I searched for “Wikipedia brand” and all I got was about 12,800,000 results. July 30, 2010
Posted by Scott Campbell in : STV100, STV302 , comments closedWhat does the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter have to do with the number of toes on Michael Ignatieff feet? Bear with me for a moment.
“Don’t use Wikipedia!” That’s advice most students seem to have heard, though they might not always heed, or understand. A recent study from Northwestern University concerning the ability of young adults to evaluate web content indicates that only about a third of the students in the study turned to Wikipedia for answers. A study in 2007 showed that students had a much higher rate of use: close to half (46%).
Are the nagging reminders to not use Wikipedia getting through? Maybe. To me, the Northwestern study seems to be saying that students have developed a brand awareness when it comes to looking for information online. For instance, Microsoft was considered a credible brand as an online encyclopedia (via Encarta), or for resume templates (via Word). Sparknotes was a popular provider of literature study guides, and WebMD and Planned Parenthood were respected brands as sources for medical information. So perhaps Wikipedia’s brand is simply weaker for some tasks and students are better at going to specific sources for specific types of information?
If only it were that simple. A primary result of the study is that what students are really good at is trusting search engines and the first result returned:
Researcher: What is this Web site?
Respondent: Oh, I don’t know. The first thing that came up.
There was apparently little appreciation among students for why a result might come up first or how engine algorithms might be manipulated to improve search result standing, because students were often (and uncritically) satisfied by the top results.
I’m not sure how to reconcile this with my own experience that a Wikipedia entry often does end up in the top results, at least with Google. I’m not alone, either: one (unscientific) study from 2007 suggested that over 90% of Wikipedia pages are in the top 10 results for a particular subject, and that same year a programmer created a Firefox plugin to remove Wikipedia from Google search results. The authors of the Northwestern study do mention an in-press paper that deals more exclusively with students and Wikipedia, which I await with curiosity.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Wikipedia, when used critically. As has been noted, it does a pretty good job with hard, indisputable facts, and covers many topics as well as any encyclopedia might.
But when people get to arguing, then its infamous capacity for unlimited, near anonymous editing often gets dragged out into the light. This bring me back to the Joint Strike Fighter and Mr. Ignatieff’s foot digits. As reported on CBC.ca:
A Defence Department spokesperson confirms computers at the department’s research agency were used to alter a Wikipedia page entry about the Joint Strike Fighter jet and the Conservative government’s decision to spend as much as $18 billion on the aircraft.
Those edits included the removal of information critical of the government’s plan to buy the jets and the addition of insulting comments aimed at Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
Those insulting comments? That Ignatieff has six toes on each foot. Slightly more on topic: that “the opposition tends to overreact and cancel contracts without just cause“. What was probably a case of personal, if politically inspired, freelancing (or vandalism, as it is known on Wikipedia) has now turned into a minor scandal with requests from the NDP and Liberal Party to investigate, who took the opportunity to criticize the purchase and the government’s accountability. It was almost half a decade ago that staff members of US Congress were caught in a similar fiasco and had their editing privileges revoked.
I have to admit, the most fascinating part of this for me is the Wikipedia debate on the talk page as to whether these edits qualify as notable, and thus should they be mentioned in the original JSF article. What makes something notable? No original research please! Secondary sources only. The media oblige, with Google News showing over 50 articles in the Canadian media (many fed from the same news agencies I’m sure). And now, of course, the controversy is notable enough.
It’s all rather circular and amusing as it highlights some of the foibles of Wikipedia for students and public servants alike. I’m looking forward to using this entire story in future versions of my courses when we talk about when you should and should not use Wikipedia.
The new, hybrid Lincoln July 29, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV202 , comments closedLincoln has recently announced that they will sell a hybrid version of the MKZ sedan for the same price as the gas version. In this article, Pittis argues that this is a good thing, for essentially two reasons:
- Hybrids are more efficient or “energy-productive”, meaning that you go further for each liter of gas consumed. Efficiency promises to enhance energy conservation.
- Selling the hybrid at the same price as the regular version means that the “payoff period”–the time at which the extra expense of a hybrid drive train pays off in terms of fuel savings–becomes zero. In other words, the hybrid is a clear win. Why would anyone prefer the less efficient model?
It seems as though fuel conservation is an inevitable outcome of such decisions.
(Photo courtesy of CBC news.)
However, I do not agree that this news is so great. Here are two reasons, having to do with some curious points about efficiency:
- Efficiency sometimes comes at a cost to robustness. In other words, an efficient system can be more vulnerable to failure. A computer without a firewall or backup drive is more efficient, that is, it delivers its services at a lower price than a similar computer equipped with that extra gear, but it is more prone to attack or data loss as a result. Ever more efficiency in the consumption of fossil fuels means that we may well become ever more specialized, and dependent upon, that energy resource. The result is delay in developing alternatives and, thus, increasing vulnerability to some upset such as a giant oil spill.
