November 2006 - Posts
From: A helpful reader
Subject: Clicked - EMERGENCY!!!
OMG, Will!!! "Speaking of cheating, the cheat code wiki allows gamers to share tricks for cheating at video games." They had a total meltdown and the site is now filled with ultra sicko freaky porn - argh! I'm sure glad that I didn't give the link to my 11 year old!!! Definitely NSFW (or for non-mind-twisted-freaks either). Sheesh - please, someone, give me a brain scrubby!!!!
Will replies: By the time I checked the page in question it was already restored to decency. But it's a good lesson in what I add "NOTE"s to. A wiki is a site that anyone can post anything to. Their success is based on everyone pitching in and contributing what they know. The bad part is that anyone can also post junk too. Vandals can post porn or slurs, activists can post propaganda, idiots (and well meaning people who are wrong) can post falsehoods, etc.
The good news is that one of the features of a wiki is that it records its history as its updated. This means you're also able to restore it to any point in its history. Usually we see a locking feature enabled by administrators after a page is restored to keep vandals at bay until their attention turns elsewhere though that doesn't appear to be the case presently.
So one lesson is that if you see a seriously messed up wiki you can probably come back later and it'll be fixed (assuming you aren't able to fix it yourself). The lesson I'm taking is to make sure that when I link to a wiki I point out that the content of a wiki can change to anything at the drop of a hat. As soon as I post this I'll add that note to my earlier entry.
FakeYourSpace will help you look more popular on MySpace with fake hot friends. You actually subscribe to them on a monthly basis and they leave comments on your profile. It's kind of weird to see a page full of people with "add to my cart" buttons. UPDATE: Sheesh, what's the deal with links dropping dead lately? This one no longer goes where it's supposed to. It still shows up in Google, so you can check it out in the Google cache.
Speaking of cheating, the cheat code wiki allows gamers to share tricks for cheating at video games. NOTE: Because of the nature of wikis, anyone can post anything to it, which means there's a chance something objectionable could end up on one, if only for a short time. This particular one was vandalized for a bit but appears to be restored.
Speaking of breaking the rules, Anger at YouTube videos that show how to break into houses - I love how the article talks about an "investigation" and in the next paragraph reveals that the investigation was typing "lock picking" into the search box. While I agree that there is a lot of lock picking info online, my understanding is that among hacker types lock picking is a sort of hobby. Also, I'm not ready to buy into the argument that people who aren't committing crimes will suddenly do so when the Internet shows them how. (I agree with this guy, not this guy.)
Paraguay man crucified in public - He did it as a form of protest. His colleagues drove nails through his palms and everything. I don't know why, but I can easily imagine this catching on.
Real life crashes into Second Life's digital idyll - How the recent CopyBot problem in Second Life changed the political philosophy of its inhabitants. (What the heck is the CopyBot problem?) Among the many things that are interesting about Second Life is that it's a society begun from scratch, so other than the fact that the people who run it need to be able to afford to do so, they had a blank slate in terms of the rules and governance.
Speaking of living in a computer world, "The simulation argument puts forward the view that we are almost definitely living in a computer simulation."
Forbes describes DailyMotion.com as YouTube without the copyright inhibitions. The article links to one site in particular, Quicksilverscreen.com, that has a remarkable number of TV and movie bootlegs all hosted on Daily Motion. Do NOTE: Though I don't see a lot of porn on Daily Motion, it did take me only two clicks to find an image of a topless woman among the thumbnails.
Speaking of getting movies and TV online, I'm having trouble reconciling these two items:
- BitTorrent Strikes Digital Download Deals with 20th Century Fox, G4, Kadokawa, Lionsgate, MTV Networks, Palm Pictures, Paramount and Starz Media
- Why BitTorrent Inc. is no sure bet!
It's surely a big deal in terms of propagation of the technology that these major media outlets are going to offer their stuff through BitTorrent, but there's no denying the points made in the second item about unusual nature of BitTorrent and the likelihood that most users will find it discouraging.
The cactus building makes me a little annoyed that most of us are still living in boxes stacked on boxes. If I can't have a rocket car, can't I at least have a weird shaped living space? (Though not necessarily one that looks like a giant cheese grater.)
Whiteboard music - Fun stuff at this site. Brief history of pop music
Vote for the 2006 Word of the Year - My cube-mate colleague thinks "sectarian" is a hot '06 word. I'm wondering if "mashup" will make it into the dictionary this year. Looking at last year's list, what made "insipid" rise to number 5?
9 to 5 paintings - Tracks the movement of your mouse all day. If you click all the way through to the instructions it's a pretty easy do-it-yourself trick.
Most unintentionally funny headline I've seen in a while: Data Can Now Be Stored on Paper - Um, yeah, using a stylus-like device called a pencil, you can put data on this so-called paper and it remains there for your visual retrieval for decades or more. Data may also be erased and replaced with new data. By the way, not everyone is inclined to give the actual story much credence.
The conical glass is not really a fraud because you pay for a certain quantity of liquid, not for a full glass. Would the accuser be more pleased with the glasses if they were smaller and filled to the brim? A fraud is when you pay for a pint of beer (16 oz. in the U.S.) and it's served in a 12 or 14 ounce pint-shaped glass with an unusually thick bottom. Or when they pour Fleischmann's vodka into the Absolut bottle.
Asteroids revenge - It's like the old Asteroids game but you're the asteroid in a field of ships. Strangely satisfying.
Did you see Ronaldinho's bicycle kick goal? The closer replays are at 1:19 in the clip.
The Stokke gravity chair is on a lot of wish lists this year. Be sure to check out the demo on the second page.
I guess people at sea have a lot of time for thinking.
***Notice that I've added a few links to yesterday's Christmas tradition entry.
I caught the Charlie Brown Christmas show last night and remembered that Linus is the original Lisa Simpson (unless there's an original Linus I'm not thinking of). The fact that the issue of over-commercialization of Christmas hasn't changed since the 70s 60s is a little depressing. It also made me think of seasonal traditions that are beginning to shape up online:
- Speaking of Charlie Brown Christmas, the Hey Ya mashup is back in circulation this year.
- How old is this snowball throwing game, Snowcraft? Since before 2000 I think. (Thanks also to Maureen for the reminder.)
- Remember this guy with his interactive Christmas lights display? "Use the christmas webcams to view live images of 15,000 christmas lights and also CONTROL them."
- And how soon before we see the Christmas lights set to music back in the viral circuit?
- For some reason I remember the snowflake maker having a bigger interface, but this one I plucked from Gael is for a good cause.
- The yellow snow writer is in questionable taste, but also part of the season's panoply. This is probably a more acceptable way to write your name in the snow.
- Have you clicked any that I'm leaving out?
And speaking of online Christmas traditions, I wonder if this will be a lasting event: "You won't need to be in New York this year to attend NBC Universal's annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center." They're also doing a virtual lighting in Second Life.
I can't get the virtual tree to work, but maybe it's not on yet. (UPDATE: Hmmm... I wonder what that registration link is about. Do you have to register for the lighting or is that just regular Second Life registration?) I'm going to be otherwise engaged when this event happens, but if anyone attends, let me know what it's like.
UPDATE: This is beginning to turn into a winter-themed links list rather than Christmas tradition links list, but that's OK. In addition to what's been added in comments, here are a few others:
Kathy wrote in to request Elf Bowling. I only find this as a download, but it's very small and didn't set off any alarms on my computer so I think it's benign.
Line Rider has a winter theme, so let's put it on the list of link that could become traditional winter links. Note that this link is sort of a bootleg of the original. The menu on the left lets you play this one (with a few extra features) or the original.
Speaking of winter themes, Yeti sports games are probably the ultimate in free viral snowy games. The site now requires registration, but the "quick registration" is genuinely quick and you can play all of them online so there are no odd downloads.
How about this for a Christmas click: The Nutcracker Suite played exclusively on bicycle parts.
Jennifer sends the larger version of the snowflake maker that I remembered.
(I don't know why some of the links lately aren't showing up as clickable. I'm going to make linked text bold until we figure out what's going on.)
In case you were wondering why they've been locked up, the
MSNBC.com message boards are being repaired and should be back later this afternoon.
Alternate title for today's entry: Hold your Wii
It blows my mind that so many people are accidentally throwing their Wii controllers that there's an actual Web site devoted to the results. Very gross that the stories often involve "hands so sweaty that..." Ick.
Speaking of cutting edge controllers, "SpaceNavigator puts the fun back into 3D navigation." This makes tons of intuitive sense. It's like a little steering wheel.
Speaking of giving computers directions, BoingBoing relays news of a sensor system that allows a computer to recognize small vibrations. The pitch is that it can turn anything into a touch-tablet, but the quote at the end is what caught my eye: "We have made a system that can give any object, even a 3D one, a sense of touch." Recognizing small vibrations = sense of touch. Find Sarah Connor.
CIA seeks "Web generation"
Bees Trained to Sniff Out Bombs
I couldn't claim to report on the buzz online without mentioning the rash of pantiless Britney photos spreading around the Web. Basically, she gets out of a low car with a short skirt and I can't link to the result here. ABCNews has an article on the "accidental" flash as publicity tactic. I don't know if it's really a trend. Surely there have always been women who seek attention through inappropriate means.
"MTV’s Music and Logo Group is now developing at least 20 'hyper-programmed experiences,' which translate into narrow online channels, set to debut during the first half of next year." In this context, Mtv's television programming actually makes more sense. All those reality shows and pimp shows and crib shows... they're really Web sites shoe-horned into TV format.
Why Isn’t Internet Access Free For Travelers? I have to think that the real reason is that historically, the people who use wifi while traveling are business people who are able to expense the cost. That's the only time I've ever paid for it.
Presto: Because Computers Scare Old People - It's a printer that automatically prints what's sent to it, which I guess makes it a fax machine.
We'll know the Web 2.0 bubble has burst when Google stock crashes.
Measuring The Speed of Meme - I'm not sure this is going to work but I'll play along. He wants to see how long it takes for the link to spread around the Web. "A script I've written will track this meme (via Technorati) across the internet in 10 minute intervals."
Reinventing the nail - Part of Popular Science's Best of What's New 2006 series.
Warbloggers have picked up on the unusually frequent citations of "Capt. Jamil Hussein" in news reports from Iraq.
