Microsoft Encarta discontinued

This article says that Microsoft has decided to discontinue their encyclopedia software, known as Microsoft Encarta. The obvious reason for this is that Encarta has been utterly dwarfed by Wikipedia, which has 2.7 million different entries to Encarta's 42,000.

I am only familiar with this program because I had a Windows PC in the 90's, when Encarta was first released. To people younger than me, this is not of the least significance. Wikipedia has been popular for a while now, so I wouldn't be surprised if most internet users aren't even aware of Encarta.

This is however of significance for anyone worried about the reliability of Wikipedia. Encarta has so few entries because they are written professionally and reliably. The public has spoken, and their attitude is that it is better to be at risk of finding false information submitted by an anonymous user than it is to rely on the limitations of professionally written encyclopedias.

If I were Iranian, I would probably be dead

Blog Posting From Annotated Bibliograpy

I completely forgot about this week's blog post, and I'm do not even recall when they are due (Monday's at five sounds vaguely familiar). Nevertheless, I submit my admittedly late blog post. 

I thought that the Time Magazine article The Citizen Watchdogs of Web 2.0. was the most interesting article I picked for my annotated bibliography. Of course, I only feel this way because it described events that I followed closely as they were occurring. So this is not necessarily the most informative or reliable source that I chose, but that doesn't concern me very much.

The article described how Democrats that voted with President Bush to give immunity to telecommunications companies were identified as having closer ties to these very companies. However, this description does not do justice to just how incredible and significant this was as it unfolded. 

Political blogs were able to identify the exact members of Congress that received the most money from telecommunications companies. Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia received some of the largest sums and also became one of the most ardent supporters of granting immunity. 

This ability to pinpoint exactly where the money was having an effect turned this in to a huge issue amongst liberal bloggers, which ultimately created problems for President Obama during his campaign. Obama voted in favor of the FISA compromise, which allowed for criminal proceedings against the companies but granted retroactive immunity for lawsuits. 

The bill passed rather easily, but Obama received a lot of criticism and scrutiny for his vote (such as Glenn Greenwald here). His immediate response was to post a defense of his position on the Huffington Post.

At this point, Web 2.0 tools are extremely useful for those that have access and competence with them. In this case, a notable portion of the party base made a much bigger deal about this issue because they could point to exactly who was acting outside their interests and fire away with their criticisms, and Obama had no choice but to respond. 

Down the road, politicians will be held immediately accountable in this fashion if more people can have access to raw data that reveals all of the connections between campaign donations and voting patterns. 

List of things I like, in case anyone cares in the slightest

My Favorite Things

I'm going to write out some of my favorite things because my IMS teacher told me that I had to.

• Steaks, Ice Cream, Apricots, Pomegranates, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Meat Loaf, to name a few


• Playing with my dog, or any other dogs


• My favorite color is probably crimson. Kind of a dark red. That's the color of my face when I wake up ten minutes before IMS class


• Checking 538 or any other political blog that I like


• Going to new places and drinking new types of beer

What I Did in Photoshop Today