Al Gore's Personal Energy Use Is His Own "Inconvenient Truth" - The online gotcha gang is circulating this report on the amount of energy consumed by the Gore compound in Tennessee.  The source of the report and the way the guy provides his own odd quote may make you scratch your head, but I was able to confirm that the 10,000 kWh per year average is about right.

For what it's worth, Gore does have a response, the short version of which is that after employing a number of energy saving tactics (what would the energy draw be without those?) he buys carbon offsets to make up the rest.  In case you're not familiar, buying carbon offsets is giving money to some kind of eco charity or technology company so that you're advancing the green cause even if you're not personally hitting all the green cylinders.

I have to guess that something like this was also how they justified saying the Oscars were green since I didn't see anyone arriving to the red carpet on bicycles and I don't recall reading about solar panels power all those production lights (of course, I could always look it up to find out what was so green about the Oscars).  The Times recently had a piece on whether these offsets actually alleviate the guilt of polluting.  Apparently the effectiveness of some of the offsets is questionable and furthermore, by not forcing people to change their behavior the offsets can be counterproductive in the long term.

In case you're interested, the Bush ranch also has some green features.  I clicked that link among the considerable collection in this blog entry making the rather lengthy case that Gore is a hypocrite.

The unfortunate thing about having a prominent spokesperson for a cause is that the cause is so easily confused with the person.  Whether Gore (or Bush for that matter) recycles his empties has nothing to do with the state of the planet.  Hopefully this latest bit of drama stays contained in the pundit-sphere.

A question I have is whether concentration of pollutants matters.  I know the local brewery in my neighborhood offsets its energy consumption with wind power.  But I don't look out my window and see turbines.  Those are on a farm upstate somewhere.  Maybe I'm being selfish but I would have hoped that having a green company in the neighborhood would make for a greener neighborhood particularly since I have to think the pollutants in my neighborhood are in greater concentration than they are upstate.  Am I mixing apples and oranges?

Speaking of questionable offsets, one solution particularly criticized in the Times piece is the tree planting offsets.  I felt some sympathy for Dell in seeing that as their solution to the customer demand that they be more ecologically aware in their computer production.  The reason I feel sympathy is that Dell ran a huge campaign to solicit feedback on how to make their company and products better and they've just released their response to the feedback.  In all it looks like a pretty sincere effort.

Speaking of dubious green ideas, this Honda F1 race car isn't green but it has a pretty picture of the Earth on it, so it's helping "raise awareness." (Wha?)  Instead you're meant to pledge to do something green like "recycle all of my paper" and purchase a tiny spot on the car's body graphic so they can maintain their sponsorship money without having to cover the awareness raising paint job with sponsor stickers.

Speaking of green cylinders, it turns out that a smart car holds up pretty well against a wall at 70 mph.  I have to assume that has something to do with its weight/mass.

"Before Amanda Marcotte's short-lived tenure as blogger for the John Edwards campaign, I was offered the job. Here's why I said no."  Though the Edwards blogger drama is over and cold by now, this is a fascinating look at how campaigns work with and recruit bloggers.  Well... maybe not "campaigns" but the Edwards campaign at least.  This is the article you want to print out and hand to the campaign manager who says, "Let's hire some of those bloggers."

"OpenCongress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill."  I love this idea.  Finally political coverage that's more substance and less horse race that helps the American people understand what their government is doing in their name.  (This site just launched, so I may be jumping the gun, but I do like the idea.)  "Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists know what's really going on in Congress. Now, everyone can be an insider. OpenCongress is a free, open-source, non-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to help make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement."

GadgetTrak looks like LoJack for your iPod.  Their software lets your gadget phone home (to them) so you can log in and see where it's being used and by whom (and even how?).  They're offering a free account now and later there will be a pay version with more features.  It makes me think of the "free" flash drive trick in which the memory sticks are handed out on the street as a promotion but they're all loaded with phone-home software to show that people are dumb enough to stick anything into their computers.  Imagine what you could load onto someone's computer from a "lost" or "free" iPod.

The NBA does UGC - It's a wicked ugly page, but idea of recording your basketball moves sounds fun.

Though this isn't a topic on which I often dwell, there's an interesting discussion here of whether the Yahoo CEO is doing a good job and/or is worth what he's being paid.

HOW TO: Give Your TV "Ambilight" Using Cheap Lights From IKEA

Also from Consumerist, The Really Big Guide To Secret Menu Items - The more you read, the weirder the list gets.  For the most part the idea is that you can ask for any combination of fast food ingredients even if it's not technically a menu item.  I wish I had one to contribute but the most creative thing I ever did was putting shredded cheese on the free breadsticks at Houlihan's or putting mozzarella sticks in the microwave.  Both are desperation items for hungry waiters during the evening's clean-up, not something you'd order.

I was just reading that Microsoft bought this medical search engine.  Still in beta, but it's hard to deny the value of such a site (if it works).

Joan Jett could very well be the most under rated rock god.  I don't even care if she sold her story to Cadillac.  (Her A.C.D.C. song is better than the one she sold to Cadillac.)  Self-indulgent anecdote:  In the late 80s as a high school kid I used a fake college ID to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts play at the University of Lowell (this was before it was U. Mass at Lowell).  Her cover of Crimson and Clover remains a giant red exclamation point on the timeline of my life.  She wore the same black pants as in the video.  Hoo man... like it was yesterday.  Today's Clicked is a little late in being published because I just watched every single result in the YouTube search for that song.

Word Source calls itself a social dictionary.  What that means is that you get to vote for words or identify yourself with words.  I'm not sure I've ever wished a dictionary would do that for me, so I'll be interested to see if this catches on.  I do like their advanced search features.  What I'd like to know is where their definitions and spellings come from.  Whose dictionary are they using as the database?  Ultimately it's the reliability of the information that matters more than the social toys.

Obvious headline of the day: Wireless users 'do more online' - I touched on this yesterday when I talked about people who have computers in their back rooms.  In fact, the other day I was joking with a colleague about how frustrated he gets with his parents when he visits them and they have crappy dial-up service on a slow PC in the back room and they tell him they don't see what's so great about the Internet.  While switching to broadband was a no-brainer for me, I was really surprised at how much my life changed when I added wifi to my apartment.  The dark side of the equation is when I go someplace without wifi and feel like I've lost one of my senses.

