December 2006 - Posts
There's a bootleg video of the Saddam execution in circulation now. It's not by the official cameraman but a shakey recording on what appears to be a camera phone. There's nothing especially graphic about it. There's some praying before the trap doors open, then the doors open with a loud clatter. The camera goes crazy for a bit and then we see Saddam's face swinging slightly next to the noose. The lighting is such that it's just the face and the noose except for the occasional camera flash.
Here is the direct link to the video on Google Video. The title, "3gp copy of saddam execution no watermark," refers to the cell phone video file type, 3gp, and that this copy has not been branded by any sites trying to claim credit for the scoop. The only NOTE I'll add is to check your volume if you're playing it at work. The sound is uneven and there are a few vocal outbursts from the witnesses.
UPDATE: On second thought I'll add one more NOTE: While Saddam may have been a cold blooded killer, chances are good that you are not. Though the content of this video is not bloody or even especially graphic, ultimately it depicts the taking of a human life, a fact that may upset you more than you expect.
I'm still catching up on a week's worth of material, so bear with me.
It looks like there were two big stories online while I was away. The first was a marketing scandal of sorts in which Microsoft gave out fancy new laptops pre-loaded with the new Vista operating system. The scandal is either that Microsoft expected the laptops to be returned or that Microsoft tried to buy good reviews from bloggers with these laptops, depending on what you click. What I clicked:
The other big story while I was away was John Edwards announcing his presidential candidacy online. Usually I wouldn't care, and in fact, my first reaction was that he's a fool to try to pander to online pundits with a Webby gimmick, but he does seem to be using the Web in a smarter way. Judging by what I clicked, he's using the Web as an organizing tool and it looks like he's also able to influence political discourse with what he's saying online. That might sound like nothing, but when you consider that what passes for online campaigning usually is hiring bloggers to speak for you and hosting a conference call press conference with bloggers, Edwards is taking things quite a bit further. What I clicked:
Cartographers hit the road to bring updated online maps - It sounds like a cool job until you read it and find out they most chart new roads in exurb construction zones. Not exactly a sightseeing job.
Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw reporting Gerald Ford's death in 1996. Funny, but a little bit not funny now that he's actually dead.
For what it's worth, I have permission to link to the video of Saddam's execution should it show up online. If it's too graphic even for my standards - meaning no capitalized, bold faced "NOTE" could prepare you - I'll probably revert to mentioning how you might go about finding it yourself. Judging by the descriptions I've read so far it sounds pretty tame. Of the parts they're showing on TV it strikes me as a bizarre thing to have to do to explain to the man you're about to hang how it's going to go. For that matter, it's amazing to think that the last thing Saddam learned was how to be hung. UPDATE: I've added a link to it here.
I'll be interested to see how the U.S. media handles any video of the execution. It seems pretty crazy that we, as a country, would prosecute a war and all the violence that goes with it but be too squeamish to watch the enemy leader hang (and then change the channel to watch actors pretend to kill each other in a variety of ways as part of our regular entertainment diet).
Speaking of Saddam and choking, while looking through YouTube videos I caught this clip from MSNBC of the anchor choking while reporting on Saddam's hanging. I don't know her but if I see her I'll ask if she thinks it was coincidence or more.
Speaking of violence as entertainment, the early Muppets were disturbingly violent.
Speaking of below linking standards, last week's Miss USA "news" brought Katie Rees into the spotlight. She's a Miss Nevada who was found to have been photographed flashing some bare parts to a camera. Funniest line in the story: "Rees used the incident to helpfully warn other young women not to expose themselves in front of random people's cameras." Thanks, Katie, for that lesson. What's confusing is that she said it was a one-time mistake when she was young, but then they found more photos, and when you look at them it looks like she's doing one of those Girls Gone Wild videos. Not very sympathetic. NOTE: Now that TMZ has the photos they've put them on every related page making the time line a little confusing to follow. The photos appear to have come to light on the 27th. The photos are not work safe, even with little stars covering the naughty bits. This is the first one I clicked. The funny line is from this one. As for being below linking standards, if you take note of the photo credit on the TMZ site you'll find the non-starred photos without much scrolling. I'll link to dead dictators, but bare boobies of beauty queens? Never!
Speaking of all that Miss USA news, I think the whole Rosie O'Donnell/Donald Trump thing is ridiculous but for what it's worth, here's Rosie's blog. I think it's weird, but who am I to judge? It's her blog. What's unfortunate is that their spat hasn't resulted in any loftier discussion of beauty pageants and the practice of parading women around to be judged. Maybe that's already been discussed to death.
Speaking of parading women, or in this case girls, one item that is driving some discussion of eroticism in young American culture is this NY Times piece: Middle school girls gone wild
Speaking of subverting feminism, Housework cuts breast cancer risk - Ah yes, it must be all those healthy cleaning chemicals. Don't be surprised if the next time you go to the gym, everyone is in the bathroom scrubbing the toilets.
After some nagging blog posts questioning their results, Google explains how they derived their annual zeitgeist report. It's not a raw data report, but an editorial interpretation to show "the spirit of the time." It might be said that editorial interpretations of aggregate data is in itself an indication of the spirit of the time. While there's a lot of faith in social software, we seen frequent instances of the guidance of a human hand, this blog included.
Speaking of search zeitgeist, ever read Yahoo's buzzlog? They do a good job describing trends in their search data.
Speaking of sites with a philosophy that's helped by a human hand, Digg gets another cash infusion - This is mostly an inside baseball story, but it's worth noting that most folks take it to mean Digg won't be bought out. I was interested to read the line in the last update about Digg being "more likely to focus on partnering with other sites that have expressed integrating Digg’s format into their own sites." It's probably safe to predict that we'll see site specific Digg pages in the new year.
100 things we didn't know last year - I recently posted a link with this headline and I realize it was last year's. This is this year's.
I know that no one cares about news from Africa unless there are celebrities collecting babies or giant rock concerts, but bloggers have been paying attention to fighting in Somalia (also involving Ethiopia). I caught a bit of CNN while in the airport yesterday and I didn't see any mention of this in their Year in War, but it seems like the U.S. ought to pay attention when the subject is militarized Islamists. What I clicked:
NRA's Secret Graphic Novel Revealed!
iTunes Store Gags on Christmas Download Traffic - It surprises me that iTunes wouldn't be ready for the rush. Meanwhile, whatever happened to Zune? (Painful video at the end of this piece.)
Curse of the Golden Flower trailer - nicknamed "Curse of the Golden Corset."
Speaking of trailers, did you see the new Silver Surfer trailer? I wasn't trilled with Fantastic Four as a movie, but the chase scene in this trailer is cool.
This site lets you help your fellow automobile operators be more aware of their parking shortcomings.
You know your country is in trouble when...
Movie scenes rendered in office supplies - I only got 12 out of 20.
History of religion - Remember that animated map of the spread of civilizations? This is the same thing only major religions. Fascinating.
Architectural wonders 2006
25 really addictive flash games - We've seen most of these in the past, but try Double Wires.
Speaking of addictive games, Line Rider has been updated. And did you know it's going to be making the transition to console?
Still speaking of addictive Flash games, Drunk Santa - I know we're done with Santa but this is an interesting game. I got to 689 before giving up. It's funny to see his appearance change as he gets drunker.
Top 50 albums of 2006 - This is Pitchfork, so the implication is that if you aren't familiar with these you're officially uncool. Here's Rolling Stone's too.
If Midnight is too late for you on New Year's Eve, MSN is doing a trans-time zone event so you can pick an earlier one. I hope they make this into on-demand video afterward because I'd like to see some of these bands but I probably won't be sitting in front of the computer on New Year's (I hope).
