"Wired Editor Apologizes for Copying from Wikipedia in New Book"
alibosworth:
“[Chris Anderson] said that while he believed Wikipedia was a valid source for books, he and his publisher had not been able to agree on a format for citations. … He said he originally wrote the sections using the material from Wikipedia in quotations, and had hoped to cite them using footnotes.”
Instead he just left out the quote marks and footnotes altogether? What the fuck, guy. This is the editor of Wired?
Initial Post (check out images of word-for-word unattributed plagiarism)
Follow up in NYT.com
go back 2 digg alibosworth
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it's that time again
i had one of those dreams last night where i didn’t know if it actually happened or not, so i was excited about it this morning until i checked the news. it turns out that they didn’t invent a new kind of kalman filter. this is what i dream about.
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coffee
i had big plans to buy a coffee grinder and a substantial french press, but not anymore. i get terrible headaches and nausea every couple weeks or so and i don’t know if it’s coffee related but i’m willing to try anything at this point. the only thing that helps is sleeping and often it’s too painful to fall asleep. i used to get headaches as a little kid, but they went away for a number of years only to return recently.
i’m adding coffee to the list of things i don’t eat or drink.
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Automatically Wrapping Libraries In Python (work in progress)
Introduction
I spend a lot of my time at work writing code in Python and using external libraries. ctypes is the built in method of accessing foreign functions and it works wonderfully. I’ve even used their C datatypes to emulate integer overflow for a platform specific checksum. However, there is no built in support for consuming an API. It’s possible to do it yourself, but some libraries are pretty complicated. You’re never actually done either, because one change upstream and your definitions could be off. The only sensible solution is to generate ctypes definitions of library functions automatically. The most promising method of doing this looks to be the excellent Py++ package.
Tools
LibRaw is the raw image processing library based on dcraw that I want to use from Python. Has a C++ and C interface. I’m going with the C++ interface because it’s easier to use.
VC9 is the C++ compiler I’m using on Windows, provided free with Visual C++ Express 2008. I used MinGW and it worked OK, but most libraries and programs (LibRaw and Python included) use MSVC, so I figured I might as well.
GCC-XML simulates a compiler and writes out an XML representation of the internal code structure inside the compiler. Once installed, I needed to run the included patcher to detect and support VC9.
pygccxml exposes the functionality of GCC-XML in Python and gets a list of exported functions from the binary library.
Py++ is the code generator that will write my ctypes definitions for everything found by pygccxml. To avoid manual intervention, there is a powerful set of queries available so I can exclude extraneous functions and resolve errors and warnings before building the code. If LibRaw updates, I simply have to run the script again and I have a new ctypes interface. Looks super interesting, but I haven’t played much with it yet.
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always use your aperture preview button
more than half of my pictures from japan are way overexposed because one of my lenses didn’t stop down when i made an exposure. i am so frustrated.
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i slept for 11 hours last night
i was riding the subway/train with my family when i realized we were on the wrong track. shortly afterwards, the car lifted off the track. it turns out that we were on the “sea bus” route. a crane hoisted us towards the ocean, but something went wrong and it flipped on end and hit a rock. no one was seriously injured and we made it to the water and began heading towards the island which was our destination. the collision with the rock caused a hole in the hull to open up and the train car to fill up with water. the doors were stuck closed so the other passengers broke a window and we escaped to tread water in the sea.
i woke up inside my dream and discussed it with the rest of my family who all had the same dream with different details. in one i got on the wrong train and they lost track of me. at the time i thought this was amazing and proof of psychic powers or something. finally i woke up for real around 1:00 pm.
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saw a group of ~10-15 serious bird photographers in inokashira park snapping away at a paradise flycatcher. they have long tails that trail behind them in their nimble flight. at the time i thought they were “very feathery”, which is a terrible way to describe feathers.
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“The book begins with the hero sitting down in front of his house in order to stop it being demolished to make room for a highway. He’s lucky he wasn’t Rachel Corrie, an American who was killed by an Israeli driving a bulldozer. Her death didn’t receive one per cent of the publicity accorded this book, which descends into a cycle of abstruse stupidity. If you want a laugh that will make you wiser, read Mark Twain or Joseph Heller. If you want a good story, read Chehov or Tolstoy. They won’t make a fool of you.
”
— amazon.com
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i dreamed again
i was thrown off an old sailing ship. i managed to hold on to some trailing ropes and pull myself aboard, only to learn that another sailor had been promoted to my old position in the 15 minutes i was lost at sea. knowing i was free from my duties, i crawled up into the rafters (yeah i know that ships don’t usually have rafters) and prowled around that way, hiding in insulation and going below to steal supplies. i amassed a vintage book collection and had a secret balcony overlooking the water. when the ship ran aground and was abandoned to rot, i stayed to live in it.
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yvr
of course, i’m posting this from vancouver international’s completely free internet. that’s pretty far up there as far as i’m concerned. verdict still out.
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