I'll have the opportunity today (12:30 p.m. ET) to speak on the phone with Elizabeth Edwards.  If you have any questions you'd like me to include in the interview, let me know through comments here or the e-mail link in the margin on the left.  I post the audio shortly after the call.

UPDATE:  Done. You can hear it here.  This is the third interview I've done this week, but the first one published.  I consider the chat series a work in progress so I appreciate your feedback.  The biggest issue that plagues me at the moment (ask me in a few minutes and I'll have a different one) is whether I'm being too general in the questions I ask.  The balancing act is that we want people who haven't read the book to have a reason to listen, but fans should also find enough specifics to feel like they're making a connection.  Anyway, if you have any thoughts, feel free to share.

"Intel is offering $1m in prizes to designers and manufacturers who can come up with sexier alternatives to the 'big, beige box'."  I hope we get to see the submissions.

Speaking of contests, stump the most people with your pseudo-fact or truthful trivia and win a hundred bucks.  If you don't care for contests, at least check out Blufr, which challenges you to call the facts from the fictions.

Speaking of separating truth from fiction, 6 commonly believed things that are wrong

Speaking of truths revealed, every year a critic named Swanni compiles a list of who looks bad on HDTV.  Apparently a lot of TV aesthetic relies on the fact that the picture is always a little fuzzy.  In high definition you see all the imperfections - make-up doesn't do the job anymore.  I love to think about what it means for the future of video.  A new emphasis on skin products?  New beauty standards?  More CGI actors?  Or maybe more relaxed beauty standards as we come to realize that imperfect skin is normal and natural?  Nah.  Swanni also makes a list of who looks good in High Definition.  The beauty elite as a class will survive.

Speaking of how people look, I saw Carrot Top in the hall today.  He was hanging around Joe Scarborough with a camera following them, so they must have been working on something for the show.  Anyway, that guy certainly does command an uncommon countenance.  I'm not making any judgments, I'm hardly in a position to do that, but Carrot Top definitely makes you look twice.

Speaking of the future of video...

• Yahoo has purchased the online video editing site Jumpcut.
• VideoEgg Gets a Jolt of VC 
• "Frito-Lay and Chevrolet ... are holding ad-making contests, with winners getting money and prizes and their spots used as part of Super Bowl XLI campaigns."

Do you feel like there's a picture being painted here?  How about if I add this:

• Remember Amanda Congdon and the Rocketboom drama?  She's got a new vlog called Amanda Across America and it's showing up on a lot of most-linked lists.
• Google Video Delivering Berkeley Courses
• Your guide to citizen journalism

Speaking of putting cameras to work, How to use your PC and Webcam as a motion-detecting and recording security camera - I haven't tried this, but the instructions are very clear.  A friend of mine set up something like this on his back porch because he thought his neighbor was stealing his tools.

Newsweek to U.S.:  You can't handle the truth

Bloggers attend signing of the bill they championed. (I think that may be a first.)

Is there a name for these?  I feel like I've seen a few online.  Escher-like animations?

Is this some kind of remote model airplane camera?  UPDATE:  More here and the video has more details of the gear involved.  Basically you watch through goggles in real time what a camera mounted on the plane sees.  Scroll ahead to 1:30 in the video on the second link for the coolest part.  The camera matches the position of the goggles automatically, no joystick or anything.

Dangerous dance in Japan - This isn't as exciting as it could be, but the idea of a serene dance in the middle of rushing traffic appeals to me for some reason.

Lock picking business card

Look for a Marvel Universe MMO to come.

Speaking of comic heroes, I caught the rerun of the premiere of the NBC Heroes show and I think it's pretty good.  I like the idea of an accompanying graphic novel on the site, though I had a bit of a struggle navigating it in a smooth way (load time is long). 

A long time ago I posted a link to how to search for unprotected music files online with Google.  Recently the trick resurfaced on Digg.  Check out the comments because people have added more user friendly links that do a similar thing.  Do note that this is a back-door trick and the chances are good that the search results might not be intended for public download.

"NoteMesh is a free service that allows college students in the same classes to share notes with each other."

Nuked soap - Who knew?  I wonder how many things these people nuked before they found a good one like this.

I remember when the Tomahawk (Viper engine in a motorcycle) was unveiled, but I don't recall seeing it actually moving.  I'm still not clear how it steers.  Can you lean a 1500 pound bike with four wheels?

The Men's Health sex survey - They teamed up with Cosmo and asked 6,000 men and women extremely frank questions, putting the results side by side.  No photos, so it's safe for work, but again, extremely frank questions.

Debunking the MySpace Myth of 100 Million Users - 43 million is still nothing to sneeze at, but the reporting of Web numbers has a way of getting carried away, so it's good to have a reality check once in a while.

Commuter Click:  Mahmoud and Me - The translator for the Iranian president while he was at the UN tells some behind-the-scenes stories.  I read the first page, which includes a few disses that were overlooked in the Brian Williams interview.  I'll print out the rest to read.  It's pretty long.

Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble's new job includes producing a video blog called The Scoble Show.  I watched his "Photowalk" with Thomas Hawk is a nice explanation of what it means to be an urban photoblogger.  He's got more and better equipment than the average bear, but still a nice primer on the art form.  The positive response in the comments makes me wonder if we'll see more of the "photowalk" idea.

Speaking of learning from photobloggers, if you're in the New York City area this Friday, NYC Photobloggers 8 is meeting at the Apple store in Soho.  Next to Scoble's photowalking, this would probably be called photositting. (I'll see you there.)

Speaking of shooting your own video, "More competition for local video news"  The details are a little hazy to me, but it looks like Verizon is sponsoring some kind of local news video hubs.  I'll be interested to see what they produce when there aren't any major news events taking place.

As we saw with Wal-Mart and light bulbs, when a significant enough number of a product is sold, slight changes to that product can have a big impact.  Now Google is pushing computer makers to come up with a more efficient way of powering computers.  This comes in interesting parallel to a Greenpeace campaign to encourage Apple to be more environmentally conscious.

An updating photo of the sun

Speaking of pointing the camera at the sky, strange clouds.  There's some video at the bottom too.

Microsoft has a new social networking site called Wallop.  There is the question of how a new site expects to pick up any users when MySpace and Facebook have so much of the market locked up.  But there does seem to be a sense out there that kids and college students will want to "graduate" to a more adult network.  What's interesting is that the business model is not ad based.  The hope to make money selling custom features.  Sort of like the motorcycle industry selling aftermarket products.  (Note:  In spite of MSNBC.com's Microsoft parentage, I have absolutely no inside insight into this product.  For some reason they never call to ask my opinion.)

Speaking of Microsoft products, I had to run this through Technorati to understand why it was drawing links.  Looks like it's the Veronica Mars fans online who are pleased to be able to watch the season premiere online.