Change blindness is the coolest psychological quirk since the Jedi mind trick.
Concept trucks
7 High-Tech Japanese Gadgets You Can’t Buy
Noah Kalina, celebrated photographer, has released a new collection called "everyday/celebrity" in which he photographs his everyday self with celebrities. (I think I read somewhere that the celebs are from some kind of VH1 award show, but I can't find where I read that.)
Being out of reliable Internet range is like being bound in a sensory deprivation chamber. For the record, Web detox takes longer than five days.
It was the possibility that I'd miss online audio collections in tribute to James Brown that knocked me off the wagon. If your local radio isn't doing its civic duty with a James Brown tribute, I clicked WFMU's tribute (actually the stream of a 2001 show) and also this collection of videos. Also Stereogum has a round-up of links.
I'm down in Florida for the holiday. I hope to get a few posts in from here but you know how it goes when you make plans to be productive over a holiday break. I'll be back next week regardless.
I'm suffering a mental block on whether "I know it when I see it" originally referred to art or porn, but in this case I mean art. UPDATE: OK, it was porn (see the comments), but I already published with this title so it's in the RSS feed and everything so I'm staying with it. Maybe I'll get some extra traffic from people looking for porn. The arts community is a little harder to follow with the meme trackers and aggregators I use to write Clicked because there isn't the kind of link exchange that pundit bloggers engage in, but in the past couple of days I seem to have hit upon a rash of artsy links.
Santa as interpreted by the artists contributing to DrawerGeeks.
Speaking of sites collecting artists, Patchbox appears to be a hub of artists. (NOTE: I didn't click anything unsafe for work, but something tells me it's in there if you look hard enough - or if you're unlucky and you click when your boss walks by.) Nice inspiration if you like to draw.
Speaking of art, Spit art - You may have read about it in the Times a couple weeks ago.
Still speaking of art, Stuart (student art) looks like some kind of art student face book. I found an article about it here.
More amazing cut paper art
Fork art - In college I would steal forks from the cafeteria and bend the ends of the tines into loops to make them into hinges for a two-fork bracelet. I never considered attempting anything at this level though.
Since I know someone is going to write in as soon as I post today's entry, I should point out that no list of art links is complete with a mention of Deviant Art.
wood s lot also comes to mind when I think of arts blogs.
The right to bear SLRs - Photobloggers are in fact an aid to homeland security because it's useful to have citizens who actually stop and look at the people objects in public spaces.
"But Patriquin will not see victory in Iraq. He was killed by the same improvised explosive device that killed Maj. Megan McClung of the Marine Corps last Wednesday." Don't skip the Powerpoint slide show.
The Saturday night comedy shows have dueling viral clips:
- Tickle me Emo
- More popular in my surfing: SNL's "A special box" - Vulgar theme but nothing unsafe. I don't really get it, but maybe if I was a Justin Timberlake fan I'd be tickled. UPDATE: A quick casual survey also reveals that the kind of music video being parodied is the real joke here. Not really my genre so I missed it.
ILikeTotallyLoveIt is Digg for stuff. So members post links to stuff and other members vote on whether it's cool or not. Cool stuff rises (theoretically).
Can social scientists redefine the “war on terror”?
Most dangerous roads in the world - Some familiar shots, but still fun.
10 most dangerous toys of all time. I think I played with half of these. It's a wonder I still have both eyes and all my fingers.
Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Clichés - You mean I have to stop using "Um, ..."? Rats.
Worst album covers - There are a few pages out there with this title, but this is the largest quantity I've ever seen. I don't agree with the Scorpions covers, but some of these are so utterly cringe inducing it's hard to look. NOTE: There's a good chance you'll find an unsafe image in here. Certainly there are some suggestive ones.
Speaking of common headlines, 100 keystroke commands - You can probably Google this title and find a bunch of these pages, but I was impressed by the coincidence of finding this page because a colleague was recently asking how to find Notepad on her machine. I started to tell her to look in her Accessories folder when our IT guy told her Start/run/notepad. That got me wondering if there was a keystroke for "run" for the most efficient possible non-mouse way to open Notepad. He didn't know it but this list does. Windows Button + R opens the run window. My new favorite shortcut.
Craigsnumber generates a temporary telephone number for you. It's meant for your classified listings so you're not bothered after you've already sold your item, but the potential for deception is pretty dazzling.
Questions Couples Should Ask (Or Wish They Had) Before Marrying - Currently the most e-mail story at the Times. When my wife and I first met we did a lot of driving (for her job, I'd tag along) and we'd bring a little book called "The Book of Questions." Nothing too heavy but a fun way to explore each other's values without having to have a "these are my needs" talk. Later we had to attend pre-Cana classes as a requirement for marriage in the Catholic Church. We chose the one-day, all-day crash course in a big church basement with 30 or more other couples. As we looked around the room, some couples were weeping and vulnerable discussing for the first time topics my wife and I had long since explored in the Book of Questions. Anyway, that's what this article reminds me of. (What? This can't be part relationship advice column too?)
How to digitize cassette tapes - I'm pretty sure we've seen other links on this. Basically you plug the line out or headphones jack of the cassette player into your computer's line in or mic jack. The trick has always been what software you're going to use to actually do the recording on your computer. This recommends Audacity (which is free).
52 new species discovered on Borneo Island - You probably saw this already. We had it on the cover of the site for a while, but it was a rant point for me yesterday so I wanted to point it out. They're not new species. They're newly discovered, but it's not like God looked down and said, "Oh, you exterminated the white dolphin? No prob! Here's a deck of new species I'll send to Borneo in a bolt of lightning." Maybe there's some scientifically pedantic explanation that says that nothing is a species until it's named, so it's a new species if there's a new card added to the rolodex, but I think in this day and age it's a misleading headline that will lead some people to think that new species simply rise up from the dirt on a regular basis.
Google map out new course for NASA - Non-dairy space maps coming soon.
Speaking of Google, the new annual Google Zeitgeist is out. It's the year's top searches in a variety of categories.
Second Life explained - This is a lengthy reply to last week's Clay Shirky piece. It's full of stats and explanations and, like Second Life itself, is more than can be digested in one sitting. As I read, it occurred to me that the reason I care about the "is Second Life over-hyped" debate is that I'm loathe to invest a lot of time learning about a place that doesn't actually exist if it's not going to have any consequence in the world that does actually exist. So far, to couch it Letterman terms, I do think it's something. Not quite sparks-from-a-metal-crotch-plate, but still something.
"So this, as it turns out, is where to set the Second Life bar: of the 2,000,000+ registered accounts now, roughly 240,000-300,000 are regular users, residents in both the colloquial and literal sense." I spoke on a panel a little while ago and Second Life came up. Someone asked, "But is it 'mass' in the mass media sense?" I said, "Almost," which is probably an over-cautious assessment if they really have that many regular users - though I'm not sure that's an entirely appropriate metaphor.
Ten Years in Prison for 17-Year-Old Who Had Consensual Oral Sex with 15-Year-Old - Legal analysis. So kid, what you in for?
How to photograph Christmas lights - This is actually one of the best photography advice blog entries I've read in a while, partly because it's the last thing I was expecting. I thought it was going to be another one of those Photoshop tricks that only some people have the software to try, or a list of f-stop/exposure settings for an SLR camera that has no relevance to people with point-n-shoots. Instead, it tells you to shoot at dusk. With a regular old digital camera, wait until the sun starts to set so the Christmas lights increase in the contrast with the natural ambient light and for those ten minutes before darkness, take a load of pictures. He also talks about steadying the camera, which is important when the lights are low. Sometimes I think of photography as similar to fishing. You can't take what you want when you want it, you have to wait for a good shot to come along and be ready when it does. Now I'm excited for a good dusk (probably not today, too overcast) to try this trick. And by the way, waiting for the right time of day for the right kind of light is also important for taking/composing HDR photos.