- Fuel efficiency can also result in Jevons’ Paradox. Jevons was a 19th Century economist who studied the effects of increased steam engine efficiency on the use of coal. He noted the following, counter-intuitive effects:
- As engines become more efficient, more people make use of them. For example, as locomotives became more efficient, train trips became more affordable, so more people started to ride them. Thus, overall coal consumption continued to climb.
- As engines become more efficient, more uses for them are found. For example, efficient coal engines were used in early automobile designs. The advent of the gas motor helped to prevent coal cars from being added to trains as methods of coal consumption. Now look at all the places where gas engines are used.
The same logic applies to oil. As gas engine efficiency climbs, more people will use them to consume gas and people will find more ways to consume it.
- As engines become more efficient, more people make use of them. For example, as locomotives became more efficient, train trips became more affordable, so more people started to ride them. Thus, overall coal consumption continued to climb.
Increased efficiency may have perverse consequences then. We may persist in consuming oil products longer, thus squeezing every last ton of carbon from them that we can before moving on to other sources of energy. Assuming, of course, that we have a viable alternative when oil lets us down.
Pittis incorrectly suggests that the lesson of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse is that inefficiency leads societies to consume themselves to death. Although efficiency is a factor, Diamond points out how, again and again, societies or their leaders simply choose to follow a mode of consumption beyond the point of sustainability. They cannot make themselves change their lifestyles to adapt to circumstances. Think of the viking Greenlanders who may have starved, even though they could see Inuit peoples living successfully in the same circumstances, because they could not give up beef farming and switch to kayaks and seal hunting. They just refused to change their ways.
The hybrid Lincoln may be a symptom of this same mindset. It would appeal, I would guess, to people who have heard of the baneful results of car ownership but cannot make themselves give up their luxury cars. Instead, they adopt a vehicle that props up their lifestyle while perpetuating the problem whose solution they think they are contributing to.
The consequences of this line of thinking may seem perverse. Perhaps we would be better off in a world where all cars are Humvees! Then only a few people could afford them and could not drive them so far. We would have to come to grips with the consequences of fossil fuel dependency. Another option would be to change our car-centric lifestyle, perhaps through mass transit or car sharing.
In any event, I do not expect the hybrid Lincoln to be our saviour. When it comes to conservation, the fault lies not so much in our cars as in ourselves.
Fashion or beauty in Firefox 4? July 16, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV202 , comments closedAs you may have heard, Firefox version 4 is being rolled out in beta. One of the many changes from previous versions will be in the appearance of the tabs. They will appear on the top of the browser window instead of beneath the toolbar.
This alteration has attracted criticism as being merely a fashion trend:
The tabs-on-top interface is a growing trend among browser vendors. It was popularized by Google Chrome, which shipped with top-tabs as the default within its initial release. Reaction was mostly positive — Opera now puts the tabs on top, and Safari tried the same thing in a beta release thing before abandoning it. But there are some within the Firefox user community who don’t want to see Mozilla’s browser make the switch just to chase the latest design fad.
Mozilla’s lead user experience designer Alex Faaborg defends the decision, saying it has nothing to do with fashion. By putting the tabs on top, he argues, Firefox 4 will be better suited to running web applications that sit in their own tab. It turns the tab bar into something much closer to a dock or a taskbar — a fitting change, since the browser is becoming something much closer to a GUI for an operating system.
So, there are at least two theories about the new placement of the tabs:
- It conforms to a fashion trend.
- It conforms to the user’s expectation that separate tasks should appear in the outermost area of the window space.
The importance of fashion in design is often condemned as the enemy of innovation, that is, genuine technological improvement. It can be defended, though, in at least some cases, as the best means to solve difficult aesthetic problems: There is much disagreement about what is beautiful because beauty is, in the words of Shakespeare, in the eye of the beholder. There is always broad agreement about what is fashionable, however, by definition. As a result, following fashion can be perfectly rational.
Interestingly, the second theory gives a different kind of aesthetic evaluation. It conforms to a broad cognitive expectation that being at the top or the perimeter of a shape implies overall control or importance with respect to the contents of the shape. In this case, the new placement of the tabs also seems rational.
It will be interesting to try out the new arrangement and see how appealing it really is.
