Monthly Archives: April 2012

3 posts

Everybody Needs A Hobby of the Day

One man, 1,000,000 edits: Justin Knapp, a 30-year-old Wikipedia editor from Indiana, has spent the bulk of his free time since 2003 giving the open-source encyclopedia the ol’ spit-and-polish, and he’s finally hit seven digits. And that’s easier said than done, considering the site is the sixth most-visited in the world.

Among his crowning achievements on the site is the bibliography on the George Orwell entry, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world; it took Knapp more than 100 hours to complete. He also has tasked himself with keeping the site’s information on music albums up-to-date. And all for what?

“I’ve never accepted any restitution for my work on Wikipedia — it’s purely voluntary. … Far be it for me to say that it’s an act of love to edit Wikipedia. But I really do feel like it helps other human beings. That makes me feel good — knowing that somehow I can be a small part of helping someone who I’ll never know.”

[gizmodo]

Love Story of the Day

When G-Male — the imagined Google version of the perfect boyfriend — meets Siri — the imagined Apple version of the perfect girlfriend — data flies.

This Is All Kinds of Wrong of the Day

A horrifying video of a student being restrained and shocked for hours at the Judge Rotenberg Center was shown in court Tuesday at the start of Andre McCollins’ trial against the center, and it may be enough to get the facility shut down once and for all.

The video shows a 2002 incident in which 18-year-old McCollins was restrained, face-down, on the floor, and then given 31 shocks as he screamed and fought, all because he had refused to take off his coat. While the center had fought for years to keep the video sealed, it was used not only in court, but by a Boston Fox affiliate that got permission to air it over objections from Rotenberg’s lawyers.

Despite a revealing 2007 exposé (McCollins wasn’t the only student subjected to the inhumane treatment) that led to local and state investigations and ongoing lawsuits, the school, in Canton, MA, has managed to stay open. It bills itself as a special needs school, and “is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.”

“I never signed up for him to be tortured, terrorized, and abused,” McCollins’ mother Cheryl testified in court Tuesday. “I had no idea — no idea — that they tortured the children in the school.”