Video game dance music - What would be really impressive is if it could be played live.

A herd of sea cucumber?  The movie writes itself.

Speaking of aquatic spectacles, "the ocean sunfish (mola mola) is the largest bony fish in the world."  (The weirdest drive thrus entry is also pretty good from this site.)

Speaking of giant animals, what you can't hear on this video are the screams of the person as the snail devours his arm.

Last time I linked to Zamzar the file converting site, the one shortcoming was that it didn't also apply to online video.  Now it does.

If I were a trouble maker I'd point out that Frenchie Davis's nude pics got her dumped from American Idol.  I don't think this new girl's pictures are all that different, and whether it's a publicity stunt is beside the point.  Most of these American Idol contestants are on a "famous by any means" mission.  Anyway, I know I try to bring links that are in the news, but of course I can't link to the dirty pictures in question on this one.  I saw them on a porn blog called Drunken Stepfather.  They're probably on Fleshbot somewhere too.

Speaking of kids taking dirty pictures of each other, this is the second time I've read about a teenager engaging in some kind of online sexual activity and becoming ensnared in child porn laws.  I don't have a good answer, but it does seem wrong to be painted as a child pornographer when you're the child in question.  This is one of those cases where technology and the law are not quite in sync, but I can't imagine how the law could keep the technology out of the hands of teens.  Are you going to put an age limit on cameras like cigarettes?

The beer launching mini-fridge - The official URL resolves here.  Not in the video is the can exploding all over him after that toss.

A Clicked follow-up:

Hey Will,
You posted on Clicked a while back that whole thing about the UNC student breaking up with his girlfriend in front of a large crowd on Valentine's Day. I just thought you might be interested to learn that it was all a big hoax.
-Ben

Will,
The doubters have it.  Also here.  Turns out it was the social experiment gone awry deal. Thanks for posting it though,
Dave

Will replies:  Meanwhile, this is the best quality video of it yet. NOTE:  Cursing out loud. I'm not sure I believe that it's fake.  I mean, I know the guy is saying it is, but they sure don't look like they're acting.  I don't mean that as a compliment either.  It's not good or bad acting, it's sort of non-acting.

Did you see that Hearst is looking to launch a "reader"?  The biggest idea in the press release is the idea of downloading the whole newspaper. It's like a podcast, but text, so you can read it when you're not connected to the internet.  Instead of "synch up."  I'm not totally sure why a special reader is necessary, but I have to think it has something to do with anticipated technology like e-paper.  I clicked this blogger's coverage, which includes links to people who think a reader is redundant.  And I clicked Susan Mernit's criticism that the reader is a desperate measure by old media to "preserve a print experience."  I understand those criticisms, but at the same time, the way I read a newspaper is different from the way I read from a computer.  As you know, I sometimes deliberately print out articles because I prefer to read from paper instead of a screen.  If newspapers want to open a new front in the browser wars by finding a more comfortable way to read their content, I'm not going to get in their way.  For so many people, the computer is still that beige thing in the distant extra room/home office with the knot of wires in the back and the laundry draped over the chair.  There was some idea that by making video game systems that are also powerful computers, the computer industry could drag computer capability out of that back room and engage a new audience.  It could be that newspaper "readers" perform a similar role.  For the time being I'll ignore the possible nefarious motive of rendering content in a controlled, proprietary shell.

No I won't.  Speaking of nefarious motives and controlling media with proprietary shells, this isn't new but it's seeing a bit of a revival.  You're likely already familiar with the concept of Net Neutrality and if you're not, this video will teach you about it from scratch.  But it makes one argument I hadn't heard before, responding to a mental retort I was only barely conscious of making.  How could the Internet just go away?  How could something this big and useful and ingrained be taken away by corporations?  They answer by showing how newspapers and radio were once accessible media and were eventually controlled almost exclusively by corporations.

Alternative uses for your laptop on Shutdown Day.

Will glow sticks blend?  (Part of the Will It Blend series.)

Rehab remix - Was this already a song?

I was caught off guard by how much this photo of the sharpest manmade thing set my mind reeling.  Those are individual atoms for Pete's sake.

Fon Starbucks router - This took some clicking and thinking before I understood what they're doing.  Remember Fon is a company that seeks to spread public wifi.  This device is like a wifi relay.  If you receive a Starbucks wifi signal, instead of connecting with your computer, you connect with this device and resend the signal so others can connect to it either by paying you or through the Fon network.

I don't have enough notes that I'd need to print up a special template, but the idea of putting post-its on a piece of paper and running in through the printer to make custom stickers piques my interest.

How many votes have your senators missed?

People kill when God tells them to - The title is a bit inflammatory but the study is fascinating.  The result, as I understand it, is that people (both believers and non-believers) are more likely to be aggressive when they are informed that violence is sanctioned by religion.

"A French designer of engines for Formula One racing cars has turned his attention to creating an engine that runs on, and emits, only air!"  Cue whoopee cushion sound effect.

Desks made from actual Minis - The site is a little rough to navigate.  Check out the Hall of Fame gallery for larger photos.

Hey by the way, that McMissile lady got probation, no jail.

Amazing sinkhole photos - Looking at the first shot when the page loads I thought it was some kind of trick, like that guy who does the 3D chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

It also reminded me of this recent piece in the NYTimes about an artist who cut holes in buildings.

Speaking of links to slideshows in the Times that I can't find a universal URL for, I know this sweater is for women and I'd probably look ridiculous in it anyway, but in the same way that I think Hagrid is cool I really like the idea of gargantuan knit overclothes.

If my colleagues in the Entertainment section had told me they were going to ask people to send in photos of themselves looking like Will Smith or Kate Winslet I'd have told them they were wasting their time so the few close ones they got is pretty amazing.

"The truck ornament industry is not amused. 'It's not a perverted sexual thing at all,' said David Ham, founder of Your Nutz, a San Diego-based business that sells more than 200 kinds of fake testicles."  I don't think I could even name 200 kinds of testicles.

