When this book was first pitched to me I thought it was going to be about biofeedback - which is it, a little - but really it's about how the brain literally maps the body as well as its surroundings. Literally, physically, stick-an-electrode-in-your-brain-and-feel-a-poke-in-your-elbow kind of map. It's fascinating and the possibilities of what technology can do once we learn to read and utilize these maps is really exciting.

The mp3 of my interview with the authors is here or else the bottom of this page has the audio set in the video player for faster loading.

The discovery of this site purporting to be that of a plastic surgeon offering "ear pointing" has the subject floating around the Web on this appropriate day. Not everyone believes the site is real but the the procedure definitely is. More images here and here but NOTE: they include the "healing" stage which is a cut ear with stitches, so kinda gross.

Speaking of Halloween items, here's a tutorial on carving an image from a photo into your jack-o-lantern.

Speaking of "speaking of," I don't have any in this entry as I just want to share the links before I have a back-log, rather than wait to see trends in the tea leaves. I'm sure that's your preference as well.

I was reading this piece from Steve Rubel about the Web 2.0 bubble and followed a link to the answer to a question I've been wondering for a long time. What is the definition of mainstream?  According to my NBC colleague Beth Comstock, something is mainstream when it's in 40% of houses.

Zoom into Da Vinci's The Last Supper in great detail.

This is neat, though it's hard to think of its use. Edits to Wikipedia show up on a map in real time.  Someone from the UK just edited the Baked Beans entry.

Top Places To Get Free and Legal Music - I've found that in most cases "free and legal" music is music I've never heard of. But that doesn't mean there aren't gems to be discovered.

"The future of Islamic reform lies with post-Islamism - a recognition that politics rather than religion provides for welfare in this life." This is the last in this guy's series on Islamic reform. I've only clicked a few but enjoy his insights and frankly, his analysis is the only of its kind that I'm aware of on what is arguably an important and extremely relevant (and prone to manipulative parody and generalization) subject.

Brijit reads, summarizes and recommends magazine articles so you don't have to. (And apparently you can get paid for participating.)

Mice standing on a vibrating floor lost fat and grew stronger bones. What are the implications for sitting on a vibrating motorcycle an hour a day?

Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine has decided to punish PR people who pitch him inappropriately by publishing their e-mail addresses on his blog. In case you're not aware, there are programs out there that search the web for X@Y.Z configurations and enter them into spam databases, so by publishing these addresses this way he's pretty much guaranteeing these people will suffer a new wave of spam. Then again, maybe they deserve it. Interesting discussion in the comments.

Latest Google release that's we're going to hear about forever: OpenSocial. "It is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called "hosts") that choose to participate." "This is the exact same concept as the Facebook platform, with two huge differences:" Facebook stuff is exclusive to Facebook only, OpenSocial isn't. And Facebook stuff is written in special Facebook language, OpenSocial uses common language.

A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail - This is a long read with a lot of links so if you're not interested in pulling your hair out over pundit blog squabbles you may prefer to skip it. Still, it contains a lot of interesting elements and Glenn Greenwald's transparent blogging style reminds me of the old days when blogs were expected to change the face of journalism. In short, anti-war bloggers are complaining that the military denies information to all but the most sympathetic media, leaving critics in the dark and supporters armed with leaked facts and gotchas. Greenwald's essay on the subject appears to have drawn criticism from General Petraeus' spokesman but then he's denied information confirming the source of the mail, finding himself an example of half of his original complaint. The follow-up paints an even stranger portrait of the spokesman. E&P has a summary of the drama.

Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin - I've already said my piece on the return of analog music, but here's a fascinating development:

Because these music fans also listen using portable players and computers, Matador and other labels include coupons in record packaging that can be used to download MP3 versions of the songs. Amory called the coupon program "hugely popular."

In the vein of that "We didn't start the viral" video, the new Mahalo Daily trailer parodies the top video bloggers.

The art of Japanese pen spinning (with great Japanese metal soundtrack) - That's spinning as in twirling, not as in Spirograph. (hey neat)

Speaking of Japanese stuff, did you see the urban camouflage story? Don't miss the slide show.

Stainless Steel Spiders from Stolen Scissors - It's not really clear how to get a bulk shipment of TSA-confiscated scissors but this person makes cool spider sculptures with them. Hey, did you see a Swiss Army knife in that pile? It's the kind with the screwdriver instead of the corkscrew and it's missing the plastic sides.

"Player 1 draws a character with a power. Player 2 then draws a character whose power cancels the power of that previous character. Repeat."

20 Things You Didn't Know About Living In Space

"The Eye-Fi. It's an SD memory card that adds Wi-Fi to any camera. Plus the free Eye-Fi service supports automatic uploads to 20 different web photo sites (like Flickr) as well as a computer on your home network." We've seen anticipation of the Eye-Fi but this is the first review I've seen. Very exciting for those of us nervously watching that little door on the camera get increasingly loose with repeated plug-ins of the download wire.

The Pirate Bay folks are working on a protocol that would replace Bit Torrent. Initial release due early next year.

I read this article over my morning Cheerios and I can't recommend it highly enough:

Motorhead Messiah
Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him?

For Clicked readers with science interests it describes the creative ways this guy changes the car/truck engines to make them more powerful and efficient.

For Clicked readers with political leanings, it's a compelling story of our country's self destructive addiction to oil.

For Clicked readers who like human interest items, this guy dropped out of school in the 7th grade.

For Clicked readers who look for stories about the environment, this article is the kind of drug that keeps your hopes vested in the cause.

Good stuff. My one criticism is that turning a 9 mpg Hummer into an 18 mpg Hummer might be doubling its efficiency but really, that's still pretty bad - but then again, it's biodiesel.

Accused speeder to cops: My GPS proves your radar gun is wrong - As you might guess from the headline, the GPS recorded his speed. Now the question for the courts is whether GPS data is acceptable proof. What makes this especially fascinating is that I vividly remember the controversy several years ago when a rental car agency used GPS to determine that a renter had been speeding and fined him for it. Back then the issue was privacy.  (This story is often on my mind because the only time I drive a car is when it's a rental and I'm always paranoid that I'm being spied on when I drive them.)

Speaking of cars and technology, "How many electric car and plug-in start-ups are there in the world today?" Answer: more than 16. It seems like there should be a green economy just waiting to explode.  I wonder what the tipping point is. Is it purely a matter of energy costs?

Speaking of green cars, this one gives "limousine liberal" a new meaning.

I don't have a problem with Dumbledore being gay and I don't even have much of a problem with Rowling bringing it up after all of the books have come and gone - though I don't plan to go back and re-read them with the new context in mind. I also disagree that Dumbledore should have said something about it in the books. It would be an important part of The Dumbledore Chronicles when they're written but there were a lot of things Dumbledore didn't share with Harry and his readers. I did spend some time reading through the comments on the coverage at The Leaky Cauldron. Also, Dumbledore's outing covered by People magazine (parody) and Dumbledore pride shirts.

Speaking of the headline on this entry, Google Earth used to target Israel.  Not to be too picky but even though we see the guy using Google Earth to find targets, when we actually see them firing the rocket in the video it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of aiming and calculation to the set up.  Maybe someone reading this can explain how that type of rocket works but on the video it looks like they said, "Israel is that way" and just lit the fuse.

Some cool graphs of rich states and poor states - It happens to show up as some bloggers are talking about graphs of wealth vs. religiosity.

Speaking of cool infographics, the World Freedom Atlas is a world map that compares things like civil rights, rule of law and personal freedoms.

Bill Richardson adds his voice to the collection arguing that we need the National Guard home to... well... guard the nation. Has anyone seen an actual breakdown of how National Guard resources are used? I empathize with the sentiment and the flat logic but I've never seen a breakdown of the number of available National Guard members versus the number of things we need them to do.

Star gazers are excited about a visible-to-the-naked-eye comet in the Perseus constellation.

Urban moss graffiti - I wonder if it can grow. The moss is native to this latitude, so it should be able to deal with the weather conditions. How many "seeds" would it take for nature to retake urban areas with moss and vines? You'd probably have to spread some dirt around. I don't imagine truck soot is sufficient growing medium.

Human race will 'split into two different species' - Ridiculous for a million reasons but fun to imagine -especially with those photos. I imagine that as we're able to do more without getting up from our computers the race would split between people who sit and people who move. People Who Sit will use computers to socialize and meet (leading to procreation) to hone the evolutionary line.

Speaking of doing it through the computer, Domino's will actually deliver a few lumps of meat on a round piece of bread if that's how you order it online.

Bent objects - It's amazing how much personality an ordinary object can take on with the addition of arms and legs.

