HN user
Wikipedian, Editor Emeritus of the Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper; occasional freelance journalist for the Daily Dot and The Register. @Wikiland on Twitter.
One good thing is that unlike AI, Wikipedia at least allows you to see how an article grew. Yes, for the most part you only see pseudonyms in the edit history, but they represent individual editors with discernible interests and biases, whereas an AI-based 'pedia is a black box.
You can argue with Wikipedians; with an AI-'pedia, not so much.
Hasidic teaching stories are charming. Here is one:
When Rabbi Zusha was on his deathbed, his students found him in great distress. They tried to comfort him by telling him that he was almost as wise as Moses, so he was sure to be judged positively in Heaven. He replied, "When I pass from this world and appear before the Heavenly Tribunal, they won't ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you as wise as Moses?' They will ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you Zusha?'"
Absolutely. Same with the favelas – locals are safer than strangers.
Incidentally, the UK government website contains specific warnings about using GPS navigation in Brazil:
---------
The security situation in many favelas is unpredictable. Visiting a favela can be dangerous. Avoid all favelas, including favela tours marketed to tourists and any accommodation, restaurants or bars advertised as being within a favela.
You should:
– make sure the suggested route does not take you into a favela if you’re using GPS navigation
– avoid entering unpaved, cobbled or narrow streets which may lead into a favela - tourists have been shot after accidentally entering favelas
If you’re unsure about a location, check with your hotel or the local authorities.
---------
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/brazil/safety-and-s...
Mm. Google Maps will sometimes confidently suggest roads which without that recommendation would have seemed quite unsuitable. So people put their instincts aside and think Google must know better ... only to regret it later.
It would be helpful if Google could add a few qualifiers like "Note that this is a very steep and mostly single-lane unpaved road" or "This road leads through an unsafe neighbourhood", followed by "An alternative route would be ..."
Maybe in a few years' time.
Nice. I think the key thing here is, or was, the mix: the two activities complementing each other.
Also, perhaps, the knowledge that both were temporary and meant to lead to other, or better, things.
Right; there is an element of satisfaction that comes from doing a job well that is relatively independent of the kind of job it is.
In a way, that kind of enjoyment is actually more important than extrinsic rewards – it actually is your moment-to-moment life.
Which, to be fair, is what Spanos' piece is getting at too.
Aye, you put your finger on something there. Reminds me of how common it is for menial jobs to be outsourced to immigrants or seasonal labour. Fruit picking in the UK to Eastern Europeans, agricultural work in Israel to Thais, etc.
Someone has to empty the bins. I guess like anything emptying bins is a job you can enjoy more or less, depending on your inner attitude to doing it, and your ability to "make the best of it" (by having a laugh with mates on the job etc.) but surely it's hard to be creative in it.
There are millions of jobs like that that have to be done by someone – unless everyone, including those who enjoy that self-fulfilment in their work, somehow were to chip in and do their bit.
Wikipedia actually has a (most likely very incomplete) list of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_imprisoned_for_...
It's hard to say what exactly caused his persecution. He did upload a few pictures of human rights activists to Wikimedia Commons, almost a decade prior.
The admin in question had previously been the subject of a Newsweek article:
"Manipulating Wikipedia to Promote a Bogus Business School"
https://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-p...
That was back in 2015.
One way driverless cars might help is that they reduce the amount of land that has to be given over to carparks, especially in the US.
Where towns in Europe would build a multi-story carpark to serve a shopping mall, municipalities in North America may simply cover acres upon acres of land around a mall with asphalt (take the Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, or the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, MI), in the process creating an almost lifeless zone.
You wouldn't need that much space for parked cars if everyone arrived in a driverless Uber.
(Apparently, US parking lots cover an area of around 25,000 square miles, about twice the size of Switzerland:)
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/27/cities-elimin...
Horrible title, sorry. The gist is: The Wikipedia Library provides free access to research materials to anyone who has made more than 500 Wikipedia edits and has an account more than 6 months old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Librar...
