RickMasters wrote:... I have concluded this "blog," which is not a blog, is only suitable for offering short opinions and quips, but nothing any longer of a serious nature.
I looked up "blog" on Wikipedia:
A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in chronological order (the most recent post appears first).
The word "log" (in "blog") implies a time ordered history of entries. That's the definition of this kind of log (as opposed to a dead tree trunk).
On the US Hawks, posts can be displayed in chronological order (most recent first or last) depending on the user's settings. Our "blogs" default to most recent last, but anyone can change that (on most topics, just change "Ascending" to "Descending" and press "Go").
RickMasters wrote:If they have said something inaccurate in recounting events, they may find they have actually rewritten history.
The fact that they recounted inaccurate information actually is history itself. It's history about what that person wrote on a public forum. If someone repeatedly misrepresents history, that's important for people to know.
I find it very unsettling to know that I can read something on a web page one day, and then go back a day later and find that it's either gone or been changed in obvious or subtle ways. Imagine if the books on your shelves could rewrite themselves based on what someone else wanted them to say ... today. Again, that brings George Orwell's 1984 to mind. Unfortunately, that's what much of the internet has become.
It's part of man's history that at one time we believed the earth was flat. And having discovered its "roundness" we put it at the center of the universe with the sun and stars revolving around it. That history of failed models actually helps our understanding of reality because it gives us a warning that even today's "modern science" must be taken with a grain of salt. My first aerodynamics book included some history of failures because that helps us put our successes in perspective. Seeing mistakes (with footnotes of later corrections) is an important gauge of truth. I think it belongs in any scientific work. Look at any great scientist's lab notebook and you will find mistakes. You will also find the "Aha" moments when those mistakes were discovered to be mistakes. There's nothing wrong with that, and it fits very well with a group of sincere people trying to figure out a better way to support the sport of hang gliding in the United States.