Justice League Rumored to Happen, But it Won't

Warclicking:

• The Real News Behind "The Surge" - A brief look at the new strategy in Iraq, removed from the distracting debate over whether to send more troops.
• Vice President Cheney says the British are leaving southern Iraq because things are going so well. In the real world, Basra is a mess.
• Revealed: The true extent of Britain's failure in Basra
• US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources

Seven Best Add-Ons for IE7 - We hear so much about Firefox extensions that I was surprised to see IE in a similar headline.  I'd settle for an extension that prevents the browser from locking up periodically or asking me permission for every little thing.

Emotion robots learn from people - This sounds more annoying than scary.  Hopefully these robots will also learn how to tell when they're being annoying.

The Rosie O'Donnell "ching chong" comment scandal is pretty much dead and gone.  If you don't remember it, she was making a joke about how  a story was being discussed around the world, including China.  She then did an impression of a Chinese person talking about the story using "ching chong" to represent the sounds in the Chinese language.  At the time I wondered if it was the actual use of "ching chong" that made her remarks offensive.  This kid's very compelling reply to Rosie confirms that suspicion.

 Speaking of kids on YouTube...

Hey Will, have you seen "Angry Kid" on Youtube yet? What kind of marketing research did Greenpeace do on this one? I don't know if it's really funny or the most annoying thing I've ever seen in my life. I can't imagine anyone watching this and not involuntarily drawing their hand back to smack the little *beep*.
-Sean

Will replies:  Sean, I'm with you on this one.  I also ran into this video and found it persuasive for about 5 seconds.  The next 5 seconds were entertaining because of the kid's precociousness.  The rest was annoying and ultimately offensive that this stupid kid thinks he understands more than I do about the state of the world and then has the nerve to threaten me.  Go ahead kid, make my day.

As long as I'm in the mailbag...

Hey Will-
This guy beatboxes like no one else I've ever seen.  He remixes his beats on the fly and creates a crazy Trip-Hop sounding mix that is fantastic.  Check it out.
Best,
Keith

Will replies:  Thanks Keith.  What really strikes me when I watch this video is that he's singing an actual song.  I wonder if beatboxing will eventually be seen as something like scat singing.  By coincidence I clicked this piece on the San Francisco beat box scene while reading this bit on live looping.  Some of it reminds me a little of Bobby McFerrin.  One thing that troubles me about beatboxing is the way it's meant to immitate actual DJ sounds.  As amazing as it is that these kids can make themselves sound like scratching records and digital delay machines, I have to think the form could shed its novelty status if there was more emphasis on finding their own sounds.

** I meant for today's headline to be a reference to Creative Commons, but this is the song in my head.

Craig Ferguson explains why his experience as an alcoholic means he won't make fun of Britney Spears.  The other day I was disturbing my co-workers by ranting at the TV about the lack of useful reporting on what rehab actually is.  Instead of gossip columnists and satellite psychoanalysis I'd be interested to hear from a rehab worker (substance abuse counselor?) about what these celebrities are checking in and out of all the time.  Anyway, this clip isn't quite that but it does give a nice (and rare) human perspective on what it means to wrestle with addiction.  I'm not trying to make too big a deal of caring about celebrity dysfunction, I'm just saying that if we have to hear about it incessantly, surely we can learn something or get a little insight beyond what could be read on the wall of a bathroom stall.

It looks like the big Friday political story is going to be Lieberman's threat to switch parties over the Iraq vote.  The obvious implication is that such a move would shift control of the Senate.  That's the convention wisdom I see in the reaction to the story so far.  But I also clicked this link which argues that that's not the case.

I used to know a cool egg peeling trick but for the life of me I can't recall it right now.  Whatever it was, it wasn't as cool as this.

Of course you already know this but it's odd that such a transcendent truth isn't more openly recognized.  Our national defense against terrorism is more about butt covering and avoiding blame than it is about actual defense.

Construction of the Millau Bridge in France - This is a bit of a linkbait site but still, if the photos are cool, who cares, right?

Speaking of long scrolling lists of photos, Pictures from the Sky is a nice way to eat up time at the end of the week.  UPDATE:  This link required me to right click/show picture on a few but I think it's the same set of photos and isn't crashed.

"It was very titty-booby pee-pee doo-doo." A pretty accurate review of Second Life, though defenders will point out (yet again) that it's not a game so the review kind of misses the point.

Innovative Pharox LED lamp uses 3.4W: Replaces 40W Incandescent - I have a feeling LED is going to be a better solution than those CF bulbs.  We see them replacing automotive lights and even street lights.  I'm surprised it's taking them this long to make it to the home.

If the rape headlines coming out of Iraq aren't distressing enough, take a look at them from the Iraqi perspective.

I love the interface of SpeedTest.Net but I don't really know what to do with the information.
I'm getting the U.S. average download speed, but apparently there are faster ISPs in my area.

Ed doesn't believe there's a law telling him to pay income tax and he's offering a big reward to anyone who can show it to him.

Metafilter starts podcasting.  It's not too far from other weekly link overviews, like Diggnation.

Speaking of mixing the media, here's the trailer for the This American Life TV show.

Here's one more mixing of media:  How about turning text news into singing?  I'm having visions of Cop Rock and all the success that came with it.

Speaking of giving new life to text, What does Marsellus Wallace look like?  NOTE:  The audio is a curse laden clip from Pulp Fiction.  The video is a typography class project, so it's just words, but still surprisingly entertaining.  ODD NOTE:  I also clicked a direct link to the video and it never loaded.  When I saved it to my machine it took just a few seconds to download and play.  I mention this in case you have the same trouble.

Speaking of pulp fiction, it's number 10 on this list of most misunderstood movies.

The latest really impressive CGI portrait finally gets the hair good enough that it looks more like a photo than a computer image.  How it was done.

The roots of those Mac/PC ads go back to 1996.  The consistency is pretty impressive even if the copy is mortifyingly bad.

How Sysco came to monopolize most of what you eat. I don't know how apparent this is to anyone who hasn't worked in the restaurant business, but most restaurant kitchens and pantries I've been in have been wall to wall Sysco products.  It definitely helps explain why so many national food chains have basically the same food that tastes basically the same.  Contrary to the story's title, I'm not sure it really explains how Sysco came to be so dominant.  It's a useful service with some right place/right time luck.  One thing I didn't realize was the degree to which they deal in local goods.

