Thursday, November 13, 2008

Thing # 10: Generators

I have mixed emotions on this particular bit of tech. While I can see the fun side of creating random video and text, such as providing a chance to write your own A-team episode (http://www.egowar.com/ateam_episode_generator.) much like Mad-Libs were popular back when I was a kid. However, I could see some other potential problems in generators such as "create an Apple rumor". The reason that I say this is that I have noticed that too many times the information that is put on the web is taken at face value with no real attempt at verification. Even my own kids have hit me with the "I saw it online so it must be true" speech. I remember a number of years ago when a major news station was busted for having their reporter standing in front of the Capitol building on a sunny day, when in fact it was raining. Turns out that the reporter was in the same studio as the news anchor, hundreds of miles away. Things like that unfortunately bring out the cynic in me.

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