Speaking of watching TV online, Daily Episodes has such a big ad on it I thought it was spam.  In fact it's a directory of all the episodes of The Simpsons, Futurama, South Park, Family Guy and American Dad.  The videos are hosted on a variety of clip services around the Web.

Little Superstar

The Internet's biggest Google whores.  In this case, a Google whore is someone who makes money from Google ads.  The idea of making hundreds of thousands of dollars PER MONTH from ads on a Web site makes my head spin.

More concept jewelry:  Info Rings: "Each of the rings stores the wearer's personal information, so when a handshake puts two rings close together they exchange the stored info, making small talk and introductions unnecessary."  Don't some PDAs already do this?

"Brazilian javelin judge Lia Mara Lourenco is helped by colleagues and medics..." well, you can guess the rest.

A campaign to send stuffed animals to children in Iraq.  I know some campaigns like this have been shut down out of safety concerns, but this seems to be running well.  Nice site that Parent Hacks.  Great logo.

From the mailbag, Korean archery sharpshooting, including ultra slow motion footage of the arrow passing through things.  (Thanks Matt!)

Pew took in opinions on the future of the Internet by 2020.  I clicked this highlighting but the stand-out was this sentence from the BBC article:  "Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence."  Blade Runner, here we come.

As you may know, the biggest challenge with online audio and video is that it's not searchable and it isn't easy to scan the way text is.  Some have suggested avoiding the technology until the problem is solved.  So it's exciting to read this review of Pluggd on TechCrunch.  They run podcasts against voice recognition to make them searchable and chunk them to make them browsable.  Check out the relevance time line heat map.  Neat.

Speaking of the future, could we be seeing the future of online advertising in the new Techmeme model?  They've sold space on the page for sponsors' blogs.  Not banners or keywords but blog space.

Speaking of podcasts, Top 5 corporate podcast mistakes to avoid like the plague - I like the combination of the first three, which boils down to figuring out who's going to do the podcast once it's decided that a company needs or wants one.

The immensely fun game of line rider.  Draw the line and hit play and the little sled guy slides down your line.

Speaking of fun games, check out this description of "Payphone Warriors."  So far we haven't seen many real-world public games catch on in the mainstream (geocaching?  flashmobbing?) but they always sound like so much fun it's surely just a matter of time for them to catch on.  Afterthought:  Poker runs are the most successful example I can think of.

Speaking of fun and games, there's a new version of the Sand Game.  No objective that I know of.  Pure time waster.

Women use 20,000 words a day, men only 7,000 - or so says a new bestseller. Fact-checking ``The Female Brain."  The short answer is that the facts don't support that stat.  The author doesn't go on much of a tirade about the inherent sexism of the perpetuation of the stat, but she probably could.

Moonwalking bird - Probably would not be as funny without the music and dancing scientist.

Lifehacker offers a link bonanza of free online college courses.

Ten Most Used BitTorrent Sites Compared

Making your blog popular through content - What a refreshing post.  So often lately, the "make your blog popular" entries are about marketing tricks and search engine optimization.

How to grab a gun away.  NOTE:  Not responsible for you getting your head blown off thinking you're a ninja just because you watched this video.

GOP aide busted for fake blog posts on liberal sites - This keeps happening on both sides of the aisle.  I don't recall this being part of the prediction when blogs were first becoming part of the political process.

How TiVo Can Cut Your Electricity Bill By 15% - Not actual Tivo, but the same idea.  It consumes electricity when rates are cheapest, and stores it for you to use whenever you need.  Here's the product site if you're interested in more.

Bob Burnquist skates a loop and doesn't end up like this guy.  Note:  A somewhat audible S-bomb in the second clip.  Also, though the second link is SFW, who knows what you find if you click deeper.

Putting a starter pistol in your luggage ensures it won't get lost or "lost."

"A security expert in New York has learned how to get free money from some ATMs by entering a special code sequence on the PIN pad."  He made the machine think it was counting fives instead of 20s.  The owner's manual (easily acquired) shows you how.  It all boils down to whether the default passwords have been changed.  As you might expect, the industry is moving quickly to patch security holes.

Speaking of stealing stuff using instruction books (that probably won't work now that it's blowing up on the Internet), this guy has a trick for figuring out the comp code on a free Whopper at Burger King.  UPDATE:  After some cross cube chat, the possibility came up that this would be a great viral marketing campaign by Burger King.  People go to Burger King for the freebie and spend enough on the mark-up on fries and drink to cover the cost of the burger.  Meanwhile you've got people coming to Burger King who wouldn't necessarily have done so otherwise.

These remind me of the old link on how to hack a Coke machine using the maintenance manual.

Speaking of reminding, The Remember Ring is a joke, but it shouldn't be.  What's more, it should be programmable.  Maybe a bracelet would be better for holding the required power source.

How to deal with an irate person - Describes a technique called "pace and lead," the idea being to get equally energized and then wind down hoping the other person will follow suit.  This contradicts every hostage negotiator movie I've ever seen.

Dude wrap:  Gift wrap for men.  Makes sense.

Who the heck is Daniela Cicarelli?  (Am I officially old for not knowing?)  See the "Spanish Beach Scandal" section for why her name is showing up like crazy.  Note that Brazillian and Spanish media are less restrained than American media about showing racy images.  Watch where you click.

How to explain RSS the Oprah way - This might sound condescending, but have you ever tried to explain RSS to someone?  I think we'll see a lot of this kind of piece as efforts are made to push RSS into the mainstream.

ScoopVid is a really comprehensive video aggregator.  Bigger than the Viral Video Chart we saw the other day because it includes mainstream news video and iFilm.

46 Things I Wish My Mom Taught Me About Money

Enter the dimensions and SizeEasy lets you visualize the relative sizes.  I can't think of a use for this, but it seems like something that would be handy.

Hugo Chavez, bookseller.

The Umbrella Photo Browser to Relay Experiences in Rainy Day - It's an umbrella that takes pictures and video and shares them with other umbrella users and then also posts them to Flickr and furthermore, displays them on the umbrella itself.

E-mail from space - "Here's my blog entry of your launch" is not exactly "one small step for man..."

Building sand castles on a frame.

M&Ms is launching a dark chocolate version and to celebrate they built a game site.  Name the "dark" movies based on the clues.

Yesterday was Parking Day.  Participants take over parking spaces and convert them to park space to show how much better things would be if we didn't cede so much space to cars.

The new trailer for 300 looks really good - and I say that fully aware that I recently poked fun at the swords/horses/English accents genre.  UPDATE:  That didn't last long.  Warner Brothers must have a serious online legal team because I can't find another version anywhere.  The movie's production blog shows some examples of how they were able to Frank-Millerize the movie.  The official Warner Brothers site lists the trailer as "coming soon."  Another UPDATE:  Here's a new working link. (Thanks Steve.)