How to disable those annoying Snap Preview windows: "Click on the little "Options" text in the popup box and choose 'Disable for ALL sites.'"

SXSW Festival is offering a massive torrent of 739mp3s of bands playing the festival.

Speaking of having to double check to make sure you have room on your hard drive for something that big, How to move your iTunes library to an external drive

Friends don't let friends drink and have light saber duels.

Music I rocked out to this morning...

Elmo with the Goo Goo Dolls (#3)

Also really liking Elephine, which I found by way of his video of a guy who painted 30 images of influences in his life on his belly.

And there are now three new Nine Inch Nails songs to be found online.  I don't quite understand if the band is insisting on that "discovered on a computer drive left in a bathroom at a venue in Lisbon, Portugal" story or if that's been debunked.  A reader named Carol offered this link a few days ago, describing the online marketing campaign NIN is putting together.

Speaking of music, iTunes fingers musical fraud - What's most interesting to me about this is how much effort goes into supplying metadata for music files when iTunes appears to have its own way of identifying music.

Speaking of downloading, I'm making a mental note of this one for the next time someone asks me what Bit Torrent is and how it works.  Nice clean explanation with a visual model.

What Would You Do If Bush Declared Martial Law?  The link is to a reaction to a NYTimes op-ed in which it's pointed out that a pair of martial law provisions were inserted into recent legislation.  Most of the argument about Bush wanting a coup or to rule the nation like a dictator doesn't really ring plausible to me, but the question of "what would you do" is interesting to think about.  I'm not especially enthused at the idea of a president, particularly this one, being able to put my neighborhood under military control on a whim, but I think I can play devil's advocate (no pun intended) on this one.  The president was pushed to making it easier to declare Martial Law by the expectations placed on the federal government after Katrina.  With state resources completely wiped out, didn't we demand that the military be sent to restore order?  Weren't we outraged at the looting?  Didn't we say we wanted the federal government to swoop in and take control of the situation as soon as possible?  (This piece seems like it's on a similar theme so I'm taking it home as my Commuter Click.)

Speaking of what would you do, I have as hard a time believe that Bush will attack Iran as I do that he'll stage a coup and put the entire country under Martial Law, but in case you're curious how the case is being made that we are, in fact, about to attack Iran, here it is.

Speaking of flaming (we weren't, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get flamed for the items above, so I was thinking of it even if we weren't speaking of it), as we might have guessed, seeing a human face triggers a biological reaction in our brain when we socialize, so socializing online without a face in front of us can cause us to behave outside our own social standards.  What the article doesn't address that I've always been curious about is whether it's healthy to be able to vent some anonymous spleen online or whether it's dehumanizing (or whether it's nothing and stop being so dramatic).

Speaking of psychology, the suggestion that Britney Spears shaved her head to avoid allowing her hair to be tested to show her history of drug use is my favorite theory so far, not only because it explains the whole thing so neatly but because it makes all those instant talking-head TV shrinks speculating wildly about "cries for help" and "hair as representative of a woman's femininity" and "getting her mother out of her hair" look like total tools.  Of course, the plan is for naught if her ex comes into possession of the shorn hair.

I don't watch much ABC News, so maybe this is better known than I realize, but I was interested to see this slide show of Bob Woodruff's progress since he was blown up in Iraq.

I totally don't get the Dane Cook thing either.

"A small, powerful rope-climbing device can pull a person up 30 stories in 30 seconds."  Battery powered, but still really cool.

Speaking of powering things, Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half - I'm pretty good about not falling head over heels for talk of hydrogen cars and other green solutions, but the news of mass produced solar cells sounds really promising every time I hear it.

Century's Dolphin waterproof MP3 player

A novel navigation game.  Hard enough that I felt like I'd done enough just to make it past the first level.  I love games with simple controls.

Speaking of games, Free Rider is like Line Rider but on a bicycle and with a few more features.

The JetBlue guy has taken his apology/promise to YouTube.  This is a worthwhile gesture I think, but I'm not sure his appearance on Letterman last night worked to his benefit.  Dave was pretty unforgiving and JetBlue guy (Neeleman) ended up doing more evasion than an honest person should.  Turning contrition into celebrity is unbecoming.

The site hosting this giant hornet photo looks pretty serious so I don't think the photo is fake.  I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Web personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their floating pollen gardens.

Somewhere out there a teachers conference is viewing a PowerPoint slide show with this image and learning the importance of keeping up with how their students speak.

Homework link of the day:  Secrets of Self Taught Web Developers: 115 Resources to Help You Develop on the Web

Speaking of teaching yourself Web stuff,

"For anyone who is interested in learning Photoshop, YouTube (and other video sites) can be a good source of free learning that you might not have thought of."  I find most of these types of tutorials to be a little hard to follow.  There's usually no sound and there are pulldown menus flying all over the place.  That said, if you have some familiarity with Photoshop and you're good at learning things on your own, you'll recognize some of what's going on in the tutorial.

GlobalTop GPS & Bluetooth HUD speed meter for your windscreen - If I understand this correctly, this will project an image on your windscreen.  Apparently some cars come standard with this, but I've never tried it.  It seems like it would be really distracting.

The other side of the Fermi paradox is a review of a book called "If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life."  (Reminder: "The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence of contact with such civilizations.")

I disagree with Gael on one outside-chance fine point with regard to the impossibility that the Grey's Anatomy script writers would kill off the character after which the show is named.  While it's true that Grey's Anatomy is pretty formulaic so we shouldn't expect any surprises, let's not forget that Desperate Housewives has a dead character who still features relatively prominently and  Six Feet Under routinely featured dead characters as regular participants in the show.  Dirt on FX (am I the only one still watching that?) has characters dead and imagined that haunt one character.  OH!  Dead characters haunting?  Medium?  That Jennifer Love Hewitt show?  In Battlestar Galactica they've got that weird non-death death for the Cylons.  All I'm saying is that dead isn't necessarily dead on contemporary TV and therefore it's not entirely beyond the range of possibility that a character on a popular exhaustively formulaic show could be killed - because a character can be killed without being killed off.

Double-take headline of the day:  U.S. skiers end worlds with mixed results - I saw "end worlds" and thought Death Star.  That'd certainly be a cooler story. (No offense to skiers.)