'Digg me' t-shirt - The shirt has a button and an LED display of how many times it's been Dug. I'm not even going to say it.

The new Stephen Colbert Facebook group is apparently the fastest growing ever.

New video game vest lets you feel like you're actually being shot. No way. I believe you'll feel something but not the degree of authenticity described here. Video here but not very enlightening.

Media myths about the Jena 6 - "A local journalist tells the story you haven't heard." Definitely not the story I heard about the Jena 6.

I am the condom friend ever useful to you. I watched the whole damn thing just make sure and wouldn't you know, there's one NSFW image at around 5:45 just for a few seconds (during a line about condoms being important in gay sex).

Come to order, Clicked Court is now in session:  Local Miami TV news is dealing with a bit of drama over their reporter being arrested for standing on the sidewalk in front of a school. The story is complicated a little by the fact that the reporter had a gun (legally), but that's really just a distraction from the main question.  Is the sidewalk in front of a school public property or does it have some special school zone status? My feeling is to side with the reporter but there are a lot of laws about things you can't do within a certain range of a school, so I wouldn't be too surprised if it goes the other way. Here's the raw video.

Speaking of getting arrested on your own camera, it's a little hard to tell but it sounds like this guy was on his own property or that of his friend. Luckily, police had a taser handy. "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Universal TV remotes mixed with important soccer games at sports bars equals classic nerd prank. I remember seeing ads for a device meant for this purpose, marketed by an anti-TV group that didn't like that people sit at bars and watch TV instead of socialize. I can't find the page but this is what the device was like.

We didn't start the viral - How many do you recognize? P.S. I don't recommend any of those gross "Jigsaw recommends" videos.

Missing cat

Not-at-all-missing dog

Pneumatic Anatomica - Anatomy of a balloon animal

"The most important issue to young people in the 2008 campaign is one that no presidential candidate will discuss. ... The issue is the curtailing of corporate power..." It is?

If that's true, it's ironic that Stephen Colbert's fake candidacy, disproportionately popular with young people, is in legal trouble for having a corporate sponsorship. Yeah, it's a good thing the law keeps corporations from having any undue influence over politicians or helping them get elected. (?!) If Colbert is disqualified, can he still be a write-in candidate?

Speaking of policing the process, my colleagues at NBC have apparently decided Mike Gravel isn't a serious enough candidate to include in the debates.

And speaking of intra-party rejection, the Republican blog Red State has drawn a line against those exuberant Ron Paul supporters that flood every political poll and comment thread. I wonder at what point his online support becomes a curse more than a blessing for the campaign. (That probably depends on how the "November 5" fundraiser goes.

Speaking of dubious online assets, John McCain's daughter is blogging with friends from her father's campaign trail. I'm not sure how much help the blog is to her father's cause but it certainly offers an alternative to Hillary Clinton in terms of what it means to be a politically active woman.

Chris Dodd's site comes out with yet another virally successful widget. This time it's not so much about his campaign as an issue that has become hugely important to progressive bloggers: the granting of amnesty to telecom corporations for helping the Bush administration spy on Americans. In fact, if I can start the above "speaking of" string over again, here's some of the massive collection of links on the subject:

Speaking of corporate influence on politics, this blog makes a pretty damning case against Senator Rockefeller's motivations in the telecom immunity legislation. Makes Colbert's Dorito sponsorship problem look pretty silly.

Speaking of the telecom story, here's a good round-up of how amnesty passed through the House of Representatives last week, leaving Dodd in the Senate as the final obstacle.

Glenn Greenwald wrote up a more current summary yesterday and already it's been updated three times. Odd that such a dynamic and important story can be covered so avidly by bloggers but goes generally ignored by the mainstream. It's like a pundit blog version of a missing pregnant woman story.

Speaking of the contrast between mainstream and blog coverage of news stories, political bloggers of all stripes place a lot of emphasis on accountability.  Looking at that Dodd link you see names and expected votes along with phone numbers. I don't know why mainstream news doesn't follow a similar practice.  They don't need to include the advocacy but it would break up the monotony of seeing everything through the same blurry, anonymous partisan lens. (I mention this in case any of my colleagues are reading.  C'mon guys, no one else is doing this.)

Here's a new one: "Though not hosting an actual content himself, and rather merely providing links to where particular titles can be found, he was nonetheless apparently charged for the "facilitation" of copyright infringement." It's about that site TVLinks, which links to bootleg versions of shows on video services like Metacafe and YouTube. What strikes me as odd, other than the notion that linking to something could be a crime, is that the link doesn't facilitate the copyright infringement, that's already done once the video is made and uploaded. Linking to it only facilitates others benefitting from the infringement. If an illegal copy of a TV show is played in the forest and no one is there to watch it, is it still a copyright violation? I think so. Here's a real world example: When Rolling Stone lists the 25 greatest moments from NBC's "The Office" and includes a few links to YouTube clips of the show, at what point does the copyright infringement happen? (And am I clear of the facilitation charge if it takes two clicks to get from my page to the copyright infringement?

Speaking of legal gray areas and getting in trouble for having other people's content on your site, remember that list of Web 2.0 porn sites? It turns out they may soon be illegal. Well, not the sites themselves exactly. As it stands, there's a law on the books meant to prevent child porn that requires porn producers to verify the age of their performers. If that law is expanded to cover "submit your own photo/video" sites, the sites themselves would somehow have to verify age -and not just a "click Enter if you're over 18" screen.

Speaking of privacy concerns and having something to hide (while exposing everything), Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom - Among other points, the piece highlights our habit of thinking that privacy is about hiding bad things. The argument here is for a more multi-facetted definition of privacy but with a heavy emphasis on the notion of "good fences make good neighbors." I confess I hadn't given much thought to what privacy really means - and actually I've probably given more thought to the idea of hiding bad things and our society's way of over-legislating and under-policing to make for a semi-legal gray area partly protected by privacy and partly protected by the sense that you'll be left alone if you don't cause trouble. But I digress because really this is still about telecom amnesty.

Speaking of digressing, Amazing cardboard sculptures

Your airline might not level with you when it comes to explaining why your flight is delayed but if you have a package on the same flight they're more likely to explain why your delivery isn't being made. Lesson: for better flight info, check the airline's cargo/shipping site.

Free Audio Book and Podcast Downloads to Juice Up Your Workout and Commute

Tattoos for the blind - There's a fine line between sub-dermal implants for adding aesthetic texture to the skin and a skin rash. No offense to blind people.

Human Tetris - This should be an Olympic sport.

Today's edition of "Fake or not fake": Dude Flips Out In Coffee Shop - It was suggested here in the cube farm that it could also be a mix, with the guy's freak out being fake but the reactions of the people being real. I thought it was real until I heard the cop say, "There's nothing to see here." Do cops really say that?

Did I uncover your credit card info? This guy accidentally stumbled upon a database of stolen personal information and goes on to list some security measures. The password advice is really important. I've probably told this story before but it's worth repeating.  A billion years ago I managed an online community (not MSNBC.com) and learned that the passwords people used to log into the message board are often the same they use for their e-mail, social groups, bank accounts, porn subscriptions, etc.  (I'm not sure what the legalities are about the way I learned this lesson so I'll skip the details but suffice it to say that I was morally justified because of some threats made in the forum.) Anyway, the point is, your password may be visible to a variety of people who work behind the curtain on the sites you log into so it's a good idea to keep a few different ones.

350+Social Networking sites - I have no idea how a list like this could be compiled. I have a hard enough time finding good groups of things I'm actually interested in, nevermind a range this wide.

10 of The World's Most Unique Restrooms - What's weird is that the page is categorized under "subcultures" and the subtitle is "Understanding the new toilet culture."  New toilet culture? Did I miss a memo? I'm still doing the same old thing.

Two new trailers for the upcoming I Am Legend with a link to a third trailer. Interesting to see how the differences change the way the movie feels for U.S. vs. international audiences.
All summer long it seemed you couldn't walk down a street without coming across an I am Legend set so I'll be excited to see it finally on the screen. (Though seeing the place I live in post-apocalyptic ruin is not something I relish.)

Speaking of the living dead (or whatever Will Smith's character is fighting in that movie), zombie mobs are a relatively new recreation gaining popularity around the world. This guy's photos of one such mob held in Seattle are particularly well shot.

Another amazing photo from that airliners.net site. Of course, you can feel the wind or cold or hear the noise so actually being there is probably not quite this lovely.

The science of blog reading - Nick Carr writes about new research that uses a formula to figure out which blogs to read in order to stay on top of what bloggers are saying. Since that's the mandate of this blog, obviously I'm interested, but if I were to write a list of 100 sites that are good sources for keeping the pulse of the Web (using my meager human brain, not a formula), it would have only about 50% overlap with this list. That said, I'm going to take a shot at reading the paper and see if I can understand it enough to draw some new lessons.