Japanese pen spinning - Nothing short of ninja.  Fun Japanese metal soundtrack from a band called MintJam that calls to mind my old Loudness vinyl (because hey, how many Japanese metal bands can you name?)

Looking for blogging on the Thailand coup?  I clicked this Bangkok blog and this site, which is "intended to provide local news, media and perspective of Thailand Coup Event on 19th September 2006 to the world."

Speaking of political unrest, Publius Pundit explains the deal with riots in Hungary.

Speaking of getting international news of political upsets from blogs,
New Beginning for Sweden

Gawker has published their New York City smell map.  I don't know how useful this is, but it's a funny idea and some of the stink descriptions made me laugh.

Speaking of funny, A funniness epidemic? - I enjoyed the insights here, but is it really true that people are only recently trying to be funny all the time?  Hasn't humor always been the key to hearts and minds?

Speaking of insightful commentary, Why Paris Hilton Is Famous (Or Understanding Value In A Post-Madonna World)

Speaking of Bansky, photos of the Banksy show in L.A.  This large a collection of his work goes a long way toward understanding what he's about.

Web 2.0 winners and losers - The losers list is more informative.  That is, reading what they wanted to be but aren't paints a good picture of what Web 2.0 means.

The Shire is meant to evoke the feeling of living in a hobbit community.  There are even a few round-door houses.

The White Stripes on the Simpsons.

Having read the news earlier this week of a YouTube/Warner Music deal I drew the mentally easy conclusion that YouTube was finally going to start making money.  So when I saw headlines predicting YouTube's doom, I clicked.  (Short version:  What makes YouTube great is against the law.  They'll get sued, be forced to crack down on users and ultimately wither and die.

Speaking of reading differing opinions, my general reaction to the dust up over the Pope's comments was that Muslims need to get over it and stop freaking out over everything.  In contrast, I clicked Christopher Hitchens criticizing the Pope, and this essay warning against conveying impressions of Islamophobia.

TV corner:

Defamer responds less than favorably, though not exactly with hostility at being imitated by NBC's fake blog connected to the Studio 60 show.  (By the way, I think that guy Sorkin does a great job and I like this new show -- though at first I dreaded that it was going to be another "our life in TV is so cool, of course everyone in America should see what it's like" show.  But I think he does get away with making some pretty big statements about the state of television.)

TV is Gael's turf, so I don't want to trespass, but as long as I'm on the subject, can someone explain "Dead Like Me" to me.  They're grim reapers, they're dead, but they're also alive, but they don't have super powers and they can't stay in touch with their families and friends?  (I like the show, I just feel like I'm not getting it.)

Speaking of Gael, I'm going for CSI tonight with a Grey's Tivo.  I'm more interested in seeing what they do with the Grissom/Sarah storyline than I am with the endlessly cyclical hot/cold storyline on Grey's.

A slightly edited note from the mailbag:

I noticed a reader had sent a link for the "touch tapping" guitar technique.  It immediately reminded me of Stanley Jordan and his insane abilities.

He has mastered this technique using one guitar.  This video is an incredibly expressive and progressive approach to the Beatles tune Eleanor Rigby.  Towards the end he has both hands to voice notes on the guitar, so he uses his face to do a scale run down the low string...  AMAZING STUFF.
- Eric

Will replies:  Thanks Eric, I thought of Stanley Jordan too, but also Michael Hedges.  (And searching for him brought up Adam Werner and this guy too.  I guess there's a whole school of tap-playing out there.

When I read the Ann Althouse piece on the inappropriateness of the pose and breasts (breast presentation?) of a female blogger standing with President Clinton at a group lunch, and compared it with the photo in question, I was pretty baffled.

Maybe there's some kind of cultural difference between Ann and me, but that gal doesn't look in the least bit provocative to me.  Then I clicked through to Dr. Helen's criticisms and her subsequent updates to understand the that the issue has to do with whether a feminist can pose for a photo with President Clinton without compromising her (or his) standards.

But then, as the gal in question points out, if that's the issue, what's all the talk about breasts?

Clicking through further "hat tips" and "via" links sees the discussion narrowed to the question of the definition of a provocative stance and whether women have to be on constant guard about with whom they pose and how they look when they do.  (And for that matter whether a woman is provocative by definition and whether that's even her problem.)

Which brought be to Glenn's tangent about what's appropriate attire when posing with a president.  (Never mind provocative, is the outfit too casual?)

I'm trying to summarize detailed positions in just a few words here, so it's best to click through these links to get the full argument.  As an observer, it's a great little blog storm that covers a lot of compelling topics and kept me occupied most of the morning.

Speaking of body parts, we took a few minutes around the water cooler yesterday to talk about the story of the man who asked that his penis transplant be removed.  Apparently, even though the procedure was a success, he (and his wife?) was unable to deal psychologically with the idea of having the penis of a dead man.  The article includes a few other examples of this kind of psychological rejection of transplants.  It's an interesting case of science outpacing culture.

World record cup stacking - It's an international sport I guess.

Islam-watching bloggers are focused on a particular threat lately, gathering and displaying as much information about the plotter as possible.  Of particular interest is the possibility that a blog reader actually had an encounter with the terrorist in question.  My sanity doesn't allow me to keep meticulous track of who is making what threats, but it'll be interesting to see if this particular case has legs.

"Hotel Minibar" Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines - Tsk.  I mean, really!

As was pointed out in the mail yesterday, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day.  Here's an instructional video in case you need help.

Speaking of things pointed out yesterday.  15 ways to get more out of Pandora.  (That's the online music service.)

Breathing Earth animation shows birth and death rates along with CO2 emissions by country on a world map.  I'm not sure what the connection is, but it's interesting to watch.  I would have expected the birth/death counter to move faster.

Eragon trailer - Swords, horses and English accents... oh, and dragons.

Amazing paper sculpture - It's not origami exactly, but similar.  I feel like we've seen this type of art before, but I don't recognize these particular pieces.  There's an artist note at the bottom.

Coin through soda can trick revealed - Even with the instructions, it's not really a layman's trick.  The coin passing from hand to hand takes a lot of practice.

Mini helicopter for 30 bucks

Speaking of buying stuff, Boing Boing Digital Emporium: "Our favorite digital products for sale at low prices and without irksome Digital Rights Management"

ThinkPad explodes at LAX - I suppose it makes every bit of sense that laptops are eventually going to be on the security ban list.  I can't imagine how security is going to keep track of which batteries are dangerous, however.

I've been sampling from the mailbag since my return to regular posting, but I haven't done a big pull from the mail in a while, so here are some highlights.

The folks at Coudal Partners sent a note that they're conducting a "degrees of separation" contest.  Today's is Sid Vicious to Bob Dylan.  Connect the two in as few steps as possible.

Will -
I enjoy Clicked a great deal; it's one of my must-reads.  If you can stand it, I have a little more information on that Star Trek video you linked on Friday.  Not only did you get the slash bit wrong (thank you for posting the clarification), but you, like so many others, are under the impression that fan vidding (that is what that art form is called, not "mashup") is something new.  It's been going on since the advent of the VCR.  And in fact, that particular vid has been around for quite some time.

You see, you're talking about *my* subculture here.

Rather than rehash it all, let me point you to a blog post by Henry Jenkins, an expert in media studies.  He's a sort of anthropologist for media fandom subculture.  He noticed the viral nature of Closer and wrote a piece yesterday explaining the evolution of the fan vid.
-Becky

Will replies:  Becky, I appreciate you sharing your expertise and making us all better informed.

Excerpt:
I know you'll recognize Perverted Justice as the group that works with Dateline NBC on their To Catch A Predator episodes.  This is a little more of what they do.

Will replies:  I imagine pretty much any Web outfit that allows free expression is going to end up with a twisted mind or two posting bad content.  I'm not sure this campaign from PeeJ is going to get very far.

Your post on the hype machine reminded me of a site I stumbled across awhile ago.

Pandora.com

Music related. Check it out.

Will replies:  I like Pandora, but I find that if I listen too long it starts to slow down my machine.  Anyone else have that problem?

Will,
In case you've ever dreamed of turning Clicked into a live radio show, I'm writing to introduce you to BlogTalkRadio.

BlogTalkRadio allows bloggers/podcasters to broadcast live streaming radio shows, while accepting telephone calls from listeners and hosting show guests. (And it's free!)

In addition to broadcasting live, shows are archived forever at BlogTalkRadio.com as podcasts. In just over a month of operation, they're already broadcasting more than 750 shows in more than 25 different countries. Their growth has been enormous, especially since most of it is attributed to word-of-mouth.

If you'd like to learn more, or speak with CEO Alan Levy, just let me know. Or, to become a radio host, just head to Blogtalkradio.com to sign up!

All the best,
-- Alan

Check this out, Will. Scroll down to the bottom for the two demo videos.
-Bill

Will replies:  I wonder if they realize they're about to invent the Dalek?  (For folks who need to know what it is before they click it, it's a page about a real robot with, amazingly, a ball as a base.)

Dear Will,
Don't forget to remind folks that September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Given the recent success of Pirates of the Caribbean, it might pick up steam this year.
-Ajin

Really interesting:
-Jojo

Will replies:  Why do they even bother making up the lie about looking for pornography?  The whole point of the Internet is that you don't have to physically carry the content around to trade it; it goes over "the tubes."

Don't know if you have seen this, but "Touch Tapping" is a new twist on "Tapping" for guitar players.  This guy plays the Super Mario Brothers theme on two guitars at the same time like playing a piano.
-Thomas

Will replies:  I don't mean this in a mean way, but this kid needs a friend to play with.

Here is a link to a website that looks like it might be some up and coming technology to video games and movies.  The show reel has a lot of details of what you can do with the program and there is a little free trial on the downloads page.
Christopher

Will replies:  Even the sales pitch clips are an interesting look at how CGI is done.

Christopher also sends:

I thought that this might be something interesting to you that you haven't seen, well at least, I haven't seen it on your blogs.  It's an engine that fits in a 14" cubic space and weighs 150 pounds but produces up to 850 HP.  Talk about good gas mileage.

Will replies:  Thanks.  I had a hard time understanding it until I watched the animation.

My friend sent me this link about an iPod creating a terrorist scare.  Then here's the story of the guy who accidentally caused it.
-Mausie

Will replies:  That's great to get the first hand perspective on the story.  I wish that happened more often.

In June, a young, attractive, classically trained, wannabe rockstar with no representation, no label, and definitely no record deal, trying to make it big makes the move to Hollywood, but decides to forgo any sort of summer tour and instead decides on a "virtual tour" on youtube.  Almost 800,000 hits later, her song "say its possible" is a youtube phenomenon, leading to top 10 ranking in multiple youtube all-time categories, the limited release of a CD that she produced herself (due to the demand of her youtube fans), and a trip to London to play her first show overseas.  I can't help but think this fame will last a little more than 15 minutes, and a small part of me can't help but wonder if this isn't a viral campaign....she's really that good.
 
The video: "Say it's possible"

And just in case the direct link to the video doesn't work (the song should be right in the video list).
-Owen

Will replies:  How exactly does one do a YouTube tour?  Other than uploading the video, I'd love to know what else she did to get traffic to it.  (Maybe mails like this one from Owen since I'm now linking to it and sending even more views her way?)  I love the idea of teaching others how you play your songs.  It may be that thread of replying cover versions that are responsible for her success.  I reckon there could be a whole site based around that idea.

I have read your blog for sometime now.  I always have enjoyed what you put on it.  I found an interesting game that might interest you.  It is your typical move cursor though maze without touching the walls.  This was has a little twist though.  The movements of your mouse are reversed, so the up is down left is right.  Here is the link for it.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed your blog.
-Zeke

Will replies:  Thanks Zeke.  It reminds me of a game at the local fair that has a bicycle with handlebars that steer in the opposite direction.

Will,
I have a couple of thirty-something friends who have decided that their sense of adventure could use a boost.  As such, they have embarked on a hike of the entire length of the Great Wall of China.  Jamie and Ig are keeping us all updated with their blog, The Great Wall Nut.  It's an interesting adventure not so much in tracking two people that you would never expect to undertake a physical challenge as it is to watch what happens when two cultures can meet without all of the usual politics being involved.  You might find it interesting!  I've enjoy your column and always look forward to learning things I never thought to think about!
-Craig

Frank Sinatra would not have been a MySpace fan.

Speaking of rejecting the Web trendy, How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger - Oh sure, now.

And as long as we're bashing MySpace, Jealous ex used MySpace to plot hit: police - In short, the ex-girlfriend used the new girlfriend's MySpace page to get the information needed to direct the hit man undercover cop to the person he was meant to kill.  I know it seems like another obvious lesson in publishing too much personal info, but seriously, if she was willing to go far enough to pay for a murder, she probably wouldn't have stopped at MySpace to find the personal information.

Currently listening to "Not your usual bollocks" based on this recommendation.

I did click the rumor/story that JK Rowling almost lost the next and last Harry Potter book to airport security, but thankfully got mail the other day from Brenda Coulter and her sharper thinking.  The blogger does make a good point though.  How does JK Rowling not own her own plane?

