User:TitaniumDreads

You May Edit This Page :-)
Really, you can. ;-)

This is my user page. I like to keep it a certain way. But, the thing is, I trust you. I trust that you'll add something here that makes me smile, that informs me, or that helps to inform others. If I have things in a certain format, I trust that you'll respect that format. Actually, scratch that. Since this page is so simple and ugly, my ultimate dream is that some person who thinks it is fun will come along and make it look as perfect as Angela's user page. See that link up there: 'edit this page'? Go for it. It's a wiki wiki world. Jimbo Wales 16:28, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On April 25, 2005 I got a chance to hang out with user:Jimbo_Wales after a speech at Harvard Law School. We talked about how wikipedia is based on trust and he told me about how his user page is editable. I lifted the above directly from his user page but it applies to mine as well...It's a wiki wiki world. TitaniumDreads 22:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

“The media are desperately afraid of being accused of bias. And that’s partly because there’s a whole machine out there, an organized attempt to accuse them of bias whenever they say anything that the Right doesn’t like. So rather than really try to report things objectively, they settle for being even-handed, which is not the same thing. One of my lines in a column — in which a number of people thought I was insulting them personally — was that if Bush said the Earth was flat, the mainstream media would have stories with the headline: ‘Shape of Earth–Views Differ.’ Then they’d quote some Democrats saying that it was round.” - Paul Krugman

TitaniumDreads I started editing wikipedia when I saw a typo in one of my favorite articles and my obsession has exploded from there.

About Me

Tribe.net Profile (interests, friends, pictures) -> TitaniumDreads

Blog -> Voodoo Knickers

If there is something you think I should know about... wheatgrass - at - gmail

I welcome all correspondence and will reply to everything. I do get a lot of email though and if my response is coming a little slow, don't be afraid to send another email reminding me (with strong language).

Don't forget to show the WikiLove

Are Wikis the Answer to Everything? (work in progress)
The more I participate in wikipedia the more I see the wiki model as an answer to a great deal of serious coordination problems. However, I've had significant trouble selling others on the idea. It's hard to convey to non-users that wikipedia blows my mind about once a week, not just because of the raw information it provides but the methods it uses to regulate itself. I love Wikipedia because it's an affront to the tradional systems of information distribution. What is particularly interesting is that Wikipedia is now overtaking the old guard of media, it gets four times as many hits as the New York Times.

It's clear (to me anyway) that distributed user swarms represent one of the most efficient methods of organization created to date. I get the impression that people are wed to the idea of hierarchy, not necessarily because it works better but because it's what we've been socialized to see as valid. That socialization is at least due in part to a paucity of alternatives. Representative democracy superceeded direct democracy not because it's fundamentally better but because of technological limitations.

Wikipedia has demonstrated scalability and is growing at a staggering rate, it's now more popular than that icon of old media, none other than the New York Times. The Times has responded with the opposite tack, already it's articles "expire" after two weeks. BUT, information wants to be free and fair use laws allow other media outlets to print articles whole as long as they are properly attributed to the times. You can google the title for just about any article and find it free somewhere else instead of getting gouged for it. So here's my question...is wikipedia scalable enough to make policy decisions? What if the government were a wiki?

So I asked Professor Jonathan Zittrain this and he pointed out a couple things.

His cyberlaw class at Harvard Law had a class wiki and it was...well...a trainwreck. All of these people had been thrown into using it and there were no social norms, hence the wiki was all over the place.

So what makes a wiki fail and what makes a wiki successful?

Here's what I've worked out for success.

There have to be a decently large number of people using it. The more people use it the more people will fall into essential niche positions that make the system run smoothly. For instance I found out today that there are people who run around making sure that all the stubs are placed in specific categories (bio-stub, history-stub, even star wars-stub!). For policy decisions at a national level there are certainly enough people to fill niche positions.

A successful wiki also needs to be persistent. I think the Law School wiki failed because people knew that whatever they created would die at the end of the semester. If you know something isn't going to last there is no reason to put a lot of work into it.

Here's another interesting thing that I've noticed. When I ask people if they've ever heard about wikipedia I keep getting a surprising answer. Lots of people who use wikipedia don't know that they can edit it if they want to!!!

One thing that may be a point in favor of my wiki as policy is the israel/palestine page.

The internet is the printing press 2.0 and wikis give everyone the power to contribute without having to the learn html.