Can you survive 24 hours without a computer?  You have about a month to prepare.

"Controversial plans to build a "supermosque" on the doorstep of the London Olympics will be blocked by the Government."

Meanwhile, if anyone were to stand up to the demands of Muslims (or any other religion) I'd have thought China would, but that goes to show how little I know about China.

The difference between science and faith explained in two handy flowcharts.

Thanks very much to Yogi for having the answer to my question about who performed that version of "Save Me."  I wasn't able to find much free music from E. T. Mensah & His Tempos Band, but I did find a couple songs in this podcast.  And by the way, fans of vintage ethno-pop should definitely check out this blog.

Speaking of new bands, a local publication had an interview with a band called O'Death which draws heavily on American roots influences to play a modern brand that is pretty unique.

Speaking of music that is both ethnic and American, Acrassicauda is Iraq's only heavy metal band.  I watched segment 5 in a video series about them.  All five segments are listed here.

Tesla Anti-Theft Device: Eye of Sauron - Kind of reminds me of the flame thrower carjacker repellant.

"My friend John was trying to think of a way to explain the problem with digital rights management to his dad and friends of ours who don't see what's wrong with it.  He compiled a list of examples of DRM-related problems to help people understand what the big deal is with DRM."

Everyone's getting a kick out of this giant delete button eraser.  It's a fun site to poke around.  I like this white board clock.

OpenCola - Open Source Coca Cola - Didn't they already do this with beer?  I'm not totally clear on how any recipe wouldn't be open source if it's not a secret.  I'm glad to see many folks on Digg had the same thought.

The link to this hunter's abject apology has been taken down before I could post it here, along with the rest of his blog.  His offending post can be found in Google's cache, however.  He calls assault rifles "terrorist rifles" and says they have no place in the hunting community.  I've never known the gun owning community to be particularly open to this kind of hair splitting and this time was no exception.  UPDATE:  Here's the http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2007/02/i_was_wrong_big.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us">cache of the apology (thanks Bob).

How I hacked your router by accident - Since the links are unreliable I refer you to the story published in the Digg thread.  In short, the guy accidentally logged into his neighbor's wifi router because the neighbor never changed the default name or password so it was indistinguishable from the new one the author purchased.  The thread is full of security advice, but what it left me thinking about is what the future will be like as technology becomes more advanced and we (most of us) integrate it into our lives without the slightest clue or care about how it works.

Free 3D modeling software - I haven't had a chance to play with this yet today but I like the idea of starting with a ball and using tools to pull and distort it.

I bet 3D software would be good to apply to one of these Drawer Geeks projects where they turn children's drawings into more advanced renderings.

Beatboxing through a flute.  I'm not sure it really needs all the puffing and spitting.  This guy already kicks ass on his instrument.

The power of make-up - This is almost like one of those Photoshop reveals, but it's with make-up.  As such it feels like it carries a different message.  A few of them frankly look a little overdone.  I guess if there's an overall lesson it's how different we make ourselves look from natural humans.

Speakers in your shoes to massage your feet.

I recall playing a game with this same little guy a long time ago.  This was more challenging than I expected.

Can you seriously generate enough of a charge with a wool hat to get your car to crank just one more time?  For what it's worth, my motorcycle batter died a couple months ago and the last few times I started it I took the battery out and shook it a bit and put it back in.  I'd read somewhere that it would work and it did, though I'm still not entirely sure why.

OK Go has a new fun video.  I like the song better than the treadmill song too.

Reading translations of Harry Potter is a great way to practice reading a new language (provided you read the English version first).  I feel similarly about watching familiar movies on HBOL in Spanish.  If I can ignore the annoying dubbing I can hear the language better than if it were a Spanish movie.

Nuke-proof flash drive for the military - They should make these for commercial consumption.  Someone recently asked me in all seriousness if putting my photos on a hard drive meant they were invulnerable.  I think there are enough people out there wanting an indestructible, eternal digital media vault that there's a niche industry just waiting to be born.

New Revenue Stream For Bloggers: TextMark SMS Alerts - Doesn't actually sound like that good a deal, but I can see where people might pay for notification of news that wouldn't come in a traditional breaking news alert from a general news site.

How to break up with your girlfriend (pleasantly misogyny-free, which is uncommon in videos of this title.)

By e-mail:

Hi Will-
Never the first at anything, I feel presumptuous to send you this at all. Maybe the outrage (mine included) is premature, it seems things could change, but the very idea of it, the fact she's already done 30 days is, simply, an OUTRAGE. One that has hit me in the gut, somehow. I'm an American, and a mom of 3 younguns, our similarities end there, but still I want the other driver and the jury to pay. Maybe by living her life for 2 weeks, then 2 years in prison. I wonder if I would then feel justice has been served.  The article made me feel impotent, then  I thought of you.  :)
OOPS! Almost forgot the link.
I love Clicked, by the way.
Warm regards,
B-Jane

Will replies:  Hi B-Jane.  I'm not sure what to make of impotence causing you to think of me, but ignoring that, my first thought is that I'll never understand how mandatory minimums are legal.  Sentencing should be the responsibility of the judicial process, not the legislature.  So in that respect I agree with you that this story is an outrage.  The punishment totally doesn't fit the crime and doesn't seem to serve justice or the social good.  On the other hand, people can't be flinging things out of cars at each other.  Honk the horn or flip the bird or something, but driving up the emergency lane in traffic with a pregnant woman in the front seat and kids in the back so you can physically attack a car that cut you off twice?  We can't be having that.  Given her circumstances I'm not sure what the most fitting punishment would be, but taking her away from her kids for two years (or however long parole takes) is surely the worst one.

Here are the corresponding "heavy" links to go with yesterday's light links.  You'll see why they took me a little extra time to digest.

Is it worth being wise?  This is a really long essay on the difference between intelligence and wisdom.

By the way, did you ever get around to reading that Commuter Click from the other day?  It explains that emphasizing hard work in kids is better than attributing their successes to being smart, which they over-internalize.  It's really interesting research and I can't help extrapolate to a national metaphor.  How is a country that thinks it's blessed with innate gifts different from a country that values work ethic?  Actually, the word I hear associated most with that context is "entitlement."

