Word: blips
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...early in 2007, something strange happened: Wikipedia's growth line flattened. People suddenly became reluctant to create new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages. "When we first noticed it, we thought it was a blip," says Ed Chi, a computer scientist at California's Palo Alto Research Center whose lab has studied Wikipedia extensively. But Wikipedia peaked in March 2007 at about 820,000 contributors; the site hasn't seen as many editors since. "By the middle of 2009, we realized that this was a real phenomenon," says Chi. "It's no longer...
...Rolf, Dwight’s new best friend—it’s that they all feel like another way for the writers to stave off the inevitable. Sure, episodes like the absurd tour de force “Café Disco” are an occasional blip on the EEG, but they are growing less frequent. Whatever disease “The Office” has, it’s terminal. By all accounts, “The Office” should not have succeeded in the first place. Channel 4’s “Peep...
...asked Chu about the earth-is-cooling argument, he rolled his eyes and whipped out a chart showing that the 10 hottest years on record have all been in the past 12 years - and that 1998 was the hottest. He mocked the skeptics who focus on that post-1998 blip while ignoring a century-long trend of rising temperatures: "See? It's gone down! The earth must be cooling!" But then he got serious, almost plaintive: "You know, it's totally irresponsible. You're not supposed to make up the facts...
...Justin Theel's car dealership, a sprawling campus on Interstate 94, the Dodges may be gone - troubles at Chrysler know no state boundaries - but sales this year are still off by only about 20 vehicles. That's a blip that dealers elsewhere would kill for. "For the most part, we're a boring story," says Theel. "But sometimes that's good...
...Today, Tiananmen seems forgotten in mainland China, or else it is seen as a blip on the march to prosperity. In Macau, the annual remembrances are almost invisible events (only 70 people attended last year's gathering, which jointly commemorated Sichuan earthquake victims). Only in Hong Kong are the killings still openly observed and debated by large numbers - a tribute to its unique status as China's freest society, and a reminder of the widely held view that China can truly move forward only when the 1989 protesters have been rehabilitated. "We have been China's conscience," said journalist Ching...