"It’s a gun that shoots law rather than bullets." The law he's talking about is a takedown notice when someone steals your creations in the Second Life video game. It's only the idea stage, and might seem a little specific to the game, but consider how much people get away with online because it's to tedious to go after every little offender of a law. An automation system could change the online environment pretty quickly.
I like to think of how the Internet will change the social sensibilities of future generations. Usually I consider the question in terms of how privacy will be defined. Michael Kinsley argues that the Web has fostered a new immodesty and solipsism.
It feels like there are a few video loops or neat edits in this video. Could anyone really spin on their head this many times?
Om Malik describes the essential philosophy behind Clicked and gives it a name: "Fat Belly." With so much online, aggregators that show "most linked," "most shared," "most viewed," etc., pages are the only way for the average person to keep a handle on what's happening online. Note the Bear Stearns report he mentions. "We believe value in the entertainment supply chain will shift from the creators of content to the aggregators/packagers of content."
Overlaid images of an airport runway
Aston Martin Evangelism - This post is a little hard to read because it's such a sales pitch, but then, that's probably why the company was so responsive and gave him a car to drive for a day. For the record, anyone at Confederate who wants to make this blogger really happy can reach me through the address on the left.
You might be a geek if... Face-mounted Lucid Dreaming Mask - I think the idea is that when it senses you're in REM sleep it flashes lights to make you aware of your state without actually waking you up.
I took the baby for a routine Dr. check-up this morning and while out in the city I saw Edie Falco and Christie Turlington (separately). No links, just wanted to share that since it's standard practice to tell people when you see a famous person on the street even though it's pretty useless information to share.
While I catch up on the day I'm listening to track six and seven in the player on the Lily Allen site, as recommended by the one-cool-thing-a-day Very Short List.
Italian newspaper
La Repubblica has better video with more natural sound of the Berlusconi
collapse at the podium while giving a speech. I don't quite understand the applause. I guess they were cheering the guys who came to help?
Today's entry is a bit of a hodge podge, but rather than let these links go stale over the holiday I figured I'd clear my notes and share them and start fresh with the new week.
Tofurkey disguise kit
A sisterwife in a polygamist marriage answers the questions you most wonder. So no, it's not a non-stop bisexual orgy.
The Amazon's Giant Carnivorous Centipedes - video at the end of the article.
The most comprehensive list I've seen of the recent spate of female teachers having sex with male students. What's the word again? Ephebophilia? Most of them are apparently ephebopheliacs.
I had to laugh to see this Melissa Theuriau compilation video at the top of the Digg list the other day because I confess I watched it earlier in the week as it rose up the YouTube ranks. They're calling her the most beautiful news reporter in the world, and it's pretty remarkable how easy it is to watch this woman report the news in a language I don't understand.
Continuing the theme of Iraqi kids and the U.S. military, the guy in this video claims to want to kill Iraqi kids for throwing rocks at his truck. Given the latest polling info, he might end up doing more killing than he'd like. (I assume he doesn't actually like killing and is just venting on the video.)
Trivia question: What game has been replaced in this World of Warcraft commercial? UPDATE: Christine got it right in the comments. If you don't want the answer, beware of her spoiler.
Here's that story I mentioned of the Modern Day Robin Hoods causing a riot by throwing real money in the air in Washington Square Park.
Post-it stop motion animation from France. Or actually, maybe Argentina.
Flickr's new camera finder lets you see which cameras are most popular with Flickr users and also what photos from those cameras look like. I'm not sure how useful this would be in shopping for a camera but it could at least help confirm the photo quality of whatever is on your wish list. I'd like to see this extended to lenses.
Before Rex became a colleague here at MSNBC.com, I knew him as the guy who compiles that massively comprehensive collection of year-end lists. He's already started on this year's collection. I spent a while at this Best Photojournalism of 2006 site.
How to build a PC - In some respects this is like reading a one of those motorcycle magazines. You'll probably never build a chopper, but it's fun to see it done. I've just replaced some RAM in my laptop, so I'm feeling especially techy right now, so entertaining the idea of constructing a computer is not too much of a stretch.
Ski-Gliding the Eiger - Whoa. The guy's actually touching as he goes down the mountain. I have to think this requires very specific weather conditions.
Though there's some skepticism in the comment list, this video is ostensibly showing a young girl with a brain injury that has left her autistic-like and thus enabled her to play a game that looks like Defender just dodging everything and not firing a shot. I'm not sure I go for the "good things come from bad things" moral. Good video games skills is hardly a fair trade-off for brain damage. I would be open to a moral about winning without shooting, however.
Questions surround fatal shooting of woman, 92 - This story has greater resonance in the blogosphere than it did in mainstream media because there is a large online contingent of Libertarians for whom no-knock raids are a special concern. It's not too hard to understand that if you already think the government is overstepping in telling you what drugs you can do, it's going to seem particularly outrageous if the government then bashes in your door without warning because they think you're involved with those drugs. And to pile on further outrage, when you exercise your right use your gun to defend yourself in your own house from an abrupt invasion, you're prosecuted for doing so, or worse, killed. And in this story, add that the person killed by police is a 92-year-old woman who from all appearances was totally innocent... well, I mean really.
Radley Balko is among the most prominent online critics of this no-knock tactic.
The rope burning logic puzzle that has online brows furrowed. The puzzle is from this longer list. UPDATE: For what it's worth, reader Isaac submitted a solution that is not identical to the one on the original site. So there's arguably more than one possible answer here. (Although Isaac did go a little out of the bounds of the riddle's description, but we can fight about that later when more people have had a chance.)
What's the deal with selling PS3s online with a half naked girl? One of the weirdest online trends in recent memory. UPDATE: Sorry, I had to remove this link. I don't know how I missed that this was a porn blog. John in the comments warned that the ads were NSFW and I didn't recall even seeing any. When I checked I also visited the site's home age and that's a bit more than I can link to from here. The blog is called Fist of an Angry God and the post was called "Slutty-bay Playstation 3" but you'll have to find the link yourself.
Top ten girl geeks - More role model than sexy. Daryl Hannah is an odd entry, but I think number 10 should be excluded on principle.
The Spam Farms of the Social Web - This explains in pretty clear terms why there is such a thing as blog spam and also shows how social networks are exploited to gain traffic for spam sites.
"The award winning Canadian documentary ‘The Corporation’ has been released on BitTorrent for free."
Passive Cooling - Ways to cool without electricity.
If you're here now because you're fleeing or escaping, you may find some comfort in
Ze Frank's Thanksgiving advice.
It's been a while since I featured some mailbag gems. Here they are with slight editing:
Will,
The opening post here is a sad commentary on the state of a lot of things.
-Denny
Will replies: Is that a serious post? I have to say, I'm facing the possibility of a new TV for Christmas and I'm exhausted by the amount of research involved to catch up on what's out there.
Hey Will,
I am a big gamer and as a gamer I have been anticipating the arrival of the PS3, but I am somewhat reluctant now due to this article. That is why I am very much looking forward to getting in on this action at Amazon. It is only the core system (which means no wireless controllers or HD readiness), but you can't beat a deal like that.
There was one more site that I wanted to make sure you would see. This is an awesome charity site. I want to build up a photography site just so I can donate. Well, I hope I let you in on something that you did not see already. Keep up the good work.
-Kevin R.
Binary explosive appears to be real
-Paul
Will replies: This makes plane security seem that much more ridiculous. I don't know how exotic these ingredients are, but I can't think of how any security could effectively screen for this stuff.
Do you have any information on cyber Monday? Are there any websites that track specials?
-Karin
Will replies: I don't have any right now, but with your query posted here maybe someone will write in.
Will,
I couldn't say for sure what the fluid in the video is, but a great homemade example of a non-Newtonian fluid is cornstarch mixed with water, until it's a goo. Poke it and it's solid; rest your hand on top, and it get sucked in.
Endless hours of entertainment!
-Jen
Will replies: Jen's letter is typical of a pile of mails that came in on this subject. Apparently I'm the only one whose science class never played with this or whose grandmother never made little balls of it and tricked us into thinking we could hold them. What I still don't understand is why it's not more popular in pop culture. Why aren't there "walk on water" vats of this stuff at Spring Break parties? I would love to try to walk across a pool of liquid. I wonder if it's especially dangerous if people fall in over their heads and struggle to get out.
The opposite of Black Friday is Buy Nothing Day. Link to Buy Nothing Day.
-Jan
Will replies: Not only will I link to Buy Nothing Day, but I'll add one for Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.
That weird robot movie - Okay seriously... how??? why??? and how long did that take?????
-s.p.
Will replies: And what does he put on the toast? To answer your how question, I have two answers other than the obvious stop-action answer. One is that it could have been shot with digital video and had frames removed in post production. Some editing software may make that easier than splicing the whole thing together shot by shot. The other thing it reminds me of is this piece we had on MSNBC.com the other day. It looks like the guy used his camera's burst mode and then put every shot into a moviemaker program.
Dunno about that list, but here's a list of my own.
- Just because someone wrote something on a website doesn't make it universally true. In any event, truth is subjective and ephemeral. Facts are forever.
- People will believe any damned thing at any damned time, for no damned reason.
- Emotional people always think reason and logic involve making decisions in an emotional vacuum. Ridiculous.
- Who buys cars or houses because of the way they make one feel? Well, not me. Especially with the car. For both purchases, I made lists of factors for inclusion and exclusion, and then found the best match for the list. None of the factors was "makes me feel good."
- Lists needn't necessarily contain 10 items.
- "Strong emotions are a source of strength and power. The stronger your emotions and the better your ability to focus your emotion, the more creative and powerful you are." And, oftentimes, the greater your ability to deny the obvious. "Denying your emotions creates weakness and vulnerability." Hey, if believing that gets him through the day.... This has the same ring of truth as a statement once made to me by a smocked Wal-Mart employee, who assumed that because I was in jeans and a T-shirt that I wasn't college-educated: "Those college-educated people don't have any common sense." Well, maybe not, Bertha, but my wife and I draw down a nice six figures a year and you're making minimum wage and wearing a smock. Rather be me than you, sister.
- "All the Personal Development gurus I’ve seen are clean cut, positive thinking, deeply spiritual, entrepreneurs awash in wealth." Sure. 'Cause left-wing hippies keep giving them good money for nothing. Duh. If it's "self-help," why do you need someone else to do it with you?
- No, really, lists needn't necessarily contain 10 items.
-jbm!
Will supplies: Here's the link jbm is making fun of above.
Heya, Will!
