ABOUT CLICKED

The modern news consumer ignores Weblogs and online citizen journalism at his own peril. But not everyone has the time to keep track of what's going on the Web. With this blog we hope to track the highlights of what's being discussed online so when news breaks from the Web, we're ready.

Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

Send a message to Will at spotter@msnbc.com



The best thing I clicked all day

Posted: Thursday, January 18, 2007 10:49 PM by Will Femia

The best thing I clicked all day is this video of a water buffalo being purchased for a Chinese family.  Jason Kottke has links and back story but in short, inspired by a charity that purports to buy these animals for poor people but doesn't actually do so, some people got together to make it really happen.  UPDATE:  Let me just clarify that they do buy animals, just not in the direct way implied by their 'catalog.'  I don't doubt that good work is done by this organization and the money they receive.  The point is that the people in the video wanted to literally purchase a water buffalo and give it to someone.

Speaking of Kottke links, I may not know what a rep is outside of a weightlifting context but I'll be ready when I hear someone say "book" instead of cool.

"Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him."  This is about a kid who invented a really cool touch screen interface - video of which we saw a few months ago, so I was going to skip it, but then I saw the new video.  I mean seriously, can you imagine?

'Extraordinary heroism' of helicopter rescue bid - They actually strapped themselves to the outside of a helicopter and flew into an enemy fort to retrieve a fallen comrade's body.

Mickey Kaus returns to that Boxer/Rice confrontation - And this time he's more explicit about its real meaning: "Boxer's illogical detour allowed her to not-so-subtly advertise her motherhood in line with the reigning mommy-rhetoric of the Pelosi Era, in which "the gavel" is in 'the hands of America's children.'"

Katie Couric must have missed all the media coverage when she left the Today show because she seems to be realizing only now that she's the only female news anchor.

37 Fads That Swept The Nation.

"Completed by 1772, 'The Writer' was the most perfect and complex automaton built by Swiss clockmaker Jacquet-Droz."  It's a wind-up doll that dips a pen in ink and writes legibly on paper.

Choose your own adventure for iPod is here.

Iranian Politicians Threaten to Wipe Ahmadinejad From Map - Why wait for us to be at war with them before we start paying attention to their political climate?

I think I like these guys even more than the OK Go treadmill dance.

Lately when I see commercials on TV that use supposed real people with real names I Google them.  Of course nothing comes up.  But it didn't even occur to me to hunt for American Idol contestants.  Luckily, someone else did.  And by the way, since American Idol is on Fox and their parent company also owns MySpace, you'd think they'd have already come up with a round-up like this.  NOTE:  It's kind of cruel, but then American Idol is like a big hazing ritual anyway.

The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trailer

That was Gary Jules again during the emotional scene in Grey's Anatomy tonight.  The track is called "Falling Awake" but I couldn't find any free copies anywhere.  Here's his MySpace page though.

Web Sites Challenge the Textbook Goliaths - This is about Web sites that cut the mark-up, but I thought the new trick was to use the Internet to buy books overseas.

Tricky flicky - I hope this kid is getting paid by the company that makes that cell phone.

This guy has a hard time getting FedEx to ship empty containers.  My first reaction was that this isn't really a "homeland security is ridiculous" story because the employee is clearly just making up his own rules.  But then I have to wonder how often idiocy is employed in the name of security hysteria.

The president of India asks Yahoo Answers how to solve the problem of terrorism.

The top 100 most endangered species

The Jeep Waterfall writes messages and designs with falling water.

Remember when I was talking about how people perceive personalities in the sites they use?  This post matches sites with photos of how they imagine the average user looks.

What's funny to me about Stephen Colbert's explanation of the AT&T/Cingular deal is that I'd mentioned the deal to someone in connection to Cingular and the new iPhone but I didn't get the details right and the other person explained it all to me and said exactly what Colbert says in this video.

"Cancer cured" headline of the week:  Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

Fact Checking 101 - How Skeptic magazine was Duped by an Environmental Activist Group (The duping was over a story you may have heard of about creationists in the Bush administration pressuring park guides at the Grand Canyon.  Turns out that wasn't very true.)

Parents fight to clear the Internet of photos taken of their daughter after she was killed in a car crash.  The story is a little extreme, but in a nutshell: "Graphic accident-scene photos, including close-up shots of Nikki, who suffered massive head trauma, have been leaked onto the Internet."  For some reason people are actually harassing the family members with the photos.  That part I don't really understand, but there's an interesting lesson in how once something's online, it's not coming off.

Speaking of not getting offline, I've had this one in my notes for a couple of days waiting for a segue like the crash photo story.  "Videos show challenge of info wrangling" is about a paparazzi video that shows a Brazilian model Daniela Cicarelli and her boyfriend engaging in various degrees of PDA on a beach.  At one point they appear to be having sex in the water.  It's not as explicit as, say, the Paris Hilton sex tape, but it's pretty racy nonetheless (consider that a NSFW NOTE if you happen upon a link to the video in the course of clicking through pages related to this story).  The model and her boyfriend were sufficiently mortified at the video's release that they went to some pretty extreme measures to try to keep it from spreading, including getting ISPs to block customer access to YouTube.  Outraged at having their Internet censored just because some girl couldn't keep her bikini bottom on, a boycott of the model (NOTE: this link has a photo of a scantily clad woman pretty close to the top) became part of the campaign to liberate the Web.

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Comments

I love reading Clicked at work. But, we have a surf control program that doesn't let us get to a lot of entertainment sites (esp YouTube). It would be great if you could include in your links if they are a video or come from a video site. You know...just so big brother doesn't think I'm trying to circumvent the rules. Thanks! :)

Bianca, Lafayette IN (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 10:31 AM)

I hate to say it but I was morbidly curious and decided to look up the pictures of the girl in the crash after seeing the same story on Digg. A warning to others; massive head trauma doesn't begin to convey the horror of these pictures. I wish I had never looked.

