Tech Table Thursday, January 23, 2014
January 23, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest. Howdy, Justin!
Justin: Howdy, Diana.
Diana: Howdy.
Justin: It’s a Theme Thursday. So, we’re talking about something you came up with, which is debunking myths and fake stories on the Internet. And judging by what’s in front of me, I’m staring at, you basically wrote a research paper on this.
Diana: Well, I wrote the outline to a research paper.
Justin: Yeah, you wrote the outline to a research paper, absolutely, which if anyone knows you out there, they will know this is Diana, through and through. She has her points, and then she has, well, she has her topics, and then sub-topics, and then points.
Diana: Right, yeah.
Justin: I mean, she goes down to Roman numerals. Yeah, it’s very impressive. I, however, am completely overwhelmed looking at it.
Diana: Well, I can take the lead.
Justin: Alright, take the lead. Go for it.
Diana: Alright, so there’s a quote which I read pretty intermittently on the Internet when I’m on Facebook or Twitter. Here’s the quote: “The problem with Internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy.” This was attributed to Abraham Lincoln, 1864. Now, this is pretty easy to figure out that this quote is not true. Abraham Lincoln was probably not talking about the Internet in 1864, but it brings up a good point that you cannot believe everything you read on the Internet.
Justin: Exactly right.
Diana: So, how do we figure it out? How do we know if it’s real?
Justin: Well, first and foremost, I mean, this is Abraham Lincoln. So, if it’s a politician, you can pretty much discount it right there.
Diana: Nice, so it brings me to my first point. Consider the source.
Justin: There you go. Bam!
Diana: Now, here’s a little cool trick that not everybody knows about. So, what’s the suffix? It’s your .com, .gov. Knowing what those things mean can help you. So, .com is commercial, .edu educational, .gov is government, .mil military, .org is typically a non-profit organization, and .net is anything that doesn’t fit into those categories that I mentioned.
Justin: There you go.
Diana: And there’s country codes, too. One little thing I read about this morning, I didn’t know, is if there’s a tilde, which is that little squiggle mark over N that you see a lot, if there’s a tilde in the url, it’s likely a personal page.
Justin: Interesting.
Diana: So, you can’t always trust a personal page. I mean, you can sometimes, but it’s usually not quite as reputable.
Justin: Sure.
Diana: So, what else?
Justin: Well, you know, is it trusted for accurate, useful information? So, like news sites, which they still might have a political leaning but leading media outlets will, at least generally, present you with the facts, hopefully. They might skew them slightly.
Diana: And does it give credit to the authors or the original resources? That’s important.
Justin: Right, absolutely. And then, check the date. Is it current? That’s important.
Diana: Yeah, you might just have outdated information.
Justin: Oh, I know. I heard someone saying something the other day on radio that had been debunked the day before, but it was about someone, actually, this is a sad, funny story. It was about someone very notable in the news that they thought the police raided their compound, their house, and they thought at the time that a huge amount of cocaine had been found.
Diana: Oh, wow.
Justin: Come to find out, it wasn’t cocaine at all. But this guy was still reporting on the radio the next day that it was cocaine, and I felt really bad for the celebrity in this case, because it actually wasn’t that bad.
Diana: Yep, check your dates.
Justin: Check your dates!
Diana: Now, the Onion and other spoof sites, don’t believe it if it’s from the Onion. It’s really funny, it’s really entertaining, read it and get a good chuckle, but it’s not true.
Justin: Right.
Diana: Wikipedia, Justin, you can’t always trust it.
Justin: What?
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Oh, I’m so sad. I love Wikipedia but you can’t always. It’s not like your old-fashioned encyclopedias that were right and truthful. Wikipedia is submitted by users.
Diana: Well, I think that wraps us up for the day.
Justin: It does, it gets you halfway through your information.
Diana: We’ll touch on the rest later.
Justin: Alright, very good. Until next time.
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at AskMPA.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.
Justin: And thanks for listening.
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