a review of that particular book seems to have made it especially valuable in spreading recognition that "pig/lipstick" is a fairly common trope among those of us who follow and write about financial matters. Putting the idea that sharing this trope makes one editor the puppet of another ... back in the sty where it belongs.
I'm glad to help. Cash will be accepted in lieu of more symbolic expressions of gratitude.
Those of you to whom this is all Greek -- you're missing nothing. Those who think I'm making it all up in the desperate need to create a bogus entry for my blog, your suspicions are easily put to rest.
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