What? Huh? Illinois Bill to Ban Social Software - I thought this was going to be one of those situations where they ban something without knowing what they're doing and it ends up essentially banning other things unintentionally.  Nope.  This is an actual ban on social networks.  "The Social Networking Web site Prohibition Act."

"Let's take a look at the entire online video industry and categorize the major players."

Speaking of online video: Report: Newspaper Web Sites Dominated Local Streaming Video Advertising - The decimating impact that free Craigslist advertising (and also eBay) has had on newspaper classifieds had (and has) people wailing about the death of local newspapers, so it's particularly gratifying to read stories about the industry defying their own obituary and adapting to the new medium.  I remain optimistic that with the incorporation of citizen journalism, local bloggers and enthusiasm for hyperlocal relevance, not to mention the vast array of local tools made possible by the web, local news(papers) will actually enjoy a new robustness.  (And by the way, hang around my cube long enough and you'll hear me grumble that the Internet isn't just a medium, it's all media.  Whether it's newspapers or radio doing video, ultimately everyone has to learn how to do everything.)

Speaking of threats to traditional media, I haven't read anyone pointing out the significance of the fact that some mainstream stars are realizing they can strike out on their own and do quite well.

Speaking of doing well with a Web site, Selling Your Blog: What Are Blog Buyers Looking For?  Includes some examples with actual numbers, which is nice, and mostly lists the ways to assess or demonstrate a blog's value through reach and traffic.

Speaking of selling blogs, On Having Balls, Part II: Staying Hungry - This is about turning your site into a business.  It's really over the head of most of us, certainly me, but it's pretty fascinating insight on young millionaire Web entrepreneurs and how they think.  "At some point, you decide 'OK, I need someone else to run this thing, but I don't really trust anyone to do it but people like me.'"

P.S. See that mention of Slide?  I'm going to play with that this weekend for my baby's blog.  I'm not liking Picasa because it tries to make me use too many tools I don't need.  This looks like it may be my answer.  (And my cube neighbor Jen says she uses it on her MySpace page.)

Yahoo! Pipes and The Web As Database - In all of my enthusiasm for Pipes I hadn't considered the Web-as-database perspective, which is integral to a lot of thinking about the next evolution of the Internet.  This piece doesn't go too far with Web 3.0 declarations but the idea is that instead of being a destination, the Web is a database that feeds smarter tools.

Speaking of paradigms for the new Web, Web 3.0 Roundup: Radar Networks, Powerset, Metaweb and Others... - A lot of this blog entry is about private beta companies that we can't play with so I can't be bothered to care.  But what's more significant is to recognize the terms being used to distinguish the various sites from each other.  It talks a lot about the Semantic Web, which again refers to that idea of Web as database, also natural language search, which will soon enable us to search the way we speak instead of with keywords.  And there's the umbrella term of "the Intelligent Web" which further builds on the idea that Web content will carry extra (meta) data to help tools understand what it is, and the tools themselves will have artificial intelligence properties that will further aid in their understanding of what the Web contains.

What else is worth noting is the explanation of purpose: "The key realization behind all this recent interest in semantics is that keyword search and traditional content and data representations are declining in productivity."  I've heard this problem expressed three separate times this week (though expressed more bluntly as, "There's too much crap online.").

Josh Marshall on lessons learned from the lead-up to the Iraq war:

"One reason there was too little scrutiny of even the least controversial of the White House's claims is that a climate was created in which it was viewed as untoward, irrational or simply naive to critically pick apart the details of these claims as long as it was clear that the alleged bad guys were bad guys.

Why focus on the minutiae of the details as long as the big picture is clear? Why be a nitpicker when the people in question are such bad guys? These were the unstated terms of the debate."

If the name of the game with Iran is scrutinizing the details, this can make for some grueling reading, but really, can there be any other way?  In that vein I also clicked:

• NYT Falls for Bogus Iran Weapons Charges Completely Implausible Numbers are Thrown Around Repeat of Judy Miller Scandal
• 'Wash Post' Joins 'NYT' in Trumpeting 'Anonymous' Claims on Iranian Weapons in Iraq

Hey Will,
Don't know if you've seen this yet... it still seems to be a Research Triangle thing. A UNC student decided to break up with the girlfriend who recently cheated on him by getting a Facebook group together and inviting hundreds of people to witness it. He got a girl acapella group to sing to her...then dropped the bomb on her. Kind of interesting how the Times person of the year comes out in "support" of one of theirs who was wronged. Don't know if it's real or some illegal social experiment but you can check out the links below.

Links:

• YouTube video
• Facebook Groups:
  • Group 1
  • Group 2
• Student TV: cleaned up video

Thanks,
Dave

Will replies:  No Dave, thank you!  That's good stuff.  For folks who can't get the Facebook pages to load, you need a login, which is free and not too hard to run through quickly.  Once you're there the biggest attraction is the message boards where people are supporting one side or other and debating whether the whole thing is real.

There are a million cameras on the scene and it's clear that the student TV got a closer view than the YouTube video so I guess we'll have to wait for more to come out.  I'll add on here if as I find more (already our video producer Kevin has dug up a couple more).

UPDATE: Of the alternatives I see, the link Dave gave us is the best.  This one is closer but the sound is worse.  You can see the girlfriend squirm more and how directly the main singer is projecting at her.

The others are from different perspectives and the outskirts of the scene.  This clip of the pre-show crowd gives a good idea of the scope of the event.

The real appeal of these other videos would probably be to someone interested in citizen journalism.  Between these different versions and the photos in the Facebook pages, it's a pretty good model of the casual media capability of typical college students.

Obviously I did more reading than posting yesterday and my day today will be interrupted by a trip to the dentist, so here are some of the lighter links in my notes and I'll try for an entry later today with some denser subject matter.

The fastest XP prank ever - This is a pretty good prank, but I think for most people I know, the single step of hiding desktop icons would be enough to send them home early.