Speaking of studies of the Web, here's a summary of a really enlightening survey about the role of the Internet in Americans' lives.

I see Bush bashers all the time warning about Bush declaring himself king or dictator or whatever and I frankly I don't give it much attention. I didn't realize it was rooted in something called NSPD-51.

GlamGuns.com - Guns for girls and glamorous weaponry

"In other words, spiritual growth doesn't happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships."

Do right-wing ideas keep on failing?  Makes the argument that the failings of the Bush administration do not reflect on the validity of conservatism as a political philosophy.

Police Mistake Cellphone for Gun and Shoot Teenager - Where's that taser when you need it?

Robot cannon goes berserk, kills 9 - Find Sarah Connor

Most fake bombs missed by screeners - 75% not detected at LAX; 60% at O'Hare - I'll have to keep this in mind next time I try to argue that airport security is overzealous. No information on how many of the fake bombs had LEDs on them.

"Suppose you could drill a hole through the Earth and then drop into it. How long would it take you to pop up on the other side of the Earth?" Answer: 42 minutes, one way.

Game: Trap the cat. Once you figure out the winning strategy it's pretty easy.

Snow pictures made by microscope

Y'know those videos of crazy bike messengers zipping through city traffic?  These guys do it on unicycles.

[YouTube:GhZRf4GIw0w]

How is she not shot? The guy is pointing the gun right at her.

You may recall during the Summer I started the interview series Voices in my Head.  After a brief lapse I'm picking up where I left off. This first one is with Bill Yenne, author of a book called Guinness: The 250-year quest for the perfect pint.

I confess when I saw the book title I mostly wanted to ask an expert all the thing I'd heard about Guinness as a bartender, so that's pretty much what the first half of it is. The transcript page is here, with a video option so you don't have to wait for the download to play it.  But if you prefer to take it with you, the mp3 is here.

P.S. Where else have I been? You may have heard about the big move by MSNBC to new studios. I don't technically have a new desk yet but I did spend some quality time plowing through seven years of accumulated junk, notes, books and ketchup packets.

You should see what the old place looks like now.  They didn't take most of the equipment (yet?) so it's basically a fully equipped news center and TV studio but completely empty of people. Totally eerie, kind of like that movie 28 Days Later. I have some pictures, but I also remember this guy so I'm waiting for special permission to post them.

The online coverage of the California fires shows continued innovation in how the news is being reported. The two new items I see this time around are Twitter reports and custom made maps.

The first time I saw breaking news covered with Twitter was during the earthquake in Peru.  Now I see it in use in reporting on the California fires both by regular people and news outlets.

Most of the folks making their own maps are using Google's myMaps feature. I remember when this came out and the only thing I could think to do with it was map out my driving routes to work. Now we see it in use by individuals, governments and news outlets to relay vital information.

• Santa Clarita's Buckweed map
• The L.A. Daily News map includes notes about evacuations.
• The L.A. Times is keeping a similar one.
• Of course, Google isn't the only map service out there.  We made ours with Virtual Earth.
• And Jimmy Akin appears to be making custom maps of his own. (I'm linking to his current affairs category so you see the latest.)
• ADDING: USA Today has a map with some interesting information overlays.

There's an amazing collection of maps at a blog called "And still I persist." As I click it now it looks like traffic has brought it down but hopefully that will be resolved soon so I'll keep the link here for you to check back. They have custom maps that include individual houses touched by fire and areas covered by the smoke plumes, photos and informative links.  A really impressive amount of work going into this, I hope it's restored soon.

Speaking of blogs with features we haven't seen before, this one has a collection of time lapse videos of the fires taking over the landscape. (I see they're posting so much it's already been pushed into the archives. Here's a direct link to an example. In case you have trouble, these loaded more quickly for me on Firefox than IE for some reason.) They credit the videos to this site, which has feeds from wireless web cams. I can't find any that are showing the fires directly, however. Maybe I'm missing it.

Speaking of blogs, all the local news outlets are keeping them active and updated.  The ones I clicked:

• Local NBC
• Local CBS
• L.A. Times
•  Orange County Register
• Union Tribune

The Calfire blog comes with audio clips, though I had to scroll back to yesterday to find one that would load. The audio is of a robot voice reading incident reports, evacuations and other fire conditions. It sounds like it's using text to voice technology.

Speaking of scrolling backward, I looked to the entries before the fires on this San Diego real estate blog and found photos of the kinds of houses that are no doubt threatened or already burning right now.

Infinte Monkeys is blogging the fires in the tradition that made blogging the force it has become.  Frequent, copious updates with good links local insight and a personal sense that reminds us that real people are involved in this story.

I'm not sure what to call the pages that have been set up by Rim of the World and Kithbridge. Information pages? They're not blogs exactly but they're being updated with important links and information.  Rim of the World is hosting message boards as well.

The TV folks keep showing a NASA map of the region with the smoke billowing out to sea. Notice there's a link at the bottom of the text for a huge version of the photo. I also clicked this sky view.

Speaking of spotting smoke from space, yesterday I was able to see smoke show up on the radar of the Weather.com animated map. Now they've fleshed out their map offerings to cover a variety of Southwest perspectives.

With so many people directly and immediately affected by the fires we've seen a spike in the number of submissions to our FirstPerson project. (That video from James Fabin is really amazing when he pans the camera.)

So too, the traditional (mainstream citizen journalism?) sites, with both Flickr and YouTube showing lots of results in searches on California fire.

The Kithbridge site has a disclaimer that's easy to forget in the whirl of volunteer reporting and information.

"Again: do not rely on unofficial sources to make decisions regarding your safety: these links are provided for information only and Kithbridge assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of their information. Listen to your local authorities, and when they say evacuate --- get out!"

If there's anything I'm missing that you think is worth sharing, please let me know.

My colleague Gary Krakow was telling me about seeing a recent performance by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and passed me a few links describing their production philosophy. Most striking to me was a line in this Mtv interview in which one of the guys says they've sold over 30,000 7-inch records. I wouldn't have guessed that many people had the equipment to play 7-inch records, never mind a single band selling that many. I imagine there are a lot of people who never made the digital jump. Is there also an anti-digital backlash in the works?

Even as Best Buy ceases to sell analog TVs, the White Stripes have lent their names to a limited edition line of analog cameras. NOTE: Site automatically plays music.

And one good reason for the analog revolution is the consistent pattern we've seen in news about ignorant security officials arresting, confiscating or tasing anything technical they don't understand.  If the Death Cab for Cutie guy had used an analog means of keeping his music, the courier might not have frightened security agents with that scary hard drive. Of course, going too retro might also have been a risk. Wax cylinders might easily be mistaken for nuclear reactor parts. ADDING BEFORE SOMEONE CORRECTS ME: The Seattle PI does more thorough reporting. No good explanation, but a) he did have analog back-up as well as digital back-up and b) speculation is that security was looking for kiddie porn in confiscating the hard drive so they weren't at all ignorant about what it was. And yes, the confiscation by Homeland Security does seem like a pretty handy publicity lever.

And while analog card playing is hardly immune to cheating, the scandal currently rocking the online poker world doesn't speak well for the digital wave: "The Absolute Poker controversy keeps getting more wild by the day." ... "The prevailing theory in the poker community? Potripper was a dummy account, and ID 363 had access to hole cards, and was relaying them to 'Potripper.'" Freakonomics has a good current round-up and draws this conclusion: "The real lesson of this all, however, is probably the following: guys who aren't that smart will figure out ways to cheat. And, with a little luck and the right data, folks who are a lot smarter will catch them doing it." Pardon me for finding that weak consolation. What happens when guys who are that smart figure out ways to cheat?

Also analog: Customized Pez dispensers.

Meanwhile, I was over at the Coudal site finding out what Layer Tennis is and saw the words "refreshingly analog" pointing to a video of a poster being made with a good old fashioned silkscreen. (By the way, Layer Tennis is utterly non-analog. It's a game Web designers play where they start with a pair of images and take turns making changes by adding photoshop layers. There may be more to it than that, but you get the idea.)

Speaking of artists and designers, even though I'm not a big gamer, I often admire video game trailers. The trailer for Street Fighter IV is very artfully done and unlike movie trailers, I don't feel like I needn't bother playing the game because all the good parts are already in the trailer.

Speaking of trailers, the new Hellboy comes out in July of next year. Looks like the site has a lot planned.

Kind of speaking of trailers, Sci Fi gave Tin Man an infinite site. I watched for a while without seeing the end of the loop but it moves pretty slow. Disclosure: Sci Fi is owned by NBC which is part owner of MSNBC.com. As I've mentioned before that means depressingly little in terms of this blog. However, in about a month I'll be moving offices to the same building that headquarters Sci Fi Channel and I hope to make some contacts there so I'll actually have something to disclose but I'll also hopefully have more insight into their shows and maybe like a Farscape mouse pad or Doctor Who coffee mug.

A Vision of Students Today - It feels like they're trying to sell some kind of collaborative educational software or something, but it's just a creative way to show survey results.

B.S. is the most important issue for 2008 voters - Another home run from The Onion - but NOTE: they don't use initials to say B.S.  Guaranteed to produce at least one good guffaw.

Speaking of B.S., here's a funny story worth following. In a nutshell: A company sells audio cables for $7250. James Randi bet a million bucks that no one could tell the difference in sound between the expensive ones and their cheaper Monster Cable equivalent. The company, Pear Cable found a music journalist to accept the challenge. Stay tuned!

Improv Everywhere mocks the shirtless male motif at Abercrombie & Fitch by showing up at their NYC store without shirts. Improv Everywhere is kind of a spin off of the old Flash Mobs idea.  You get on their mailing list and they let you know when a mission is coming up, where to meet and what to bring. Hilarity, social commentary and art ensue.

Commuter Click: Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass. I knew as soon as I saw it that this story would see a lot of link attention online.  It's this week's main story in New York Magazine, so it's long.  I'm going to read it, but not because I care about Gawker or need to know about "the rise of new media" but because of the last part of that subtitle: "the rage of the creative underclass." I don't know how the article treats that topic, but I definitely recognize that there's a creative underclass and I agree that it's often permeated with resentment and frustration that sometimes feels like rage.

Speaking of Commuter Clicks, I finally forced my way through The Structured Web - A Primer. It's very "sausage factory" and more technical than what I usually post here but if you can grasp the general idea you'll feel real smart for a good 15 minutes afterward.

Speaking of online sausage making, "Here are some of the key lessons the BBC learned from their Web 2.0 experiment."

How to make money by pulling scams - Not really instructions but it's a funny round-up of the various scams out there and it's a nice twist on boring warning advice.

Upon learning of the most searched terms on Google, this blog wrote a quick entry about Tom Cruise, marijuana, hangovers and burritos. Judging by my referral logs, "those naked harry potter pictures" is also quite popular. (You'll recall Google Hot Trends is where they publish daily top search terms. [And OMG I just looked at it and saw that Vinnie left OCC?!? Ack! {and by the way, I agree with this guy about the way the show has changed l} Cody is also leaving. I hope they're both rich at least. And who is Missy Higgins? {Oh, very nice.}])

Where was I?

Why commercials before movies is worse than piracy - "When we download a movie without giving the movie industry anything in return, they call that a crime (and it is). But when the industry takes our time (sometimes up to 15 or 20 minutes) without giving us anything for that time in return they call it 'smart marketing'."

11 USB toys your boss is sure to hate - I'm not sure why a boss would hate these, they're not sexual or even really all that disruptive. They are pretty cool though.

China's reinvigoration of Web censorship has some wondering if it's a reaction to the Dalai Lama event yesterday.

Is there a secret plan in the works to impeach (or something) George Bush after he leaves office? This raises the larger question of how long after Bush's departure Democrats will try to score points with his unpopularity. I had sort of figured the country would just move on but it occurs to me there's going to be a lot of backward finger pointing after he's gone.

What does it mean to anti-abortion activism if keeping abortion legal is more effective at preventing abortions than banning it? Without having to delve into the specific abortion debate, the question of whether activist groups can effectively adopt counter-intuitive or asymmetric strategies to pursue their goals is interesting -especially given our current national inclination toward straightforward, often ill-conceived confrontation.

"Freeze them, boil them, dry them, expose them to open space & radiation - after 200 years they'll still be alive!" Tardigrades.

Bike Hackers Get Whimsical With Two-Wheelers

I can't believe I'm mentioning Rush Limbaugh again but this seems like something that could spark a trend. Democrats recently tried to exercise some outrage over something Limbaugh said and some members of Congress ended up writing a letter to ClearChannel. I don't know if they seriously thought that was going to do anything but now Rush is selling the original letter on eBay with the money to go to charity. Current bidding is at $1.2 million. (?)

This is the kind of thing that the lawyers have taken down quickly so I'm posting it now rather than waiting for the rest of today's entry.  In short, an old guy shot and killed two burglars in three weeks. A local reporter caught up with him in the parking lot of a store where he'd purchased a new shotgun (his other two having been taken by police in association with the shooting investigations). The reporter has now apparently been suspended in the wake of viewer outrage over the segment.

[YouTube:HnZd-5dYXfk]

High profile tech bloggers have been fretting about a new popularity list that has some people trying to -or feeling tempted to- game the system to move up the list. I don't find the matter very compelling and haven't talked about it much here but it has produced some good tangential threads of discussion.  The question of what it means to be popular -is it number of readers, ability to drive traffic, quality of readers...- came up last week.  This week I find the topic turning to the collective consensus necessary to make something popular. Inherent in that discussion is a revisit to the "wisdom of the crowds" idea.

Reading this entry I saw a highlight quote from Tim O'Reilly describing an aspect of "the crowd" that we don't often see and it's stuck with me for a couple of days:

"When a group of seemingly independent actors are making decisions based on the same limited pool of information, they become more highly correlated, and thus 'stupider.'"

When we talk about the wisdom of the crowds we usually focus on the product, the aggregate. Advice about harnessing crowds also keeps to the fore the final product or project or program that manages to gather people together. But now we see that what is equally, if not more important is the diversity of the crowd and particularly the diversity of the information it draws from. The mind reels with examples of consensus that proved false because even though a variety of people agreed, they were all basing their conclusions on the same limited information. AhemIraqahem.

Speaking of wrangling crowds, The making of the Muslim left - The writer uses his experience with the proselytizing of Southern Christians to understand the "Islamic right" and design a plan for the creation of a Muslim left. The suggestion seems to be that you can use the same propaganda techniques to build a loyal group of good guys the way fanatical bad guys are rallied.  I think there's something inherent in the techniques that produce the kinds of groups that acquire members this way that ultimately defeats the goal but it's an interesting idea to think about. Good comments section too.

Still speaking of wielding crowds, I had planned to pair to this Rush Limbaugh item in connection with the Randi Rhodes story before that fell apart but it still has some value in the context of crowd control, whether you're talking about siccing a mob of loyalists on a journalist or hiring a team of reporters to investigate or "expose."

By the way, if you can't bear to click the words "Rush Limbaugh item," the thing he's railing against is a new site called ProPublica, "a non-profit, investigative news room" which is apparently financed by people Rush doesn't like.

Speaking of social networking ideas, Web 2.0 porn sites is a plain boring SFW page that links to some extremely unsafe for just about anything but the privacy of your own lap sites. From the Web trends perspective, it's worth noting that the idea of online community members making recommendations to each other has applications to online porn as much as it does to online news or anything else. That said, I'm not sure (or maybe I'm not expert enough in porn to notice) there's anything distinct about how the crowd selects porn versus professional pornographers.

Speaking of sex in the computer age, Will humans marry robots in 50 years? Draws from this longer story on MSNBC.com. Am I missing something or would marrying a robot require granting it some kind of person status? Otherwise, wouldn't a robot be property? Anyway, Adam put together a list of the most desirable female robots (Hey, why would it just be men who would marry robots? Women have sex with robots too.) but I'm thinking if you're going to include the Bionic Woman as a robot you have to include Seven of Nine as a robot.

Speaking of the business of sex, When is rape at gunpoint not rape? When it's "theft of services." This feminist blog highlights the story or a prostitute who was forced to have sex with men who didn't pay (and who she didn't agree to have sex with anyway) and the judge doesn't see the forced sex as rape but as a product stolen without payment.

From the mailbag Tracy informs us, "[These photographs] are shot from INSIDE the photographer's mouth with a pinhole camera.  They are some of the most bizarre, yet interesting photos I have ever seen."

China out-Americas America - Which is to say, it appears that they've produced a better P2P Web product because companies there have greater freedom to pursue the technology.  "It's not unreasonable to consider that next year and into the future that much of what we do online may end up being based on Chinese designed technology and programming, and not good ol' fashioned American know-how."

Speaking of chilling effects on research, Mail harmless bacteria, go to jail. Imagine if they'd put LEDs on it.

The top 35 Environmental blogs

13 Reasons your Facebook account will be disabled - Not only is this handy for Facebook users but it's pretty good insight into how Facebook polices itself.

Mini-pigs - I've heard good things about pigs as pets.  They're smart and house-trainable. How long before this is the new vanity pet?

Real time salary calculator. Enter the amount of money you make and it shows you a clock that counts off in money so you can watch your salary accumulate by the penny. It reminds me of the math we used to see when Michael Jordan was at his peak and people would figure out that he was making ten thousand dollars a second or something crazy like that. It also works as an interesting perspective on your monthly rent.

Is there life on a moon of Saturn? - "Dark, organic-rich material is splattering the face of Iapetus as it orbits Saturn, like a car whose windscreen is sprayed with water from other cars on a rainy day." If there's organic material on the moon as a result it of passing through space, doesn't that mean there's organic material in the space it's passing through?

Speaking of space, Anatomy of a black hole

Speaking of cool Flash animations this is a map/timeline of religion spreading across the world. We've seen this before in a less polished format. This one's nice and clear.

Speaking of cool global maps, this one shows the number of doctors per person in countries around the world. What's up with Australia? (Never mind, I misread it.)

Also on maps, How Google maps the world

Since reading this story about the guy trying to mail fighter jets to Iran one piece at a time I can't get the Johnny Cash song out of my head.

Happy Birthday Olive. (108!)

[YouTube:LGBVh_EDZnM]

Dominating the water cooler this morning is the subject of what a pain in the butt it is to adopt an animal these days. The discussion stems from the video of Ellen begging the animal shelter to return a dog she gave to her hairdresser.

I was surprised at how angry I was after watching the clip considering I didn't know or care about the story a minute and 48 seconds earlier. It's not surprising (though of course I don't condone it) that the shelter is receiving threats and angry feedback.

I know I already linked to a bunch of headlines about Radiohead leading a shift away from the traditional music industry but this week it's been looking like a genuine trend.

• Oasis, Jamiroquai to follow Radiohead
• Madonna dumps label in $134m deal
• Music Industry Launches Four-Pronged Effort to Destroy Itself

If "destroy itself" feels a little too exuberant, we can at least see that some of the possibilities of the past are realities of the present. Consider these five alternative music industry business models.

Much more: What's the Future of the Music Industry? A Freakonomics Quorum

Speaking of that Radiohead release, for some reason I keep stumbling upon links about secret messages and back stories of the songs. It must be a reflection of the size of their online fan base because as a casual listener it doesn't mean much to me: Pitchfork's Guide to Radiohead's In Rainbows

They're calling this the worst radio interview ever and indeed it's hard not to have some sympathy for an interviewer whose guest doesn't want to talk, but it also highlights something I've struggled with as a media person who does occasional interviews. It always seems a little misaligned to book a musical guest and then sit there and talk to them. I still don't have a good answer for what a musical interview would be like, somewhere between a full on performance and a sit down chat, but when I see an interview like this I have to think, "Well, duh, what did you think? They're a music band, not a debate team!"

Jason Kottke provides links and explanation of "green accounting." It sounds a little like the idea behind buying environmental offsets. Nature has worth and should be accounted for. Seems like that might run into some problems when you get to evaluating things like the Grand Canyon though.

"Girl with balloon is standing on an eyelash glued to the top of a needle." Microscopic art. The exhibit includes microscopes.

• Why we all overestimate Techmeme's influence
• The truth about traffic on the Internet

--The truth, in short, is that people don't click links like you might think. I know anecdotally that even the links in Clicked, which isn't much more than links, aren't clicked as much as the numbers of page views would suggest.

Speaking of traffic, who clicked Britney? - It's an analysis of Britney Spears related search traffic with categorization into what people were looking for.

Speaking of traffic, someone in the mainstream media finally speaks to Ron Paul supporters about their practice of flooding online polls.

Google hits vanity ring - "An electronic ring that shows the number of Google hits when searching for the name of the person who wears it."

The Most Amazing Video Of A Girl Playing Star Wars On The Trumpet… EVER

10 epic Halloween costumes - and they're all safe to view at work.

Speaking of Halloween, a massacre worthy of Calvin and Hobbes.

Tech bubble watchers were abuzz yesterday with word of CBS buying a 10-month-old gossip site for 10 million dollars. This report mentions that the seed investment was less than a million.

Floating LED light show - (not a bomb)

In the comments to my previous post a reader pointed out that txt words like BFF may one day be seen as part of the evolution of the language. This piece is about language evolution in a more literal way. "Verbs evolve and homogenize at a rate inversely proportional to their prevalence in the English language, according to a formula developed by Harvard University mathematicians." "Irregular verbs are fossils that reveal how linguistic rules, and perhaps social rules, are born and die," Michel says." The idea is that there are some verbs that don't follow the regular rules. Those are evolutionary remnants.

Turn a tiny amount of Mountain Dew into a big fat glowstick. The headline says "drinkable" but I'm pretty sure even just three caps full of hydrogen peroxide is going to make you barf - or worse.  BURNED AG'IN: It's a hoax. Doesn't glow and you still can't drink it. Thanks to the commenters.

Speaking of instructions on how to do something cool (or kill yourself), a "how to do a backflip" video is not very reassuring when the demonstrations are heavily edited. This is good advice though: "Pull yourself toward you instead of pulling yourself toward your legs."

For a less dangerous how-to, the instructions call it a paper transformer, but it's not a robot-to-car kind of transformer. Still neat.

Cool trick for creating an invisible folder on your computer.

A "mixed reality" avatar is a physical model with a virtual projection.

"Kindersay is a web-based program designed to help preschoolers (Ages 1 to 4) learn English words. Over 500 words, images and English-speaking videos are featured in our interactive "Word Shows"."  It's all free but if you want to customize it by adding your own photos or slide shows you have to pay for a premium membership.

The Baby Name Map gives you names ranked by popularity based on map plot points.

A Friday game!  Create a portal to move through the screens.

I don't understand the hype around this Washington Post article about mysterious robot dragonflies spying on protestors. The article makes it sound like no one has ever invented a small remote control flying object. Don't they remember all the hype around the Micro Mosquito? So cheap! And the Dragonfly, though not exactly bug sized, entered the consumer market months ago.

"This amazing bread recipe/technique sent ripples through the foodie world."

"I've asked ten professional writers ... to assess the net's impact on writers. Here are their answers to the question..." - Reading through the answers, I'm not sure the writers understood the question the same way I did. A lot of the answers are about the impact of the Web on the business of writing, not so much about the art, which is what the intro is about. Long ago I had the idea that chat rooms and instant messaging would herald a new age of literacy and expression through language. Instead we got, "IDK, my BFF Jill."

It is generally recognized that a key mechanism in writing well is rewriting. While we might credit the computer with making rewriting a lot easier, the writing style of the Internet does not encourage revision, preferring instead, abundance. If Web writing like blogging improves one's writing skill, it's not through the careful crafting of each entry but through sheer volume of practice. Several of the respondents mention the value of the Web to research when writing. I'm pretty sure the ease of workshopping one's writing through social sites and blog communities is an asset as well.

On a different level, I sometimes find it to be the case that I'll write an idea out long hand and then move to the computer, thinking it'll be more efficient to flesh out the thought. Somewhere in there, maybe it's the keyboard or the glow of a blank Word doc, I totally lose the spark. I've been meaning to look into whether it's a left brain/right brain thing. Does creative thinking come from one side and manual typing from the other side? I remember reading once that students were having a hard time with written portions of standardized tests because the act of writing by hand was distractingly foreign and drew on an unexercised part of the brain.

If you're short on time and I haven't already wasted too much of it, just scroll down to Clay Shirky's excellent and funny and fascinating answer.

100 things I've learned about photography

I consider it a public service to help spread the word that a cup of chirping electronics is not a bomb. Spread the word before someone gets hurt.

"Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks emerges."

Graphical comparison of Chinese and German culture. I'm pretty sure this is not racist or offensive. I don't quite understand the "definition of beauty" slide. Is that about tanning?

I received a link to this new video site in a press release but this joke channel is a good idea.

A powerful photo series on the downward spiral of drug abuse. NOTE: In some photos the guy has no pants on, but it's not even remotely sexual and no genitals can be seen. Also there are some Russian porn ads at the bottom of the page.

Funky 300 MPG Car Taking Pre-Orders - I saw another T-Rex on the road Monday night and I can definitely see a future of funky, light, efficient three wheelers.

World's dumbest file-sharer mulls appeal - What's not clear to me is if the case is all that significant if this woman didn't actually have any defense and apparently antagonized the jury. It's not really a model case.

I understand the argument that we should expect model behavior from our public servants but I kind of like this guy's TNS attitude. NOTE: Serious F-bomb droppage.

Speaking of F-bombs, The New Republic has a huge article on cursing that is drawing a lot of attention but it exceeded both my interest and my attention span.

Incredible footage from inside a Working Petrol Engine - No surprises really (though I didn't expect to see the intake valve catch fire like that) but still oddly captivating.

MySpace Platform To Launch Next Week - This was exciting news when Facebook did it but less so now that we've seen the result - specifically the small number of very successful apps and the large quantity of crap.

"The former head of Indonesia's national airline faces 20 years in jail over the killing of an outspoken human rights activist whose in-flight meal was laced with a massive dose of arsenic." I think what makes this so scary to me is that I wouldn't expect the head of an airline to operate at the micro level of the in-flight meal.

Here's that Senator Craig claymation cartoon with the Village People that you may have seen clips of on TV.

Speaking of animation, from the mailbag:

Hey Will!  Hope you'll forgive a bit of shameless promotion and consider linking to the following.

I'm a student at Animation Mentor, which is an online school where people from all over the world can learn about animation from some of the top professionals working in the industry - animators from Pixar, Dreamworks, Blue Sky and more are all regular mentors for the students. Anyway, twice a year, the school releases a student showcase reel to show off some of the very best animation produced by the students. (Here's where the shameless self promotion comes in, as I am one of the students whose work was accepted into the reel.) The reel is very entertaining, and gives an excellent glimpse at some of the very best work done by students at all levels of the program.  If nothing else, take a look just for fun!
Thanks,
Jeff Weidner

Will replies: Thanks for the link Jeff, and congratulations on making it onto the reel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's amazing how entertaining just a few seconds of animation can be.

The pundit blogosphere can be so toxic that even some of its most celebrated participants can suffer the burden of its emotional toll. It's largely for that reason that I try to avoid the daily drama of the punditsphere. But today's firestorm does present an interesting case for followers of Web culture, so I'll try to give it a quick summary and you can click more deeply if you're in the mood to make yourself angry.

Apparently the Democratic Party recently used a 12-year-old boy to speak in support of their position on the children's health insurance plan that's been in the news so much lately. My introductory click to the matter was this Free Republic post detailing a surprising amount of personal information about the boy and his family. Without even passing a value judgment on the subject I thought it was a pretty good example of how frighteningly public our lives are to online searches (I'm assuming the poster found all that material about the family online).

Of course, bloggers haven't hesitated to make value judgments, but what makes this story relevant to Clicked is that "citizen journalism" is cited as the justification for researching and publishing the family's information. Bloggers also called and visited the family's home and place of business, arguing that the traditional media accepted the family's (and Democrats') story too readily, forcing bloggers to do the real reporting themselves. The basic questions being pursued by these bloggers were whether the family is really poor enough for the boy to speak on behalf of uninsured poor children and do the circumstances that created this poverty warrant the use of tax money to cover medical expenses. To say more than that is to start a fight on this blog that I don't really want to have.

What I clicked:

• 3,000 square foot home, but cannot 'afford' health insurance?
• The Not So Poor Voice of SCHIP
• Affordable insurance is available to them.
• This story is about the parents

And:

• Baseless smear campaign
• What is wrong with you?
• Citizen journalists, at your doorstep.
• Let them be

UPDATE: Reading the summary and further research in the Times story makes me wish I hadn't lent any energy to this fetid trash. Even if you grant the point that the story called for further facts and citizen journalists were justified in doing the leg work, they got almost all the facts wrong. Right down to the kitchen counter material! If you don't believe in using tax money to help the sick and injured, that's fine, but attacking this family is not necessary to make the argument. If this story has anything to do with online citizen journalism it's an example of how the concept can be bastardized and manipulated for purposes other than journalism.

Speaking of Republicans not finding answers in existing media, Republicans Remain Deeply Distrustful of News Media. Interestingly, the same poll can be given a different headline if you prefer: Perception of conservative bias in media 64 percent higher since Sept. 2001.

Speaking of Republicans feeling opposed by the media, Howie Kurtz's new book -particularly the parts about how the network news anchors felt about reporting on the war- has rekindled accusations of liberal media bias. On the liberal side it's rekindled talk of Kurtz's bias.

Speaking of over-generalizing about Republicans, Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select Their Least Favorite People On The Right - You may find the list surprising, though I reckon it says more about bloggers on the right than it does about overall political right.

Speaking of political alignment, did you get a chance to play with the candidate matrix on this site today? To some extent it feels like a game of which side can sabotage the survey results of the other candidate. Right now it looks like Bill Richardson has the greenest column, followed by Ron Paul. The amount of red in Hillary's column makes me consider that the grid as a whole is a measure of a candidate's divisiveness - the less divisive candidates will be green because the opposition didn't go through the trouble of registering disagreeing votes.

Google tools to power virtual worlds - Get ready for online games set in your favorite Google Earth locations. This was just a rumor not too long ago, but now it looks like it's really going to happen that Google Earth will begin to flesh out as a 3-D virtual space. Once we saw the flight simulator it was a good guess this was coming.

Early Halloween link: People transforming in their Transformer costumes.

Virgin airlines seems to think there's value in marketing to the online set. I don't see it having a big impact on online discourse.

I would have guessed that a Chocolate Lava Cake had a different concoction at its core than in the rest of the cake. Handy lesson.

Remember that X-Wing rocket? As was pointed out in the comments, the launch didn't go very well. The audio on the small video is pretty great.

Remarkably striking photos of people walking through the NYC Subway turnstiles. The info page says they didn't know they were being photographed (though it sure looks like it to me). The elevator series is also quite good. He's also got a set of surreptitiously photographed people sitting for portraits in Times Square. I recognized the setting for those right away but I had no idea that many people go their portraits done. I'd love to see his hidden camera set up.

Speaking of art installations, "Cai Guo-Qiang, Head On, 2006 | installation of a pack of 99 life-sized wolves barreling in a continuous stream towards—and into—a constructed glass wall." Just click it, it's pretty amazing. NOTE: This is a cool site but it has a few artfully done nude photos here and there, including on this reprinting of a recent widely-shared Craigslist thread in which a woman looking to land a rich man gets some cold, frank advice.

"As of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I wonder what Prince thinks of bands like NIN and Radiohead rebelling against record labels.  Remember all that "artist formerly known as" stuff? He was a little ahead of the curve I guess.

Speaking of free music, there is no money in recorded music any more, that's why bands are now giving it away.

Still on that, The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free - In this model (and the link above) the music becomes a means of marketing the band. Though it mentions a boom in live performing, not quite mentioned is the fact that you have to be able to actually play your music to perform it. I'm looking forward to a resurgence in real music played on real instruments.

Speaking of marketing music, 6 Maxims for Music Promotion in the Digital Age

"iheard.com makes it easy for people to find their favorite internet radio stations by providing an easy to use search interface and directory with thousands of stations organized by genre, country and language." It's not a music service, just a directory, but the stations I tried that worked were quick loading and easy to find.

I keep playing with this Arcade Fire video, looking for the hidden link that's surely in there. So far no luck.

Wi-Fi Detector Shirt - Americans, don't bother wearing this out of the house, you'll get shot.

Another Internet Map project: "a set of visualizations that display how cities across the globe are interconnected (by router configuration and not physical backbone). In total, there are 89,344 connections."

Speaking of tracking Web stats, "The good news has already been widely disseminated: there are nearly 5000 Facebook applications, and the top applications have tens of millions of installs and millions of active users. The bad news, alas, is in our report: 87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications! Only 45 applications have more than 100,000 active users."

Still on watching the Web, "The table below shows the largest 50 sites circa August 2001, based on monthly attention. More importantly, it also shows how that attention share has shifted since." In case you don't feel like clicking through I'll spoil the surprise: Almost all of them have seen huge drops. Mapquest is a surprise winner. People still use that site?

Husband gets £870 life-size tattoo of his wife - then discovers she is having affair. I feel like we've seen a spate of tattoo foible links lately. Maybe this guy can find another woman named Lisa. UPDATE: This one's not passing the sniff test.

John Lennon's birthday was today.

Nikon's small world photo contest

The .edu underground - Note the Google trick at the end to find more educational sites on subjects of your interest.

"Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith." (P.S. The opening sentence makes a good creative writing assignment: "The doughnut-shaped machine swallows the nun...")

Speaking of technology run amok and devouring people, "Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth." They took a bacterium cell and stripped out everything but what it needs support life. "It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form." It then grows out of control, devours the scientists in the lab, attacks scantily clad co-eds at a sleep-away summer camp before fighting a battle to the death against an international military force in a major but unspecific urban setting.

The Pultius TV remote - Why enter the digits manually when every channel can have button?

