Infoporn: Despite the Web, Americans Remain Woefully Ill-Informed
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More than a decade after the internet went mainstream, it hasn't necessarily made its users more informed. A new Pew Research shows that most Americans are less able to correctly answer questions about current events than they were in 1989.
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When everything gets an API then everything you can imagine will be possible if you can write a script.  And sometimes, to give you an idea, all that has to happen is that a wall come down. The latest, most intriguing such wall was the paywall at the NY Times. Now all of a sudden we find the wealth of information published by the NY Times over many decades is available without tariff. More important, we can point into the archive. We've gotten so accustomed to the wall, that you actually have to think when it may be possible to go in there, as if it left behind a wall in our minds, even after the wall on the web is gone. For example, the first episode of Ken Burns's The War, an epic series about World War II from the American perspective, cited several NY Times articles. If you looked carefully you could see the dates, and the actual headlines, and then if you have a browser handy, as I do (I have an iPhone) you can actually read the article while the narrative continues. Today this is mostly a gimick, but I suspect as we get used to having history so available (like having a library microfilm machine, which I used to spend whole days playing with when I was a kid) it will change our sense of information, perhaps as much as anything else that's ever been on the web. Take movie reviews for example. What a thrill to be able to read a review of a movie that I love that came out in 1932! The reviewers back then were more forgiving, less sarcasting, more enthusiastic. Consider their review of the Hollywood Revue of 1929, a favorite of mine that I've only seen once (I'd pay for a DVD, if it were available). They loved audible movies (that's what they called them) as if the term "talkie" was as elusive as "podcast" was in the summer of 2004. Again, we've just scratched the surface. Wouldn't you like to have NY Times movie reviews integrated with Netflix? Or have Yahoo's movie rating service available on the NY Times site. And I have to wonder whether they really have gone all the way. You can't see the reviews unless you're logged in. Can Google's robots, therefore, see the movie reviews? Unless the've made some special arrangements, it seems not.  It would be helpful to get a technical guide to the newly hatched NY Times on the Web, or (as in the old days of software) a reviewer's guide, so we get some ideas of what to look at. Clearly a lot of work went into opening up the Times archive. I'm going to be in NY the week of October 8 and will have some time toward the end of the week. If anyone at the Times would be willing to spend some time with me reviewing what's now open, that would be helpful. In any case, at least the Times today is somewhat more available to be integrated into the fabric of the web. That's some progress. How much, remains to be seen. Postscript: Kottke did a great job of skimming the surface of the newly opened Times when it first came online, just one week ago today.
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How very un-American Last week, it was Flickr. This week, itâs YouTube.â¦
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An America Online survey tells us what we want to hear.
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Plus: Are you having an identity crisis? [News.com Extra]
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Susan Jacoby's new book bemoans the state of American culture. Not only are citizens ignorant about essential knowledge, she says, but they also donât think it matters.
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Conservapedia is the web's go-to reference for conservative Christians, but for everyone else it's one of the biggest laughs on the net. By Michael Calore.
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Before heading over to the Web 2.0 conference at the Palace Hotel in SF this morning, I couldn't resist doing some more digging into alternate user interfaces for news reading based on the NY Times keywords.  One thing I learned the hard way is that when you access the Times site from a script (not through a browser) if you try to read an article that's too old (not sure what the time limit is) it tries to redirect you to a login page (which is pretty pointless considering that there's no human being around to log in). I hit this problem yesterday, and then hit it again this morning, but couldn't remember what the problem was. So by writing it up this time I hope to remember.  No doubt some debunked hack journalist posing as a tech industry mogul will slander me for this, but the asshat asshole has no idea how blogging works, and who the fuck cares what he thinks anyway. "cheesecake"
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Opinion: Whether they realize it or not, many people leave sensitive information out in plain view on Web sites. But sooner or later, a Google search will dig it up.
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Also: Privacy: The problem that won't go away. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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The search site still lacks the right stuff.
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Also: Cell phones won't keep your secrets. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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Introducing The 404s, Wired's contest to find the least-informative sites on the military web. Strike a blow for open government (and win prizes).  In Danger Room.
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With the rise of user-driven content sites, Internet users have a say in what is news. A new study examines the differences between what editors think is newsworthy and what the public does.
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By Ellen Whyte  FINDING information for putting something topical into context can be an absolute nightmare.
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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 12 (HealthDayNews) -- Even as the Internet becomes an increasingly rich source of health information, most American seniors remain out of the loop, a new survey finds.
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Also: Paul Allen project maps the brain. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.