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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



Is green enviable?

Posted: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 12:45 AM by Will Femia

Used regular cars are better than new green cars because making new green cars requires more energy than fixing an old car - outweighing any emissions or mileage benefits. I'd still prefer a city with low-emission, fuel efficient cars instead of old guzzling belchers but then, I don't live next door to a car factory.

Speaking of comparing green cars, Myth Busters tested electric vehicles against their corresponding gas vehicles. The headline is a bit misleading but the electric vehicles held their own for the most part.

Speaking of green cars, VW will have a 230 mpg "car" in production for consumers by 2010. I put the quotes on "car" because it's pretty skimpy as cars go. I'm not sure at what point a car can no longer be called a car but this might be close. Then again, if you commute to work alone anyway, who cares what you call the vehicle you drive as long as it has a radio?

Wow, what a great idea for a site! Cassette From My Ex - People share mix tapes made for them by former lovers. I have tons of old mix tapes, mostly from friends and some just made for myself from the radio. What a great resource to tap.

Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too - The idea is that employees who take the buyout offer don't appreciate the company culture so the company is better off getting rid of them early than allowing dead weight clock punchers to bring the rest of the staff down.

Massive Indiana Jones Lego boulder - (And speaking of Indiana Jones, Roger Ebert liked it. I'm actually beginning to dare to believe that this movie isn't going to be a tired sequel-that-shouldn't-have-been-made.)

Andy Baio read my mind on the flying penis that attacked Gary Kasparov. That's a griefer tactic in Second Life. What the hell I'm talking about:
  • Yeah, his speech was interrupted by a replica of a man's tackle with a double helicopter propeller. (And yeah, NOTE: NSFW, though really it's so absurd to see a security guard swat a flying penis out of the air, it's hard to imagine a boss who wouldn't forgive you.)
  • Griefers in Second Life are what we might think of as trolls in other community spaces but they're able to express their obnoxious disruptiveness with 3-D animation.
  • Second Life griefers famously interrupted an interview with a CNET Second Life reporter by flying flocks of penises through the scene of the interview.
(By the way, speaking of Waxy, I fixed the link to the Fanboy Supercuts from the other day.)

And speaking of disruptions, a helicopter penis totally trumps mere egg throwing as a protest statement.

That old Angelina Jolie video where she talks about bad things. Whatever. She seems to have redeemed herself. It's no secret she has a weird streak.

YouTomb - "YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation." NOTE: Everything I see now is SFW but I guess the content is changing all the time so I can't say what'll be there when you click.

Though I could swear we've seen something like this before (maybe something different but similar from the same artist?) the recurrence of this MUTO link in my daily surfing is too prevalent not to mention again. The online sketchbook is here. Check out the video tab. I think maybe it was "Walking" that we saw last time.

Iceland tops the Global Peace Index, whatever that is. (Noteworthy because I also clicked this item about why Icelanders are so happy.)

This guy turns his bedroom lights off with Twitter.

"If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters." The term to know is "seasteading" and it's interesting that it comes on the heels of the news of that Ron Paul gated community. It also brings to mind Noah's ark and Waterworld for some reason.

An interesting tangent to the story of the earthquake in China is made more interesting by my cherry picking links that encourage a supernatural conclusion. There's speculation online that this video and others like it are examples of "earthquake light" that serves as a sort of alarm system in the sky to tell us when the ground is about to move. (The more likely answer: a coincidental circumhorizontal arc.)

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Comments

A couple of things...

How many "old guzzling belchers" are there, really? Most properly running cars from the 80s, say, would not have any higher emissions than new cars, and would probably get better mileage. They tend to be smaller, lighter, and more fuel-efficient than current models. The '82 Dodge Omni, '82 Honda Civic, and '82 VW Jetta all got more than 50mpg on the highway! Why do we need hybrids?

On happiness, check out "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. I'm reading it right now and just finished the chapter on Iceland. Weiner has an entertaining style that makes it a fun read.

David, Illinois (Sent Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:33 AM)

I've seen theories similar to the earthquake light, in a small scale, used to explain the many "phantom brakeman" and "ghost light" stories across the U.S.  There seem to be hundreds of rail lines that have bobbing balls of light that appear at night, and some think that the stresses caused by the weight of the trains are causing them to appear.  Most of the ghost lights also appear in areas where cystalline rock stress could be a factor.

Jay - Blacksburg, Virginia (Sent Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11:14 AM)

David, you're right about the belching guzzlers. I confess the Cuba coverage on TV had planted subliminal visions of rusty, bubble fendered clunkers held together with coat hanger wire.

As I recall, the little Subaru I learned to drive on in the 80s was also good on gas.

Will Femia (Sent Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:01 PM)

Three typos in one day's posting?  

fixing and (AN) old car
is to (TOO) prevalent
Noah's arc (ARK)

I don't go around dogging folks for their spelling gaffes, unless they are a print journalist whose job is to communicate via the written word. ;)

Please consider initiating some sort of QC into the blog posting process.

RC, Indiana (Sent Wednesday, May 21, 2008 9:05 PM)

RC, as you may have noticed by the time stamp, it's a hazard of late night posting.

Will Femia (Sent Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:44 PM)

What I first thought of when I read the "seasteading" piece was "Rife's Raft" from Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" - though without the nefarious undercurrent.

A.G. Pym, Richland, Washington (Sent Thursday, May 22, 2008 2:54 PM)

Will, the bit about creating "Used regular cars may be better than new green cars" reminded me of a news story (I think from the NY Times, but don't remember exactly) that I read some months ago comparing the purchase of a new Hummer versus a new typical hybrid. Per the report, you were actually doing less damage to the environment when you purchased a Hummer.

The reasoning went like this: The Hummer definately passed more pollutants and used more fuel during its use - no arguement. But it is in the assembly and the disposal of the vehicle where the true difference and environmental damage was made.

The Hummer is made of more materials; but in the end, lasts (on average) twice as long as the hybrid (the average Hummer lasts more than 200K miles, but the average hybrid lasts around 100K). So, when you have used and thrown away one Hummer you have used and thrown away two hybrid cars. Also, the manufacturing of the battery for those hybrids is a horribly polluting process. That report made me think of all vehicles in a totally different way. If I can find a link, I will pass it along to you.

CE, Pacific Northwest (Sent Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:04 PM)



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