I've seen a few variations on this quiz lately. It asks if you can figure out which images are photos and which are from the new Gran Turismo 5 video game.

I seem to recall once clicking a page or two in a parody LOLCat Bible but now they've got almost the whole thing translated. I liked Leviticus.

The 10 Most Improbable Celebrity Fistfights

This Smoking Gun report is getting a lot of links from people who like to mock the sexual peccadilloes of religious leaders but more interesting to me is seeing the actual autopsy report. I've seen autopsy photos before but I don't think I've ever seen a simple report like this.

I can't read a word of this but assembling a Jacuzzi on top of a snow capped mountain looks pretty fun - even if there are so many people in the tub there's probably room for only a pint and a half of water.

Yes, there is indeed only one thing to say about the new Batman movie: Can Not Wait.

66 Celebrities that Blog - I don't know how useful this is but it seems like the kind of thing someone's going to ask me at some point in the future so I wanted to make sure I could look it up later.

Worst Ride Ever - You'll be forgiven for not watching this whole video. I don't understand how this is even a ride. I think it's maybe some kind of new CIA torture program.

The new Sony Bravia "play dough" ad is on their site but since the navigation is a little unusual, here it is on Daily Motion. There was also a teaser video with some of the behind-the-scenes.

Speaking of watching commercials on purpose, the song in that new JC Penny commercial with the magic is Regina Spektor's Music Box.

[YouTube:gisXH0LbUh0]

Someone uploaded just the song (full) to YouTube here.

Last time we brought the cube farm to a screeching halt with a song of hers was Fidelity, which you can hear in its entirety on her MySpace page.

Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts - Something I've been thinking about lately (as an introvert) is how/whether the new wave of social software is of use to introverts.  To some extent it helps automate some of the socializing an introvert doesn't already do on their own. But at some point the introvert has to care enough to bother managing their online accounts and that may be tantamount to imposing an extroverted perspective on people who don't really share those priorities. If anyone reading this has had their social lives changed dramatically with the help of a social network, I'd be interested in hearing about it (assuming sharing such things suits your personality).

Speaking of social sites doing it for you, I read the Microsoft press release on what's new with the new Zune release and it includes a social site that automatically lists the music you're listening to. Again I wonder, does this mean that people who are interested in music but hate "what's your favorite song" small talk can now participate like extroverts while having the small talk done for them? Or is it all just junk information because a person who doesn't already maintain track lists won't care about lists made for them?

Maybe I have a selective memory, but when the Zune first came out I remember it being roundly mocked by the online gadget community. But since then Apple has suffered a bit of a backlash.  The iPod isn't seen as infalible and some people are still angry at how that whole iPhone price change happened. This time around Microsoft is getting favorable press for giving free upgrades to old Zunes and comparisons with iPods include phrases like "holds its own" and "a tougher call." Disclosure: Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC.com. However, I don't own a Zune or an iPod as I play music on my computer when I'm sitting and prefer "nat sound" when I'm walking.

Yesterday was International Bloggers' Day for Burma. I'm not sure what that means in the big picture.

Most chilling Burma headline: 'They Come at Night and Murder the Monks'

What you're not so naive as to not already know about Burma:  "As the Burmese military brutally cracks down on a popular uprising of its citizens demanding democracy the question on many minds is – so what is the world going to do about it? From the trend visible so far the answer is simple- nothing at all."

Kanye West has a new blog. Really active so far. Hard to say if he's really writing it. Seems unlikely.

Also with a new blog, the U.S. State Department. "Welcome to the State Department's first-ever blog, Dipnote." I can't say I like the name. Sounds like notes made by dips.

Speaking of diplomacy, as odd as it seems that a Pentagon official would say, "I hate all Iranians," the accompanying photo has also inspired some blogside head scratching. Was this some kind of costume party?

Speaking of making the UK uncomfortable, Britain 'no longer closest Bush ally' - Includes this line: "'Operationally, British forces have performed poorly in Basra,' said the [White House] official. 'Maybe it's best that they leave. Now we will have a clear field in southern Iraq.'" Ick.

Speaking of the war, Commuter Click: Christopher Hitchens faces the question of his own responsibility for encouraging someone to fight and die in Iraq. I've only read page one of three so far but very compelling stuff.  And, NOTE to magazine marketers: This is the fourth Vanity Four piece I've enjoyed online and I'm suddenly thinking I might need a subscription to the dead tree version. I did this once before with the New Yorker and ended up letting the subscription lapse because I found myself still reading online, but I may yet prove to be an example of why putting your stuff online for free is actually good for business.

Iranian University Invites Bush to Speak - Can you imagine that introduction?

Radiohead Says: Pay What You Want - I'm a little behind in relaying this because I couldn't get it to work. This morning it processed my order but then gave me a registration form which, frankly, I don't trust. Mobile phone number is a required field?

YouTube Project:Direct - Is a short film contest.

Human LCD - I can't figure out how they're doing this. Has the crowd just memorized which of two cards to display and when? Or do they have a stack of cards they flip through when they hear the command?

Using a metal detector this guy found a buried sword from the early 1600s. Following the headline, I was relieved to find that it's not one of those "news of the weird" stories about a retiree zig-zagging the beach at sunset. It's an archaeology blog and the sword was found in a forest that used to be an active harbor.

Speaking of finding valuable stuff, The Wallet Test: "100 wallets were dropped in front of hidden cameras to see who would return the wallets and who would steal them..." They broke the results down by race, sex and age and found that young black males were the category most likely to steal the wallet. Cue heated online discussion.

Old people + Wii Bowling championship = serious business - I think this is really an ad for some kind of retirement community, but it's a point well taken that as the retired population grows there are going to be a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands who will benefit from and appreciate low-impact entertainment.

This photo has been floating around the Web lately, being variously used to point to the popularity of Apple with college kids or the groupthink among college kids. To me it marks a generational dividing line. If you are above a certain age, this scene is completely foreign to you. Just like if you are below a certain age you have no idea what a Smurf is.

A caffeine nap is basically like using caffeine as a time released alarm clock. Have some caffeine just before you doze and you have until your system processes it for some quick shut-eye. That's the theory anyway. I advise against trying it at lunch until you know your body works that way.

Financial Models for Underachievers: Two Years of the Real Numbers of a Startup - The Redfin guy reveals as many numbers about his business as he's able. Who else is this generous with this kind of information? Valuable post.

Rocket-powered 21-foot-long X-Wing model actually flies - Folks from the previous Star Wars remake comment thread might want to take note of this. It might not be too far in the future that a Star Wars remake comes from amateurs with pro/am equipment and kick-ass skills.

All Volkswagens to have hybrid option

How much extra would a gold-plated laptop weigh?

"Eight artists snuck into the depths of Providence Place mall and built a secret studio apartment in which they stayed, on and off, for nearly four years until mall security finally caught their leader last week." Here's their site. It's not clear to me how mall security didn't see this. Could it be there aren't as many security cameras in a mall as I think there are?

Speaking of security shortcomings, I Was a Teenage Terrorist: The Star Simpson Story - An MIT professor tries to draw conclusions from the recent Logan Airport "fake bomb" incident. It's mostly an indictment of the media coverage but his points about how exactly to advise students so the same thing doesn't happen to them are simultaneously funny and frustrating.

Boing Boing launches a video channel. I'm not sure why they think Web video needs TV style talking heads, commentary and editing.

Groovy dancing girl is approaching Numa Numa kid status, albeit at a slower pace. Seeing how it's done by dancing in slow motion kind of takes the fun out of it. ADDING: 4.5 million views on the dancing hands since June?? Really?? AND: There's a jillion of these, it's like the new Electric Slide. (Or was the Macarena the new Electric Slide?) Anyway, it's out of hand.

There's an odd similarity between David Letterman putting the screws to Paris Hilton here:

[YouTube:ZKSxHYK_wfs]

And Jon Stewart totally eviscerating Chris Matthews the other night.

Maybe it's the violation of the unspoken contract between talk show host and talk show guest. "Why aren't you helping me sell my crap?"

Jason Kottke's recent query about the best order in which to indoctrinate one's child into the cult of Star Wars (by order of release, of course, though the best answer is, "Show him Episodes 4 and 5 together and let him know that 'They find Han - he was ok.' Leave it at that. Let him experience the later disappointments as we did - all grown up.") brought to mind my recent attempts to use the Web to entertain my baby. Until this past weekend, the most successful trick had been using Flickr photo slide shows.  So by now I believe we've seen a good portion of the 47,146 images in the Fire Truck slide show.

