My current pet hate is the use of the phrase “it says so on Wikipedia”, in a sarcastic manner. Usually it’s intended to make fun of people who don’t seem to ‘understand’ that anyone and everyone can edit or create Wikipedia articles on any subject (unless, of course, the IWF blocks Internet access to one particular image, and in doing so prevents the whole of your country from editing Wikipedia).
The implication is that, should you wish to, you can edit a Wikipedia article such that it corroborates your argument, no matter how ridiculous. A typical conversation which might seem to justify this belief is as follows.
Fred: What’s that you’re pouring into that saucepan?
Dave: Glue.
Fred: Glue? What are you making?
Dave: Spaghetti Bolognese.
Fred: That’s not made using glue!
Dave: Yes it is, it says so on Wikipedia.
There you go. Dave is the butt of the joke because he apparently doesn’t understand how Wikipedia works, and has foolishly taken its word as gospel. From now until forever, each time Dave makes a factual statement in Fred’s presence, Fred will ask “does it say that on Wikipedia?” in a sarcastic and derisory tone.
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UPDATE 18th April 2010: Netgear have since released a firmware update for the DG834Gv4 which supports NAT loopback. It took them long enough!
Yesterday I made the decision (read: mistake) to update my Netgear DG834G router (hardware v4, firmware v5.01.09) to firmware v5.01.14 – and, as is the way with these things, it brought trouble. After the upgrade I couldn’t reach www.nikrivers.com from the LAN side of the router.
The problem is caused by the way the router handles traffic coming from an internal IP address and destined for the WAN (i.e. external) IP address. In this situation it requires that the router first transfers the traffic from the internal network to the external network, and then immediately passes it back whilst applying any firewall or routing rules that are relevant to incoming external traffic.
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Previously I’d made my opinion clear on the privacy aspect of Google Street View – in that essentially Google hasn’t done anything that can’t be done by any ordinary person with a camera walking past your house. If you don’t want to be seen playing air guitar in your wife’s underwear, simply close the curtains. Or just don’t do it.
Since then, and on a seemingly unrelated note, the BBC News website has reported on a body being dumped in a wheelie bin in Cobham, Surrey. It caught my eye because it’s not a million miles away from where I live (though not too close for comfort, I admit). The BBC News article carries a photo of the front of the house in question, guarded by police; and while the article itself attempts to protect the nearby residents’ privacy by mentioning only the name of the road, this is already too much information.
And this is where the two cross paths. With just a little effort – the road isn’t very long, and Google is quite a powerful engine – the property can be seen on Google Street View, complete with the unobscured number plate of the car on the drive. Google approximates the address at 16 Hamilton Avenue. Whether this is correct matters very little – the perception is that it might be correct. And that the car on the drive might be involved. It’s irrelevant that the Google Street View car may have driven down that road in the distant past, because information, like statistics, can be misused.
Google recently launched their Street View service in the UK, which is integrated with Google Maps, and allows you to view seamless 360 degree photo panoramas of a number of locations throughout the country. It’s just like a virtual tour of those locations.
The images were captured using a camera mounted on top of a car fitted with a GPS recording system. The images are stored with their GPS location, so finding the images surrounding a covered area is straightforward. Most of London is covered.
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Further to my previous rant on censorship, it seems the IWF has decided it may have dropped a clanger in its decision to block (most) UK Internet access to a particular web page.
The statement on their website implies the decision to unblock the web page was theirs alone, and makes no mention of the global outcry caused by their initial action.
Surely, the backtracking thought process that went on at the IWF is one that should have happened before blocking the web page in the first place..?
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