New Shrek trailer - I know this is a beloved character, but I'm starting to get the feeling this horse is dead.
Speaking of animation, CBS Considering New Animated Trek Series For The Web - I assume it's cheaper to produce an animated show than a live action show. It'd be nice if they sank a little money into some worthwhile art though.
Top mistakes made by new online publishers - It's rare that I agree with every item on a list like this, but this time I do. I think it even scales down to the smallest blogger.
An interesting way to explore relationships between music artists. There's probably a fun "six degrees of separation" game to be played here. The only thing is that it doesn't actually play any music, even though it's drawing on the LastFM database. That seems like an important missing feature.
Hermaphroditic deer with seven legs ‘tasty’ - It's the next step in evolution.
Speaking of weirdness from the animal world, the Gordian worm is a cricket parasite that drives the host to suicide by drowning. Creepiest movie I've seen since the Alien chest bursting scene. - or maybe more akin to that robot shrimp they put in Neo's belly in the Matrix - or maybe like those brain eating worms (warning: wicked gross) that crawl into ear holes in Wrath of Kahn. Anyway, parasites give me the scheeves.
Die Hard 4 teaser - The Mac guy mentioned he was working on this. Hard to see him as anything but "I'm a Mac" now.
100 things we didn't know this time last year
Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers - Maybe they were working on the other side of the fence?
Wikipedia's list of paradoxes
Why my mom didn't buy me a slot car track for Christmas in 1978, even though I told her that's what I wanted - The research behind why the people we're closest to buy us lousy gifts. "When partners' tastes were different from their own, then they were better at predicting each others' tastes if they believed they were predicting the tastes of a stranger." I reckon this has interesting implications for other aspects of a relationship.
Speaking of gift givers, The secret life of Santa Claus
You’ve Got 5 Minutes, Make the Most of It - It's a five minute office workout. Stretching followed by pushups followed by stretching followed by being sweaty for a little while.
Relic of the Future - Vianney Halter's Antiqua - I agree with the sentiments expressed on BoingBoing about it: "It leaves me frustrated that all the cheap knock-offs are of standard, slightly grotty, all-look-same status watches." Warning: Scrolling through this site will leave you hating your watch.
Speaking of steampunk, I love this story: World's tallest man saves dolphin - Instead of using a probe or some kind of medicine or other technology, the solution is to call up the World's tallest man to reach into the dolphins. Tune in next week when the world's highest jumper is called upon to save a cat in a tree. There's been an avalanche? Call in the world's fastest snow cone eater so we can look for survivors! And make sure he's wearing goggles.
Chaos theory game - Click the dark blue words to play. You'll figure it out. I was trying for triple digits but couldn't quite get there.
Google now allows you to search the U.S. patent database - Unfortunately the results don't come up with cool thumbnail drawings like the main page. The actual entries do have illustrations though.
10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2007 - After reading all the descriptions and seeing that some are given a "low" ranking for short term impact, I'm not sure all ten of these are "need to know." "Data clouds" are an interesting idea that I've been reading about more often lately, but the one that stood out to me was PRAM. I've had this article on the technology on my to-read list for a few days.
Mark Glaser took a crack at finding the secret to being featured on the front of YouTube. (It comes down to YouTube editors, there's really no easy trick to it.)
Time magazine's declaration of "you" as the person of the year comes in an interesting context given some of the news items we looked at last week.
The headlines about blog numbers peaking indicate that there is a finitude to the blogosphere and it's not the number of people on the planet. That means that bloggers and other amateur content providers aren't "you" but a particular "them." That is to say, it's not everyone who contributes to user-generated sites. There's an argument that it's not even most people. Granted, it's possible for anyone to contribute so I guess Time is correct in that respect. But I do think it's misleading to suggest that everybody's doing it.
All weekend I was thinking about David Pogue blogging at the New York Times about the age-old problem of online incivility. While the standard answers have to do with anonymity and the dehumanizing effects of communicating through plastic keys and a glass screen, I'm still not convinced that "people" are uncivil online. Everyone doesn't comment on message boards and everyone doesn't write e-mail to columnists. That's a very self-selected population and it's wrong to draw any conclusions about "you" from their behavior. We might even consider that it's not the Web that makes some people uncivil but rather that they're already uncivil and the Web just gives them voice. Everyone else either minds their own business or knows enough to realize that flailing about online is a dead end exercise. (Or they're civil.)
I should point out that I say all of this as exactly the kind of loquacious blowhard who keeps three blogs including one professional blog and has been involved in some degree of making a spectacle of himself since at least my 3rd grade recorder recital. Part of how I know that Time's "you" is not everyone is the blank looks I get when I tell people what I do and what my hobbies are. In fact, more often than blank looks I get a "get a life" look. Don't these people know they're "you" too?
And speaking of the New York Times and last week's news, you'd think that the addition of social site interface buttons to the Times' site is yet another indication of why "you" are the people of the year. But is the Times really interested in what "you" have to say? Of course not. But then, can you blame them? Would they really be hearing from you? Maybe for some people reading this, and maybe, as Time magazine says, "on a scale never seen before," but my experience tells me that most of you are not Time's "you." And by the way, take a look at Time.com and tell me how interested they appear to be in what you have to say.
This weekend I spent some more time in Second Life and I'm a little less convinced by Clay Shirky's bashing of the virtual world last week. As usual I explored aimlessly and wondered what the interest in the place is, but then I found a show with an audience. Basically it was streaming audio with an accompanying chat room, except that it was in Second Life, so it was a stage with seated avatar hosts and a guest avatar and an audience sitting on chairs. All things being equal, I think the Second Life interface is preferable to a browser based audio with flat text chat. I'm not sure how such an event would scale, but it was a good indication of how Second Life can be a superior experience and not just a cumbersome novelty.
But to the point of Time Magazine's person of the year, the subject of the show I was attending was programming and coding for Second Life. And in fact, most of the activity I've seen in Second Life has been building the world. It's like a giant construction site. It might be a place that "you" construct and "you" make your own character and "you" decide where to go. But in my exploration so far, it's very much a "them" world. A place where people who know how to build and manipulate virtual worlds go to practice and learn and exercise their creativity. As I struggle to remember what the keystroke is for focusing my view on something as my avatar bashes his head against a restricted area, I'm acutely aware of the fact that I'm not, to use Time's designation, a you. At least, not until "you" build a little more.
Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?
The answer is, you do.
Except when you don't (fifth paragraph). No, "you do" is not the answer. The democratization of music through Rock n' Roll and the garage band doesn't mean that you are a musician even if more people can claim that title than used to be able to. Maybe eventually we'll come to recognize a new social class of online exhibitionists and they'll have a name so their beleaguered spouses can explain, "Oh, he's on the computer. He's a ..." but that name probably won't be "you."
Here's a biased list of related links that I clicked to make myself feel better about my own opinion:
- Later this week I'll be publishing reader mail, which I always appreciate and which often offers insights and leads I'd never discover myself (and by the way, it's almost always civil). So while it may sound like I'm being critical of the kind of person who is Time's "you" in fact I'm appreciative (and a colleague). And furthermore, if Time naming "you" the person of the year helps in the legal struggle to keep online material more shareable and less bound by copyright and DRM then I'm all for it.
