University.

I finally arrived in Leeds on Sunday. It has been a strange couple of days getting settled into University residences and being 28 makes it that little more difficult to get socialized with the people here - I think I am the oldest here!!

I hope to be resuming my other Blog (Modus Tollens) in the next few weeks when I finally get settled and don't have to worry quite so much about getting started and planning. Along with resuming this blog, I will be starting to post in the existent but inactive and empty blog of mine called Lhuv-Kerapht. The Lhuv-Kerapht Blogspot is going to be an attempt at an in-depth  exploration of the I-ching/Qabbalah symbolism in Illuminatus! trilogy.

Inherent Vice Information.

In lieu of the release of PT Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's 'Inherent Vice', I wish to point out two very good resources. The first is the blog known as Cigarettes and Vines, which has followed PT Anderson's Projects for the last few years, and is a good resource for interviews, articles, photos and behind the scenes information for all of Anderson's films. The second is the Thomas Pynchon Wiki, which is pretty much the equivalent of Cigarettes and Vines, but for Thomas Pynchon's works, accept that it has a communal wikipedia, which allows people to get involved with interpretations of Pynchon's works, and to disseminate information about his works.

Their respective web addresses are:

cigsandredvines.blogspot.co.uk

and

http://pynchonwiki.com/

After listening to Inherent Vice on audiobook, I am looking forward to Anderson's film even more. The projects seem to be undertaken in the same spirit; as more accessible projects than previous ones, but still with the intent of finessing and keeping true to their craft. I think that Pynchon succeeded with this, and can only imagine that PT Anderson, after Punch Drunk Love (with my initial bad reaction and subsequent surprise after watching it), will manage the same.

Uses of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has many qualities. It is a useful resource for further information and lots of  the articles have a wide scope of information. The problem with Wikipedia is that it is unreliable. This is for two reasons. 1) None of the articles are attributable to any person or persons, by name or otherwise¹, which means that there is no transparency about the people writing it. 2) The content can be changed whenever.

Wikipedia's main quality is that it allows someone to get started on the initial research into a subject; for getting an (potentially biased) overview before going onto deeper research. Wikipedia allows a path to deep research through  the sources section (usually situated near the bottom of the page) which points you to potentially relevant information for your research, which is sometimes representative, transparent, and therefore more reliable than Wikipedia itself. You should not, under any circumstances, cite Wikipedia as evidence for arguments, it indicates that you have not looked into the subject and are not willing to engage with academic or even non-academic, but representative, sources, such as news media etc, in your research. It is especially dubious if the majority, or only, things you cite in your research are Wikipedia articles. It is sloppy research and nothing else.

Youtube users are especially prone to this kind of sloppy research, they do it in order to create narratives that make them seem informed, when they are merely regurgitating wikipedia articles.

Footnotes 

1. This originally said "It is not attributed to a single person"