Jurist Canada Zombie

I happened by the Jurist Canada site today. It seems to be running on automatic pilot — kicking out news as the result of a fixed set of search terms — and falling weirdly out of date otherwise. I mean, you’ve got to love the first thing your eye falls on (assuming it goes to the upper right corner of a window, as mine usually does, as if on a print page), a snapshot of which you see to the right. Apparently Osgoode is looking for a new dean! Patrick Monahan will be interested in the position, no doubt, given that he’s held it for something like two-and-a-half years now, with a like term still to go. Automatic pilot puts today’s date right on top, just to show viewers that JC is au courant. Adding insult to injury, the link eventually leads to a York University 404, because, it seems, things have moved on there in the last few years.

Wrong or outdated information is worse than no information at all, despite what Lewis Carroll said about a stopped watch being better than a slow one because the former is right twice a day whereas the latter is only right once every…. well, you figure it out.

This is a real problem with the internet, because sites are, well, out of sight and, so, out of mind, like space junk. But left to moulder, they take up valuable space in the global intellect. Even worse when, like the Flying Dutchman, which would try to send messages to shore from time to time, they cruise on auto-pilot and create the semblance of a living vessel.