- You might not be the person of the year
- "The question is, what about the people not taking part in creating/using any of this user-generated-content?"
- But enough about you - "Does it endanger what passes for the national conversation if we're all talking at once?" Again, I disagree that we're all talking -at once or otherwise.
- "Well, it looks like we were off by two years." - I actually think this cover would have been more appropriate two years ago. Then the headline would have been at the vanguard of two years of extreme growth in the fields of social networking and UGC. Time would have appeared prescient.
The "Verizon doesn't know the difference between dollars and cents" story is couched in a similar way as the AOL customer service call that made it all the way to mainstream news a few months ago.
I surprised myself by listening to the whole thing because it's so long I didn't think it would hold my interest. For me the hook was that the customer and the Verizon reps actually agree, they're working together and trying, but the Verizon reps simply can't learn the math. Before going further I should disclose that I have family that works for Verizon, but not in any way related to this story. The story, in short, is that a guy was quoted a rate of .002 cents per kilobyte, but apparently the Verizon customer service people can't get past the idea that seeing a decimal means "cents" and .002 therefore means 2 cents. UPDATE: OK, people keep writing to me about this so let me clarify. I know that .002 is not 2 cents. I'm saying that as far as I can tell, the Verizon people see a decimal point and automatically think "cents" regardless of the number of zeroes. It doesn't sound like they recognize a difference between $.02 (two cents) and .002 cents.
The result is maddening to listen to. It's almost a "Who's on first" kind of exchange: .002 cents? Yes. Yes! So cents. No, dollars. Third base.
Part of why I don't think this is the same as the AOL story is that the Verizon folks should get some credit for working with the customer as closely and for as long as they did. When you consider that the guy must sound like a loon to them, they really put a lot of effort into working with him. And of course, as customer service people they're not accountants. They were probably hired for their people skills, not their math skills.
But that's as soft as I'll get on them because "decimals" is like 5th grade math, if that advanced. And holding onto your labels is just... language.
Like the AOL story, this one comes with a dedicated blog site and spin-off jokes.
But the Verizon story left me with a much more ominous feeling. The math deficiencies of what appears to be the company's entire Canadian customer service office aren't a symptom of a dirty-tricks corporate policy (though there are accusations of false advertising on the blog). These people didn't know basic math long before they got to Verizon. What if we woke up one day and realized that no one had bothered to learn math?
So when I saw Steve Olson's essay, How the Public School System Crushes Souls, I read it straight through despite its length (and my attention span).
His focus is not so much on math skills as it is on the learning environment in public schools. What appears to have set him off is an intercepted lunchroom note that made the rounds online recently. As a stand-alone item I didn't think much of it, but Olson gives it plenty of context.
Speaking of social outcasts, the trailer for Nerdcore. I wonder if the Internet has made adolescence better or worse.
And as long as we're speaking of education alternatives, I see the Carnival of Homeschooling is up to its 50 week. Congrats on that and the approaching anniversary.
Hey, StumbleUpon has a video channel now.
The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science
Former CNN News Chief (and warblogger whipping boy) To Launch 'IraqSlogger' Site: "a one-stop-shopping clearinghouse for nonpartisan information, including material coming out of Iraq itself from natives of that country, not from foreign correspondents."
One of his first orders of business is to settle the Jamil Hussein matter by paying the way of some bloggers to go to Iraq and find him. Curt of Flopping Aces suspects a trap.
In spite of the fact that Jordan doesn't seem to have been able to figure out which blog is "leading the charge" on the Hussein story, this IraqSlogger site looks like it holds a lot of promise. I wonder why we haven't seen this already done through an established news service. Too expensive to staff? Not enough public interest (traffic) to justify it?
Speaking of having to be in Iraq to report on it, many warbloggers are criticized for supporting the war without having a personal stake in either the military or the war itself. Looking at this tribute to Maj. Megan McClung, however, it's apparent that many active members of the military are also active members of the blog community.
On an Internet powered by video, page views are passe - "Because new page display technologies and the growth of multimedia have actually caused the number of pages needed per viewing session to decrease."
Speaking of click factories, The 15 Best Places to Waste Time on the Web - I'm giving you the printer version because the regular version is paginated to you have to "turn the page" after every few items. Scrolling the page suits the user better, but forcing lots of extra clicks helps the site's bottom line. Hopefully we'll see that change soon.
Speaking of things changing on the Internet, By Some Measures, Blogging May Be Peaking -"We might be at the point where every individual who wants to publish a blog actively may already have one." Steve makes an effort to point out that blog influence does not appear to be running out of steam, but his central point is one that early blog evangelists never really acknowledged; that the number of people who want regularly record their lives and/or thoughts is finite.
Three days later the BBC says the same thing, but also use this quote: "Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."
Speaking of the influence blogs have, On measuring influence in the Blogosphere - Brief, but presents the distinction of maven vs connector in describing types of bloggers.
Also, Online Influence Tied to Search, Social Media Use - "Not only is social networking's influence on marketing growing, but particularly vocal individuals are having more of an effect than ever."
Speaking of those vocal individuals, we've already seen the stories of active Digg members being paid to promote stories on that service, but an added twist is that Jason Calcanis is paying people for tips (pulling a Larry Flynt?) on exactly which Diggers are involved.
If the FTC has its way, it may not require that much effort.
Speaking of assigning value of online word-of-mouth, not long ago there was some consideration of the idea that blogs have value and therefore blogs that promote a political candidate are essentially making a campaign contribution and should be regulated accordingly. John McCain has rekindled the issue by introducing legislation targeting online sexual predators, but using broad enough terms to encompass bloggers, blog commenters, social sites and ISPs. If he makes a run in 2008, he could be putting himself at a disadvantage by getting on the wrong side of bloggers (assuming you believe in the influence of bloggers).
Japanese Mac/PC commercials are a little different in how the two are characterized. There's translation below the video here.
Pauly Shore did not get knocked out by a heckler no matter how much you want it to be true.
I finally took the time to read into the "de-portalization of the Internet" discussion. What I clicked:
What drew me to the discussion is that I had understood the opposite to be happening. My reading led me to understand that with so many individual content creators out there, we'd see a new importance placed on aggregators to gather up the good stuff. If you click through the links above you'll see that what I was thinking and what "de-portalization" is really about is in the same family but really different topics, confused by a poorly defined set of terms. The issue is that the really big companies who used to do it all, now have to figure out a way to also include the independent little guys (bloggers, indie sites, user generated content, etc.) and more importantly to some people, figure out how to keep making money.
The news that the New York Times is offering new social site sharing tools on its articles has been interpreted as a vindication for the social Web in every analysis I've read. One remark (sorry I lost track of the link) pointed to the Alexa traffic graph of the Times versus Digg as reason enough why the Times should be courting Digg users.
But while the graph does show that Digg gets more traffic than the Times, what it doesn't show (yet) is that the Times has seen a jump in traffic as the result of making it easier for users to submit their stories to Digg. Clicking on the Page Views tab shows quite the opposite, in fact.
If you work for a news outlet with very little offered on its pages for sharing on social sites and you want to encourage your dev team to come up with more options for readers, not being able to show a return in page views for sites already doing it is not very helpful.
P.S. I wonder if the new permalink feature will render the NYTimes link generator obsolete.
For a nice concise splash of cold water on this whole idea: If You Think The NY Times 'Gets' Social Media, Digg This!
Speaking of social sites not paying off, Why digg is destined for failure - I understand the arguments made here but I'm not sure the perspective is right. Digg wasn't created so that the referral traffic would be valuable, it was build for the community using it. And judging by the size and success of that community, they like the site just fine.
Speaking of taking the shine off a site that receives a lot of positive press, Clay Shirky says Second Life is built on sand. "Like video phones, which have been just one technological revolution away from mass adoption since 1964, virtual reality is so appealingly simple that its persistent failure to be a good idea, as measured by user adoption, has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the coming day of Keanu Reeves interfaces and Snow Crash interactions."
I admit that once the "cool, I can fly" euphoria wore off I lost my zeal for Second Life. I'm glad I've familiarized myself with it and it wouldn't take much to draw me back with a news event or special performance or meeting, but as a regular form of recreation, what I've found so far doesn't hold my interest.
Where families lived in 1920
This scientist in this story draws a conclusion from pretty much nowhere that car drivers assume cyclists with helmets are more experienced and therefore can give them less space on the road. My own unqualified conclusion from what's reported in the article is that a human with a helmet seems less human and is therefore regarded with less caution.
The history of the button
33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names
Short stroll in a Chinese national park - I'm thinking this is what parks look like in places where there are no law suits.
In case you have or are a smart ass kid who thinks your generation invented headbanging, check out the bass player at 1:09 in this video.
Who has the power to arrest the president?
Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist
Speaking of fashion, the reporting on Al Gore's wardrobe over more substantive matters in the 2000 election is still a sore spot for many liberal bloggers. Seeing a similar tactic adopted in Obama coverage (and leading it to an association with Iran's president) has set off online alarm bells.
"Many of us would like to believe that different types of alcohol can produce very different effects. If only it were that simple." It totally makes sense to me that alcohol is alcohol as far as the body is concerned, but for some reason I want to cling to the idea that different liquors produce different "kinds of drunk."
Christmas 2.0: Subverting the Holidays With Re-dubbing - Still more mashed up children's holiday specials. NOTE: Read the descriptions, some are a little sexual.
"The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote."
Giant knitting
... the rest.
Dateline's "To catch a predator" series has entered the popular consciousness. I know this because the parodies are starting to roll out:
Speaking of NBC shows as YouTube parodies, this Charlie Brown Scrubs mash-up is the best thing I've clicked in the last 24 hours. If you watch all the way to the end you'll see that it uses audio clips from two different holiday shows. The result is breathtaking Christmas blasphemy.
Reports from journalists who are actually in Ramadi are more positive than those by reporters who aren't there. I've seen a few items online that seem to outline a rivalry between Green Zone or D.C. war correspondents and deep field reporters. The fact that reporters who leave the safely of the Green Zone run a very real risk of being slaughtered or worse keeps the debate from getting very far, but it's hard to ignore the obvious fact that actually being in a place is a better way of reporting on it.
Speaking of warblogging, The Fifth Annual Warblogger Awards (For 2006)
Funniest name of a "gate" goes to Chingchonggate. Watching the video, there's something about her tone that feels offensive, like the joke is as much about the sounds she's making as her point that even people in China are talking about the DeVito segment. But then I'm wondering, is there a way to mimic spoken Chinese without being derogatory? Is it the literal "ching chong" that made Rosie's joke offensive?
"Wiremap 256 is a 3'x4'x3'x volumetric renderer." It renders 2D in 3D, not with special glasses or water vapor, but on string. Kinda hard to see but cool idea.
Top 5 2006 movie posters ...and other notables.
Physics explanations in 60 seconds
The dangers of the '9/11 Truth' movement - We've hashed this out on this blog before, so I don't want to get all into it again, but the ultimate point of this essay is that the 9/11 Truth movement is as much a reflection of the failed credibility of the mainstream media as it is a mistrust of the Bush administration and its corporate affiliates.
Bob Saget singing "Danny Tanner is Not Gay" at Skidmore College 2006 NOTE: Coarse language. This is a headphones track. I can't tell if I find this guy funnier because of his family image.
Paris at night mega photo NOTE!: Automatically plays ridiculous music before the photo even loads. Mute before you click! I just blasted my entire cube farm, ug.
I feel like we've seen this before but I definitely don't recall playing with the photographer's site before, so if it's a repeat, so be it.
NASA can't explain why we need a lunar colony. "Coming under a presidency whose slogan might be 'No Price Too High To Accomplish Nothing,' the idea of a permanent, crewed moon base nevertheless takes the cake for preposterousness."
Between Heroes and the X-Men, I'm as excited as the next nerd for the great abrupt human evolutionary shift to superheroism. So it was with great dismay that I realized that my lactose intolerance is a sign that I'm already evolutionarily left behind. Somewhere in my 20s some piece of Kryptonite must have robbed me of my power to process milk. Cancel my cape fitting.
2005 National Hammered Dulcimer champion
Remember Ms. Dewey? Turns out she's an actress named Janina Gavankar. One scene in particular in the movie "Cup of My Blood" includes some unlinkable imagery. Is this a lesson to use CGI actresses in these kinds of applications or is it exactly why you shouldn't?
The old "cow emissions" story is a familiar one, but the laundry list of environmentally detrimental effects of raising livestock is pretty shaming. (I'm not preaching, I'm a meat eater, but damn.)
The USB Airsoft Turret 1.0 - because your computer should also shoot stuff.
The annual White House holiday video, lately the Barney Cam, is another we can add to our list of online traditions. (Yes, I'll eventually get around to updating that post with all these.)
Commuter Click: How art can be good (objectively good).
"Every year, the premature baby unit at Edith Cavell hospital sends cards to the other departments as well as to ex-patients." Fans of Jesus Christ may not find this greeting card amusing but anyone who's felt the hold-your-breath-and-hope feeling of seeing a preemie in an incubator will find it touching.
Why Not a Wind-up Car? This has a current date but some of the comments are old. It's still a fun question. Imagine cars powered by giant clocktower springs.
Asimo takes a dive - I'm surprised he's not programmed to get up off the floor; though I can't imagine how heavy he is. Tell Sarah Connor to
I clicked a link to Grow version 1 yesterday (and won it in only two tries!). The Eyemaze Grow games are famous Web-wide, but I didn't think they were still making new ones. Sure enough, it's new. And this blogger also reminds me that there's Grow Ornament for the online holiday tradition list.
Tom DeLay has a blog. You probably heard about it. The guy was all over the place on TV yesterday explaining to credulous anchors how he'll be using the Web to communicate with America.
But there's the Web and then there's the Web. Which is to say, it's one thing to get a page online quite another thing to have to face the online audience. And so yesterday, most of the hype around DeLay's blog online was from liberal blogs on the subject of holding him to account on his own blog. That was before he deleted everything and started fresh with a finer filter.
But of course, there's the Web and then there's the Web and on the Web it's often the case that what is deleted is really deleted, so the comments removed from DeLay's site (in all their vulgarity) live elsewhere: “A tribute to the 75-minute period where Tom DeLay actually received feedback from America.”
For a summary without my annoying "Web/Web" device, see: The Great Tom DeLay Blog Intrigue
As for me, I like my annoying Web/Web device and I'm going to run it into the ground. Because there's the Web and then there's the Web and you might think that on your site on the Web you can decide what goes on it and block unfriendlies with blunt force filters. But on the Web what you think you control you often don't.
See if you see what I mean.
OK, I didn't see it on my own either, the hint that gave it to me was to look at the comment from TIBT.
No? Try again and see if when you scroll through the comments you notice some with unusual line breaks. Scroll quickly, you'll notice them right away.
That subversive cleverness combined with the fact that I learned the word acrostic is why I love the Internet.
The rest of today's links in a few....