As The Hill pointed out ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_Kjd0xXNA ), this was not about the content he uploaded nor anything he said on the platform.
YouTube was completely okay with putting ads on the conspiracy theories.
This was a prerecorded programme and the BBC chose to air it. "Gross and nasty" or not, this was viewed as mainstream entertainment by the BBC's bosses fifteen years ago.
Marina Hyde has a good piece in today's Guardian about this particular programme and how things have changed:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/19/brave-...
I remember this episode, and I remember other stuff Brand did in the early noughties.
Personally, I always thought Brand was a git. But if people claim Brand did or said stuff he didn't do or say, I think it ought to be pointed out. And if you can't see the implications of someone being deplatformed in this way ostensibly because of something they allegedly did fifteen or twenty years ago then I cannot help you.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. —H. L. Mencken
Google is not strictly speaking a lawmaker, but they have comparable impact.
Moreover, Russell Brand has not been kicked off of YouTube. His channel is still there, as ever:
https://www.youtube.com/@RussellBrand
They are just withholding revenue. I am not defending sexual abuse. My point is well articulated here by The Hill's Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_Kjd0xXNA
From the transcript (starts about 1:00 min into the video):
I find this extremely disturbing and you know with the caveat that of course YouTube is a private company they are not bound to give you free speech rights or do process rights they're not bound by the First Amendment they can literally do whatever they want we don't have to like it we can criticize it and I think this is well worth criticizing this is not him being punished even for some speech some content he's produced on the platform which is some a problem we've had you know with YouTube in the past this the show has had problems with that in the past this is him being punished for and I'm not trying to detract from from the things people are saying about him but at this point these are Anonymous accusations that have not been substantiated through any kind of formal legal process the idea that you would be you would be canceled on us in a significant financial Revenue sort of way I know his main thing is Rumble but he also posts on YouTube for anonymous accusations against you reflecting behavior from decades ago uh I think that's pretty wild [...]
Sigh. Please get your facts right. It was Jonathan Ross who said Russell Brand fucked Sachs' granddaughter (which I personally thought was well beyond the pale, as tasteless jokes go).
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/27/russell-brand-...
[Speaking on Andrew Sachs' answerphone]
Russell Brand: Hello Andrew Sachs, this is Russell Brand … you are meant to be on my show now mate … I am here with Jonathan Ross. I could still do the interview to your answerphone.
Jonathan Ross: Let's do it …
Brand: Man … er, Andrew Sachs.
Ross: Don't call him Manuel, that's really bad manners. I apologise for Russell - he's an idiot.
Brand: I said Andrew Sachs! Look Andrew Sachs I have got respect for you and your lineage and your progeny, never let that be questioned.
Ross: Don't hint …
Brand: I weren't hinting! Why did that come across as a hint?
Ross: Because you know what you did…
Brand: That wasn't a hint …
Ross: He fucked your granddaughter!
[laughter in the studio]
Brand: That's his answerphone!
Ross: I'm sorry … I apologise Andrew, I apologise, I can't help it, you were talking about it and it was in my head, I apologise.
Brand: Jonathan!
Ross: I got excited, what can I say, it just came out.
We are talking about a joke made in a comedy programme. Making a joke in a comedy programme, even in conversation with someone later revealed to have been a sex offender, is not a crime. In fact, making outrageous jokes and being Russell Brand is what the BBC and Channel 4 paid him for at the time.
As for any actual sexual misconduct, that is a matter for the courts to decide; but in my mind there is no question that the BBC and Channel 4 enabled, encouraged and rewarded Brand's behaviour.
You said "He is alleged to have passed along a girl to a known pedophile."
He is not even alleged to have done that. What's been reported is that he joked on a BBC radio show about visiting Savile and bringing along his assistant.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/russell-brand-ji...
Five years before the allegations against Savile emerged, the older star told Brand he “doesn’t usually meet fellas but if you’ve got a sister then that’s ok”.
Brand explained he didn’t have a sister but instead named a personal assistant he could meet.
“I’ve got a personal assistant,” Brand told Savile. “And part of her job description is that anyone I demand she greet, meet, massages, she has to do it. She’s very attractive, Jimmy.”