Two stories are really resonating in the blogosphere today, the news of Microsoft's iPod-killer called Zune, and the passing of Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.
I'm not seeing a stand-out "must click" on either subject though, so if you're interested the best bet may be to peruse the Tailrank threads:

• Zune
• Fallaci

The Daily Show kills with this twist on those Geico commercials you see on MSNBC all day long.  Little Richard translates for President Bush.  Perfect fit.

I wrestled with sharing this one all week because of a couple graphic points, but it's extremely well done and it's legitimately been on the viral charts all week.  It's a slash mash-up.  You'll recall that the slash in "slash fic" refers not to a knife but to the slash between the names of the characters written into a fictional erotic story.  Superman/Wonderwoman.  The concept has expanded to video, often pairing a love song with clips of the characters.  For some reason it seems like there's a lot of gay slash material out there, perhaps because there isn't much actual gay sex in the mainstream.  This particular piece celebrates the anniversary of Star Trek by editing together scenes in such a way that if you didn't know the show you'd be sure Spock and Kirk were lovers.  Though I generally think the distinction of SFW and NSFW is a good enough rating system, it's funny to note that the creator of this video has contributed the category of NSFM (not safe for mom).  It's not really that bad, but y'know...  it's Spock and Kirk gay.  Lastly, the song it's set it is NIN's Closer, which was a mainstream hit, but does quite clearly use the F-word many times, so there's that too.  OK, you've been warned, here's the link.

UPDATE:  In the mail a bit of clarification:

"Slash" does not equal fanfiction about romantic relationships. It specifically refers to fanfiction about homosexual pairings, usually of characters portrayed as or assumed to be straight in the canon (whether that's TV or movies or books, or whatever. There's Jane Austen slash, believe it or not.) Romantic relationships between heterosexual characters are usually described simply as "Het" or "Het fic" or whatever. Fanfiction that doesn't portray romantic relationships is called "Gen"
 
So, in otherwords, there's no such thing as Superman/WonderWman slash. Superman/Batman = slash. Superman/WonderWoman = het.

Speaking of viral video, Viral Video Chart tracks the top clips on YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace video.  I see Olbermann at number 6.  He's been blowing up all week.  This kid freaking out on an amusement park ride got a bit of play around the cube farm yesterday too.

As long as I'm posting warnings, remember when I said there was a huge nerd audience out there looking for content that meets their interests?  You probably couldn't do that any better than with a girl in her underwear posing with geek gadgets and video game controlers.  Not safe for work, but too ridiculous to be truly dirty.

Speaking of gadget porn, here are a couple I haven't tried but sound cool:

• A digital camera in a zippo for 30 bucks.
• iKaraoke somehow strips the vocal track from the songs on your iPod and sends the rest to your stereo.

Speaking of iPod add-ons, how about the iBreath, the iPod breathalyzer?  Could this be real?

Forecast Advisor not only gives you the weather forecast in your area but also shows you the accuracy rating of weather services in your area.  I have long asked for a service like this.  In fact, what I think should happen is that a weather man should be held to account on the evening news for his forecast from the morning.  Instead of playing "my Doppler is bigger than your Doppler," the local news outlets should be bragging about accuracy ratings.  And naming your weather with an "accu-" prefix doesn't make it any more accurate by the way.

Mailing broken stuff back to the company rather than simply throwing it out can score you some new, unbroken stuff.

UFO visits China.  Of course it's real.

I don't know how close the current situation with Iran is to that with Iraq in 2003, but some similarities are hard to ignore.

Commuter Click:  If you only read the news story about the Pope and the latest Muslim outrage, you missed the good part.  His actual talk is more interesting.

Somewhat related: In case you find yourself asking where are the Muslims speaking out against the extremists of the religion... "The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, recently issued a decree to its supporters: Kill at least one American in the next two weeks. Well, I am an American too."

The Wire is indeed the best show on television.  The only one I would consider buying on DVD.  There's still time to catch up on this season's.

Media ownership study ordered destroyed - FCC draft suggested fewer owners would hurt local TV coverage

Blogging the scene of the Montreal shootings this week.

Since I'm always critical of terror paranoia police state tactics against photobloggers, here's a story of polite cops doing their job and a reasonable photoblogger cooperating.

The new Peter Jackson movie(s?) sound awesome already.  "I can't wait to see Napoleonic battles fought with a squadron of dragons. That's what I go to the movies for."

How frustrating is it to see all the news accounts of his Web activities but no links?  I found them through the Metafilter folks.

His profile.

Photo gallery.

No guarantees on how long these last.  Presumably the VampireFreaks site is getting slammed.

Unprepared for the coming winter season?  Consider The Leia Hat.

Beautiful, vaguely biological animation  (Maybe not so vague, I don't know much about the inner life of a cell.)

Toothpaste for Dinner -My rule for linking to Web comics is if more than one gives me a laugh, I link.  As a reader, it's your job to write to me and tell me that the link has been around for years and where have I been.

How traffic lights work - They're talking about the trip lights that change when a car pulls up.  I always thought there was an actual physical pressure switch in there somewhere.

The ultimate secure home.  It's for sale.  Not a bad deal if you want to live inside a ball of cement.

National Novel Writing Month is coming.

National mushroom month is already upon us, however.

I only work with the NBC News folks, not the ones on the entertainment side, so I don't have any inside info on this, but it looks like they're putting together some kind of homemade video contest show.  Pick a challenge, submit your vid, win a prize.

"Crazy" is the new "All along the watchtower."  I like the stripped down ones like Nelly Furtado's.  (Hey, did you see this Hype Machine site?  Neat.  I'm playing it now.)

Banksy hits Disney - This guy is pretty amazing.  I would have thought Disney would have more security than the White House.

Pizza delivery guys dish on the details of their job.  The sex question is at the end.  Pretty funny how they all have basically the same story.

In Australia (?) it costs $146 to buy everything on the menu.

Where are the world's billionaires?  (Makes for an interesting comparison with this ranked list of countries by bank account.)

eBible brings the power of Web2.0 community building to Bible study.

"Cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles, new research from Bath University suggests."  Of course, my kid is going to be wrapped in protective gear from head to toe when he learns to ride a bike, but you couldn't have wrestled one of those things on me when I was a young Huffy pilot.

"A Scottish terrorist organization Sunday threatened to poison England's public water supply."  Wait, Scottish terrorist organization?

"Here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005."
 The idea is that if you're afraid of being killed by something, that fear should be based on your likelihood of that happening.  The likelihood of being killed by terrorism, based on the research this page has done, is low.

Speaking of not being terrified by terror, "How did we survive Ari Fleischer's reign of terror?"  Christopher Hitchens picks apart the people who argue that Ari Fleischer's line about "Americans ... need to watch what they say, watch what they do" was at threat or had a chilling effect on speech in America.