Robert Scoble offers advice on how to interact better with your blog readers. It's mostly the kind of basic "how to blog" advice we used to see a lot of when the blogging wave was really cresting. His item 10 is about writing good headlines. Though I have fun trying to think of clever headlines for this blog, I often wonder if I'm hurting my own traffic. When people come to the front of MSNBC.com and see my headline way down at the bottom, do they click it out of interest or ignore it because it has no clear meaning? Looking at my Google referral stats this week, I'd do well to title every post "pantiless Britney."
Speaking of advice on engaging people online, Diggers Are Getting Paid — But Not By Kevin Rose - I hadn't thought of this, but I guess it makes sense. Rather than learn how to participate in online social sites, some companies are reportedly paying active social site participants to advocate on their behalf. But don't think Digg is taking that lying down.
Still speaking of efforts to engage the online audience, "This is a rumor that just won’t die: The major television networks are considering creating a new online video service joint venture to compete with YouTube." What I don't understand about this idea of the networks teaming up is that if they would just put the video on their own sites with a link that can easily be shared, why do they need to form a partnership in the matter? I go to Comedy Central and find their video stuff hard to use so I search for it on YouTube and find a better link. But if I go to NBC, ABC or CBS, I can find their shows and watch them in full (with mixed results on stream quality and finding a direct URL). I'd be real interested to know if they see a decrease in pirated versions now that they host it themselves. The only thing they'd need YouTube functionality for then is fan mashups and user submission contests.
Elsewhere, "Major media companies are realizing that their digital assets are far more valuable than they initially thought, and they are reacting by putting folks in charge of those assets who they believe will protect the company."
How to make ginger ale - The real kind, with yeast that makes its own CO2 and the result has a bit of alcohol in it.
Mysterious Arctic sharks found in Québec - I love mysterious aquatic life stories. That's why I was bummed when they axed Surface.
The Christian vs. Christ follower video series has caused a stir among online Christians.
Speaking of upsetting Christians, Jesus Christ in a romantic comedy might be one of the worst ideas ever. But I do like this quote: "You see something basic like Britney Spears showing her crazy monkey to everybody, you find yourself thinking, is this the fall of the Roman Empire?" Who needs horsemen when there's the crazy monkey of the apocalypse?
SchoolFizz is like Digg using campus news outlets. My only complaint is that it takes two clicks to see the referenced story.
Condoms 'too big' for Indian men - Time to recalibrate your gross cultural stereotypes. Also consider updating the list of worst jobs in the world.
Just as we read that piece from Dave Neiwert complaining about the lack of coverage of a white terrorist, the news explodes all over the TV screen that a potential terrorist has been arrested, last name Shareef. I'm almost afraid to check back for his reaction.
Llamas Enlisted to Thwart Biological Weapons - Apparently they have a special antibody in their blood that would serve as a signal, so their role would be more like a canary in a coal mine than a drug sniffing dog.
The most popular 10,000 websites analyzed - 8 Questions & Answers - Includes many surprises.
Top 50 Music Videos Of 2006
One more for the Christmas list. White Christmas doo-wop animation. No tricks or jokes or obnoxiousness.
Don't blame Google Maps for Kim's death - Doesn't include mention of the vandal.
"The James Kim thing has me thinking - what would I want in my car if that happened to me?"
How I Knew James Kim - Points out that the depth of the online material surrounding the lives of the Kim family members was part of what made the public care so much about the family.
Maps of James Kim's path
The rollertoaster is the flatscreen TV of toasters.
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars.
History of snowboarding in 2 minutes - An actual survey of the history, not a joke video.
Turkish Star Wars?!?! And a clip. I would have thought that Star Wars would be a particularly good movie to dub to other languages. Half the characters don't even have mouths that move.
"ComicSpace is a place for comic fans and creators to connect with each other. Comic creators can host their comics for free." It's MySpace for the comics community.
Santastic II - One of those DJ mash-up CDs. "This collection of Holiday mash-ups and bootleg remixes offers a new and unusual spin on the classics you know and love." Since this makes two years in a row, we can probably add this to the seasonal online traditions list too. NOTE: I've only listened to the first few tracks so far so be aware of the potential for headphones moments in some of these.
Mountain Bike Trickster - Don't let your kids see this.
"Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend." This might be an amusing story if being a sex offender weren't such a serious label.
Check out the reaction from the uTorrent community on the news that their preferred filetrading service has been sold.
"1,200 people came out to play Capture the Flag on the streets of downtown Toronto."
America Before Pearl Harbor - Early Kodachrome Images
"Portland's so-called 'festival street,' which opened two months ago, is one of a small but growing number of projects in the United States that seek to reclaim streets used by cars as public places for people, too." I am really excited for this idea to spread. Basically they didn't ban cars from the street, but they took out all the things that signify that it is purely the domain of the automobile. Drivers are forced to proceed slowly and with caution because they're essentially driving through a pedestrian mall. "If cities replace what he called "traffic artifacts" with "living room artifacts"—people, landscaping and street furniture—drivers will lose interest in speed and identify themselves as part of the larger social landscape."
Turn a tea bag into a hot air balloon - Or, how to set the kitchen on fire - Or, how to put a black mark on the white ceiling to make mom freak out.
Say hello to the good bye weapon - I always thought that non-lethal weapons would be a great advance for civilization but between all the taser headlines and this thing it seems like we've found an unknown sadistic middle ground.
This being the day after our company holiday party is my excuse for running behind today (that and a somewhat lengthy afternoon meeting). If you haven't had your party yet, there's some advice here.
And if you're looking for ways to kill off the rest of your friday, how about bunnies and bells in the snow? I played until I hit a bird, which got me a high score of 3800. I imagine a person with a responsive mouse instead of a touch pad and a good rhythm could really crank up the score.
UPDATE: Bunnies too cute? How about screaming bloody castle battles?
Why interactive websites can create false memories - You may want to copy this into Word and increase the font size to read it, but ultimately it's a really interesting summary of a paper that shows people to be more prone to false memories about interactive models. Looking at the paper itself, the idea seems to be that interactivity helps us visualize an object in our minds, but once we're imagining it, we can lose track of what we actually saw and what our imaginations are adding. It seems to me the real question is how to plant imagined details into a person's mind (without using the Force). I didn't read through the whole paper, so maybe it's there.
Speaking of marketing mind tricks, A toy story, YouTube-style - You may remember clicking some remote control helicopter videos here in the recent past. Turns out that was part of a wave of alternative marketing. This makes two days in a row I find myself wondering if I'm actually participating in exploring word-of-mouth on the Web or whether I'm making myself a marketing tool. Remote control helicopters are cool, the videos were cool, isn't that all that matters? Is it better that it's not being forced down my throat with overt advertising or is it more insidious that it's being snuck into my daily life? Does word-of-mouth Web marketing foster a more honest kind of capitalism?
NewTeeVee is a new blog monitoring the online video scene. More text than video, but I've already learned some interesting things from it and it's only a couple days old.
Speaking of new online video coverage, Blogpulse has added a yesterday's top videos list. It's a little hard to go through with only the URLs as a guide. The most interesting thing I clicked that I hadn't seen elsewhere was this documentary on Hitler's home movies. It looks like it's for BBC5. The movies were silent so historians used lip reading technology to find out what Hitler was saying. Most of the video is build-up. The translations come around the 30 minute mark. I was interested to note (at 34:14) Hitler's enthusiasm for giving every German household a camera so they could record the nation's growth. I don't think anyone gives Hitler credit for being an early envisioner of citizen journalism, but that's OK, screw him.
