Waste Not, Want Not

Okay, so my previous entry would have been a better "last post of 2005", but since I didn't post any entries yesterday, I've got a couple of links that I wanted to blog before they become stale and/or completely irrelevant:

* The Knights Who Say "NEET"? (link via Obscurestore)
This was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Apparently, there is a growing media-created obsession and/or item of genuine concern in Japan concerning the growth of NEETs: Young people "Not in Education, Employment or Training" (a term imported from the UK in the 90s).

Because of the high cost of living, tradition and other cultural factors, young people in Japan weren't as driven as USians to leave the nest to begin with, but combined with changes in corporate hiring practices and fewer full-time jobs, people are worried about raising a whole segment of society that's content to sponge off Mom and Dad, with no job and no prospects.

In other words, they're slackers (in that whole 90s grunge, flannel-wearing, 'Reality Bites' way).

* 100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year
From the BBC News weekly Magazine, here's a list of 100 facts and factoids of stuff that we learned (or should have) in the year that was 2005.

Although the BBC News' international coverage is second-to-none, this particular list is also interesting for its U.K.-centric take on things, so you'll see the best properties to buy in the U.K. edition of Monopoly (among other things).

* Firefox 2.0 Draft Plan:
This link is the wiki being used by the people building Firefox 2.0.

If that sentence didn't make any sense to you, a wiki is a kind of group Web page that anyone (well, nearly anyone -- keep reading), can contribute to by adding or editing content.  Wikipedia, which I use a lot, is an example of this -- it's like a big collaborative encyclopedia. Also, Firefox is a free, open-source browser that I also talk about a lot.

This link is interesting, not just because you can see some of what's going to be in the next version (Firefox 2.0 -- they're at 1.5 now), and see how product schedules and features are developed, but it's also notable because they've temporarily locked down the article while it's being dugg (featured on the collaborative links blog, Digg.com):

"This document is currently in draft. This document also static, while it is being dugg.
Please do not edit these pages without permission. Your feedback and comments are welcomed on the discussion page."

You might ask, "Well, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a wiki -- that anyone can contribute to it?" Yes and no -- in order to keep from being overrun by spam, porn, trolls and bad information, wikis depend on self-policing and a culture of shared interest and norms.

That is, the people who contribute to a wiki typically know the rules of the road and help enforce them, because they have an interest in making sure the information is good.

The people who drive by a wiki because they saw the link on a links blog may not have that interest -- they might mess with a wiki document just because they can. (People are funny that way.)

Thanks. -- Joe