Speaking of watch-what-you-do-or-else, Greg Palast is in legal peril for filming an Exxon plant in the course of shooting a piece about Katrina survivors.  Looks like there's a lot of back story here, but regardless of what Fleischer meant, Americans do have to watch what they do.

Speaking of post 9/11 security, Commuter Click:  Some Reflections on What, if Anything, "Are We Safer?" Might Mean

Security themed fashion photos from Italian Vogue.  NOTE:  I'd consider this safe for work, but it does have a certain sexiness to it that might make you self conscious at work.  Certainly the sexiness in contrast with the security context is what makes the shots so compelling.

As long as I've got a 9/11 related string running, here's what I clicked from the popular links related to the day:

What's coming to be called "the Revver video" is a half hour long home video shot from an upper story window of an apartment in Battery Park City, adjacent to the World Trade Center site.  I didn't watch the whole thing through, but it's a pretty amazing perspective.  Most of the link text I've seen mentions that this has never been seen before on TV.  I believe this is true, but only because I've never seen it.  Conspiracy theorists will be frustrated that she doesn't catch the second plane's approach.

I didn't see it at the time, but a lot of people are linking to the video of Jon Stewart's return to air following the attacks.  He can barely keep it together.

What I do remember well from that time is David Letterman's return.  I thought it was positively heroic at the time.  It's interesting to see him singing the praises of Giuliani given the criticism the former mayor has been receiving lately.

OK, funner links in the next post.

LonelyGirl15 is Jessica Rose.

Added:  My colleague Rex points to links to a lot of personal photos of the actress.  I don't imagine many people will be sympathetic, but I have to wonder about her privacy.  It seems like it's become a game to find out things about her.

Sorry, adding one more:  I am the very model of a popular YouTube auteur.  Good stuff.

This is an odd story, if for no other reason than that the investigation into these videos has enjoyed more attention than the videos themselves.  Even though I've posted related links here twice before, I don't think the general public knew "Bree" the way they know the Numa Numa guy or other massively viral online clips.  But with an article in the New York Times, and other coverage from the AP and the L.A. Times (also insights here and a nice piece in the New York Magazine).

The coverage glut is not really reason in itself why you should care about a fictional online teen drama, but there are a few themes to take away and watch for further development.  First, will the actors be able to capitalize on this buzz and make the leap to mainstream media stardom (that would be a first, as far as I know).

Second, there's the idea that this is a new artform.  From the NY Mag article:  "It's the birth of WikiTV: a television show created by a broad community of participants and built not of sequential, hour-long episodes, but of two-­minute interconnected parcels."  Is this the new TV?  We've seen TV shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica have supplemental online components.  Will the two ideas meet in the middle somewhere?  I'm also reminded of a Friends-like local Web sitcom called "The Burg" which is receiving a lot of acclaim.  It's probably too esoteric for national or global appeal, but it's more of that multi-dimensional TV on the Web.

Third, I can share the perspective from inside a big media organization trying to shift its focus to the Web that being able to deliberately produce viral content is a new holy grail of marketing.  The idea that millions of people will spread the word about your product for free has everyone salivating.  So the idea that the Lonelygirl15 project was successful and not a random Web occurrence is a large part of the story's appeal.

The "hoax" angle of the story is less compelling to me, though the drama of the investigation has been fun.  I will point out the concluding quote from the Times piece:  "I'm heart-broken ...But a wonderful actress, had me fooled into thinking she was a geek like me."  I hope someone realizes that the geek elements of the Bree character were part of her appeal and there is a large geek audience interested in seeing their interests reflected more in the media.

Thanks very much to everyone who has submitted feedback on the new software. 

The two biggest issues were the links opening in new windows and the missing e-mail link for folks who don't want to leave a comment.  The new windows are happening through a bit of a manual tweak right now, but will be automatic in a matter of days.  The e-mail link, as you can see, has returned.

I think the one issue I'm still chasing after is making sure the headline updates everywhere on the site when the blog is updated.

As far as entry length, entering each link as a discrete item looked really awkward and made it hard to scan.  I'm liking these groupings that are not quite as long as the old way, but still a good clump of links. 

Part of what I'm wresting with is how (or whether) to use the categories feature.  It might be handy to click the "Video" category and just see all the links to videos, but that's not really how I write Clicked.  Ultimately I think it may be backward thinking to try to find a use for the categories feature just because it's there.  Better I just write and if I come upon a reason to need to categorize things, at least I have the option.

I don't have much to say about the 9/11 anniversary.  I haven't watched any of the coverage because I don't want to contaminate any of my own memories with these ubiquitous slow motion puffs of dust on TV.  I recognize that for many people, talking about it and watching it on TV is helpful, so I don't begrudge anyone doing so -not even the reporters reporting on their own reporting that day.

In that vein, a story that probably wasn't part of recent coverage is that of Ground Zeros biggest attraction (well, maybe second biggest after the cross.)  It used to be that bound to the fence at Ground zero (on Church Street and Liberty Street) were pictures of the destruction that day and some old photos and diagrams of the days before the towers, as well as some construction shots.  Those were interesting, but most people looked at them only briefly before stretching as tall as they could reach, pressing the lens of their camera against a hole in the fence, and trying to snap a shot into the hole.

One year they re-did all the displays and added a timeline of that morning with some pictures and diagrams of the planes' flight paths and just enough detail to cue the memory.  On any given day at almost any given time there is a crowd staring up at that time line.  Apparently the best exhibit for those visiting Ground Zero is the one that helps them revisit their own 9/11.

What I clicked:

World Trade Center Outline Project - You hold a tracing of the old skyline in the air against the current skyline.  They're doing it all month if you're going to be in the city.

Weirdest 9/11 image... possibly ever.

Speaking of reasons to turn the TV off, details of the coming political campaign strategies are leaking out.

Amazon Spends Over A Year Developing Movie Download Service Then Shackles It With Absurd Restrictions - Sometimes you have to give thanks to the people who bother to read all the fine print.

Roller blade music - Looks like this is from David Letterman.  I've often thought this would be fun to do with cars and textured pavement, though it would probably be pretty rough on the tires.

Your very own personal tank - The Hyanide is basically a motorcycle on a flexible tank track.

I found the Hyanide story through Google after playing a little bit with a beta site called Lavaswim.com from a reader named Dean.  Check out the way he set up the navigation.

Remember the secret hold placed on a bill to make Congress more transparent?  Bloggers were hunting down the senator who had placed the hold.  After apparently winning the battle, the war still isn't over.  Senators seem to think they can wait out the public attention span and keep the bill from going through.  I guess they aren't familiar with the kind of focus bloggers can keep on an issue.  I clicked Glenn's following of the story and the longer Muckracker item.