Speaking of citizen journalism, The demise of the professional photojournalist - He's talking about photojournalists who do breaking news and whether they can compete with citizen journalists who happen to be on the scene when news breaks. Dan Gillmor is probably the most prominent student/teacher/proponent of citizen journalism, so I respect his views, but I don't think I agree with this one. Speaking as someone who makes an active effort to be aware and prepared for citizen journalism opportunities, I can see how a professional with good equipment, listening to a police scanner and with personal contacts in emergency services could get much better pictures of breaking news than police tape gawkers holding their cell phones in the air. Of course there are those amateur photos and videos of news taking place, but I think those only expand the available breaking news media, not replace the existing system.
What really troubles me about citizen media is that it's not necessarily reliable coverage. Yesterday there was a stabbing in Union Square in New York City. Not only is New York a very wired place, but Union Square is extremely crowded and there are NYU students everywhere over there who are presumably tech savvy and gadget equipped. "Witnesses said as many as 50 youths went after each other with canes, belts, fists, and more during the melee..." But these were the only citizen photos I could find of it and it turns out the guy who took them is a professional photographer! Maybe the citizen journalists didn't get around to upload them yet?
UPDATE: For a nice counter-example, check out the contributed photos on the BBC's London tornado story -here and here.
Free file conversion - By chance, the other day I was looking for a way to turn a wma file into an mp3 file and all the free services online were downloads. Since I wasn't feeling very bold about putting strange software on my machine I didn't do anything. Then I randomly came upon Zamzar. You tell it what file you want converted and what you want it converted to and then e-mail you a link to download the converted file. So far I don't think I've received any spam for giving them my mail address, but I used my junk mail address anyway. The whole thing worked great. (The audio was only 2 megs.)
Graffiti generator - This is for MySpace pages, and naturally no die hard graffiti fan would tolerate it, but it's fun for what it is.
Speaking of letter styles, there are few souls more tortured than designers. See how they view the world.
"Free Jamil Hussein" is a new meme circulating among warbloggers. You'll recall that Jamil Hussein is an unusually often-quoted source in AP stories about the situation in Iraq. The call to "free" him is directed at the AP to allow public verification of the guy. See also this lengthy reply to New York Times coverage from earlier this week.
The finalists in The 2006 Weblog Awards - The list isn't linked yet, so you have to search for the ones you're interested in. There are so many categories it's a wonder everyone in the blogosphere isn't a finalist in something.
I really like the idea of this mp3 digest. I'd prefer to be able to listen to the whole thing as a podcast, but I appreciate the reviews. So many mp3 blogs I click link as fans instead of critics.
And by the way, on Rex's list of worthwhile blogs yesterday, The Morning News is one that could have been on that list. Though it can be a little NYC-centric, I often find interesting things there, like this Commuter Click: The geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace.
Speaking of the Web's unseen structure, Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians - How much electricity does it take to run the servers that support Second Life and it's virtual inhabitants? Find the math done here.
Pencil art - This is funny to see in the wake of the carved crayons from the other day.
Unusual navigation on this site, but if you click around enough there's a lot of neat stuff here.
I've been running into a lot of links to National Geographic lately. I don't know how new the current design is, but I really like it. Especially the extra information in the side bar. And especially especially the camera meta data in the slide shows. The comments from their illustrations editor in their user submission section are also very insightful.
The girl guitar - Not really perverse, but still a little weird.
Making Atlas Shrug in Venezuela - Can the U.S. manipulate its immigration policy to orchestrate a sort of brain drain (productivity drain) in Venezuela?
While the rest of us go insane waiting until January for new episodes of Heroes, if you haven't been watching you can catch up on the entire series on the NBC site - free. (Take advantage of this while it's the hot gimmic. I can't imagine free online rebroadcasts are going to be the norm for long.)
Top ten naked people on Google Earth - Totally safe for work because a naked person on Google Earth is just a blur but it's a pretty funny distinction to have if you're one of the ten.
Another online Christmas tradition: the Scared of Santa gallery
Tea cups that stain in an attractive pattern - This reminds me of a history I once heard of why blackbelts are black. The idea was not that you advance to a new color but that your continued use of the belt while training would lead to it gradually turning darker with dirt and sweat. I don't know if that's true, but the idea of becoming a blackbelt(cup) tea drinker has some appeal.
"Wordie lets you make lists of words -- practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. You can then see who else has listed the same words, and talk about it. It's more fun than it sounds." That's good because it doesn't really sound very fun.
Wii Safety: The Missing Pages (from the safety manual)
If I saw my kid throw himself on the floor like this I think I'd have a heart attack. This one in the series may be better.
Why is this guy's list of the most viewed YouTube clips of all time not the same as the "most viral" clips of all time listed on the Countdown Web site? The Countdown list comes from a company called The Viral Factory that makes videos with the intention of seeing them go viral. I don't know how The Viral Factory tracks videos across different sites and platforms, but I'm amazed that I recognize every one of their sample videos. I didn't realize that Fingerskilz video was an ad for HP. I might have checked the URL in the video to make sure it wasn't obscene, but I didn't look that closely. Have I been subliminally influenced to favor HP computers? The Viral Factory site is agonizingly slow so you may find yourself not playing many of the videos there, but be forewarned (by which I mean, NOTE:), Trojan, Dream Team, and Remington have nudity in them.
Speaking of the advertisements in our midst, Marketers' Websites Outdraw Those of Major Media Players - While we've seen the prediction that the future will see more aggregators to help people discover the good stuff online, the role of the middle man in advertising looks like it could suffer some serious erosion if consumers are going directly to the product sites.
Speaking of shaking the foundation of advertising, The Imminent Demise of the Page View - I like the idea of measuring unique visitors against time spent on the site and doing away with page views as a metric. I'm not sure if that can be extended to RSS readers, but it's bound to encourage more engaging content and stop rewarding all that annoying excess pagination we run into all the time.
Speaking of marketing that stays with you, 50 greatest commercials of the 80s.
77 design gifts under $77 - Some hits and some misses, but with a list of 77 you're bound to find something that piques your interest.
DIY Holiday Contest: The homemade stocking - Holiday contests seem to be another new online holiday tradition.
Virtual Shopping Malls Making a Comeback? I played with the one mentioned in the article and I don't think it's better than designing a site that looks like a catalog. I suppose there's an argument to be made that people are already familiar with shopping in a store, so imitating that online will be comfortable for users, but I think replicating the catalog experience is better than replicating the mall experience.
Andrew Sullivan unearths an AT&T ad from 1993 that makes some pretty accurate predictions of the future. Bonus quiz: Name that voiceover guy.
Remember Mystery Science Theater 3000 with the little silhouettes at the bottom of the TV screen heckling the movie? The guy from that, Mike, offers commentary as a download now that you can play synchronously with a DVD.
Have you ever watched an octopus video that didn't leave you marveling at their nature? This one gives me a bit of a headache though.
The story of James Kim and his family is so horribly scary I can hardly bare to read the news of it. P.S. Since he's a CNet employee, I'm keeping an eye there for updates.
Map of the Star Trek Federation - Kind of hard to read. It looks like someone took pictures of a poster and tried to piece them together online.
Richard Dawkins, author and campaigning atheist answers your questions, such as 'What would you say at the gates of heaven?' Just about everything this guy does spreads across the Web like wildfire. I don't know if he's a bigger celebrity in the UK than I realize or if there are a lot of frustrated atheists online or if it's just his style of argument that is so appealing.
Is road skating really a thing?
What happens when you strike a flaming can of WD-40 with a stick. NOTE: Cameraman shouts F-bomb. Clip works just as well on mute.