The clause Dave Winer quoted in his response to MS about not using the logo on any site that "disparages," etc. is standard boilerplate that's been around for a very long time. Check out Paragraph #7 in the terms of use for putting the little "Get IE 7" buttons one sees all over the web.
I've been doing webpages for years, and I thought I recognized the paragraph from long ago... like IE 3... and sure enough, it's still there.
Apple has an equivalent provision as Paragraph #5 of its agreement for the "Get Quicktime" web badge, and it's a safe bet that its boilerplate that appears in its ITune logo licensing agreement, too, although I haven't seen that document.
The suits in Legal at both companies had to pass the same bar exams. So, using these standard contract clauses to spin either Microsoft or Apple as more Electronic-Frontier-Friendly than the other is just plain bogus. I have a personal opinion as to which one probably is, based solely on a guess, since there's been no real evidence presented in this little tempest in a teaspoon.
-J-M +
How to fix shows like ‘Lost.’ I hadn't really thought of Lost as being in need of fixing, but I can see how these shows with no end are a problem as they drag on and on. I think spin-offs are a good solution. Maybe instead of simultaneous story lines, run them as separate shows.
Perhaps the writer of the article already knew this, but Japanese television has been successfully using this formula since the 80's. In Japan, dramas rarely come back for a second season, and if they do, it is usually with a different story line. Each season comprises about 13 to 26 episodes with a running storyline that completes at the end of the season. Popular shows will usually have an epilogue episode at the tail of the series.
The formula is more similar to Fox's 24 than Lost. Jack Bauer wins at the end of each season.
Viewers are going to get pretty tired of shows like Lost, Prison Break, and The Nine (even the Sopranos) when they are denied any type of resolution. I suppose Greed won't allow a network to let a good show end, they need to squeeze every last dime out of the concept. A shame, really.
[Link]
[Link]
Hey Will. I really enjoy your reading blog. It's great. I just wanted to send you a link to a short documentary I made...I think you'll like it. It's called Are You Anybody's Favorite Person? If so, maybe you could mention it on your site. Thanks for you time.
-Shawn Nee
Hey Will,
I'll make it quick since you get a ton of links. Found one where 2 guys are hitchhiking all 50 state capitals in 50 days and updating using their blog and Google Maps. Here's a link if you are interested. Kinda neat stuff.
Thanks,
Dave, GIS SITES
Will replies: Hi Dave, cool site you have. I love map blogs. I saw those hitch hiking guys on TV the other day. Their official site is here. I'll be interested to see how the heck they're going to hitch a ride to Hawaii.
Will,
I thought I’d send you a link to a couple more cover songs. These were created by C. elegans (soil worm) biologists Dr. Morris Maduro and Dr. Curtis Loer and were presented at the 2005 International C. elegans Meeting at UCLA. In the past four years, five C. elegans biologists have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, including two this year. The contributions of this nematode to health and medicine have been severely overlooked by the general public, which might stem from the fact that worm biologist don’t get out of the lab enough. These videos might demonstrate the point.
[Link]
[Link]
-Dustin
Will replies: Wow, that is some deep nerdery. I would almost think the videos are too esoteric for Clicked, but I happen to know from the response to some cell animation I posted a while ago that Clicked had a substantial life science buff readership.
Hey Will,
More from the Book of Job.
-Ed.
Re: your statement about the Andrew Sullivan link to the Republican ad showing a darker-skinned hand over a lighter-skinned face. You wrote: “I'd say that it's showing the PC interests of dark skinned minorities silencing the voice of the white majority.”
Fine – then why didn’t they have a female hand covering the white female face? The hand in the ad is fairly obviously male. Not to mention the wide-open, some might say startled and fearful, eyes?
Or, maybe taking this in isolation, I might concede your point. But taken in conjunction with the Harold Ford/Playboy ad, or Willie Horton (in other words, the real world, not an academic exercise), I can’t quite imagine an innocent interpretation of the hand-over-the-face ad.
By the way, since the term “PC” was always meant to be pejorative, why do you label the interests of “dark skinned minorities” as “PC” rather than as simply, say, “interests?” Why are the interests of minorities bad, and the “voice” of the majority good? Or, is that what you say the Republicans are saying?
Anyway, thanks in general for the very interesting blog you do.
- DBM
Will replies: The link in question is this one. Your point about the context is well taken. I was indeed talking about viewing the image in isolation, but of course in the middle of an election campaign that misses the point. My interpretation sentence was meant to be a channeling of the person who made the image, but still, I'm not sure I agree that PC is always pejorative. It's true that it's often said with a sneer, but I'm pretty sure its origins are sincere.
Other notes:
Someone sent me a link to the oldie but goodie George Lucas in Love. If you haven't seen it, it's a fun viewing.
I finally got around to checking out a reader's new blog called The Daily Geek. He's got a great story there about accusations that the tobacco industry has redirected its marketing efforts to kids through YouTube. I believe it. You'll have a hard time convincing me that this isn't an ad.
Highlights from press releases:
Hi Will,
I wanted to let you know the 2006 Best of the Blogs ended Saturday night. For the first time, an English Weblog won the jury's award for best overall Weblog with the award going to the Sunlight Foundation.
PaidContent.org convinced the jury for best English Weblog honors and in an online vote, Black Looks won the best English Weblog user prize.
MediaShift's Mark Glaser and BlogHer's Lisa Stone were the two English-language judges for the contest's third year.
All the other winners and info can be found at: TheBoBs.com.
Best,
Sean
I've been getting a few notes from the folks at Go Fish, which is a video sharing service. While there I clicked this little documentary on the hand painted Dewar's ads. I'm not a fan of the ads, but this, which I assume was produced by the Dewar's people, almost had me convinced they're cool.
I also clicked this Modern Day Robin Hood video. Somewhere in my notes I have a link to a story about these guys causing a riot. They walk around New York City passing out real money. They're not looking for poor people though, they're just throwing it in the air or passing it out to random people. I'm wondering if we'll see some larger goal revealed eventually.
I got a press release from NPR announcing a new news quiz from the "Wait! Wait! Don't tell me!" show.
ZapTXT is a new site that lets you enter a watch word and be notified when that word comes up in blogs or news sites. I think Google News has something like this, but this is the only site I can think of with this breadth of offerings.
I also heard from the folks at HitTail.com. It's a free service that shows what search terms are driving traffic to your blog so you can write more about those terms. I'm not a fan of using traffic as a primary motivation for blogging, but it's still an interesting idea.
What Makes a Muslim Radical? Based on (surprising) Gallup Poll research. (The graphs are animated, so the pages load really slowly.) I wish they'd included some results that show great divergence so we could get a good understanding of the difference between moderates and radicals. Their similarities are interesting but their differences would help clarify how each group is defined.
Gallup's data doesn't really support Kevin Drum's claim that, "The worse the violence, the worse the Iraqi theocracy that eventually takes root in its wake is likely to be." But Drum's overall point that the violence in Iraq has not reached a worst case scenario is well noted.
Speaking of how things are going in Iraq, this video of U.S. soldiers teasing kids with a bottle of water have some people outraged. I admit that my first reaction was that the soldiers were being cruel. But from what I've seen, U.S. soldiers are popular with the kids in Iraq and do a lot with them. The way the soldier keeps asking his friend if he's getting it on film makes me think they're trying to show how all the kids follow them around. You can draw your own conclusions. I'm just saying you don't have to necessarily jump to the conclusion that U.S. troops are all sadists. NOTE: Be careful if you go clicking around the Iraq videos. Obviously there's more going on there than passing out water bottles and kicking soccer balls.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut - This is more than a director's cut that's only slightly different from the original. Apparently it's like a whole different movie with half of it being new footage. In general I find it annoying when DVDs are advertised as having never-before-seen scenes when I paid 10 bucks to see all the scenes in the movie theater, but this sounds like an interesting project.
Speaking of new movie sequels, here's the site for the new Harry Potter. For some reason I don't see a link to the trailer on there so here's a direct link. Or here. I think the kids have aged really well. In fact, they look more appropriate to the story than I pictured in my head when I read the book (I'm not really good with kids' ages).
Teach yourself C++ in 21 days. The part I looked for first: "You don't need any previous experience in programming to learn C++ with this book." We'll see about that.
"Ephebophilia: it's today's word, and it matters" It's the word for attraction to teens. Apparently there's a debate in the UK about whether the word pedophile is too widely applied when it should strictly refer to the pre-pubescent. It turns into a bit of discussion of the seeming randomness of the age of consent.
The 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments - Well... they're certainly embarrassing moments. I'm not sure they're the MOST, and number 9 is really a TV moment. I think the "double the killer" voice recognition software malfunction could rank on this list. And what about the guy who joked with Bill Gates about Microsoft software crashing? What others are there?
Britney Spears May Just “Give Away” Sex Tape - Of course the link is to a gossip blog, but taken in the hypothetical, if someone is threatening you with a sex tape, threatening to make it unprofitable for them is probably the best reply. Of course, the joke is on both of them because if there was a real sex tape it would be all over the Web (for free) so fast they wouldn't have time to blush.
"The No-Contact Jacket is a wearable defensive jacket created to aid women in their struggle for protection from violence. When activated by the wearer, 80,000 volts of low amperage electric current pulses just below the surface shell of the entire jacket." When will I be able to buy some No-Contact tentacles?
Ostankino Tower Above the Clouds - I recall seeing a similar perspective of the Twin Towers once.
Egypt arrests another blog critic. Meanwhile, at the opposite pole, Calif. court says bloggers can't be sued.
This friction-less floating mouse looks cool but I'm thinking it'd make a better table hockey puck than a mouse. Unless the float force is so powerful that you can rest your hand on it and not push it to the table, won't you ultimately end up dragging it? How do you click a floating mouse? I'll have to wait and see if Gary gets one of these to review so I can see how it works. UPDATE: OK, April Fools remnant. I lose.
Why the heck are all these Martin Luther King pages floating around the Web? It turns out it's part of a Googlebombing campaign. Apparently some bloggers are upset that a King-bashing site is appearing too high in the Google search results. Their solution is to link to other pages to boost their page rank and push down the offending site. To do so their sharing a paragraph of code that makes a set of links that looks like this:
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Wow, what's happening in the Episcopal Church? I clicked this letter that sounds like one bishop is threatening to kick another out of the church. I clicked this article, hoping to learn what the point of debate was but I'm a little too clueless for even that. Thankfully, this one made the picture clear it seems it does boil down to their earlier decisions about including gay people, though the language of the debate is about following Christ versus following broader doctrines of social justice and world peace. I welcome anyone's better explanation.
