Posts by Deborah
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Here's the thing, Rex. No one really disputes the accuracy of what Wiki was saying about Bill English and his wife. What they do dispute was whether or not it was appropriate to put it there. Wiki's accuracy is just not too bad at all, and it compares well with leading encyclopedias.
As for using it as an authoritative source - it's a starting point, just as any reputable encyclopedia is. I would mark a student down if they used only Wiki as a source, but not for the mere use of Wiki as a starting point for research.
But claims about the accuracy of Wiki are not the same as claims about whether some of the material should be there at all. Which claim are you making?
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subject to ad hominen attacks and personal villification of such nature that they are now frightened to hold such views for fear of attack on their homes and/or family?
Nice try, but as far as I know, the only person who has been subject to physical attack recently, and even then, neither on her person nor her home, is Helen Clark, whose office was attacked by People Power.
And as for people's homes being identified, most recently it was piccies of John Minto's house doing the rounds.
Hard to ascribe conservative views to either of those people.
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And, in my opinion, the ratio of inaccuracy on more contentious topics would favour Brittanica by a much greater margin.
The article in Wired reported a study in Nature. That would be one of the most highly respected scientific journals in existence.
Do you really, really, really want to say that what Rex thinks is a higher standard of proof than what Nature accepts?
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I was immediately contradicted by Deborah, who claimed Wikipedia was "as accurate as Encyclopedia Brittanica".
Get it right, Rex. I put a link to an article documenting research that showed that "Wikipedia is about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica."
Here's the link again: Wikipedia, Britannica: A Toss Up
By the way, the research was published in Nature.
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Haven't they got to wear a certain hat, or sit on a certain seat, or something like that?
Always wondered how a Pope would decide he was being infallible. You know, he wakes up one day and says, "Oh, yes! I'm just in the zone here, things are really humming, and I'm just going to do something pretty damn infallible, I can feel it in my bones!"
You could of course, read the Wiki.
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And then out comes this utterly reactionary document, and the issue upon which Papal infallibility now rests is... contraception.
That's not quite right. Humanae Vitae is a teaching. My mum says that when it came out, priests sermonised on it seemingly every damn week (because they would know so much about the stresses and strains of rearing children, wouldn't they, and the stresses and strains of normal human sexuality). So it was very hard for Catholics to turn their backs on it, to use contraception, and to still think of themselves as good Catholics. Nevertheless, it was not an infallible pronouncement - it was just a teaching.
Papal infallibility is a comparatively recent doctrine; it came into being in 1870. And the pope (whichever man happened to be the pope at the time) has only used it twice, once to declare himself infallible, and once to declare the doctrine of the assumption of Mary the mother of Jesus (in 1950).
Ah... thank you Wikipedia, and my convent education, and my mum.
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When I went to see my doctor some years ago, or to be precise, the morning when I sat weeping and couldn't stop, so my husband dragged me in to see our doctor, he didn't give me pills. I was severely stressed at work, and therefore somewhat depressed, but really, only mildly so. After talking to our doctor for a while, he signed me out on a month's stress leave, and ordered me off to a gym.
It worked. But I was stressed, and somewhat depressed, not severely depressed. I have seen severe depression at close hand, and I was nowhere near that. It's important to understand the distinction.
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While everyone is busy being geeks, does anyone know of a touch typing tutor suitable for our nine year old? For a Mac, of course.
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Not quite a zoo story, but one about looking after a new little animal. Sometime commenter here, and previous blogger under a different name, Julie Fairey has just put a guest post up on my blog: Turn and face the strain.
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some of the big game beasts. Pridelands is big, but not very big for a running animal.
Pridelands? As in The Lion King?
Do they do The Cycle of Life, a la peacocks and tigers?
Though come to think of it, the Disney version of the cycle of life never shows the lions eating anything, except for Simba eating grubs.