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Wikipedia

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Made my first contribution to the Wikipedia last night/today by correcting, enhancing and adding to a couple of the pages: one about Yosemite, the other about National Parks which references Yosemite.

Yosemite National Park
National Park

Lots of stuff going around the blogosphere lately about the Wikipedia and how reliable it is (or isn’t, depending on your viewpoint). Probably in a year or two it’ll be at least as accurate as any recent treeware version for non-active entries, assuming publishers of said treeware don’t sue the Wiki out of existence because some people are copying verbatim from the text of their dead-tree version(s).

Personally, I’m not too worried about the Wiki’s authority because no one should rely on a single Internet-based source for accurate information; two or three sources, at least, should be considered good practice, just like with non-Internet-based resources. The people that do rely on Wikipedia for 100% authoritative info are probably the same people who rely on television or print media, both of which tend to get their info from the same one or two sources these days, for accurate information.

How to stop procrastinating

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Link: merlin.blogs.com…

Perfect for the geeks in the audience but likely applicable to anyone with a fondness for procrastination.

Excerpt:

The Problem with “stuff”

Getting Things Done succeeds because it first addresses a critical barrier to completing the atomic tasks that we want to accomplish in a given day. That’s “stuff.” Amorphous, unactionable, flop-sweat-inducing stuff. David says:

Here’s how I define “stuff:” anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17]

Stuff is bouncing around in our heads and causing untold stress and anxiety. Evaluation meetings, bar mitzvahs, empty rolls of toilet paper, broken lawn mowers, college applications, your big gut, tooth decay, dirty underwear and imminent jury duty all compete for prime attention in our poor, addled brains. Stuff has no “home” and, consequently, no place to go, so it just keeps rattling around.

Worst off, we’re too neurotic to stop thinking about it, and we certainly don’t have time to actually do everything in one day. Jeez Louise, what the hell am I, Superman?

So you sprint from fire to fire, praying you haven’t forgotten anything, sapped of anything like creativity or even the basic human flexibility to adapt your own schedule to the needs of your friends, your family or yourself. Your “stuff” has taken over your brain like a virus now, dragging down every process it touches and rendering you spent and virtually useless. Sound familiar?

A Girl’s Guide to Geek Guys

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This is basically correct, although I’d argue (as those who know me would expect) that a geek is “a nerd with social skills”; what’s described in this article is essentially your average nerd, or something in-between. Nonetheless, the more insight women — that is, potential mates — have about the Geek Species, the better.

Link: www.com…

So, your crush on the bass player from Vibrating Sandbox has finally died a whimpering death and you’re wondering where to go from here. All the sinister dudes are either dating a series of interchangeable high-school riot girls in baby doll dresses and an overdose of manic panic, or permanently shacked up with some bitter old lady who pays all the bills. Which will it be, a wifely prison or a humiliating one night stand? Into this void of potential mates comes a man you may not have considered before, a man of substance, quietude and stability, a cerebral creature with a culture all his own. In short, a geek.

The purpose of education? Not education.

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Link: slashdot.org…

Chris Acheson writes, “John Taylor Gatto is a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. The whole time he has been an outspoken critic of the school system. Nine years after leaving his career, he published The Underground History of American Education (full text available here), in which he puts forth his insider’s vision of what is wrong with American schooling. His verdict is not what you’d expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate. Skeptical? So was I.” Read on for the rest of Acheson’s review.

Web browser security test

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Link: Browser Security Test

Test your web browser for common security issues. It can run tests for all known problems or only those specific to the browser you’re using at the time.

If you’re using Internet Explorer (IE), please do the world a favor and run these tests on your machine. NOW. Pretty please. biggrin

And stop using IE! There are plenty of other, far superior browsers available: Mozilla/Firefox and Opera to name two.