But then I remembered a video clip I had downloaded to my machine long ago, inspired by some bit of childhood nostalgia and now Mah Nà Mah Nà (or, in my house, "Meeya meeya! Doo doo! Meeya meeya! Doo doo!) reigns supreme. So much so that my boy has learned for the first time how to click the mouse button to get the song to play again (and again and again).

The version I'd always known was this:

[YouTube:-MW4TgdKoYo]

But apparently the Muppet version has roots in German Sesame Street from 1969.

It's funny how even with puppets the lips don't match when it's dubbed.

There's also a prime time version from 1969 that's a little closer to the one I know and love.

A behind-the-scenes clip I found shows how the video was made with three different video layers. More work than I would have guessed.

Though I didn't know it until I'd done some research, Sandra Bullock's impersonation of the wild orange haired guy was only one of man celebrity version of the song.

That wild orange haired guy is Bip Bipadotta. His other hits include:

• Fat Cat Sat Hat
• Some and none
• Air
• Bip's Opposite

If anyone has links to better versions let me know, I'll switch 'em out.

Of course, once I started digging it was just a matter of time before I pulled up the Wikipedia page.  The song was first done by Piero Umiliani. I believe this is his 1968 original. But it also appeared on the soundtrack of a softcore porn movie called Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell) also in 1968. There's an audio only version of that here that's very good - arguably better than the original.

I also learned that there's a Muppet wiki which has a page devoted to the song.

Lastly, among the more popular cover versions of the song is a relatively recent version by Cake. IFilm has the clip from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or else I was also able to find the MP3 hosted on this blog.

I saw this item about Bono's Liberty Medal acceptance speech being censored to remove a line about torture and clicked over to the site to see for myself. The line, at least this morning, is in both the video and the transcript. But if you've got a few minutes, give the whole thing a listen/read. I can't remember the last time I heard inspiring, thoughtful, critical yet still celebratory words about America like this. It's amazing to think there are like 20 people running for president right now but I haven't heard any of them talking like this. (Well, maybe one.)

Speaking of double checking, has anyone seen a full and accurate English translation of the transcript of that Bush/Anzar meeting published by the Spanish paper El Pais? I keep seeing stories that say "according to..." but I'd like to see the source myself. UPDATE: Found one. Here's the original Spanish.

Speaking of the spending money in Iraq, Cost of Sending 11 Missions to Mars = 1 Mission in Iraq - There were a lot of these types of "the cost of Iraq is equal to XXX" headlines last week as new budget bills for the war moved through Congress. Here's a similar one about what we can't afford versus affording the war.

Speaking of Iraq, numbers, and smacking yourself on the forehead, Blackwater by The Numbers - Find here a link to a list of grievances against Blackwater along with some other stats being discussed in Congress today.

And sorry, one more Blackwater link from TPM (owning yet another important story), the investigation of Blackwater was apparently outsourced to Blackwater.

Speaking of TPM links, a quick mail:

Great vid from Talking Points Memo tonight, apparently Iceland just withdrew the one guy they had in Iraq.
-Cammie

Scientists Invent 30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery - The explanation goes a little over my head, and in spite of the article's assurances I'm a little nervous about the idea of putting decaying radioactive material in my lap. As it is I keep my laptop on a wooden cutting board out of paranoia that the heat will put my soldiers to sleep. Anyway, if you're able to suspend your skepticism this sounds very exciting.

Speaking of predicting the future, The Next 25 Years of Video Games - It's not about specific games but about general trends and ideas. Fun to think about but sorry it has that pain-in-the-neck pagination. (Thanks Matt.)

Jackie Chan being brutally honest about the Rush Hour movie series. I love this line: "I spent four months making this film and I still don't fully understand the humor." I love Jackie Chan and I liked Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element but I've never seen a Rush Hour movie and I have no plans to do so.  Local news here in New York ran a story about a Mexican immigrant who sends the money he makes at his job taking out the garbage home to his young family where a house is being constructed for him to return to. It's funny to think of Jackie Chan's Hollywood millions as being tantamount to putting up with a garbage job in order to bring money home.

Speaking of the cost of making movies, Using CCTV for low-budget filmmaking - On a scale from 1 to 10 this has a coolness rating of about 12. They use a special receiver to pick up wireless security camera signals and they use those signals to record their own movie. The pure version of the movie is a commercial with people holding up signs about not paying (for cameras I guess). The movie embedded in the page is cheating a little because they were able to use the security camera control room instead of hijacked signals but still really cool.

Speaking of parkour, sick.

Top Ten Reasons Airplanes and Animals Don't Mix - Most of these are shots of what happens to planes when they hit birds.  Some of the photos are gross, so be forewarned if you can't handle stuff like that. No photos of injured humans though.

How hungry are you? Portion markers in a bowl are a good idea.  Reminds me a little of the coffee color swatch mug.

These two stories aren't exactly related but they brought to mind something I've been thinking about.

• "Aides and colleagues regularly cast votes on Rep. Julia Carson's (D-Ind.) behalf, raising questions about the congresswoman's deteriorating health."
• Members of Texas legislature voting for absent colleagues

To what extent is presence in D.C. necessary for the work of members of Congress? If they could vote remotely, would they be more in touch with constituents? Less exposed to the influence of lobbyists and D.C. culture? Or would the whole system lock up for lack of communication?

Wow, so I guess coin stacking is a thing.

Speaking of trendspotting and "is this a thing?" ...

.... NOTE: I'm about to talk about and link to some PG-13 content as a means of exploring beauty trends. The links don't have exposed nipples or genitals, but some of the images are provocative and probably not appropriate for work even though they're not technically nudity or porn.

...as part of their sex series last week Slate put together a slide show about a new emphasis on the butt in American women's aesthetic. (NOTE: DO NOT click that J-Lo link in the text.  The photo isn't all that great and the pop-ups that result are out of control.) While the prevalence of butt implants is new to me, on the whole I think the subject of "big butts" jumped the shark years ago. So, you might ask, if I'm so smart, what do I think is the new trend? As it happens, I have an answer: underboob. Underboob is sort of like cleavage, but for the bottom or side of the breast.

Recently someone on Reddit posted this photo and asked something along the lines of whether this was actually the current state of fashion. The image called to mind a recent blog I'd seen called Underboobery and also a recent American Apparel ad - not this one, but similar. (Though all their stuff is pretty tawdry so that might not prove anything.) Time Out New York magazine drew attention for its proposal of underboob as a new dictionary addition. And there are Flickr groups and other collections that use the term as a category.

As laughable as it is to think I know anything about fashion trends, I say "underboob" is a thing.

UPDATE: This is the American Apparel ad I meant.

And Bob points out in comments that a Philly radio station is hosting an underboob photo contest. See? It's a thing.

OK, the blue portion of today's entry is over...

Speaking of body image, this site did a fattened version of Britney to mock the media coverage of her VMA performance which would lead one to believe she actually did look this heavy. They also did an extreme Keira Knightley. There's probably a Worth1000 contest for this but it still makes for compelling commentary.

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming - Some of these are a little silly.  Every item has a news citation with link, so if nothing else it shows how many things are connected in the media to global warming.

Robert Scoble's description of FeedHub makes it sound almost like Pandora for text feeds. Pandora is the site that learns your musical taste as you approve or disapprove of the songs it presents in a category you request.  Similarly, FeedHub takes your feeds and surfaces the stuff you care about based on what you tell it you care about over time. I don't read as many feeds as Scoble, but I do suffer from feed creep.  I'll start with just a few regular reads in an aggregator and then I'll add to that list until the reader itself is too clogged to bother with. Then I switch to a new aggregator and start from scratch. If I could keep adding but not really engorge my reading list I'd be happy.

Speaking of Web app mission creep, How to quit Facebook. It almost sounds like drug rehab.

Given some of the links and discussion lately we should start a new feature called "Clicked Court" where pass judgment on stories based on the meager info we get from a random news article or YouTube video. In today's case, a cyclist gets in a beef with a bus driver and stops traffic while he waits for cops to come so he can press charges against the bus driver. Unfortunately the story is told by the cyclist so it's not exactly an unbiased account, but still, there's room here for a "he's an idiot" comment. I'm thinking there are ways to charge or otherwise make trouble for a bus drive than bringing the whole system to a halt.

Dear spy novel writers, in case you're looking for a way to hide secret codes in your story plots, consider using a photo histogram.

Here's that Sy Hersh article on the Bush administration's plans for Iran. Every time this guy writes and article he makes news with it. You can listen to military analysts on TV explain "what Hersh meant" or you can just read it.

[YouTube:JaH4y6ZjSfE]

You'll recall the previous one in this vein was the model make-over "Evolution."

[YouTube:MFPGa0pKyTg]

Good on 'em.