Joe Rogan vs. Carlos Mencia - I saw the video before I saw the link to Joe Rogan's site.  NOTE: Lots of cursing in the video.  I don't generally think of Joe Rogan as a comedian because he's on so many non-comedy shows but that's besides the point in this video.  Apparently (unless there's some joke I'm missing) a lot of comedians feel that Carlos Mencia steals jokes and Joe Rogan has taken it upon himself to confront Mencia very publicly.  It's especially interesting because we so often hear about the comedy community and in the video you can see it pretty clearly.  UPDATE:  New link here (thanks Scott) and the spelling is fixed (thanks Clinton).

Speaking of comedy, Fox New Channel has a new comedy show meant to match The Daily Show and the Colbert Report called The Half Hour News Hour.  I'm not sure if it's already started or if these are sneak peeks, but so far the online reviews I've read, even from politically sympathetic bloggers, haven't been good.  Here's another clip in which Rush Limbaugh plays the President, Ann Coulter as Vice President.

Only fools are enslaved by time and space - This may be a little late depending on whether you watched or Tivoed Lost last night but if you'd played the torture scene in last week's episode backward you'd have a hint as to the nature of this week's episode.

Speaking of TV, I don't know if anyone watches Knights of Prosperity on ABC.  I never hear anyone talk about it, but I think it's funny.  Anyway, last night there was a brief scene with a funky soundtrack in which a guy sings "Save me someone save me.  Call in caped crusader, Green Hornet, Batman too.  I'm in so much trouble I don't know what to do."  I Googled the lyric to find out that it's an old classic called Save Me.  Here it is from a young Aretha.  Nina Simone, unlike Aretha, mentions Batman in her version, but that's not the one from last night, which was sung by a guy.  It's bound to show up on fan sites eventually but if someone happens to know who it was, I'd be tickled.  (I haven't mentioned this in a while so let me point out again that with a free Napster login you get a certain number of free monthly plays.  I like to link to them for this reason and because their database is so big.)

March of the librarians - This is a little dry, but I know I have librarian readers so I'm sure it has an audience.  It's a parody of the March of the Penguins movie, instead focusing on librarians at a convention in Seattle.

Valentine's leftovers:

Be My (Blood-Drenched, Pesticide-Ridden, Child-Enslaving) Valentine - Looks like (organic) wine is about the only thing you can buy for Valentine's Day that isn't socially tainted in some way.

A lot of folks online were trying to figure out Google's holiday logo yesterday.  They turned the second G into a chocolate covered strawberry, with the L being the stem.  Some people didn't see it that way and thought it looked like Googe.  What's surprising is that Googe would have been an appropriate coded message after all.

Write your own heart. 

Smart guys date in parallel - "Let's let V be potential difference between dating girls and doing something productive, I be current of love, and R be resistance to current flow. "

Why do men ignore nagging wives? It's all science - "Working with Duke Ph.D. student Amy Dalton, Chartrand and Fitzsimons have demonstrated that some people will act in ways that are not to their own benefit simply because they wish to avoid doing what other people want them to."  It's not about being a rebel, it's about preserving autonomy.  The methodology here seems a little odd to me.  Subjects were exposed to the name of a significant person in their lives by having it flashed on a screen - so subconsciously they'd associate commands from the researcher with the significant other.  That in itself is a pretty amazing discovery.

Congrats to my friend Bob for making the front of Digg with his piece on suing telemarketers.

Kid sized Tetris - I didn't know there was a blog for new dads.

These people in the air remind me of the jumping on beds site.

Speaking of photos, the HDR photos I've seen lately have mostly been poorly done skylines, but this one makes good use of the technique.  See large.

Speaking of unusual photo techniques, this is what it looks like when 360 photos are displayed flat.  I've got this one bookmarked for later because there's actually quite a bit to learn (for example, what's a Quincuncial map?)  It's also worth noting that he's got links for some of his photos to be viewed in 360 using a Flickr beta product (?) called Spi-V... or is it Field of View?  Like I said, this is one to go back and learn more.

Horntones: Customize Your Honk - "The unit holds up to eight audio files at once and can be loaded from any USB flash drive."  So let's see... Dixie, La Cucaracha, Here comes the bride...

Speaking of USB flash drives, Chap Stick USB - I like these clever memory stick casings, but I have to worry about what would happen if you tried to take this on a plane.  It looks like the perfect object for a "can you believe what happened to that guy at the airport" story because someone who doesn't know what it is will want to know why you're hiding it and that kind of person isn't going to understand "just to be clever" as an answer.

Matthew Yglesias criticizes the "assassination strategy" favored by some bloggers, pointing to incompetence as an unavoidably complicating factor (on top of the arguments by Glenn Greenwald, to which he links).  It's hard to deny the appeal of killing a few people instead of bringing armies together to kill each other (and collaterals) in huge numbers, but really, is there a more slippery slope?

How to access Gmail (and a lot of other things) when it's blocked at work or school (or possibly an oppressive government).

Wake Up Feeling Great With These 22 Tips for High Self-Esteem - Nothing you wouldn't know from watching Oprah, but still, if your part of the world is weighing you down with a big of S.A.D. it might be worth running through this list for a way to grit through that extra month.  (Yes, I know S.A.D. is about light, not self-esteem but depression can have a real domino effect.)

Composite images of women on Hot or Not.  In case you're not familiar, people put their photos on Hot or Not and their appearance (hotness) is rated by users of the site.  This guy took faces from the same ratings range and morphed them, arguably distilling some commonality.  Interesting to note it was done with freeware.  That's definitely something to play with later.

I waited all morning (and into the afternoon) for the fine folks at Crooks and Liars to share the Stephen Colbert clip from last night in which he tears into Australian Prime Minister John Howard (after first tipping his hat in agreement) for criticizing Barak Obama.  It's a brilliant illustration of some of the sentiment I saw expressed in the blogosphere yesterday, for example this piece at Captain's Quarters.  Like Joe Gandelman, I felt myself give a mental Scalia Sicilian salute to Howard when I read the story.

I had similar feelings watching this video of some British guys who decide to taunt people in Alabama and end up nearly killed (sadly confirming some of the gross stereotypes they set out to mock).  Most folks online see it as a funny joke but I couldn't help but feel a little defensive.  Hey you jerk, those are our hicks.  If they need mocking, we'll handle it.  Why don't you go find some soccer yobs in your country to provoke into threatening your life?