Speaking of world peace, some people are recommending that a global collective orgasm on the solstice will "effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy."
CBS poll indicates people who download shows sample more TV, not less, and become fans of more series. I'm not sure about watching more TV, though I guess if there was buzz about something I didn't watch, I'd try to find it online. I can say that I missed episode 3 of this season's The Wire and I've had the rest of the season just sitting in my DVR queue. This weekend I tried to download it with BitTorrent but couldn't make it all work. Finally out of curiosity I tried Google video. Sure enough, the whole episode was there. I already subscribe to HBO, so arguably I wasn't stealing the episode, but I would say that HBO is better off for my having found that episode elsewhere so I can catch up on the series and watch more of their channel.
Commuter Click: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more? This is the latest from Sy Hersh that everyone's talking about that has him going on all the talk shows lately.
"PlateWire is a public repository and electronic forum of drivers by drivers. Using a drivers' license plate, commuters can communicate their thoughts and feelings in regards to driving on today's roadways." Basically you can post a message to someone you saw on the road using their license plate number. I always thought it would be cool if cars came with special phones so you could call another car using the plate number as a phone number.
Remember the guy who sang the Bank of America song to the tune of U2's "One"? I read in the Times that music blog StereoGum had received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer for the Universal Music Publishing Group. I headed over there to read it and watched the hysterical performance of David Cross singing the song with the new bank lyrics. (Clearer audio at this different event [and did you know Comedy Central had an in-house blog?] )
And I learned that the guy's name is Ethan Chandler and you can hear some of his original songs on his site. I never did find the lawyer's letter.
It's all fun and games until you throw your video game controller through the TV screen.
"He'd been obsessed by Digg.com, a news site in which the community submits stories and votes the best to the top of the page." Jason Calcanis wasn't the only one. A lot of people look at Digg as the model of the future. It's fair to say that Calcalis put significant effort into making the model work at Netscape, so to see its lack of success (qualified or unqualified) is a pretty significant shot of reality.
The story on the top of the home page right now about Kramer (Michael Richards) shouting the "n" word at a comedy club refers to a video at TMZ.com. The TMZ story is here and the link to the video is here. UPDATE: Ben found it on YouTube here, way better version. Thanks Ben. It's actually worse that the story makes it sound. I don't know if he comes across as racist so much as totally off the deep end. (Clarifying: To be clear, he does sound racist, but this blow up makes it look like he has more issues than just that.)
NOTE: TMZ.com has made the horrible mistake or partnering with AOL video. The quality is crap and I had to wrestle with error messages for ten minutes before I finally go the video to play. There are closed captions on the clip, but they're barely readable. If anyone knows a better version of this video I'll replace the link.
CLOSURE: For the sake of wrapping up this story, you can see his even more painful follow-up on Letterman on the CBS site here. For some reason they don't offer a direct link to the video. There are clips floating around YouTube, but I've seen a few of them with the red "this has been removed" notices, so they may not be reliable. (Hey CBS, if you're going to keep it off YouTube, give us a real permalink.)
As the rewards of a well executed online operation become common knowledge, there is less need for the Internet's A-list individuals to deliver the word of the Web and personify the participatory journalism movement. Since CNN threw a big blogger party on election night I've been thinking about how the media world has been sorting out the message from the messengers when it comes to bloggers and online trends generally. Putting a bunch of bloggers in a coffee house and interviewing them while they blog pretty much misses the point of what makes blogging special (even if it is a lot of fun for the bloggers involved). I think most media outlets are beyond that kind of thinking.
Nick Carr brought the subject to mind again when he pointed out that in the latest Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, mainstream media outlets are increasing their share of link traffic. It used to be that more bloggers would link to Instapundit linking to the Washington Post than to the Washington Post itself, so celebrated was the messenger.
I saw the message/messenger theme again last night while reading the internal Gawker Media memo about the firing of Valleywag writer Nick Douglas, "But anytime a writer settles in too closely with the subjects he/she’s writing about, there comes the inevitable tradeoffs: favor trading, and an elevated sense of one’s own importance to the field at hand."
And this morning Om Malik's remarks on the turnover at AOL and Fox Interactive brought to mind the decreasing value of the Internet messenger: "It seems to me that the old media companies are putting old media guys in charge of their new media empires."
I'm still waiting for this theme to gel in my brain, but I think I'm finally getting a sense of what the mediascape looks like when "Bloggers vs. Journalists" is truly over.
Then there's this: "Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fuelling a "crisis" in the relationship between politicians and voters." This is similar to what G.H.W. Bush said the other day about bloggers and the political environment. I'm still on the fence about whether this means there will be a backlash against bloggers or the next generation will simply learn not to take bloggers so seriously.
Though I admittedly don't pay very close attention, I didn't realize Lindsay Lohan is such a wise ass. My impression of her is decidedly improved as a result.
Speaking of magazine interview excerpts, Sacha Baron Cohen is interviewed as himself in the new Rolling Stone. Have I not been paying attention or does it seem like this magazine is more relevant lately than it's been in years?
As long as we're reading magazines, Megnut rounds up Turkey cooking tips from magazines.
"Humans possess a tiny, shiny crystal of magnetite in the ethmoid bone, located between your eyes, just behind the nose." The theory is that we have a built-in compass. Sense of direction is not the same as sense of north, so I'm not sure I buy the whole thing.
Zune ad spoofs - Ironically, this is probably the best PR news I've seen for Zune this week.
Is life necessary to the definition of animal? If, for example, it's illegal to have sex with an animal, is it also illegal to have sex with a dead animal? This guy hopes not. This defense is officially more humiliating than the Borat frat guy's "I was too drunk to contain my own racism" defense.
Flying Alarm Clock - How Harry Potter is this? The alarm goes off, the propeller spins and you have to wake up and get of bed to chase the thing down and shut it off.
Speaking of flying robots, "Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday."
Effects of troop numbers in Iraq - Even if you're only mildly interested, try to read past the first chart to see how the statistics are being explored, it's pretty interesting.
SiteMaps Explained - This is my favorite kind of link. I saw all the hype about the major portals agreeing on a site map standard. I sort of gathered that it has implications for search engines but really, I didn't understand what made it such big news. Thanks Global Nerdy for the explanation.
"Microsoft could save 45 million tons of CO2 emissions with a few lines of computer code." Their suggestion is to install "deep hibernation" on all MS machines so that when they sit idle overnight they use less energy.
Jedi Knights demand Britain's fourth largest 'religion' receives recognition Also, UN rejects Jedi Knights' plea for recognition -this one has a video link to the UN press conference. The whole thing is funny except when you watch the press conference and see it paired with news updates about Darfur.
"If the experiment works, a signal could be received before it's sent" This is an interesting article, but if time travel exists, why try so hard to figure it out? Just wait for yourself to come back in time and let you know how it works.
Do small cost economies like iTunes target the compulsive over-spender? I feel like somewhere there’s someone at Apple saying, “It worked!”
The head butt heard 'round the world becomes part of French culture.
It seems like there have been a number of reports of crimes on the PS3 line, but this one in particular was recounted on a message board by an actual victim. (It's about 2/3 of the way down on the second page in case this link doesn't take you to the right place.)
Black Friday, the nation's biggest shopping day, is fast approaching and the smart advice is to make your plans now. A number of sites are tracking the many sale items that die hard shoppers will be lining up at the crack of dawn to take advantage of.
I also clicked this collection of Black Friday tricks for getting the good stuff.
In a bizarre twist Best Buy is claiming that sites publishing their Black Friday sales prices are violating their copyright. I think their real issue is with publishing the prices too soon, tipping off the competition.
Following yesterday's skateboarding item, I don't think the "stiff and rigid" is one of the moves in the encyclopedia.
KFC becomes the first logo to be seen from space.
The best thing I clicked today: Helsinki Complaints Choir. Funny in and of itself but also says a lot about Helsinki and the human condition generally.
There's one for Birmingham, England too, but it's not as good. I want one for my city!
How to build the manta plane
Most election coverage by national media focuses on the federal positions. Democratic activist blog MyDD looks at how things changed across the country on a local level.
Murtha and ABSCAM: What Really Happened
Maybe I don't understand how new software is released, but it seems surprising that the new Zune isn't compatible with the new Microsoft operating system, Vista.
Remember the video of the stick figure that fights with the person using the computer? This is the sequel, animator/animation 2.
Larry King has never tried the Internet. What's weird about this to me is that I've done at least one online chat with Larry King. It was a long time ago for a fiction book he'd written, some kind of detective novel I think. He didn't have to log in though, we just had him on the phone with a typist. Could that have been the closest he's ever been to getting online?
How to sharpen your senses
Map: What Does the Internet Look Like? It's not a map of the sites but of the actual network, the literal Web.
But speaking of a map of the sites, a new study says only one percent of Web pages contain sexually explicit material. That wouldn't have been my guess, but I can believe it when I think about all the other stuff that's out there. Of course, the real statistic that matters is the percent of Web traffic that encounters sexually explicit material. It's a grim joke I've heard a few times in online news circles that for all the effort put into theorizing and strategizing online news, the actual graph of online traffic is nearly half porn, nearly half gambling and a little sliver of "other." And within that sliver is another sliver that is online news.
Speaking of a lot of noise from a small percentage, 200 Spammers Create 80 Percent Of Spam. I wonder how many people respond to spam such that it's worth the time of these 200 people.
The UCLA community is in a state of upset over the tasering of a student in the school library. The story has a place where it looks like there should be video but it doesn't load for me. Naturally it's on YouTube. It takes a few minutes to warm up. I thought there was going to be a riot when they tased the kid the second time.
A Star Wars virgin was made to watch all six episodes in a row to see if a fan can be created or if it requires a more long term indoctrination starting from a young age. In the end he claims to get it, but a part of me doesn't believe him.
In a related item, Wil Wheaton wonders why Star Wars geeks take the movies so seriously. NOTE: Suicide Girls are a sort of punk/goth pin-up girl site. I clicked around and I'm pretty sure you don't find any actual nudity unless you're a member, but still, be aware that that's what this site is.
To the Han Solo/Greedo controversy Wheaton mentions, I took the below photo this morning.
[Link]
This morning's water cooler item: Is For Better or Worse a good comic or lame? Gael is saying it's one of her favorites. When I read that and shouted, "No way!" my cube-mates sided with her. I maintain that it's just too sappy.