Lifehacker offers a link to some (mostly obvious) instruction on how to photograph moving objects, but check out that ad.  It goes here.  If you take HDR photos, Gawker is interested in using your work in its leftover ad space.

Since I'm mentioning it, I haven't followed through on this yet, but if you're interested in learning more about High Dynamic Range photography along with me, HDR master Jimmie Yoo wrote a piece for Popular Photography in which he mentions using a trial version of a software called Photomatix.

The final part in Aaron Swartz's comes this Thursday.  Part 2, "Who writes Wikipedia?" appears to be on the one to draw the most attention.  "[I]nsiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it's the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content."  The conventional wisdom has been that a few people do the heavy lifting at Wikipedia and everyone else makes only small contributions.

If you're sick of summer re-runs and you're wondering when your new shows start, you can look them up easily here.

Since there's been a theme this week of people voluntarily making their personal information public, this story is a perfect way to end the week.  In a nutshell, two bloggers conducting independent experiments, created fake identities and used them on Craigslist to see what kind of responses they'd get to sexual solicitations.  They received many responses from men who sent lurid photos and their real contact info.  One of the bloggers posted all of the responses online, names, photos, phone numbers, e-mail addresses.  I don't have anything more to add, it's just so staggeringly life-ruining.  Some of these guys are/were married.  File this under "things that make you go "whoa."  NOTE:  Given the nature of this story, there are some obscene photos on some of the pages linked beyond this one I'm linking to.

How to dress like a Mac.  Looks at the wardrobe of that kid in the Mac/PC ads.  I don't have the fashion savvy to see beyond "jeansn'tshirts" but somewhere there are some marketers who are ecstatic that this ad is having secondary impact.

(While double checking to see what the LifeClever site is all about I also enjoyed this set of "illuminating concept maps.")

Speaking of creative ways to present information, "Newspapers need to stop the story-centric worldview."  An alternate title might be "The difference between newspaper journalism and online journalism."  The argument in this case is that stories should be considered in terms of their raw facts and presentation should be dictated by the structure of those facts.  In a more general sense I find myself frequently making a similar argument.  What makes Web journalism different is that every medium is available.  The challenge is to figure out which medium is best suited to present the information available.  Journalists from other media face the additional obstacle of having to think beyond their training.  Newspaper people have to think beyond the written story.  TV journalists have to think beyond video.

Could there really be a political event to go shooting doves on 9/11?

Speaking of 9/11.  If the anniversary weren't dominated by coverage of the ABC "docu-drama" we might be hearing more about the release of new building plans for the World Trade Center site.  Curbed offers coverage and discussion can be found at Wired New York.

Speaking of the ABC thing.  The protest has its own blog now.

Still speaking of the ABC thing, Glenn Greenwald rounds up memories of angry reaction to falsehoods in a Ronald Reagan docu-drama in 2003.  I know better than to think these kinds of protests are about a deep and abiding love for historical accuracy, but it might be nice if the media begins to take to heart the lesson that details matter.

Robotic Frisbees of Death - They're unmanned drones for finding hidden or hard to access enemies.  "Once they catch up to the baddies, the drones will use a series of armor-piercing explosives, shooting jets of molten metal, to eliminate their targets."  Find Sarah Connor indeed.

"Twenty-year-old actor Alec Hopkins was cast in May to play the role of young Severus Snape."  He gives a bit of an interview with his local paper.  Includes photo.

The Ultimate Blog Post - Contains a few good laughs like, "Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it."

One of the great benefits of the blogosphere is being able to eavesdrop on a variety of conversations.  What I clicked:

Ross Mayfield has stirred up discussion about the idea of a "MeMeme" -a list of the most popular URLs being linked to (or otherwise recommended) by the people in a network of your own definition (like your social network).  Among the reactions, I clicked Gabe Rivera's explanation for why he doesn't offer such a thing as part of the Memeorandum collection.

Changing gears to economics, beginning with Brad DeLong's response to Paul Krugman on the subject of distribution of wealth and taxing the rich ("A reality-based government would react to growing pretax inequality by taxing the rich more, and subsidizing the poor more."), I then went on to read Jane Galt's further response/criticism with the focus shifting to the social nature of economic inequality ("I cannot believe in this sort of redistribution--"cutting down the tall poppies", as I believe the Australians call it.").  Eventually I ended up back at Brad DeLong's site where he follows up on his earlier question of "how can we make our high politicians allergic to populist policies that are stupid?"  ("[B]uilding pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the [political] center outward will be possible and is our best chance.")

(By the way, Galt also has a thorough analysis of that median income map we saw the other day.)

Of course, the conversation that has the pundit blogosphere by the throat is that 9/11 docu-drama from ABC.  As a service to the discourse, Editor & Publisher has written out a summary of the review copy they saw.

Majority Watch is tracking polling in congressional races around the country, resurrecting the red/blue map with the seat counter in the corner.

Speaking of covering the coming election, how do you like the new Politics page here at MSNBC.com?  I'm liking that headline list, and the map is more thorough than the Majority Watch map.

Just Jared has reprinted all of those Vanity Fair photos of the Cruise baby in case you're curious but couldn't be bothered to hunt down the magazine.

Sex-With-Corpse Scheme Busted - Ick.  The guy was apparently "smitten" with a woman's obituary photo so he got his friends to help him try to dig up the body to have sex with it.

American media has stopped covering soccer now that the World Cup is long over, but if you were paying attention this summer you may be interested to know that Materazzi is finally telling his side of the story.  He says it was Zidane's sister he insulted that drew the head butt heard 'round the world.  The whole thing sounds so benign, I still think Zidane was a fool.

A sofa (bunk) bed - This needs some Transformers animation.

Further exploring the line between public personal information you make public and public personal information someone else makes more public is a speed sign that also posts your license plate number.  Your plate number isn't private, anyone can see it, but somehow putting it up on a sign makes it self-consciously public -- even though the number of people who see the sign is probably not many more than just you.

Blow up a building with color - I was expecting the building to be messier when it was all finished.

I don't agree that this is the best ad in the world, but still well done animation.

Egg:  "An impressive award winning short animation from China."

Cockroach vs. weatherman

Light emitting shirts - Remember the story about the light emitting fabric other other day?  Here's what it looks like.

There's no question the news of Steve Irwin's death flooded the Web and seized all the "most popular" link lists for the past few days, so I won't pile on with even more coverage.  But I would like to point your attention to this essay on the interesting question of a parent's responsibility to stay alive and not do stupid, dangerous or "extreme" things that tempt death.  It's something I've definitely considered as a motorcycle-riding parent.  Just how much should you pad your own environment to ensure that your child has a healthy -or at least living- parent?

(By the way, has anyone seen any good footage of a stingray actually "stinging" something?  So far I've only seen experts in wet suits standing in aquarium pools showing a removed stinger.  Or diagrams of stingrays with an arrow saying "stinger is here.")