Here's the beta launch of the Yahoo/Reuters "You Witness" citizen journalism site. Of course, with Yahoo owning Flickr, the photos are pretty much a gimme. In fact, it seems silly to separate that and try to rebrand it for news purposes. Also, it's a little concerning to see their main photo is a picture of a citizen standing in the path of a huge storm, risking her life so Yahoo can have free footage.
22 Ways To Overclock Your Brain - Another nice list to ways to keep your mind spry. I think we'll see a lot of this kind of advice as boomers start to panic about their aging brains. By all accounts I've read, the brain is very much a use-it-or-lose-it kind of organ.
"The popular BitTorrent client, Azureus has announced its long awaited 3.0 release together with the launch of its new video sharing site Zudeo.com." I played with this a little and got it to work, but some parts are a little mysterious to me - like trying to figure out where the app puts the files it downloads. I'm listening to a big FLAC of Willie Nelson solo in 1997 playing live in Maui, which turns out to be a pretty good surfing soundtrack.
Defining a racist - Malcolm Gladwell tries to solidify the definition of racist to apply it to recent news events.
Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren't Reading - Disclosure: This blogger is a colleague here at MSNBC.com.
IRS taxation of online game virtual assets inevitable - I never really thought about it, but it does seem likely. Virtual assets are worth real money after all. For that matter, crime writers looking for a way for your character to fence money or otherwise hide a transaction? Consider a virtual middle man.
"A baseball player answers his fan mail 15 years later." Cute story. I once dated a girl who would find the press address for obscure heavy metal bands and write to them for autographed photos. I never really got into autographs, but I do have a small collection that includes Blackie Lawless from WASP, Joan Baez, and an almost Jim Jarmusch (he signed Abraham Lincoln's name). (This link was also submitted by Lia to the mailbag. Thanks Lia.)
"Unsuggester takes "people who like this also like that" and turns it on its head."
I'm not really clear how it knows what books are the opposite of each other.
"The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations."
And so... How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
EnglishRussia offers a translation of what is ostensibly a Russian pilot's description of first hand photos taken from the air on 9/11.
While I understand the point Dave Neiwert is making about non-Muslim terrorists not getting the same media hysteria treatment, I'm glad that we didn't have to endure another round of fretting, hand wringing and empty political gestures about the threat of terrorism.
Carved crayons - Check out his other stuff too.
I love the Doritos-on-the-beach story. Aside from making a funny dovetail with the show Lost, I can just imagine a guy on the beach feeling a little hungry and thinking about maybe heading up to the snack stand for a bag of... wha?? (Great photos too.)
In other Doritos news, the delis in my neighborhood have been carrying the new flavor "Buffalo & Ranch." I didn't find the flavor to be very distinct from the others. However, this weekend I tried a new limited edition flavor "Sweet Spicy Chili" or something like that. That's a keeper. What? You don't try new Doritos flavors as they come out? I used to be able to name them all. That'd be a good contest if I could find a definite list somewhere. Looking at their site, they list a few I've never seen in New York, like Taco Doritos. They probably do regional flavors too (Like Doritos Latinos in Scotland and the "kick in the crotch" bags in Japan.) This whole thing is just begging for a Flickr photo pool. Maybe later I'll go back to the deli to get a picture of the chili flavor. Now I'm wishing I'd been taking pictures all along. When was the last time you saw the old red and white bag? Update: OK, out of curiosity I took a peek, and yes, there does appear to be a Doritos economy. One more: I see Doritos is offering ten grand for a homemade commercial. I wonder if anyone has footage of the Doritos on the beach. (Oops, as someone points out in comments, "David Dixon, an Avon attorney and amateur videographer, wasted no time in taking video footage to make a 30-second commercial.") OK, seriously, last one: All of this Dorito talk had me thinking about Doritos as an American culinary contribution, which had me thinking of cooking with Doritos (like some kind of Top Chef challenge) which made me realize that I do know of one Dorito recipe, the Dorito Burrito.
Speaking of Flickr pools, you have until the 11th to submit an entry in NPR's "Make a Menorah, Create an Ornament" contest.
CNET's James Kim and his family are apparently still missing. Such a strange story, though I guess that's the nature of all missing person stories.
It's the protocol stupid! Here's more on that confusing news about BitTorrent striking a deal with movie companies. It makes the movie companies look pretty stupid, but not in a way that isn't believable.
"The freebord is a skateboard that rides like a snowboard. It has the same edging ability and this makes any hill ridable."
The Coming Era of Magical Physics - I generally try to avoid stories about "what could be" in science. Some folks like to get excited by the implications of studies that are only in planning like, "If the funding comes through and the tests are successful, we could be looking at the most amazing, civilization-changing invention ever." That said, here's an exciting article about technology that hasn't been invented with pretty weak proof that it's going to be invented.
77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better - What a great list. Especially good if you're feeling in a rut and looking for new ideas for how to break out.
Scott Adams likes Bill Gates for president. Adams often argues in favor of smart people, but I have to wonder what would convince Gates to be president. I'm having trouble coming up with something he could do as president that he can't do on his own without all the added grief.
"Let me remind my readers that the "Juba the Baghdad sniper" does not exist--at least, not in the heroic sense that the jihadi crowd has painted him as. He's a myth. A piece of fictional propaganda produced by terrorists. A heroic superman for the al Qaeda supporters of the world." I never even heard of Juba and I thought I was paying pretty close attention.
Here's a good one for regular Clicked readers. Can you see the message? (P.S. Does anyone else suffer memory leak problems when they have that many Firefox tabs open?)
Sixth Grader Tasered At Middle School or... Taser used to save 11-year-old girl from attack. While it does feel like taser use is getting out of hand, if I was the parent of the girl being attacked, I probably wouldn't have any trouble supporting the electrocution of her attacker.
Did you hear about the guy who said that if his blog entry made it to the front page of Digg he'd quit his job? Apparently he actually went through with it, but it did blow up in his face a little.
The Photojojo Holiday Gift Guide - What to Buy and Why in 2006
There are now three parts in the "Social lending the next Web 2.0 phenomenon" series. Social lending is like citizen journalism, only for banking. For the casual Web surfer, it's interesting to see people make their pitch for money. I wonder how often people get burned doing this. It looks like most of the participants invest such a small amount that the risk isn't too huge.
Here's one for sports fans, though the real attraction is the hysteria of the commentators. NOTE: NY Giants fans may find this strikes too close to home. (Be sure to watch the whole thing through.)
"Create a nation anywhere in the world and decide how you will rule your people by choosing a government type, a national religion, ethnicity, tax rate, currency type, and more in this new geo-political, nation, and government simulator."
Life Goggles: Online video sharing quality comparison
Biblical Studies Carnival XII
How to synch your X-mas lights to music - There's no real trick revealed here. You still have to manually program the lights with the music.
"Virtual communities are as important as their real-world counterparts, many members of online communities believe."
"Explicit sex in films and books used to be shocking but there are signs of a new liberalism gaining ground." (Totally SFW) This article made me think of the comment someone left about Pantiless Britney only being a big deal in the context of puritanical modern America. (By the way, remember that item about the hunt for 2006's word of the year? "Pantiless" isn't actually a word, but looking at the search terms people are using to look for the Britney photos, I'd say it's on its way.)
Wow, this fake Seinfeld episode is really well done. It mixed old episodes and clips from recent news. NOTE: You'll recall that those clips from recent news involve Kramer shouting out the N-word. Non-NOTE: I seem to remember from my youth that National Lampoon Magazine had naked ladies in it, but I don't see any on the Web site.