The A-Z of skateboard tricks - One of the most useful clicks I've made in a while. Have you watched the X Games skateboarding competitions lately? There are a lot more trick names than when I was a kid doing acid drops off car bumpers (and thinking I was cool for it). It's been a long time since I tried to learn a new skateboard trick, but the little videos on this site have to make it easier than trying to figure out a photo sequence in Transworld Skateboarding Magazine.
10 Things I Wish I Had Never Believed - How many of these do you currently believe?
15 instant energy boosters - File this under entertainment more that science. Still, I wouldn't mind a nice mint right now.
Does your video game face reflect your inner character? I like the office series on this guy's site too.
Chutzpah, Truffles & Alain Ducasse - A very funny example of why it never hurts to ask. Or, as some Dutch friends of mine would say, if you don't ask, you already have your no. P.S. I am related to a famous gourmet chef and this is exactly what it's like eating at his restaurant. Either being completely paralyzed by the end of the meal is part of the experience or there's a skill to this kind of dining.
Remember that parody video of Microsoft packaging? Keep that in mind when you see the steps to firing up the new Zune.
Justin Long, the Mac guy, has a blog, which is a good thing since there's been so much speculation about why he's no longer the Mac guy. (I'm talking about those "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC." commercials.) Turns out he's not no longer the Mac guy no matter how much you wish he was.
Wisconsin police department to work with wireless robot (armed with a taser) - What could possibly go wrong? Better find Sarah Connor, just to be safe.
Death of the keypad? The gem in this is the link to the video of the speed contest between voice recognition and the world's fastest texter. No "double the killer" disasters. Where do I line up for my communicator pin?
A pool filled with non-Newtonian fluid. Amazing! Coolest ever! What is this and why isn't it at every party?
How to regain control of a spooked camel. Hey, you never know. (Not recommended.)
I'm not sure I'm so impressed with dice stacking. It looks a lot like it uses the same principles that keep a lacrosse ball in the pocket. The moves in this video are well performed though.
Is it the future of home energy? It's not a new fuel, it's a new (?) device that captures some of the energy lost in heat/hot water production and turns it into electricity. It's a pleasantly hopefully article about the decentralization of energy production.
I found myself in another discussion yesterday about last week's Wired article about Gannett newspapers turning to crowdsourcing.
To some degree the announcement is pretty unimpressive since in some ways it amounts to "we're going to start reading our e-mail." But in the end I think it'll mean better local news for the public and hopefully a waning of the cries of "newspapers are dead!" from certain quarters of the new media evangelical movement.
It's funny that this item breaks now because just a few weeks ago I was joking that anyone wanting to know about citizen journalism ideas should get in a time machine and go back to 2004 when everyone cared about it. More recently, however, a colleague was leaving MSNBC.com to work for a local news outfit in the Midwest. Talking to him at his farewell party I found I was really excited for him, and I listed all the local news sites I enjoy online whose strategies he would have the opportunity to employ at his new site. (Gothamist's crime map, Curbed's New York City real estate and restaurant news, Brooklyn Record's neighborhood events, the local photoblogger community...)
There are so many online tools available to local news organization to make their coverage more relevant and more engaging for their users, I can't imagine a more fun or exciting time to be involved in local news.
I've never been a newspaper employee, so some of the cultural issues elude me. I don't understand the predictions of resistance in the news room. Reporters always interview eye witnesses and principle players in a news story. Why is a first hand account less reliable if the reporter isn't standing there with a notepad in hand?
I will say that the article's example of asking people to "weigh in" on message boards with their opinions about the murder of a 3-year-old foster child completely misses the point of crowdsourcing news and will only confirm some people's worst fears about what such a switch will mean. The Web might be handy for gathering opinions, but that doesn't make them news (or worth reading).
I think the concern about conspiracies to skew the news resonates the most, but this whole idea of crowdsourcing the news relies on the news outlet actually knowing what they're doing and executing the ideas in a conscientious manner. If they turn their entire news operation into a big open message board, then yes, disaster will ensue, but if they're smart about how they employ these new principles, then being attentive to possible corruption in the system is part of the process. For that matter, having 20 do-gooder citizen reporters chasing the police scanner and showing up at every crime scene would probably also be a bad situation. And further, it would be a shame if local news didn't live up to its civic responsibilities because no one volunteered to cover the boring local politics meetings. Still, a news-minded decision maker in charge should be able to address these vulnerabilities.
One aspect that I don't see mentioned here is competition. What if there are two local newspapers conducting these crowdsourcing operations? How will the available pool of participation be split and/or shared? How soon before news agencies are poaching citizen reporters?
Further clicking:
This entry is a little long, so I'll post this and put up the rest of today's link in a separate entry.
Sunday's New York Times article declaring the arrival of Web 3.0 caused a lot of discussion online. I had two brief reactions:
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If it's not here yet you can't give it a version number.
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If something already has a name, don't give it another name. Why rename the Semantic Web Web 3.0 when Semantic Web is a name that is already in use and actually means something?
For more thoughtful reaction, Nova Spivack, referenced heavily in the article, explains what the Semantic Web actually is (and isn't).
Nick Bradbury reminds us what has always been the problem with the Semantic Web, namely that it requires people do a lot of extra work and not lie.
Ross Mayfield explains (again) that there is no Web 3.0.
Does that sound too final? How about Web 2.0 isn’t dead, but Web 3.0 is bubbling up: "While Web 3.0 might now have a concept to hang itself on, we will remain in the midst of the Web 2.0 era for several more years. The semantic Web is still incubating and will take many turns of the crank to become mainstream."
Nick Carr mockingly welcomes Web 3.0, largely in conjunction with declaring the death of Web 2.0.
T-Shirt Turns Air Guitar Riffs Into Actual Sounds: The World Weeps - The direct link is here. My question was where the speakers are. It turns out the whole thing is also wireless.
A burrito is not a sandwich - Duh. Surely the definition of sandwich calls for opposing slices of bread. But now that you mention it, a burrito sandwich might not be such a bad thing.
Scoble didn't get a Zune sponsorship because he's too critical of the device. Dave Winer confirms the logo speech restriction. Is that the craziest thing you've ever heard?
Google Earth goes 4D - I love the idea of being able to see historic maps or maps over time. However, following the instructions to get the history layer, the whole of Google Earth crashed on me. I'll try another time.
This submarine blogger splashes cold water on the circulating story of a Chinese submarine following a U.S. aircraft carrier. The story may be a loser, but I'm pleased to have found the submarine blogging community.
The new Simpsons movie trailer - I think this is the old one.
Speaking of animation, Kiwi! (Three minutes long, but save a little time for post-viewing reflection.)
Stop motion piano/drum duet that kicks - I seem to recall seeing something like this done with all coughs and screams.
Free academic podcasts
Speaking of podcasts, "Podlinez is a free service that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone." Wow, that was wicked easy! Looks like a local call, but otherwise, no extra charges that I noticed. Did I miss something? I clicked on the most popular title and got right through. Where's the catch?
The Run Run game - Not too hard once you get used to the spatial properties.
Man's vote for himself doesn't show up in final tally.
How to fix shows like ‘Lost.’ I hadn't really thought of Lost as being in need of fixing, but I can see how these shows with no end are a problem as they drag on and on. I think spin-offs are a good solution. Maybe instead of simultaneous story lines, run them as separate shows.
Rumsfeld gives us our second covert bird in a week. I don't mean to get all Costanza, but seriously, do you think that was an accident?
"People may know when they're happy, but they often don't know what will make them happy." This article is about what guides people's perceptions of what's good and bad and how that relates to views of the economy.
(Headline reference... this song rocks.)
Awesome game - I got the 23 (57560) spot on medium and the 40 spot (15780) on impossible. But that's on the laptop and already I see new players pushing my scores off the list. When I get back to work on my nice big keyboard I'll school the scoreboard. Can you imagine having this in school typing class instead copying "quick brown fox" passages from those old books?
OK, back to business...
I definitely remember reading a lot of criticism of Howard Dean as head of the DNC, but this is the first piece I've read that gives him significant credit for Tuesday's Democratic wins. Remember the scandal he caused when he referred to southern voters with Confederate flags in their pick-ups? That wasn't just a slip of the tongue, that was the idea behind a plan to expand the reach of the party. A plan which, according to this article, is working. (As I read, Tucker Carlson was on TV talking about whether Dean's days are numbered as DNC chair.)
An interesting perspective on the election that I haven't seen covered elsewhere: "The hundreds of Republican staffers — not to mention more than a few Members — who will lose their jobs in the next few weeks are going to face a hostile marketplace on K Street as unemployed Republicans flood the market."
What the Democrats' win means for tech -"On a wealth of topics--Net neutrality, digital copyright, merger approval, data retention, Internet censorship--a Capitol Hill controlled by Democrats should yield a shift in priorities on technology-related legislation."
It turns out all the bad things said about the Democrats during the campaign were true. Here's the real list of what they're going to do now that they're in power. (Tsk, don't get angry until you click it, it's a joke.)
Speaking of satire, you may have seen the Onion satire titled "Bush: 'Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over'" from after the 2000 election. Now it's been annotated.
Boxbe: Get a Cut of Your Email Spam - This is a great idea. If you're like me, you already keep at least one e-mail address that is only for things like site registrations and creating logins that you suspect will get you on junkmail lists. You keep that address so your personal address that you only use for stuff you care about doesn't get cluttered. Boxbe wants to charge marketers to send stuff to that junk mail address you keep, and they'll split the money with you. At least, that's my interpretation. Check it out yourself.
Speaking of making money online, ReviewMe pays bloggers to write reviews of sites and products. It makes sense that if you get enough bloggers to write about a product at the same time, it could show up in online buzz metrics. That said, this part sounds unlikely: "You will be paid $20.00 to $200.00 for each completed review that you post on your site." I guess the catch is that your blog needs to already have a certain amount of traffic and popularity so they can guarantee that the reviews are getting some readership. They're not going to pay for a review on a dead end site.
Your mom is rated E - That's hysterical and the legal threat is ridiculous.
Innocent girl held in jail for a week. Reminds me a little of the character with the split personality on Heroes.
Why Poor Countries Are Poor - As you know, a Commuter Click is an article I'd rather print up and read on my commute than squint myself blind reading off the screen. On the weekends I've learned there's a similar designation for when the baby demands more attention than a long article allows. The Baby Bookmark. I'll get to this as I'm able, but so far it's interesting.
