Do-it-yourself collaborative truth-making goes postmodern, makes money

So Nicholas observes that The Colbert Report has a new wiki at wikiality.com, described as ‘the Truthiness encyclopedia’. As the front page says, ‘If enough people believe something is true…it is — just like on Wikipedia!’ This is great stuff. It looks like a small group of people, possibly including Colbert’s staff, wrote most of the initial content starting a few months ago, but it is of course open to anyone to edit. My favourite part is that the site trashes Wikipedia, but Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales’ for-profit wiki hosting company company Wikia, Inc. is hosting it (look at the page footer). Actually, Wikia is kind of neat — they let anyone start a wiki for free, and make money with Google ads. I love that truth by consensus can be a business model. And I’m glad Wales has a sense of humour.

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Back at home, Shannon and I spent what threatens to be the last sunny fall day doing housework, such as taking down the garden, starting the last bit of painting we want to do, and washing the windows in preparation for putting up plastic for the winter. It was so warm I felt like putting off sealing the windows, but as soon as we finished it started to rain, and the weather report calls for a week of cold, overcast weather, so we seem to have finished just in time. It will be nice to have the house more tightly sealed. I mean, I can handle how cold this city gets, but the humidity is just nuts. I literally haven’t used chapstick since moving here.

Still, this city’s okay, though. For example, the autumn leaves are particularly gorgeous right now. So I’ve been enjoying that.