Computers do not aid education? July 14, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV302 , comments closedHere is a report in the New York Times summarizing recent research on the educational value of computers to impoverished schools and households. The effect seems to be negative, that is, the introduction of computers into low-income households did not increase academic achievement. If anything, achievement declined compared to similar households without computers.
On the bright side, low-income households with new computers did see an upsurge in some things: namely computer skills. For the most part, the new computers seemed to be used largely to play computer games and to surf the Internet.
Similar results were seen when computers were introduced into low-income schools.
The article does not go far to explain the results, although some hypotheses leap to mind:
- Simply dropping computers on people does not make them smarter, certainly by pre-computer standards. The stereotype is that brainiacs like computers but it is a fallacy to infer that computers are therefore going to make brainiacs out of people.
- Perhaps the computers were not well integrated into the curriculum or equipped with educational software that would interest the students. A computer is an all-purpose device that presents many opportunities, such as games and Web-browsing, along with educational activities. Whatever educational opportunities are presented will have to compete with the other opportunities that are available.
- Instead of competing with the video games, it is tempting for educators or other well-meaning individuals to win the competition by “cheating”, that is, by banning the fun stuff.
This last point may apply to the situation in the article. Consider how computers were introduced into low-income schools in Texas:
Catherine Maloney, director of the Texas center, said the schools did their best to mandate that the computers would be used strictly for educational purposes. Most schools configured the machines to block e-mail, chat, games and Web sites reached by searching on objectionable key words. The key-word blocks worked fine for English-language sites but not for Spanish ones. “Kids were adept at getting around the blocks,” she said.
Schools are perfectly right to want to set limits on the usage of their computers. However, it is a mistake to treat a network of computers like a fancy library of books and board games from the old days. If and when computers are introduced into schools and homes, it would be better to try to take advantage of the affordances that they present for socializing and game playing instead of mandating against them. For example, send the kids to the Kahn academy, which is an educational opportunity that the kids seem to find both useful and compelling.
Sign up and pay up July 13, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV302 , comments closedWe have noted before how social media have changed the workplace. Now comes news about how social media has changed debt collection. This NPR story describes how debt collectors use social media like Facebook to track down debtors. The story tells how Isaac Vicknair, a chronic debt scofflaw, eluded paying back his student loan (among other things) for years, that is, until his employer, a vendor of solar panels, requested that he use Facebook to meet other people in the field:
He put his contact information on his account. It didn’t occur to him that it could lead to trouble.
“So within one day of putting my work information on Facebook, the secretary gets a call from some lady who totally gets my name wrong, and I pick up the phone, and they’re like, ‘Is Mr. Isaac Vicknair there?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard this call before.’ Lots of times,” he says.
Rumbled! Apparently, debt collectors are onto this Facebook thing too.
The Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan is famous for his apothegm: The medium is the message. Let’s take it to mean that a new medium presents us with a kind of new language for understanding and interacting with the world; that is, a new way of thinking about things (and new things to think about too). Social media like Facebook have given us a novel concept of friendship: anyone with whom we are connected. In this sense, a debt collector is just as good a friend as your most intimate acquaintance. Yet, the older sense of someone whom you know reasonably well and with whom you share common goals and interests lingers and, sometimes, causes confusion and a few laughs.
Dristracted driving update July 8, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV202, STV302 , comments closedWell, the industry coalition formed to fight legislation regarding distracting technology in cars (discussed below in this blog) has been disbanded. Apparently, the disapproval of the Transportation Secretary gave the group second thoughts. Or else they had already succeeded in achieving their goals:
In a statement, Babak Zafarnia, the coalition’s spokesman, said the proposed coalition had been a success, despite its quick demise.
“We are pleased that the concept has met its goal of expanding dialogue on distracted driving, therefore the proposed coalition is no longer being pursued,” the statement said. “We commend Secretary LaHood for his leadership in bringing a comprehensive view to this complex issue.”
Right.
Distracted driving or user error? July 6, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV202, STV302 , comments closedI have already noted that the iPad was installed in people’s cars soon after its appearance. Of course, how people are supposed to drive properly while playing with an iPad is hard to imagine. It seems like an act of the highest irresponsibility. That, of course, won’t prevent people from doing it. Each offender will simply tell herself that she is so good at multitasking that nothing bad can happen.
Now there comes news in the New York Times that auto industry lobbyists in Washington are seeking to portray those concerned about the growing distractions in cars as a bunch of Chicken Little types out to stymie innovation in in-car technology.
The goal of this auto industry group is to avert the danger of legislation banning or restricting the use of cell phones, iPads, and what not, while driving a car. Instead, the group proposes that the problem is not the technology but the usage of it.
