2017/03/02-12:00:00
good
Where the idea for truelies.news came from
!!Something is wrong.

Back in 1986, I was working for a company developing an integrated software development environment
using a novel concept called
!context oriented programming
. This was making software both easier to write
and easier to maintain. Today, you can find many of the ideas in the TLMP project
?www.solucorp.qc.ca/tlmp
The truelies.news site is written in TLMP by the way.

At that time, we did a press conference to announce our project: A solution to make software easier to write and maintain. Great.
We eventually made the prime-time news on TV. Exciting. The anchor said that we had invented a solution to modify software, which was until
now impossible to do!!!!

!Holy crap!
We never said that. Any programmer spend 99% of his time modifying software.

Of course, I knew that
!this news
on TV was rubbish. This was our project. We knew this stuff.

Then I thought: what about all the other news out there. What about other subjects. Is it all rubbish ?

!!Terribly wrong

Many years later (mid 90s), the government was pushing a reform of the health care system. Tons of people were
against it. The unions were clearly opposed.

From the outside, it was obvious. Governments were still trying the drive the economy the way they did back in the
50s and 60s. At that time, they were witnessing infinite growth. Most country had zero debt. But in the 70s, things
started to change and government everywhere started to borrow and borrow, hoping that the good old days come back.

And those days were not coming back.

So it was obvious that the health care reform was a way to cut cost with some shuffling around to make it
taste differently. And the unions were not fooled. Such is life in politic I guess.

Then I met a friend. She was a nurse, working in a hospital. We talked about this "so called" health care
reform and then she said:
!It's about time.

!Holy crap!
Like above. All the reports in the media were about cuts: expense cuts, staff cuts.
It turns out the
government was really trying something. The health care system of the 60s was created to make
sure everyone had access to some health care. The goal was to get rid of dangerous illness like
poliomyelitis and tuberculosis. It was a success. But now, the scope was changing. The population lives
longer and healthier. The system had to change.

Yet most of the news were way off.

!!The idea

In early 2017, I read a book called (it is French, translation is mine) "A small guide for intellectual self-defense" 
(You can find it here: 
?https://www.amazon.fr/Petit-dautod%C3%A9fense-intellectuelle-Normand-Baillargeon/dp/2895960445.
In the last section of the book, they cover the media and how one should be cautious when reading the news. They even
explain step by step what we should do every time we read a news article.

Clearly, I have seen the news system fails several time. But most of the time, it was near impossible for me to tell
the truth from the lies. So came the idea of crowdsourcing (sharing the load) the evaluation of the news out there.
In a time of
!fake news
, truelies.news might be a necessity.

The rest of this blog documents how it is done and the various ideas which popped up along the way.

Thanks for reading!