US Government as Vandal? Another Wikipedia Controversy

Wikipedia is no stranger to controversy. The giant, community-authored wiki encyclopedia is a lightning rod for heated debates about the pros and cons of open and publicly editable online knowledge bases and about the web in general. I discussed one such controversy, involving Britannica and Nature, here. That scuffle seemed to come out more or less in wikipedia's favour. For a contrarian's view on wikipedia and a defense of the ivory tower, see Nicholas Carr's take on what he regards to be the naive religiosity of those who believe in the power of Web2.0. Carr is one of the most interesting bloggers writing about new IT technologies (even if his thinking is often wrong-headed). Whatever one's perspective, it's clear that many people are captivated by wikipedia's apparent power. Even the US government is getting in on the action. In doing so it has found itself branded as a vandal. The Politico blog has that story.

Which Came First? Liquid rocket fuel or frozen food?

Sometimes it's good to have a sense of the order in which things appeared on the scene. While one must always be critical of the idea of invention, it is nonetheless interesting to see the dates on which certain devices are said to have had their origins. This is a good resource for that kind of information. (Are there any 'feminine technologies' on the list?)

Steve Jobs, you've done it again

check the new iphone.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/09/apple-jobs.html

A New Blog and a New Approach to Traffic

Welcome to this new blog, which is starting out as a collective project of U of Toronto's ANT442 class, a.k.a. Anthropology and New Technologies.

To get started I thought I would draw your attention to one of the more interesting stories I've read recently about new technologies. It takes place in a rather unexpected domain, but one which is dear to my heart: traffic engineering. The story is of a maverick traffic engineer by the name of Hans Monderman. Monderman lives in the Netherlands, where he has worked as a traffic engineer for many years. How can a traffic engineer be a maverick technologist? Learn about it here and here.

What does it mean when governments start eliminating signage and 'downloading' traffic responsibilities on to citizens? Are we ready to fend for ourselves? Is this another example of neoliberal governance or is it an example of enlightened approaches to the balance between human responsibility and delegation to non-human actors (cf. Latour)? (Image from the NY Times)