Babak Zafarnia, a public relations executive hired by Seward to be the coalition’s spokesman, said the idea was to emphasize driver education and to focus on broad driver-distraction laws, rather than focusing on the use of particular technologies.
“You can’t anticipate every possible scenario. Distraction is distraction, period,” he said, adding: “Why don’t we modernize the education curriculum to teach drivers to deal with all in-vehicle distractions?”
In other words, let’s educate drivers to deal appropriately with distractions, without legislating against any particular source of distractions.
The position is somewhat disingenuous. Sure, having another person in the car to talk to can be a distraction. However, a second pair of eyes in the car also forms an addition safety device: The passenger, out of a sense of self-preservation, often provides warnings about potential problems on the road ahead, e.g., “Look out for that car!”
I am also reminded of the history of anti-lock braking systems in cars. As documented in Ann Johnson’s recent book, Hitting the brakes, anti-lock braking systems were originally developed, starting in the 1950s, to make cars safer but without the need to re-train drivers or get them to change their habits. Recent evidence suggests that the hoped-for safety benefits have not materialized. If anything, driving in cars equipped with anti-lock brakes is marginally less safe, for reasons that remain disputed. As Johnson notes, car manufacturers have recently taken the line that drivers need to be re-educated in order to work the brakes properly, so that their safety benefits can be realized. Of course, drivers should be educated in safe driving, but not as a way for car designers to mask their technological failures.
The desire to shift blame onto users is not limited to the auto industry. Lauren Willis has recently argued, for example, that the calls of financial institutions for more “financial literacy education” for the masses seem like attempts by the banks to shift their responsibility for the recent financial crisis onto customers who were so persuasively urged to take on sub-prime mortgages that they could not afford. Of course, there is blame enough to go around. Yet, it seems that the designers and sellers of those unintelligible new financial instruments would prefer not to shoulder their share.
All of this discussion centers on the claim, noted before on this blog, that technology is “just a tool”. One of the implications of this view is that the impacts of a given product are the results of how it is used, not how it is designed. If so, the inference goes, then blame for errors attaches to the users, who determined how they use things, and not the designers (or others). Thus, the auto industry seems to argue, the problem is not that in-car technology seems designed to distract people but that people decide to indulge in distractions. The fix, then, is not to blame the technology but to blame the user and send them in for re-tooling re-education.
However, technology is not just a tool. The design of a piece of technology can have a crucial impact on how it is used, along with users’ preferences and other circumstantial factors. In that case, the designers of a technology have a share in any blame for its failures and, I might add, any credit for its successes. So, what we need is a mature discussion of the pros and cons of technology in cars, and not some bullsh*t dog-and-pony show by industry lobbyists.
Privacy and Streetview: The naked truth July 2, 2010
Posted by Cameron Shelley in : STV302 , comments closedFrom the UK’s Daily Mail comes this article about a mother angered by a Streetview picture of her grandmother’s yard showing her 3 year-old son’s naked bum:
Claire Rowlands, 25, was stunned to see the image of Louis mears playing on a sunny day in his grandmother’s garden in Walkden, Greater Manchester.
She apparently complained to Google, who then blurred the offending part of the picture.
(Image courtesy of the Daily Mail.)
One might wonder if her reaction was an overreaction. After all, naked children can be glimpsed on many streets in hot weather in all parts of the world. If Claire was so concerned about paedophiles or what the neighbours would think, then she or her grandmother could have put clothes on Louis, kept him in the backyard, or constructed a more private fence to protect the property from view.
Of course, the fact that the photo appears for all to see on the Internet does change things. After all, we have all heard about how paedophile rings use the Internet to share pictures. So, the association is inevitable. In addition, Google has done little in the past to warn people that their camera cars are on the way to a given community. As Claire says:
‘Louis was on private property. Surely residents should be asked if they’re happy to have their pictures taken before this is allowed to happen.’
Some form of warning, in the local media, for example, would seem to be an elementary courtesy. Perhaps Claire’s anger over the incident is a response, in part, to the overwhelming nature of Streetview and its ability to immortalize and propagate images regardless of the preferences of those captured in them.
Maybe this explains one further and puzzling aspect of the story. Claire voices concern over how widespread the image of her son became when incorporated into Streetview:
‘They should be extra careful on warm days because this is what children do – he was just playing in the garden and we didn’t expect in a million years he’d have his picture taken and put on the internet for anyone to see.’
Why, then, discuss the matter in a national newspaper with a Website where everyone in the world could find it? After all, Google had already blurred the offending image after Claire complained to them about it. I would guess that this response is an instance of “poetic justice”; that is, to take revenge on Google in a way similar to the nature of the offense and in a way over which Google has no control.