New battery holds promise as cheaper, cleaner alternative.
This week's "Cancer Cured" headline is stem cells making an effective vaccine against lung cancer (in mice). Raises the interesting possibility of the tobacco lobby fighting the anti-embryonic stem cell lobby. A lung cancer vaccine would mean a smoking renaissance.
A giant photo of a cat's tongue. This isn't even very magnified and it's pretty amazing.
What's the deal with people blaming their racism on drunkenness? (In this case, some frat guys in the new Borat movie.)
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic - A more correct title would be "Answers to skepticism about global warming." This is not about "how to talk."
In case you missed it the other night, the Spider Man 3 trailer. Is this series going to get better with each one? Sure looks that way.
Speaking of trailers, they made a Reno 911 movie and set it in Miami. I'm not sure why they needed to do that except maybe to add more bikini girls. Meanwhile, I only recently realized that the guy who always wears the short shorts is Napoleon Dynamite's brother. Totally wrong. See the comments.
Speaking of movie trailers, here's Office Space recut as a thriller.
How do you teach kids the value of money - This relays an interesting strategy of putting the kid in charge of a regular budget. After he blows the budget a few times he learns how money works. Two things stand out to me. I feel like I keep seeing the phrase "entitlement mentality." It describes the challenge faced by the successful (companies as well as parents) in dealing with subordinates. The second thing that stayed with me after reading this entry was the highlighted phrase, "by thinking and acting differently than everybody else, he can have much more than anybody else." More than anybody else? I thought the lesson was the value of money? Isn't the point of wealth to afford what you want? It's a pretty sick greed that cites "more than anybody else" as a goal in itself.
Speaking of the value of money, this girl gets out of debt and learns valuable anti-materialism lesson along the way. (It is the follow-up to this entry about the awkward financial transition from college to real life and generally living beyond our means.)
Speaking of the value of money, if someone produced a movie with a plot that involved flying six planes containing 2 billion dollars each in shrink wrapped hundred dollar bills into a war torn country, I'd scoff at the lack of realism. If you needed that much money to rebuild a country, there's no way anyone would fly it out manually in blocks that large.
I'm not sure if it's funnier to see the Flying Spaghetti Monster on top of a building or hearing His name spoken in German. Schpaghettimonster.
A cognitive neuroscientist explains his strategy for success on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Includes such gems as, "The pressure of the hot seat caused my amygdala to rage and blaze, preventing me, in the moment, from being able to recall the final two words of the acronym."
And, "My neurohormones whipped from black misery to shining ebullience, saturating my brain in a boiling cauldron of epinephrine and endorphins."
The video referred to in the story on our cover right now is actually three clips as far as I can tell. NOTE: If you're not accustomed to seeing fist-in-face violence (with blood) this is may be graphic for you. It's a little different to watch the original clips versus the news story because the originals have the natural sound, so you hear him saying he can't breathe, and you hear outrage from onlookers. You also hear someone saying, "Just let them handcuff you."
By coincidence I ended up with a lot of cover songs in my notes today:
That butt kicking version of Word Up on CSI tonight is by Willis.
The original video for Mad World by Gary Jules (the one for the video war game) is here.
And if I were still declaring a video of the day, this banker singing his own version of U2's One would be it. I'm pretty sure I envy him more than I pity him, but for some reason it makes me think of that Creep animation. Here's the direct Vimeo link.
Hey check it out, while working on a neighborhood photo-mapping project at home I found a marriage proposal on a rooftop in Queens. I wonder if the goal was to get on a map like this or if it was for a helicopter tour. It would be funny if the reply came in the form of sky writing.
Speaking of the new Virtual Earth/MSN/Live maps, Flash Earth lets you toggle between different map services to compare.
Still speaking of Virtual Earth, the idea of selling ads on billboards in 3D view reminds me of a controversy that came up during the filming of Spiderman scenes in Times Square. Billboards there were digitally replaced with sponsors of the film.
Speaking of follow-ups to the Microsoft portion of yesterday's entry, one thing I forgot to mention that makes me nervous about Zune is the report that folks who bought songs from now-closed MSN Music are stuck with files they can't play elsewhere. Will media from the Zune store still work if there's a new next big thing next year?
10 Greatest Martial Arts Movies of All Time P.S. What a cool site.
Speaking of cool sites, LinkDonkey is relatively new but has some interesting photo collections.
Ruined Music - Ever had a favorite song totally ruined for you because of a sour social association? Submit your story here.
From the life-as-opera department, this murder story is so insane that it should skip the "torn from the headlines" cop shows and go straight to the opera house. What appeared to be a suicide turns out to be a staged suicide to cover up a murder. The most brutal twist in the story is that the victim wasn't actually dead when the killer panicked and staged the hanging that ultimately killed the victim (a beautiful young actress on the rise). There's a CSI twist to how the case was cracked (strange sneaker prints) and the fact that the whole thing started with a noise complaint only amplifies the tragedy.
Speaking of life as art, this photo of the Santorum family at his concession speech feels like it could be a movie poster. Related: The covert bird flip is getting some viral attention.
There was a lot of noise yesterday among tech bloggers about Like.com which is described as the first true visual image search. It’s pretty limited, only useful if you’re shopping for fashion accessories, but it definitely works. It’s built on/by Riya, which you may recall us playing with a while back.
**I should add that I’m not much of a fashion plate, so for me to say it works is not the same as my wife saying it works. I tried to look for a titanium ring with an orange stripe and had a fun time playing with it to get what I was looking for. To me, that works.
By the way, there was also noise about the noise about Like.com yesterday. I know I said the other day that the holy grail of online marketing is the secret to courting user participation, but an argument could be made that the real holy grail is how to (intentionally) generate buzz online.
“PageAddict is a Firefox extension that will help you monitor your Internet addiction. Once you install it, it will display a summary of the time you've wasted on each web site for this day, and a graph of your web surfing habits from the past. You can categorise different sites and restrict how much time you spend in each category in a day.” What a terrible idea.
Speaking of ideas to make you groan, SeasonShot lets you flavor your bird when you kill it.
I recall us playing a game like this before but I don’t remember it being this hard. I can’t get past level 7.
The Britney Spears’ divorce papers.
One question the online community looks to have answered every time there is an election is whether the “netroots” –online political activists- are having a noticeable impact. Some are arguing that the Lieberman win over the netroots candidate Lamont is an indication that they’re not able to deliver. A look a the broader list of netroots candidates points to a different conclusion. Was Lamont a waste of time or a rallying cry (or something else)?
Linkbucks, which I first read about here, pays you for the traffic you dive to other links. Basically it throws up an ad page in between your site and the link destination. Here’s a blog that’s using it. I think if Clicked was using this I’d lose all my readers to rage.
Extreme trainsurfer – I wonder how terrorism-related security crackdowns have affected the trainsurfing community.
What does Borat get right and wrong about his native land? Speaking of setting the Borat record straight, USA Today did a sort of where-are-they-now round-up of the real people in the movie.
South Park explains evolution. Of course it’s offensive.
“Cell transplants have successfully restored vision to mice which had lost their sight, leading to hopes people could benefit in the same way.” There was no word on whether stem cells would play a role in re-attaching the tails, however.
“According to data from veterinarians in New York, cats are most likely to survive if they fall from a height of six stories, with heights over seven stories being only slightly more dangerous.”
Another collection of Photoshop trans-humanism – making people look better, if less human, through Photoshop. Some of the images we’ve seen before. I think BillyBob looks better in the “before” photo. And I wonder if being skinny would be so popular if photos of skinny girls weren’t smoothed out like in that 11th picture.
I don’t pretend to know much about mainstream sports, but I still got a kick out of this fan response to Randy Moss following Monday’s football game.
While admiring a colleague's baby blog for his daughter, one of my cube-mates pointed out that when she grows up she's probably not going to appreciate that news of her pooping in the tub has been made available to a global Internet audience. I remarked that the blog generation is going to have a completely different sense of what privacy is. But maybe not. Maybe no one will ever learn that anyone can say anything on the Internet but that doesn't make it true or right. Maybe it won't come to be a casual fact that people do dumb stuff that ends up on the Internet but that isn't a reflection on them personally, particularly in adulthood. And maybe the risk of having stupid behavior end up on the Internet won't be enough to discourage more of such behavior. If that's the case, then there's a big future for Reputation Defender. It's a company that looks at what Web searches say about you and finds ways to get the bad stuff removed. It sounds like a big part of their technique is to intimidate with legal threats. Added: Re-reading this paragraph, I don't like that it sounds like I'm saying that only stupid people have the problem of regretable material online. Of course it's possible and probably just as likely that objectionable material comes from what others put online.
Speaking of adults who have to face the legacy of their adolescent behavior, The return of Britney Spears - I missed this on Letterman. What's wrong with her thighs? And why didn't they give her a surprise musical cameo instead of having her stumble through that script? UPDATE: This link takes on an entirely new context given her news this evening.
Speaking of blonde singers in awkward public displays, Faith Hill has a bad reaction to not winning? Sorry, that looks totally real (as in, not a joke) to me.
What the heck am I doing clicking all these gossip bloggers? They show up in the blog channel on Topix.net. (And I do think that gossip blogs are more popular than blog aggregators suggest because they have a lot of readers but not necessarily a lot of inbound links.)
Even though YouTube won Time's invention of the year award, this blogger advises you not overlook the other entrants.
Will the election goose be laying eggs all week? That could be the case if Maryland is a close race and it comes down to the absentee ballots.
At first I thought this "game" was pointing out the limitations of fighting a war with airpower, but then I noticed that after you blow something up, some of the civilians turn into combatants. That's the real futility of the fighting there.
The best of Wikipedia's dregs - What entries don't make it into Wikipedia?
Parent company Microsoft has been on a bit of a run with big news...
- Last week was big news for Zune. Engadget gave us a photo tour which is a little easier than watching that Scoble video. And Zune.net launched, which is basically Microsoft's iTunes. I have no idea what this is though.
- Then there's this Xbox news... "Xbox 360 Teams With CBS, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Turner Broadcasting, UFC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment to Digitally Deliver TV Shows and Movies to Gamers" - This is just a press release, but it's a pretty impressive list and an interesting development in the longstanding question of the future of TV.