Bram Cohen recently debued trackerless torrents his goal was to make "publishing files on the Web painless and disruptively cheap"

We're moving towards an open

- current incarnation of "representative" democracy built when people were physically incapable of participating in the process of governance. In the days before the engine it just didn't make sense for john q farmer to ride an oxcart into the city. The wiki model changes this because technology provides a proxy for travel.

- We've only seen the beginning of this phenomena. Take into account that vast minority of earths population has regular access to the internet right now. That's going to change big time, soon. look at the 100 dollar laptop.

Interesting Articles

 * Autonomous building

To Do
identified and recruited Young Americans Foundation]] 3 month intensive on journalism clerked with fed soc judged pasco bowman II Aid for spencer abram senate judiciary
 * AstraZeneca page contains very little information about AstraZenecas roll in the breast cancer industry
 * return glyphosate to endocrine disruptor status
 * I made a start at this, and tried to summarize the current research... The waters are muddy though, lots of interests at stake. Phidauex 21:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Beef up ANWR, Brian Tracy articles
 * Start Mercatus Center article
 * Ad info about hiroshima to Leslie Groves page
 * Richard Thaler article mentions anomalies, figure out what they are and put them in the article.
 * Club for Growth
 * Paul Weyrich
 * Michael Grebe
 * phoenix group >> Democracy Alliance
 * Leadership Institute
 * Club for Growth did those fucking swiftboat ads
 * Ann Coulter]

NOW a trainer at young americas foundation


 * Acton Institute
 * Institute on Religion and Public Life
 * Institution on religion and Democracy


 * National Center for Policy Analysis

-- Legal Groups --


 * Center for individual Rights
 * Landmark Legal Foundation
 * Institute for Justice
 * Judicial Watch
 * Federalist Society
 * Washington Legal Foundation

-- Persistent Organic Pollutants --

there should be a category for them that includes


 * Aldrin
 * Amalgam Fillings-Mercury Fillings
 * Chlordane
 * DDT
 * Dieldrin
 * Endrin
 * Heptachlor
 * Lindane
 * Mirex
 * Phthalates
 * Toxaplin

Powell Memo
1. Redirect Powell Memo to memorandum

People

Irving Kristol Bill Coors Heritage Foundation

http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=9606

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=22

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=21

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

-- Depleted Uranium Stuff --

- MK Ultra >> MK Search mind control shit, records destroyed by richard helms om 72 >> Rockefeller Commission Report no records kept

- Project Whitecoat - code name 2300 7th day adventist servicemen >> germ weapons >> Fort Deitrich biowarfare division

- Agent Orange defoliant (code for orange band used on tank) 24d, may 5th

Zumwalt report to vet affairs says

- BZ - Agent Buzz - psychotropic weaponize >> Project Dork still largely classified, effects lasted for weeks, movie jacobs ladder

Gulf War Syndrome 697,000 troops served 250,000 considered disabled

Doug Rokke - US army health physcist, nuke medice medicine sceinces officer disabled veteran

DU - first used by israelis against egyptians - 350 tons of radioactive materials - munitions los alamos memos - combat lifesaver program

uranium ore us 3 isotopes 99.28% uranium 238

emits alpha beta gamma rays on impact

4.25 million electron volts

Leuren Moret Geological Sceintist damaging effects of

groves memorandum

warned depleted

un subcom on human rights ruled they were an illegal chemical weapon because they make food and water

2400 tons in iraq 2nd time

half life 4.5 billion years

Staff seargent bob jones

microplasma fermenat incognitis

Enriched Uranium

M40 series masks leak when heads turn

create uranium oxides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Business_and_Economics_Forum

Buddies

 * Phidauex - Tight bro since third grade.
 * SJ - Fellow Geeks List and HCS cowboy.
 * Skyfaller - Copyright Compadre
 * LawTree - Law Lemur

To Read (feel free to add stuff here, if you think I should read it)
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/20/laziness-working-good_cz_mm_06work_0523lazy.html
 * Descartes René Descartes, while studying philosophy with Jesuits, was often so unable to get out of bed in the morning that the monks threw buckets of cold water on him. With amazing lackadaisical fortitude, the philosopher-to-be would “turn over and go back to sleep.”


 * W. V. Quine


 * Privity
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Room
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_v._Kraemer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act