Powerset has developed a tool that allows users to search Wikipedia with "conversational phrasing instead of keywords." I tried this out by searching "Who is the current president of Russia?", and didn't really get my answer. The first link told me it was Vladimir Putin, but Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated on May 7. How do I know this? I Googled "president russia" and eventually got my answer. The first link of the Google search gave me Putin as well, but the second and third links gave me Medvedev.

And this is what I don't get. Who is it that is having such a hard time searching the Web using keywords? I'm not arguing that this is the best way to search, but I do think it's currently doing the job. Much like the QWERTY keyboard (which was designed to slow down typists who were jamming typewriters), it seems we've settled on keyword search for any number of random (and not so random) reasons.

I have been a Weezer fan since the first time I heard "Undone" in 1994. With the exception of their most recent album called Make Believe, I think Weezer's stuff still has something to offer. (Make Believe struck me as an attempt to reach a younger demographic. If so, then maybe it wasn't "bad." Maybe it just that it wasn't "my" Weezer.)

The new album will be self-titled but it will be called The Red Album (in the tradition of The Blue Album and The Green Album), and it will be released in June. The first single is called "Pork and Beans" and sounds promising. But in the meantime, front man Rivers Cuomo has been using YouTube to pull together his minions in a collaborative song-writing effort. I've included the video for steps 1 and 2 below, but you can watch all the steps of the compositional process at Rivers' YouTube page.

I stumbled into a strange story at the Wiki-Observations blog, which had a cryptic discussion of the departure of a Wikipedia admin named Newyorkbrad. After some googling, I think I've pieced things together. It seems that Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt has outed (or threatened to out) Newyorkbrad by publishing his name and the law firm he works for. This has prompted Newyorkbrad to leave Wikipedia. From what I can tell, Brandt was able to figure out Newyorkbrad's identity because of pictures taken of him during Wikipedia's "Wikimania" conference. Many Wikipedians like to remain anonymous for various reasons - one oft-cited reason is cyberstalkers, but I can imagine that Newyorkbrad might not want the firm he works for knowing that he spends parts of his days editing Wikipedia.

Brandt's site - Wikipedia-Watch - has a list of a number of Wikipedia admins that Brandt deems to be part of a "hive mind." He feels he's been personally attacked by many Wikipedians as he's attempted to get the article about him deleted (currently, there is no "Daniel Brandt" article on Wikipedia.) Brandt also thinks that Wikipedia's anonymity policy is unethical and invites corruption.

German Wikipedia will be published as a book. Will it still be called "Wikipedia," or will it be called something different? It seems to me that that a new name is required the moment a wiki is transformed into something more stable. It ain't a wiki anymore. Unless maybe they are going leave some blank pages at the end of each article...

Some readers of this blog might remember that I posted my notes to Greg Ulmer's book Internet Invention while I taught my Fall "Computers and Writing" class. We used Ulmer's book in that class to work through a genre of writing called mystory. Mystory is an attempt to understand the various images and discourses that shape us as thinkers, readers, writers...as beings.

I never did post anything about how that class went, so I thought I'd post a description of the Mystory projects that students in that class developed. Overall, I was very pleased considering I'd never taught the book before. I'm submitting this project for the CWRL's annual MEME Award. Here's a brief description of the project with some links to student mystories:

This story about connections between "military analysts" (i.e. talking heads that defend war strategy) and military contractors is making the rounds. I've now seen it linked on Boing Boing, The Blogora, and a few other blogs. It turns out that those "explaining" U.S. war strategy in Iraq had financial interests linked with that war and also served as a kind of public relations staff for the White House:

“It was them [the Bush administration] saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Followers of Wikipedia know this tactic by the name of sockpuppetry. As Bevelacqua notes, a sockpuppet involves some other entity sticking their hands up another's...errr..."back" and putting out a particular message. On Wikipedia, this is used to hide identity and it's linked to whitewashing and other nefarious practices.

An interesting documentary about Web 2.0, and it even includes Andrew Keen doing his thing. I'm really starting to wonder if Keen believes much of anything that comes out of his own mouth. Dude has found a niche market and is hanging onto it for dear life. Interestingly enough, he's using the Web to make sure many people receive his message...hrm:

Well, I see that Derek (along with others)has been horn tooting for his 4C's panel. So, I will follow suit. I'll be joining Nate Kreuter and Maha Baddar for "Tracing New Fronts: Realities of the Middle East." DDD has been kind enough to chair our panel. We are Session B.01 on Thursday, April 3 at 12:15pm. Nate will be presenting on the "YouTube Front" of the Iraq war and Maha will talk about the use jokes and other non-traditional discourse as resistance.

I will be discussing this image and it's ViRaL-ness:

Why the funky spelling, you ask? Well, it won't give too much away to tell you that the ViRaL text can serve to remind us that reality sits uneasily and chiasmatically between Virtual reality (VR) and Real Life (RL): ViRaL.

I don't often blog about sports, and when I do it's about baseball (opening day coming soon!) Yes, I'm a Mavericks fan (due to living in Dallas for three years.) No, I don't believe the Mavs have any shot at all. They probably didn't have a shot even before Dirk Nowitzki bent his leg backwards. But I did want to point everyone to this gem by Jason Kidd:

“Winning has always been a great deodorant”

Most definitely, Mr. Kidd.

So, I just read this interview of Jens Lekman. Lekman is a musician whose stuff I really don't much like. My roommate once commented that dude belongs on the Love Boat. Another friend described his new album this way, "his new album does indeed sound like watching late 70s escapist TV shows while laying on shag carpet."

But anyway, that's not the point. It turns out that when this "Swedish indie pop maestro" comes through customs in the U.S. and claims he's an artist (for work permit purposes) they look him up on Wikipedia:

SFBG: I read online that the latest album was inspired by a first kiss from a lesbian friend. Is that right?

JL: Uhhhh - I love it! It sounds like someone has put together all these different things...

SFBG: I think that might have been on Wikipedia.

JL: I love Wikipedia! That's so funny. Every time I come into the US and i cross customs or border control, they always check my passport and I have a work permit now for the first time - I never had it before and I always had to sneak in before - and they check me and say. "Oh, you're an artist." There's always a guy behind the guy saying, "Check him on Wikipedia."

That's so funny that the American authorities would use Wikipedia as a trustworthy source! Anyone can change anything. A friend of mine usually goes into my Wikipedia and writes all this bullshit, just changes things. I think the last thing she wrote was that I was the son of a bear trapper.