- And then last night... Microsoft launches Google Earth killer - I think "relaunches" is more appropriate since it's an improved Virtual Earth. Here's the link. New York City doesn't have much to see in terms of 3-D, but Boston is interesting. I find the maps a little slow to load at first, but once they do I think they're better than Google Earth. And possibly better coverage. On Google I can never zoom in on Oxford, England. Virtual Earth shows it quite clearly (though not 3-D). One thing I miss is Google Earth's spin-the-globe feel.
Speaking of maps, Strange Maps is a relatively new blog devoted to maps. Some strange, some not-so-strange.
Religion does untold damage to our politics. An atheist's lament.
"It is dishonest to the human condition to pretend that Christians don’t sin; but as long as we are afraid to confess to one another we will continue to create an unrealistic and hypocritical environment." An interesting reaction to the Haggard scandal from a Christian blogger.
The HBO documentary on hacking the vote has finally been bootlegged. It's here. This is probably the same clip, but I also saw it here. (I keep using that "bootlegged" term, which probably dates me. The proper term is "ripped," right?)
Super speedy condoms? (Includes video demo) When you read this article is seems a little less ridiculous. Some of my college friends who've done work in Africa have relayed stories of how difficult it is to get African men to use condoms. Now they've got one less excuse.
Speaking of reproduction, "UK scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by fusing human DNA with cow eggs." That would make it a mooman being.
That's probably not real wasabi you've been eating with your sushi.
OK, one more sushi link... How to make candy sushi
A quick look a some of the election-related links I clicked this morning while they're still relevant. I'll have a more typical Clicked later today.
I had planned to cover voting irregularities and dirty tricks as reported by blogs today, but looking at the cover stories on our site so far today, that's not exactly a blog secret. One aspect that is seeing greater emphasis on the blogs is the idea of protecting your vote by knowing your rights. (This one's a little more formal in describing your legal rights on election day.)
Pouring white-out over polling books?
This dirty trick flier in Maryland is one I didn't see in mainstream coverage.
Speaking of fliers, Andrew Sullivan points to a flier that he interprets as suggesting a dark skinned man raping a white woman (if you vote for Democrats). I'm not sure I see that in the image. If I had to read into it I'd say that it's showing the PC interests of dark skinned minorities silencing the voice of the white majority.
Second GOP Firm Tied to Harrassing Robo Calls - The reason this matters is that naming the perpetrators is the first step to accountability. The second step is firing them: Indiana GOP Fires Harrassing Robo Call Firm
"Meltdown" appears to be a popular word for what's happening to some of the voting machines. Brad Blog (which reports actively on the problem of e-voting even when it isn't Election Day) is updating with details.
Has the election already been stolen?
Election predictions abound, but I enjoyed the quickly read list at TBogg.
"Gitcher Lame Election-Day Heds Here!"
Speaking of Slate articles, I also clicked this article about how prison populations play havoc with census data.
Last election, the big news from the blogs was that they leaked all the exit poll info. This time apparently there's going to be a greater effort to restrain that data. Or at least, right now there's a greater effort to talk about it. We'll see how that goes in a few hours.
Olbermann's call for accountability is being well received around the blogosphere.
Speaking of all those robo-calls, there's this suggestion in today's mailbag:
There is a way to fight back the “robo-calls”. Assuming that the machine does have limitations on how many calls it can make per hour, just set your phone down on the counter and let the recording run its course. Come back in 3 or 4 minutes and hang up the phone. Not only has the machine completed its call to you, but it is not bothering someone else during that time. If everybody did this, it should drastically cut down the total number of calls that the machine makes.
-David
In case you wanted to hear those discouraging calls that are
causing all the fuss in Virginia, there's
a recording of one hosted on the Webb campaign site.
NOTE: This is a direct link to the audio, it'll launch your media player.
Democratic bloggers made a lot of noise today about a "robo-call" tactic being employed against a number of Democratic candidates. I already don't answer the phone on the principle that I don't like a plastic box telling me when to jump, but if you're being driven to insanity by these calls, Josh Marshall has some advice on what to do (not much but publicize the tactic and get the vote out). Of course, in New Hampshire, where they're a little sensitive about their phones, there appears to be some abatement.
Speaking of vote suppression, VideoTheVote.org is set up as a repository for evidence of vote suppression. (Keep in mind the lesson we learn in this next item.)
Speaking of citizen activists, now that every device you can buy has a camera built in and professional grade photography equipment is available to non-professional grade pay scales, the question of camera ethics comes up occasionally. One recent issue I recall was when someone ranted (with considerable popular support) about going to a concert and finding a dance floor full of camera phones and PowerShots. Yesterday's New York City Marathon has raised another issue: sticking yourself in places you don't belong just to get a shot. I'll allow the link to do the work from here. (via Matt Law in a NYC photoblogger news group to which I subscribe.)
(P.S. For the record, while this woman makes for a good lesson for everyone, I don't agree that we need to know her name or exact some kind of mob justice.)
Speaking of mob justice gone awry (again), if you're going to distract the punditsphere with a hoax, leave out the names of real people who aren't part of your hoax.
"Michael [Badnarik], candidate for US Congress in TX District 10, speaks against the Military Commissions Act at UT Austin on November 2, 2006." Whether you agree with this guy or not, I would have expected this type of ad to be more common in this "YouTube Age." How is it that the TV industry is still able to make hundreds of millions of dollars every political cycle on ads that everyone hates? (Not that I think YouTube or the Internet generally would save us from dirty political tricks. Just ask Jim Talent (no, even I won't link to that one).
Absolute moral authority cards
Beck on a recent Saturday Night Live. I tried to find this on the NBC site so I could emphasize my point about YouTube as an unnecessary middle man but ...
UFO The Greatest Story Ever Denied - An hour and a half long. I didn't realize there was a line of UFO study that says that UFOs appear on infra-red scopes. I much prefer UFO conspiracies to 9/11 conspiracies.
Quarters guy uses his girlfriend as a prop. I'm not clear if he picked up the body spray sponsorship or if he's making some kind of parody ad. I hope the former because they should totally pay the guy for that. (Is it this quarters guy?)
WhoToTalkTo hopes to be the insider's job search tool. I'm not sure why this is supposed to work. If I were looking for a job, I'd appreciate an inside track, but why would anyone I didn't know give me one?
GoogleTorrents searches BitTorrent sites so you don't have to do it manually. (Doesn't change the legal aspect of downloading copyrighted material, however.)
Who is this former child star? NOTE: Give yourself a chance to see the "now" picture before you scroll. The answer is on the same page. OTHER NOTE: Be prepared to feel old... very... very... old.
Before I leave the office today I'm joining Second Life too. After reading all week last week about rising virtual real estate prices and then talking this weekend to a friend of mine at Reuters about their Second Life bureau, I'm starting to feel not just out of the loop but left behind. UPDATE: I registered but couldn't connect. I'll try again from home. The hardest part of the whole thing so far is coming up with a name. Have you ever tried to rename yourself? Damn hard.
P.S. The reason I'm not already into Second Life is that I promised myself after wasting a ridiculous amount of time on Riven, the Myst sequel, that I would never again squander my life learning about a place that doesn't actually exist. So much for that.
Deceptive pictures - NOTE: One of the photos involves bodypaint and one and a half naked boobs. Also, don't click through to Skoopy at work. Content aside, it has dating and girlie ads in the margins.
Will the new "Digg socialism" discourage participation? One of the holy grails of the Internet is the secret to user participation. What makes people participate in online communities and who are the most active participants (and most importantly, how do we market to them/get them to shill for us/make money from them)? Are people discouraged from participating when they feel like the system is locked up by a few elites? Or will artificial efforts to level the playing field discourage the "power users" and sap the energy of the whole community? (P.S. "Power users" are the new 18-34-year-olds, pass it on.)
What is Will talking about? A beginner's guide to Digg.
Speaking of the hunt for the next big thing, one manifestation of the effort to bridge the gap between your computer and the Internet is widgets. We've got one on our Politics page (third item on the right under the ad) but I'm wondering if many people know what it is or how to use it.
The Vloggies were this weekend. There's lot of coverage of the video blog awards, but I like this link for the photos.
Dave Sifry has a new State of the Blogosphere report.
Gays vs. Environmentalists, Lesbian Seagulls vs. Al Gore: Liberals rally against science In short: If homosexuality was caused by pollution in the environment, how would that change the political landscape? Apparently some are making that very claim.
There's a lot of talk about a new poll from the Pew Research Center that shows Democrats not as far ahead as they looked in last week's polls. You can see the results of that poll without subscription here. NBC News has a nice state-by-state poll round up here.
You can listen to the audio of the chat with the Welches here. I was a little nervous about how it was going to come out, but as it happens, they do a weekly podcast, so they were used to answering questions and not talking over each other. I thought it was odd that they weren't familiar with the question from the boomer who resented being pushed out by younger, cheaper new hires. I thought that was a common complaint.
Some people had written in especially frustrated that the Welches didn't seem to understand just how hard it is to get a job sometimes. It reminded me a little of the chat we did a while ago with Barbara Ehrenreich. I didn't make an issue of it in the chat though. You can either accept their answers or not.
Naturally, bloggers have been talking about the big stories that are consuming the mainstream media's attention; the publishing of Iraq's nuclear instructions and that prominent pastor buying drugs from his gay prostitute masseuse. But there were other stories that resonated in the blogosphere that didn't (to my viewing) make as much noise in the mainstream. Warbloggers were outraged at the student dressed as a suicide terrorist for Halloween. (Here's the student's apology.) On the left, I was amused by the TalkLeft headline, GOP declares Iraq war over. That blog wasn't alone in having a strong reaction to the termination of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
Speaking of that prominent pastor, "With a rise in the popularity of Christian-style weddings in Japan, some Westerners are finding they can make a lucrative living by acting as priests." Funny, here in America there are apparently a number of people trying to pass themselves off as men of the cloth as well.
Speaking of making a mockery of religion, Evan Almighty is a Bruce Almighty sequel featuring Steve Carell in a Noah role.
Speaking of Old Testament comedy, I also watched this animated telling of the story of Job.
Speaking of God turning His back, 300 unanswered prayers wash up off N.J.; Letters to God — anguished, humorous, some decades old — found in ocean. It was probably one of my colleagues who wrote that headline, but I'd like to know how they know the prayers weren't answered. Maybe those were the answered ones.