Savile answered: “Well, well that’s a good start. You could send her along to do some research.”
Asked by Brand what she should wear to meet Jimmy, the paedophile presenter replied: “I’d actually prefer her to wear nothing.”
Brand burst into laughter as Savile insisted: “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
There is no suggestion that Brand, Savile or Brand’s personal assistant ever met up following the interview.
The exchange with Jimmy Savile happened on a primetime BBC Radio 2 comedy show. There were no consequences for Brand at the time.
You can hardly accuse the media of being consistent in their moral outrage.
For the Andrew Sachs "joke" see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ross#The_Russell_Bran...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russell_Brand_Show_prank_c...
Hang on a minute. He is accused of having had an "emotionally abusive and controlling relationshp" with a 16-year-old when he was 31. That is not the same as rape. The age of consent in the UK is 16, and 16-year-olds are legally sexually active all the time in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66831593
Brand has also not been accused of passing along a girl to a known pedophile. He is accused of having joked about sending his assistant to Jimmy Savile, on a BBC Radio 2 comedy show in 2007. (The BBC did not fire him for that.)
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/17/russell...
It is worth noting, for the benefit of US-based readers, that the legal age of consent in the UK is 16.
Brand was 31 at the time, according to media reports.
It's not about what he said on YouTube though. He stands accused of having been a bad person. Maybe he was, but if all it takes for a YouTuber to be deprived of their income is to be accused of being a bad person (or of having committed a crime ten or twenty years ago), then that is obviously problematic ...
Also see discussion here:
It's not about the content though in this case (God knows there is worse crap on YouTube), but about the person who uploaded it.
This seems a little ... premature? Do we now have trial by TV?
Worth reading:
A few thoughts on the Russell Brand furore, by Jonathan Cook:
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-09-17/thoughts-russe...
... The media companies now fuelling the public mood via trial by TV are the very same companies that delighted in Brand’s sex-addict persona. As the Dispatches’ archival footage and testimonies make clear, those media corporations willingly exploited his persona – even allegedly at the risk of putting members of their staff and audiences in danger – to increase corporate profits. No one should regard them as good-faith actors in this latest development. Pointing this out does not mean one is condoning rape or sexual assault.
In recent years, Brand has often argued that he went on a long and difficult personal journey of redemption, and that he is ashamed of the way he behaved in the past. There is at least ostensible evidence to back up Brand’s claims. There is zero evidence that the Dispatches documentary represents any kind of act of contrition by the media corporations now publicly reviling Brand for his behaviour. They haven’t seen the error of their ways. They are simply cashing in on Brand again – this time by bringing down the very celeb they built up. It’s all money in the bank for them. Pointing this out does not mean one is condoning rape or sexual assault. ...
For reference, the underlying study[1] says:
Our samples (2019–2021) range from 370 to 15,000 Bq·kg–1 137Cs, thus exceeding the regulatory limits (600 Bq·kg–1) by a factor of up to 25.
The abstract of the underlying study[1] says:
Here, we target radiocesium contamination in wild boars from Bavaria. Our samples (2019–2021) range from 370 to 15,000 Bq·kg–1 137Cs, thus exceeding the regulatory limits (600 Bq·kg–1) by a factor of up to 25.
They don't quantify the cancer risk that would result from eating wild boar meat in Germany. I imagine it would be quite difficult to do so, given that the degree of contamination varies so much.
I can't find any reference to WWII munitions in the original article. What they are talking about are atmospheric nuclear tests carried out primarily in the period after WWII:
"For weapons-137Cs, the cessation of atmospheric tests resulted in no noteworthy new weapons-137Cs fallout after the last test in 1980 ... this study illustrates that strategic decisions to conduct atmospheric nuclear tests 60–80 years ago still impact remote natural environments, wildlife, and a human food source today."
In what sense are the summary and headline incorrect?
Given the site's propensity for hoaxes I thought I had better check that the 1827 book cited there actually exists. ;)
And lo and behold: