I wonder how many people see something written on the internet & just
accept it as truth, on face value, because it "feels" right, and don't
bother even doing the smallest checks. I'll see how my case study goes?

It's an interesting point...

The Internet provides a vast medium for people to become fully informed on
subjects that would have been almost impossible to investigate using
traditional methods.

However, by the same token, it is possible to dissemintate mis-information
just as easily.

Of course, traditionally an author would not go to the hassle on writing and
publishing a book with falsehoods in it to deliberately mislead as it would
be just too much hassle and would be normally picked up by the publishers
etc.

Same isn't true with the internet.

Rule of thumb - treat any information with the value that you paid for it!

Even in a small technical forum such as this, it's easy to pick (no pun
intended) incorrect information. Somebody makes a mistake in an answer to a
post here, which is cleverely picked up and indexed by google. Some years
later somebody does a google which just happens to pick up only this answer
and takes it as "gospel" as it was posted to a reputable group. It
happens all the time.

Personally, I'm very aware of this, and always look to corroborate
"important" stuff from more than one alternative source, but I'm aware of
several friends and acquaitances that will believe anything just because it
appears on their screen. Just look at how successful phishing and other
scams are.

I would even go so far as to suggest that this will - in the longer term -
become a much more major problem for the Internet as a medium. As the level
of "background noise" of crap information grows it will become so much more
difficult to find "good" information. This has the potential of destroying
the Internet as an information resource. This is the challenge for google
and co for the future. It will be an interesting ride!

Regards
Simon
"Ross Ferris" <rossf (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote

Though reading your mail in context with your topic, is this actually a dig
at Dawn?

Simon
"Simon Verona" <nomail (AT) nomail (DOT) zzz> wrote

Simon Verona wrote:
With the spelling of musing as "mewsing" I wasn't sure either. I don't
think I've done anything recently to tick off brother Ross, such as
saying the words "open source" or "free" or even "Java" or the more
recent "Java is so last year" or "I tune out when I hear .NET or
MS-only solutions" but just in case I need to make amends:

Try Visage everyone. It rocks.

smiles. --dawn
P.S. I haven't actually tried it myself, but I have seen the demo.
P.P.S. Hopefully this response is seen as obviously written in good
fun.

Knowing Ross's posts in the past I'm sure it isn't a serious dig, and is
probably light hearted....

I'm sure Visage rocks... though I've not actually seen it running myself.

Regards
Simon

"dawn" <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Ross Ferris wrote:
I believe _EVERYTHING_ I read on dbdebunk.com... without question! =`;^>

--
frosty

Visage does rock :-) and the post wasn't meant as a slight against Dawn
- if anything it should be seem as homage (which we all should
recognise as a contraction of HOMe of visAGE)

I was simply testing a "theory" or observation, which I thought was
extremely relevant given the recent critiques that have been given
about postings. The frequency with which people correct speling misakes
in this group, in a light hearted & fun way, means that people
obviously read the posts "with interest" (or simply have WAY too
much time on their hands), and yet ...

Yesterday I made a "statement of fact" in a post that, to date,
no-one has challenged. You guys have probably already read the post,
processed the "correctness" of the statement, and continued (though
the more likely "fact" is that people saw my name and 'turned
off')

Whilst it is true that 1 in 10 people understand binary, I was equally
sure that someone would have registered that 100(base2) = 4, rather
than the 8 that I stated as a "fact". It would appear that when
dealing with numbers, most people work with "approximations" - my
"fact" looked "about right", and so was accepted on face value
.... yet I'm sure you picked up the spelling mistakes 2 paragraphs
above!

One could possibly argue that an extension of this observation could
explain collapses like WorldCom, which is anything but amusing. (the
figures looked right - BTW, did you know Verizon finalized their
acquisition on Jan 6, 2006 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCI )

I obviously have too much time on my hands! Have a great day
(and dbdebunk.com has WAY to much mathematical correctness for me)

Well, thanks for the explanation Ross..

Your theory is correct though (IMHO). The world is "form over function"...
As long as it "looks" right and is plausible then a fact is more than likely
to be accepted. However, the same fact, badly presented or in incorrect
English, is likely to be questioned.

It's just the way the world is I guess!

The same applies to software design. For years I hated Windows
applications. I always found the windows version of my old DOS apps would
be slower, harder to use and less effective at doing their job than the
original. They would however *look* fantastic and sell by the bucketload.

Now that I'm writing Windows applications, I hope that I am putting my hate
of the "windows interface" when being used day in day out, to good use and
designing a user interface that is both "pretty", fuctional and as fast to
use as the character application that it is slowly but surely replacing.

Regards
Simon



"Ross Ferris" <rossf (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote

Of course, there is an additional explanation.

I did read the post of yours that you refer to... and yes, whilst I
spotted the two spelling mistakes I didn't note that you had your math wrong
in your original post..

Like many others, I scan read this group for "interesting" posts. I'm
afraid that post went down as "white-noise" as I started reading it -
mainly because the whole thread was not really on-topic for my interests but
was also clearly "tongue in cheek" from the outset. Therefore I probably
read the whole post in less than the 5 seconds that it takes OE to realise
that I've read it!

I use this technique with everything I do these days - I receive over 100
emails a day to my business account, read several newsgroups and scan the
internet in my spare time for "interesting" facts. I also read several
trade magazines (both automotive and computer trade etc). It's a daily
fact of life that I need to prioritise what I actually read as opposed to
scan in order to actually get any work done during the day!

Of course, when scanning, the source of the post is as important as the post
itself when scanning. I don't know whether the fact that I scanned through
one of your posts whilst barely reading it is significant or not!!! <G>

Simon
"Simon Verona" <nomail (AT) nomail (DOT) zzz> wrote

Ross Ferris wrote:
you crack me up

absolutely not!

I saw that, computed it a second time, and figured it was unimportant
or if I said something I would suddenly realize I was wrong after
posting it (and then someone would point out I had a degree in
Mathematics and I would be humiliated and...)

Yes, quite interesting.

But did you see this http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/2883305.htm
A whole page dedicated to me. I'm so proud. smiles. --dawn