U.S. presidential speeches tag cloud - The page is a weird layout because the top is all graphic and navigation. What you want is the middle of the page. The timeline dragger is above the word cloud on the right. It reminds me of the State of the Union word count interactive timeline. (And the State of the Union parser.) The really early speeches are the most interesting I think.
Speaking of early America, Ben Franklin on why older women make better lovers.
Mass culture turns on the Republicans -- but why? This takes the unexpected twist of criticizing fair-weather Bush critics.
Speaking of the election, Election 2004 site flashback: electoral-vote.com is back in the online discourse with its mouseover map.
Soros Bumped as Top Political Giver by Swift-Boat Group's Perry ... in case you thought this election season had a familiar feel.
Still speaking of the election, how much different would campaigns be if voters had to pass a test to vote? How much different would government be?
Long piece in Fortune Magazine about Diebold, the voting machine maker.
Speaking of our fragile democracy, 12 smartcards go missing in Tennessee; Control electronic voting machines.
Top ten non-Google map innovations - It's interesting to see the MSNBC News Map listed at the end. It's not new, but I'm pretty sure you won't find it on our site. I'm not even sure who made it.
Speaking of maps, Map of hate groups in the U.S.
Machine gun sentry robot. Includes video of the death robot's view. Also quasi-A-Team soundtrack. Find Sarah Connor.
I clicked the headline to Newsweek's video game blog when it was on the cover today. Not only does he reveal that the commercial with the Tears for Fears cover is by a guy named Michael Andrews but he offers a link to a YouTube playlist of different songs set to the same video game commercial. It's pretty elementary, but still an interesting presentation.
Speaking of video games, you may be familiar with Dance Dance Revolution, the arcade game that requires a player move to dance steps on the screen. Imagine playing that game in a flame retardant suit and being blasted with fire when you lose. If you don't feel like imagining it, click here and have it described to you. Why does this not have video??
Stephen Colbert on the issue of having his show's clips removed from YouTube. He seems to be saying that the people who contribute the videos should be the ones making the money. I wonder what he thinks of the item we saw yesterday about Google paying for high traffic videos.
How to roll Maki
What's better than a laughing baby? I can't think of anything.
"The Xenoturbella does not seem to have a brain, gut or gonads, making it unique among living animals." It's part of a new phylum discovered. Earlier: New sea creatures found in Hawaii - I'm trying not to let my imagination get carried away with headlines like this.
A quick trip to the mailbag:
I want one of these. The Meteor style is nice, but the Chalet would be stylish anywhere in the house...
- Eric
Elephants and Evolution - How the Landscape is Changing for Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Adobe - "The days of purely desktop-based applications are clearly numbered, but so are the days of exclusively web-based apps..." It seems like everywhere I look lately I see commentary on bridging the gap between desktop and Web.
More here about how Blake Ross, "the Firefox kid," is working something called Parakey. "Parakey is an application you download to your PC, which effectively becomes your personal operating system. It turns your computer in[to] a hybrid Web site-hard drive, where you can choose what to make public online and what to keep private."
That post is in response to this feature piece on Ross. (Commuter Click)
These are a little long, but if you don't want to be playing catch up later, you might as well pay attention now.
Yahoo is about to launch a big food section.
"Das Rad" (The Wheel) - It's an animated short from 2003, but since I don't do a very good job of keeping up on animated shorts it's new to me. Plot: Two stones watch the evolution of man. 8 minutes long. Outstanding.
Looking ahead to Christmas, (w)rapping paper.
Cool robot vehicle transports man around Tokyo - "You act as thought you've never seen Buzz Lightyear Tetrapodal robot out for a Sunday roll before!" The description of the guy not acknowledging anyone makes it sound like he accidentally arrived from the future.
Will it blend? A take-off on Letterman's Will It Float? it's one of a series of videos in which a guy puts things in a blender to see what happens. I'm pretty sure this is part of an ad campaign for this particular brand of blender. Is this the future of advertising? Works for me.
Speaking of the future of advertising, "Amazon ... ranks books based on their sales over the previous 24 hours. This means that it is possible, through coordinated action, to hack the system by getting a large number of people to buy the book at the same time." I didn't see the post until it was too late, but it's a clever idea for getting exposure.
Primary and early e-voting problems point to gathering storm - A nice round up of problems with electronic voting machines. Also makes mention that "BlackBoxVoting.org has released "push this, pull here" instructions for multiple voting on a Sequoia DRE, no hacking skills necessary." That's here.
Plus, 35,000 Questionable Registration Forms
Plus, Jefferson County Voters Continue To Raise Concerns About Voting Machines (more of that automatic party switching)
While we're on election links, "In the YouTube era, stupid stuff a candidate did on tape four years ago doesn't remain in the past. Instead, it becomes part of the campaign narrative, in this case showing how Mary Parker, Democrat nominee for the state Senate in Tennessee, was willing to abuse her power position as a lawyer to get out of a speeding ticket in ways that a normal person couldn't."
Speaking of campaign ads, with all the buzz and hype going on I totally forgot to check in periodically with FactCheck.org.
"Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners."
Speaking of members of the military finding themselves in tough positions, this compelling account of a Marine Navy (he's tending Marines) medic in Iraq is drawing a lot of link attention.
Flickr's best photographers
The Kerry corner:
The 91st Carnival of Education - A regular round up of education bloggers.
Transforming Transformer Costume - It actually transforms, sort of. NOTE: This site may contain unsafe material if you look around enough.
If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball - This is a pretty good fake Sorkin script, but also it's interesting to read a blog by an award winning TV comedy writer.
Speaking of TV writing (and I cast no aspersions on Mr. Levine in making this segue), the Digg folks share a bootleg of a recent episode of the Simpsons. What made me note the link, however, was a comment that does a clear job explaining the decline of the Simpsons and the problem with most TV scripts.
Mark Glaser writes an open letter to Stephen Colbert asking him to resist efforts by Comedy Central lawyers to wall off video content from sites like YouTube. He points out why YouTube is better than the current offerings at ComedyCentral.com and updates his post with a lot of relevant links.
I can certainly envision a future where content creators offer their own video on their own sites in a way that actually works for consumers and video sites that share copyrighted material shrivel up and die. I think we see it beginning to happen with TV networks practically begging their audience to log on and view shows online. To be clear, I agree with Glaser that content providers aren't actually at that point yet. The Comedy Central video player is terrible. I tried to watch Grey's Anatomy on the ABC site and it was all choppy. I did have a good experience watching Heroes on the NBC site, but I didn't notice any fan generated material while I was there (the way I see it on YouTube). And I point this out from a site that sees more of its content distributed virally through sites like Crooks and Liars than from its own video player. But to return to my point (and what I was trying to say with my question about the Dove video), if content providers like Comedy Central do get their acts together, forward thinking shows like Colbert's don't really need YouTube as a viral middle man, do they?
Related: Google shares ad wealth with videographers - The part you care about: "It will pay $5 to video creators for every 1,000 times their video is watched." Five thousand bucks for a million views is pretty good if you're the Numa Numa kid, but it's not much of a budget for any ambitious productions.
Speaking of Comedy Central clips, the first South Park ever. Interesting to see there are no identifying markers on it that would show up in a search for stuff to delete. NOTE: Curses are NOT bleeped on this.
Scott Adams points out that elections rigged by nerdy hackers can't have any worse outcomes than elections rigged by corporations and special interests.
Speaking of problems that haven't been solved, Airport Screeners Still Aren't Any Good. But to be fair, as Schneier points out, "We can't keep weapons out of prisons. We can't possibly keep them out of airports."
Remember that headline about St. Louis being the most dangerous city? Here's the fuller list of the results of that survey.
Here's a new twist on the intellectual property issue: Writer Neil Gaiman tells us about a writer who died without a proper will and the rights to his "literary estate" ended up taking a turn he probably didn't want. The solution Gaiman offers is a simple will that creative types can download from his site and follow the instructions.
This is too late to be worth anything for this year, but if you're the kind of person to plan ahead for holidays, here are some great/gross ideas for Halloween. I like the guacamole in the baby doll.
Internet simulator game NOTE: plays music as soon as the page loads. I scored a 128.
Rock Hotel in Cappadocia, Turkey carved in the face of a cliff.
It's the content, not the icons - I'll be interested to see if this is a sign of a coming backlash against all of those "Digg this" type buttons you see everywhere online lately. I'm not a fan of those buttons except when I see an icon I don't recognize that leads to a cool aggregating site I'm not familiar with. But the argument in this blog entry is that they don't help traffic and only look ugly. In the comments you'll find a few objections making the case that "build great content and they will come" is an elitist argument that ignores the real difficulty of growing an audience. If it's not elitist, it's at least over-idealistic. Even if having a Digg button doesn't get a blogger the tens of thousands of clicks that come from front page Digg placement, a few extra clicks can be an exciting achievement for an XYZ-list blogger.
Eleksen's fabric keyboard / UMPC case in the wild - It's a case for your PocketPC that then becomes the keyboard. It's a neat idea, but I'm not sure how comfortable I'd feel typing on something so flimsy.
Speaking of buttons, A petition to bring back buttons on phones? It explores the merits of physical buttons versus touch screen buttons in gadget design. New vocab word: haptic.
How to save a wet cell phone. I don't know anything cell phones, but these look like some really great instructions. (Great = I wouldn't have thought of them.)
Who the heck is Wee Shu Min and why is she the most searched name on Technorati? The Wikipedia entry explains the story of a political scandal in Singapore that is hard to imagine happening here in the U.S. (On second thought, this probably could happen in the U.S. If one of the Bush twins had a blog and made disparaging remarks about poor people or the working class or something, that would probably cause a scandal.)
Speaking of names in the news, I don't care about Marcia Cross but... (my standard gossip item opening phrase) did you see this item about her having 200 naked photos of herself in the garbage and now the garbage remover has them and is looking to make some money? Of all the forehead-smacking things to do...
I got a laugh out of the new Moby/Debbie Harry video. The song's a little repetitive though.
Book Review: The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton - Includes tips on how to avoid being one and how to deal with one.
I keep
reading of him described as "liberal blogger" but I had to do my own search to find out that he's the guy from
Calling All Wingnuts. You may recall reading about him previously because he's had some acclaim for
getting onto call-in shows. He doesn't appear to have posted anything since this particular event, though he has reportedly
written a letter.
In a couple of hours I'll be hosting a chat with Jack and Suzy Welch
for the Today show. Let me know if you have any questions you'd like included. I should have the transcript up by the afternoon.