Brian, Omaha, NE (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 10:41 AM)

Will - I don't think you're being fair to Heifer International. They really do get animals to families who need them, even if my own gift may not go for any particular animal to any particular family. How is this any different than a gift to, for example, the Red Cross? Do I expect to know what kind of food or medicines are being given to which particular family? How arrogant it is when we make a gift for the sake of making us feel good about ourselves! If truly given because there is a need to be fulfilled, the giver would not care to whom or where the gift goes. - Kyle

Ky;le Garrett, Overland Park, Kansas (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 11:21 AM)

re: "Supposedly real people in commercials" I've noticed some of these commercials of "local" people are exactly the same when I visit my parents' house, just with different names and towns. What really makes me chuckle these days is the Jeep commercial where they show the Jeep driving through various snowy locations.. the very last one shows "Tonawanda, NY" and a Jeep driving through a snowy expanse with a huge lodge in the background. I used to live near Tonawanda, and have driven through most of it... I can't recall any area of the town looking like this. If someone knows where it is, let me know...

Kaz (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 11:56 AM)

Kyle, while I don't doubt that Heifer International does good things with the money it's given, the site definitely gives the impression that donations are purchasing animals in a 1-to-1 relation. If it said "here's a breakdown of our costs. We buy 50 buffalo in a year along with other expenses both administrative and charitable and your donation will help meet our budget so we can buy these buffalo" then that'd be one thing, but the impression they give is that you're really buying a buffalo with a 250 dollar donation. A quick look at the site would make one think that a donation of 500 bucks gets two buffalo when in fact it gets probably just one plus assorted other costs for the charity. I don't agree that the guy in the video wanted to make himself feel good. I think he wanted to make himself feel effective. It's funny you use the Red Cross as an example because even though they don't make promises as specific as this, they did make a promise with regard to the 9/11 cause and when it came out that they'd used 9/11 money for administrative purposes and other causes it was a huge scandal. When Katrina hit they had to be very clear about how donations for that cause would be used.

Will Femia (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 12:02 PM)

Will, I agree with Kyle on the Heifer thing. While giving someone a water buffalo is a tremendous gift, as the video began to fade to a close, I found myself wondering, "How will that animal survive? How will a single animal improve their lot? Does this impoverished family have access to the necessary land, feed, and shelter that are necessary for EFFECTIVE farming?" That is what Heifer provides in addition to actual agricultural animals. Effective farming is more than a beast of burden. Heifer is trying to provide long-term solutions to hunger. Perhaps they should be more clear about what their donations mean on their home page. But I found enough information with but two additional clicks to feel better about the Heifer gift I received this holiday season. Click a little deeper Will.

Kitty, Oregon (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 2:30 PM)

Kitty, I had a similar thought, actually more along the lines of what I wonder when is see those extreme makeover shows. Can they afford the upkeep? I also wondered if they'd even keep the buffalo at all since their story makes it sound like their biggest burden is the bank nagging them for loan repayment. Maybe they'll sell the buffalo instead. I wonder if Heifer started out just buying animals and learned the hard way that more than that is necessary. Anyway, I didn't say you shouldn't feel good about a Heifer gift. On the contrary, I'll repeat, I'm sure they do good work. But the livestock catalog is a little misleading.

Will Femia (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 3:26 PM)

Although that massive touchscreen was pretty cool, the problem is it requires too much elbow grease to use. Those guys' arms are flailing all over the place in that video! A keyboard and mouse allows us to slouch in our chairs and move nothing but our fingertips and wrists, while performing basically every task exhibited in the video.

Alex, Lawrence, KS (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 3:57 PM)

The touchscreen is probably more interesting for the idea of having a giant screen. Let's face it, most of it us have 19" or less screens, and you just cannot see that much. Although that touchscreen would be good for a few applications (many already exist, such as the Digg swarm), most of those would get tiring pretty quickly compared to a mouse/keyboard. I do note that they had some nice applications, I have not seen before; but, these would be good without the touchscreen. But, again, a giant screen is what really would make all the difference. One big problem with touchscreens is the lack of tactile feedback (the feel of a button or physical thing). If you could "feel" those objects, it would make you far more effective, since your vision and touch-sense would coordinate.

Paul, Alamo, CA (Sent Friday, January 19, 2007 7:24 PM)

The idea of giving a water buffalo to a needy family will be hard to comprehend for Westerners. I grew up in the Philippines and there are some areas where they still rely on them as the "beast of burden". A man can till ten times more land with a water buffalo and a plow than just using a hoe or shovel giving him more time to do other things. The water buffalo also provides milk and a mode of transportation with a sled. It does not require much upkeep like cows since they can graze on grass, rice stalks or whatever is locally available. Stealing one is tantamount to depriving a family of its means of livelihood and survival. There are still a lot of places in Asia and Africa which have not been touched by modern technology and they have survived for thousands of years without depending on outsiders.

Lee, San Diego, CA (Sent Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:29 AM)

I can see a couple of problems with the guy shipping items through FedEx. One problem is that sugar is subject to FDA restrictions. The other items of the Nitrogen, Neon, and even the tap water are all subject to the Toxic Subtance Control Act. So even if he did have the paperwork for the FDA, and he had the TSCA form, it still doesn't matter. The "Rocket Fuel" is mislabeled. No where on it does it state what it contains. In the blog it states "You know that we originally ordered these empty cans and jars from a company, and *they* shipped them to *us*.", my question is did they have those labels on them when they were shipped. It is not the empty packages that are the problem, it is the labels.

Zeke, Springfield, MO (Sent Tuesday, January 23, 2007 2:45 PM)



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