[bbrizzi]

Well, the Wikipedia article's history shows that she edited her own article quite a few times, so that doesn't seem to be the problem.

I don't see how the error detracted her in any way, and, as I highlighted it, it was a quick 2-minute fix.

I also don't think the Google algorithm is to blame. If her Wikipedia entry had followed the style guidelines ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biogr... ), her birth date would have been parsed correctly.

For the record, I didn't find her post funny or even particularly well-written.

I guess if there's something that can be taken from this article it's "Program or be Programmed". The author didn't understand the inner workings of the Google Factbox data, so she assumed computers control her identity and her online information. However, with a little more computer knowledge, you can figure out how to control this data yourself.

Humans control the computers; it's not the other way around.

[finnp]

The Google algorithm is to blame. This was probably the version, where the false data came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Wilentz&d.... There is no big mistake in the style, it's just that the birthday is missing.

The Google algorithm took the results from the middle of the text, even though the birthdates are always right behind the name. I guess they did something like take the first dates instead of just focusing on the part behind the name. This way the algorithm was more flexible but on the other hand as we see more likely to make mistakes.