Wikipedia-based poetry entry for April 21, 2015

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Utva Aviation Industry

there
are
far more concerns,
far more nasty than the an. the term article is also
headquartered in belo
horizonte, minas gerais, the company for a
lifetime
despite the inclusion of pornographic pictures
and stories, however, also called a fin
or facility
identifier, is a unique integer number plants,
into
smaller groups, where each group can initially
interbreed
sexual
gaseous part part of a fire. it is
caused by a
highly exothermic reaction
taking place
in
a
thin zone.

 

I've made a few major changes to how this script works. It will go on Github one of these days or whenever I feel it's novel enough to share. The output will still always sound like a misprinted encyclopedia.

Everything starts with zero

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I read a bit about how Internet.org and other so-called "zero-rated" services in India today. The general idea is that services provide free internet service or data to those without it but the service only includes a limited number of sites. Most of these services actually use the existing data networks but negotiate with the data carriers to provide free content. Wikipedia Zero is one such program: users can access Wikipedia content without data charges.  Internet.org* is a Facebook project, so it encourages carriers to provide access to Facebook (among other sites, including Bing, strangely enough) for free.

It's difficult to see most of these efforts as charity. A few recent editorials, including a brief Cory Doctorow comment in Boing Boing, have been very critical, claiming that they give "...the world's poorest an Internet that's been radically pruned to a sliver of what the rest of the world gets for free." It's true - these programs aren't contributing to the existence of a free, open, unrestricted Internet. They're probably just marketing programs targeting the world's fastest-growing emerging market. If internet access is a basic human right, it's difficult to say that these programs help to fulfill that right. 

Then again, what should we expect from ostensible acts of charity? Should they treat the symptoms or cure the disease? The Boing Boing crew would argue, as they have for DRM, that anything short of total freedom is a step backward. I have to agree that providing what's essentially freemium internet isn't ideal but working toward global net neutrality defeats its own purpose if most people can't even access that Neutral Net. At worst, criticism of zero-rated services can sound a bit like some of the traditional arguments against gun control regulations (i.e., "restricting guns won't stop violent crime so why should we even bother"). Restricted access to a limited pile of data may not change anyone's life but it's not a bad place to start.

Facebook will be old news within the next decade anyway, right?

*I'd link to their site but it's hardly informative (and startlingly purple, though that's more quirky than offensive). Try the WP article.

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Here's a quick technical fix for a recent Linux issue I ran into.

I started a fresh Xubuntu 14.10 installation yesterday. The installation went perfectly up until the point when I tried to get updates, at which point some steps would just stop. My internet connection was perfectly solid and the main Ubuntu servers were responding as expected. I changed update servers, tried different sets of sources, and tried to see if there were any problems with existing packages but nothing solved the issue. Every update request, whether through the graphical software updater or through apt-get, would just try to access security.ubuntu.com and then stop without any reported error.

I finally found a solution here.  I just needed to edit /etc/gai.conf and uncomment a line - specifically, the last line in this block:

#    For sites which prefer IPv4 connections change the last line to
#
#precedence ::ffff:0:0/96  100

So I suppose this is an issue with IPv4 vs. IPv6, or at least some kind of problem dependent upon getaddrinfo(3). Should have stuck with 14.04 I suppose.

Friday night finds

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I was going through some old files and found a cache of definitively turn-of-the-millennium wallpapers. I'm sure there's a proper name for the style but it tends to look like anime robots violently disintegrating in abandoned subways at best. Here are some examples. I unfortunately don't know the artists behind any of these* but I probably found them somewhere on Deviantart circa 2003.

*OK, the one at the top left is by Pete Harrison.

Something about birds

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Despite my better judgement, I (re)joined Twitter earlier this week. I'm @harry_caufield. There's still a bit of residual regret about not choosing a short, punchy pseudonym but name availability is limited. It's a bit like trying to find a decent AIM handle after, say, 2005.

My mission this time is to use Twitter for a general information delivery system with a focus on Biology As It Is Done. It's easier than keeping up with every post from a collection of science bloggers and blogger scientists, plus they're all free to be glib and sarcastic. Previously, I only used Twitter as a way to direct dumb messages at morning TV anchors and to read what the media insists on calling Weird Twitter with the same tone they use to brand Hipsters or maybe Foodies.*

The social network itself is rather silly and seems best suited to delivering comedy. I still don't think it's an efficient way to stay informed and in some cases may serve as yet another echo chamber of misinformation. That being said, it's active, it's free, and I'm curious.

Besides, PLOS keeps telling me that all the cool scientists are doing it.

 

*That is, not the same tone they use for terms like Insurgents or Bronies or Refugees, but maybe similar in some ways.