Clicked : That thing in the news

That plumber named Joe

Will Femia — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:57:00 GMT

I know that right now there's a stampede of media to Joe the Plumber's house so you won't need any links to see what that was all about in tonight's debate but until the satellite trucks arrive on his lawn, here are two links I found useful. Video and transcript of the original exchange between Joe the Plumber and Obama on the Political Punch blog. And here is a follow-up interview he did with a site called FamilySecurityMatters.org about his exchange with Obama. With regard to my post earlier...(read more)

Three things I meant to mention, an update, and a game

Will Femia — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:58:00 GMT

I have installed Twhirl and it makes a world of difference in using Twitter. Essentially it turns your Twitter account into an instant messenger. Different people feel comfortable with different interfaces but for me, perhaps because of my chat background, I like IM so this suits me well. Twhirl isn't new but Dropbox is and though I haven't tried it I plan to install it on both my home and work machines. I've mentioned before the problems I have with doing work on my home machine and then coming...(read more)

Map thyself

Will Femia — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:06:00 GMT

Am I crazy or does the alligator in photo number 6 look kind of happy? I actually tried to use the Bird's Eye View in Live Maps over Gilchrist, Texas to see if I could find the house in photo #11 but I can't make it out. I did learn from a colleague where Jeff Ranieri was standing when he shot this video. If you've got two monitors you can pan Google street view at the same time he pans his camera for a before/after perspective. Speaking of using Google Street View to explore the real world,...(read more)

That video of Sarah Palin speaking at church

Will Femia — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:45:00 GMT

The first clip of the ABC News Sarah Palin interviews is spreading like wildfire and has to do with what she said in a video at the graduation ceremony of something called the Masters Commission.The actual full clip is here and comes from this list of Webcasts from the Wasilla Assembly of God. I haven't been able to check the source video (see the June 8, 2008 entry) because I get an error that the server is maxed out but I have no reason to doubt its authenticity....(read more)

Finding Nowhere

Will Femia — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:04:00 GMT

This isn't really about Web culture but since I have the links handy and I know some folks are like me and like to have a mental map of locations in the news, I'll share. With all this "Bridge to Nowhere" talk I finally bothered to look up just how nowhere the place is. The idea was to connect the town of Ketchikan to the airport across the Tongass Narrows. As I understand it, part of why the price tag was so big was because the bridge had to be high enough to allow ship traffic to...(read more)

Sorting out the Palin pregnancy Web rumors

Will Femia — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:40:00 GMT

The funny thing about the story of Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant is that the Web was full of Palin pregnancy rumors and that wasn't it. The actual rumor, sparked, as far as I can tell, by this now-deleted Daily Kos item had Sarah Palin faking her pregnancy to cover for her daughter's pregnancy. What's ironic is that the most objectionable part of the story - the bald accusation that a teen's belly is actually a baby bump - turned out to be nearly the only true thing about it. To be clearer,...(read more)

Gustav and Katrina's online echoes

Will Femia — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:45:00 GMT

I've seen a few people try out loud to remember who that guy was during Katrina who live streamed from downtown New Orleans, powered by a generator and defying calls for evacuation. The specifics are a little hazy in my memory but I'm pretty sure that was the Interdictor - and the live stream is back. Watching it now, it's basically two guys drinking and goofing around, occasionally remarking on changes in weather conditions. I think the idea is that we'll eventually start to see things get hairy....(read more)

Using Twitter as a view to Gustav

Will Femia — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:09:00 GMT

NOTE: Rather than change the headline here and get complicated with updates I wrote a second Gustav entry here. When Katrina struck three years ago, the means of conveyance of choice for digital information was blogging and we used tools like Technorati to search for relevant material. With Gustav's arrival at hand, a new tool, Twitter, is helping spread important information and put people in touch. It'd be wrong to say that Twitter has replaced blogging - in fact I'm finding it's helping find...(read more)

That kite surfer caught in Fay

Will Femia — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:23:00 GMT

I actually heard about this one at the water cooler before I saw it online - which sort of makes sense since it's not really a Web video, it's from a local Miami news station. Here's the original but I don't see a way to make the player bigger. The latest update on the guy's condition is that he was able to leave the hospital today. ...(read more)

That Chinese gymnast age investigation

Will Femia — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:11:00 GMT

Contrary to the IOC's conclusions about the age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin and their belief that the matter will be "put to rest," the investigative work displayed on one blog and the magical "gotcha" authority that comes with the phrase "search engine cache" ensure that those who don't want to buy it don't have to. ...(read more)