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Comment Instant Authorities (Score 1) 636

by The Mutant (#23709529) Attached to: Is Google Making Us Stupid?
The biggest problem I see with google is the creation of what I call "Instant Authorities".

I'm active on another site, and post / comment only in Finance and Capital Markets. I've got a MSc in Quantitative Finance, have worked in banking for 20+ years and even teach part time at the Masters level in London. Finance is what I do.

However invariably someone will google up a contradiction an argument or staement, and insist they are correct.

Google is dangerous for the ignorant (actually the stupid) as many folks can't tell the difference between data and information, between noise and knowledge.

Many people lack critical thinking skills. Pre-google these skills had to be much less developed, as access to information was more difficult. Now these skills must be finely honed, due to the huge amount of information google indexes. I've found LOTS of finance stuff on google that is just plain wrong. And yet I'm sure I missed some stuff, accepted as fact some thing that was wrong.

Just because you can find something on google doesn't mean its correct, even if you find it multiple times.
Google

A Coveted Landing Strip for Google's Founders 427

Posted by samzenpus from the he-who-has-the-gold-makes-the-rules dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The NYT reports, "In the annals of perks enjoyed by America's corporate executives, the founders of Google may have set a new standard: an uncrowded, federally managed runway for their private jet that is only a few minutes' drive from their offices. For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets used by top Google executives, on Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA that is generally closed to private aircraft."
Portables

Submission + - Thinkpad X60- The Tablet Goes Ultraportable

Submitted by Rovi
Rovi writes: Lenovo had a gift for Thinkpad fans this season- they finally released the successor to the X41 Tablet. The Thinkpad X60 Tablet weighs in at about three and a half pounds and has great tablet functionality. The updates from the older model include a 2.5" hard drive (the X41 used a 1.8"), automatic screen orientation, and an Intel Core Duo processor. For performance seekers some serious upgrades are available, such as a 120GB 5400RPM hard drive, 100GB 7200RPM drive, SXGA+ monitor, or up to 4GB of RAM.
Censorship

White House Forces Censorship of New York Times 356

Posted by Zonk from the beating-on-the-grey-lady dept.
VE3OGG writes "It would seem that scientists are not the only ones facing censorship from the White House. According to several news sources the New York Times originally had intended to run an article co-authored by a former employee of the National Security Council, critical of the current administration's policies toward Iran. The article had passed the CIA's publication review board, but was later redacted on orders from the White House. Article authors Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann were former advisers to the White House, and thus all of their publications are scrutinized by a board before they can be published. Of the numerous documents this pair has published since leaving their positions, they say this was the first that was actively censored.
Caldera

SCO Asks Court To Reconsider IBM's Dismissal 139

Posted by CowboyNeal from the not-so-fast dept.
VE3OGG writes "The SCO Group — the litigation firm currently in dispute with, among many, IBM, over supposed copyright infringing code in Unix — has quietly asked the courts to reconsider IBM's request to toss the case out. SCO argued that the court's November decision was procedurally and substantially flawed and they say 'the rules of procedure do not support such a result under the circumstances of this case.' If allowed to reopen the case, the SCO Group argues, that new evidence would present itself through the deposition of several IBM programmers who had previously been interviewed."
The Almighty Buck

Gates Foundation To Spend All Its Assets 319

Posted by kdawson from the limited-lifespan dept.
El Lobo writes "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of both of them dying. The foundation focuses on improving health and economic development globally, and improving education and increasing access to technology. It also focuses on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The Seattle-based foundation plans to increase spending to about $3.5 billion a year beginning in 2009 and continuing through the next decade, up from about $1.75 billion this year." The Wall Street Journal (excerpted at the link above) called the foundation's decision "a decisive move in a continuing debate in philanthropy about whether such groups should live on forever."

Globalization Decimating US I.T. Jobs 1102

Posted by kdawson from the we-knew-that dept.
mrraven writes, "According to Ronald Reagan's former deputy secretary of the treasury in this article in Counterpunch, globalization is destroying US I.T. jobs. From the article: 'During the past five years (January 01 – January 06), the information sector of the US economy lost 644,000 jobs, or 17.4 per cent of its work force. Computer systems design and related work lost 105,000 jobs, or 8.5 per cent of its work force. Clearly, jobs offshoring is not creating jobs in computers and information technology.'" Paul Craig Roberts quotes a number of formerly pro-globalization economists who are now seeing the light of the harrowing of the US middle class. It's not limited to I.T. Roberts quotes one recanting economist, Alan Blinder, as saying that 42–56 million American service-sector jobs are susceptible to offshoring.

Apple vs Microsoft- Who's the Copycat? 683

Posted by CmdrTaco from the does-it-really-matter dept.
torrensmith writes "Paul Thurrott attacks the Apple Mac OS X Leopard Preview. He does have a few kind words for Apple and its leader Steve Jobs ("They do good work. It's too bad they feel the need to exaggerate so much.", but overall, he rips apart Apple for mimicking Vista, even going so far as to call the Apple fascination with Vista "childish." Paul does include a healthy review of the latest Leopard features, but quickly returned to his bashing of Apple. "

Microsoft Loses Appeal in Guatemalan Patent Claim 174

Posted by Zonk from the no-corner-view-in-this-office dept.
Spy der Mann writes "A year ago, Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado sued Microsoft for stealing an Office idea he had tried to sell them in '92. They were found to be infringing on his patent and had to pay him $9 million in damages, but they refused and appealed the decision. Today, just a year after they appealed, the Court confirmed the verdict: Microsoft loses. If that wasn't enough, the amount was raised to $65 million for continuing infringement."

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