filceolaire

Just watched the announcement of the names who will be on the ballot for Hugo awards this year. Congratulations to Mira Grant whose novel Feed is on the list - definitely my favourite novel of last year.

I am User:Filceolaire and I edit Wikipedia.

I tend to do small changes - grammer corrections, copy editting to make something flow better. Sometimes I add a fact or a citation. Here is a page listing My contributions.

If you have ever wanted to edit Wikipedia but weren't sure where to start then feel free to ask me anytime.

An interesting analysis by a US army officer of the US armys task in Iraq and what they need to do different if they are to succeed.


http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/06/4036672/

I'm conflicted.

Do I want the Brunel mug or the Lovelace and Babbage T shirt?

So when a bunch of fan fic authors (mostly women) decide to create an Archive of their Own and the open source software to support it; how is that going to be different from the open source projects the boys have done?

One thing anyway - Fanfic authors are eventually going to RPF about the project and here it is .

A beautiful hymn to a software project anthropomorphised as a great Steampunk engine.

I couldn't get Cryoburn so I've been reading fan fic based on Lois McMaster Bujold's VorKosigan and Chalion stories at bujold_fic and at http://archiveofourown.org

Then mokatiki tweeted for me about the free copy of Cryoburn (and every other Vorkosigan novel, story, drabble or comment ever written by Ms Bujold) at http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/

Thank yoiu Moka! In return here are my reccommendations for bujold fic you might like:

An alternative universe where Diplomatic Immunity goes horribly wrong and the Cetagandans invade Barrayar, again, killing everyone else so Ivan has to step up.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/107750?view_full_work=true

How Roic got recruited as a Vorkosigam armsman
http://rogerstening.livejournal.com/5334.html and the next two posts on this blog.

Why Lady Alys wears grey http://community.livejournal.com/bujold_fic/198275.html

and last but not least Gregor proposes to Laisa http://tales-of-josan.livejournal.com/53451.html

Wired has a story (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/troll-anger-management/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29) about training a bot to recognise trolls.

The first stage is for the bot to plough through a ton of Livejournal posts and learn to recognise whether a post is angry, happy or sad, using the Livejournal mood icons and checking which words are associated with different moods.

I think that might actually work.

Just watched Sherlock on BBC iPlayer with Telynor.

Wow. That was fun. This a retelling of the sherlock holmes stories set in todays London. They play it very straight but there are so many clever touches. Holmes fans will love it. Slashers will love it too. Of course Dr John Watson has a blog where he recounts the stories.

Have you seen this? Has it been broadcast anywhere else yet?

In a post here SJ draws attention to Citizendium's collapsing edit count.

For me the more interesting accusation against Cz is that their policy of depending on expert credentials has not protected them from partisan point of view edittors. I had suspected this might be true but haven’t got the time to do the detailed research on Cz to prove it either way. I suspect Wikipedia’s policy of requiring a reference for any disputed fact (rather than having a previledged class of editor who can just claim “It is so because I say so”) will turn out to be the more effective policy in the long term.

Larry Sanger's response in the comments, worrying about people repeating stuff, is a bit 2-faced after the half truths he spread about wikipedia (and repeats here – Wikipedia does not have “vast porn holdings”) but this whole correspondence does have a little bit of the smell of the academic version of a flame war where cries of “your mother” are replaced by concerned musings about problems with “your methodology”. This is undignified and the two of them should consider if they really want to continue this correspondence in public.

On the other hand – if they should feel the need to continue …
I'll put the popcorn on.

Found this today on http://www.layscience.net/node/818

The (Michael Young) Fund was established to disburse a small sum of money left by the late Michael Young who died in August 2000 shortly after his 100th birthday. He was not a good man – quite the opposite. He was strongly anti-Semitic, had a deep-rooted distaste for coloured people, who he feared would pollute the white races, propagated a mean-spirited and unforgiving interpretation of Christianity.
He paraded these beliefs under the banner of patriotism, was a founder member of the League of Empire Loyalists and claimed, with pride, that he tipped a bucket of offal over Jomo Kenyatta, at that time President of Kenya, a member of the Commonwealth.
He corresponded with, and supported financially, Lady Birdwood and John Tyndall of the British National Party as well as various fringe religious movements. He wrote a number of poisonous pamphlets.
He was wholly self-centred, had no interest in anything beyond his Bible studies and preparation of his meals, neither read a newspaper nor stirred out of his house for the last 10 years of his life. It is hard to find any redeeming feature in the man.
So, it seemed a nice idea to pass a little of the money he left to some of the individuals and small organisations who try to do some good in the world, and, where possible, to ones he would have disapproved of.