Speaking of the things you do not necessarily being good for your kids, Suri Cruise V. Shiloh Jolie-Pitt: Who Was Pimped Harder?

Jewish man removed from airplane for praying  "A flight attendant approached the man and told him his praying was making other passengers nervous."  It's an interesting contrast to the increasingly religiosity of Americans that there seems to also be an increased fear of religious people.

In a fascinating "speaking of" connected to my bewilderment yesterday at people who share too much personal information publicly on purpose, Mashable is following reaction to changes at Facebook, a hugely popular social site.  Basically they've added a way for the information friends are already sharing (by virtue of making it public) to be presented more directly in the form of a personal news feed.  Apparently this is just far enough on the wrong side of the line for people to feel uncomfortable with it.  It seems it's OK for personal information to be findable, but not OK for it to be reported.  I'm wondering if there's an element of anonymity in a crowd that is necessary for people to feel comfortable operating in online networks.

There's still a lot of attention being paid to this map showing change in income by state over the past six years.

"See if you can identify which well known band is, ahem, being paid homage to in each track below."

Google is launching a new news archive search.  The cool thing is the timeline feature.  How about Harley Davidson news from before 1930?

Speaking of Google toys, they're using human volunteers to label photos to help them show up better in search.  The process works as a game.  "The game pits you against someone else. If you see a picture of a car, and you both label it car, you can proceed to the next image. You continue until your time has run out."  And Google comes away with a group of tags associated with the images.

Speaking of making photos available to the public, the Neon Museum in Las Vegas withholds permission to photograph the old signs because sharing the photos from the non-profit museum may result in their use by a for-profit entity.  The criticism from BoingBoing and elsewhere is that they've cut off their nose to spite their face.  That is, to stop illegal use of the photos, they've undermined the very purpose of the collection, which is to show people the history of neon signs in Las Vegas.

Lifehacker's download of the day is a bit of software called Naggie.  You put it on your Blackberry and when you write your to-do list, you also specify "where" so that when the Blackberry's GPS can remind you of the errand as you near it.  No more saying, "Oh!  I can't believe I forgot!  And I drove right past it on the way home!"

"If Universal Display is right, lightbulbs in the future won't come in boxes. They will be incorporated into the wallpaper."

How to put on a bra - It's actually a clip from a movie called DOA: Dead or Alive, based on a video game.  The movie comes out tomorrow.  NOTE:  This is a video of a topless woman in her underwear doing karate on a bunch of thugs while also putting on her bra.  It's safe enough that it could be played on TV, but ... well... it's a topless woman doing karate in her underwear.

Video of the Paris Hilton CD "droplifting" mentioned yesterday.

Sumter Woman Finds Possible Ancient Coin In Grocery Change - Tsk, I'm suddenly not so impressed with the 1939 wheat penny I got as change from the cafeteria.

Carnival of the cars

Festival of frugality

Banksy strikes again - It kind of reminds me of people who would post their own music with Brittney Spears titles in old Napster.  The (an) irony is that people whose tastes would drive them to purchase a Paris Hilton CD now have an arguably valuable piece of art they probably couldn't care less about.  I haven't seen any link to an MP3 yet, but the photos are here (including a NSFW one).

Speaking of teen sex (?) Explaining the huge rise in teen oral sex - Discusses the idea of the "rational teenage sex drive," a contradiction in terms if ever I've seen one, with the basic idea being that kids don't have sex if they know an abortion will require parental notification.

Death by Google Calendar: How I Identified you to rob you - This blogger shows how a woman who left her Google calendar entries public can be stalked using the information she is freely sharing.  To me it seems like an excessive way to find out when someone's not home so you can rob their house, but I'm struck by the larger point of people voluntarily sharing personal information particularly while elsewhere battles are being fought over privacy rights.

"Winning Online" -- A Manifesto - Argues for newspapers to unite around a hub, move to a common platform and generally work together to leverage their collective reporting and audience.

Web Worker Daily is a new blog for people who are "going Bedouin," which is to say, working by some public wifi instead of in a cube farm office.  TechCrunch calls it a "distributed worker."

Jesus Camp trailer - I'm sure Christians are sick of being made to look like crazy people.  This movie does not appear to help them to that end.  (Which is not to say that being an atheist in America is a walk in the park.)

Metafilter offers a set of links related to the The Endor holocaust.  In short, when the planet-sized Death Star is destroyed it has a bad effect on life on the Ewok planet.

Political drag - male politicians photoshopped as women.  Alwasy quality work from the Worth 1000 folks.

Hey!  Don't forget the Battlestar Galactica webisodes start today!

I don't know anything about Sufjan Stevens, so reading all the excitement about a big Christmas song package release sent me to Napster for a free listen.  The (non-Christmas) album is quiet, sparse and folky.  Banjo/guitar, voices, no drums, kind of repeticious.  Not bad for background while working, though maybe too sleepy for a Monday.

Hotel Bed Jumping - the funnest thing to do in a hotel since secret wall tattoos (drawing a picture underneath the hotel's framed picture.)

Speaking of "the funnest thing since," the musical toothbrush that you hear through vibrations in your jaw is the funnest thing since the musical lollipop.

"Movements based on emotion tend to decay rapidly; leaders of such movements have to keep their followers in crisis mode to keep them motivated."  In this case he's talking about immigration rallies and their lack of impact on voter registration, but it reminded me of an essay I clicked in the local Lower Manhattan newspaper about the passion giving way to reality at Ground Zero.

Speaking of fading 9/11 passions, the Bin Laden tab on this chart is telling.  The hate crimes tab is a little deceptive for showing such a big jump.  I would have guessed more than 150 per year and that still seems like a low number (easy for non-Muslim me to say, right?).

And speaking of 9/11 commemoration, if I may make a suggestion amidst the flood of look-backs and dramatizations and documentaries and special programming, a perspective with which you may not be familiar that is not only compelling but really very relevant is the local one.  People live literally on the lip of the hole and deal with the impact of 9/11 on a daily basis along with the more common aspects of life like schools for their kids.  Two local papers that reflect their constituencies well are the Downtown Express and the Tribeca Trib.

Of course, the worst thing about 9/11 was all the cursing.

Still speaking of 9/11, "GOP Congress blocked Clinton push for anti-terror legislation" - I'm not sure if it's in reaction to complaints about an ABC documentary accused of blaming 9/11 on Clinton or if it's an independent posting, but it's pretty funny (but not really) to read quotes from members of Congress calling terrorism a "phony issue."

I can appreciate "what if" histories, but it does seem in poor taste to fictionally assassinate a guy who's not only still alive but still in office.

...on the question of Iran.

"Google is adding a feature to its Google Books service today to allow PDF downloads of out-of-copyright books."