UPDATE:  That YouTube link is dead but DailyMotion has the whole episode of Top Gear in two parts.  The Alabama segment is in part 2.  Scroll the timeline about an inch (sorry, no counter). Part 1 is here if you want to watch the whole show, which is about a half hour long.  The show itself does an interesting job waking the line between funny and offensive and I can't quite decide if it would be different if the players were American. 

Speaking of Barry, there was a talking head on Hardball last night who predicted we'd eventually see his speech from 2002 versus Hillary's speech of 2002 and she'd come out looking bad.  (They were talking about whether her answers on the war would be sufficient in her campaign.)  Anyway, here's the Obama half.

Speaking of Iraq, here's the PowerPoint slide show of the government's case for Iran in Iraq.

The science of Godzilla.  Better than the science of zombies.

Ethnomusicologists against music as torture - It took me the longest time to figure out what I thought this was weird and finally I realized that the objection seems to be about the abuse of music, not about the abuse of humans.  It's like People for the Ethical Treatment of Music.

Speaking of uncommon causes, Ezra Klein raises the issue of prison rape with a few anecdotes from victims.  Prison rape is such common knowledge it can be the poster joke for a Hollywood comedy.  I can't think of any politician who would dare stand up for the rights of the incarcerated; being "tough on crime" is such an easy political point to score.  Still, it's pretty sick.

World Press Photos of the Year 2007 NOTE: Several disturbing war photos

Speaking of professional photography, I don't remember what brought me here, but I've been enjoying The Online Photographer blog.

The only thing I want to hear from a urinal cake is flattery.

Someone's going to have to explain OscarTorrents to me.  Are they seriously offering every Oscar nominated movie for download for free?

The brain scan that can read people's intentions - This is as "Minority Report" as it sounds.  I'd like to see the actual study because the connection between what the brain scan shows as "intention" and the resulting action is not clear to me.  Surely there's not much more than a split second between brain signal of intention and actual action.

IT, YouTube and the wealth gap - In what way does the digital divide contribute to the wealth gap.  The blunt argument is that the wealthy have more access to technology which makes them more productive and more efficient at making more money.  The actual situation may be more nuanced.

Candy heart for Valentine's Day.

Dear Boston authorities, this is a marketing trick.  Don't panic (or cause panic).

Speaking of that mess, Osama Team Hunger Force - NOTE:  There is occasionally NSFW material on CollegeHumor and just below this video are four random photos that may contain a thong or something.

How to crash an in-flight entertainment system

While checking out the new techPresident site mentioned in yesterday's Times (the hook was that they track the number of MySpace friends each candidate has) I appreciated the candidate blog round-up that goes with the follow-up item that one of the embattled Edwards bloggers quit.  The most interesting angle on this whole story now is whether campaign blogs (and bloggers) have to be boring by definition.  In the ideal there's an idea that candidates having blogs will mean candor and insight and I have to say that part of why I didn't think the Edwards bloggers would be a big deal is because I thought they'd be advising in the background, not actually cultivating personalities of their own online as part of the campaign.  Of course candidates should be doing their own blogging, that's the whole point.  For all the jawing politicians do about opening a channel of communication with the people, this is the one tool that will actually allow them to do so in a manageable way.

FBI lost 160 weapons and 160 laptops in last 44 months - and that's the good news.  "In any organization the size of the FBI, equipment is going to be lost, misplaced, or stolen, so perfection is not to be expected."  I'm not sure I agree with this one.  I'm sure there are corporate formulas for what an acceptable amount of loss is, but I'd expect weapons and laptops to be particularly well guarded.

Canterbury tales in World of Warcraft.

Stem cells used for 'natural' boob jobs - It's funny that in almost every place I saw this story they included a gratuitous photo of a large breasted woman.  I didn't even think it was a legit story, but after some Googling I was able to find out quite a bit more information.  When you think about it, being able to grow breast tissue and even a whole breast is actually a really big deal in terms of fighting breast cancer.  The "excesses of vanity" angle does the research a disservice.

Speaking of growing new body parts, "Researchers ... have now shown that continuous tooth generation can be induced in mammals."

Hysterical parody of someone calling IT for help with a book.

I'm not sure I really understand the reason for building a V6 hybrid sports car other than to refute the reputation that hybrid cars are wimpy.  Still, doesn't this kind of defeat the purpose?  (And don't get me wrong, that's a hot car. I'm just saying...)

Top 10 Fashion Suggestions for Nerds - The site is kind of weird and made me wonder if it was some kind of spam, so I clicked through to the blog.  The whole thing is an AdSense Earnings Adventure.  Pretty fascinating if a bit cynical.

Commuter Click: How Not to Talk to Your Kids - The Inverse Power of Praise.  This is the second NY Magazine Commuter Click in a row, but since I liked the last one I'm sticking with them.

*** Can anyone settle this bet?  In the Pink Floyd song, do they say, "Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone" or "Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone" or what?  Does it depend on what version of the song you hear?

If you had MSNBC on TV at all today you saw the video of the guy falling out of the sky when his parachute wouldn't open and then his back-up parachute wouldn't open.  The full footage from both the falling man and a guy following behind him (with functioning parachute) is on this UK newspaper site.  It's waaay better to see the original footage.  It's uncut and only has the original sound.  It's flash video with no counter and it feels a little long, maybe ten minutes, but if the TV version appealed to you, the original is much better.

ADDING:  For some reason it doesn't work in Firefox even though it's only Flash video.  Also, by the way, the guy lived.

Dear Will,
I'm just disappointed you're not listed in this article. But it begs the question, appearing in the Wall Street Journal, positive epoch, or jumping the shark?
Ramon

Will replies:  Thanks Ramon, I'm not sure I would make any list of influencers, but the folks in this article are involved in a different activity than I.  That said, it's a really fascinating article and I don't think it's at all an indication of shark jumping.  On the contrary it may be a sign of the future; the future of celebrity and the future of media.  To catch other readers up, the article is about the people who are highly ranked as participants in social sites like Digg and Reddit.  We've recently seen marketers trying to buy-off these people to get them to promote their links.  That puts them in a certain celebrity class already.  With photos and real names in a mainstream newspaper, I have to wonder how soon a Digg membership will be parlayed into something more.

Speaking of finding the future online, a mailing list I'm on sent a link to this Mac video.  It's sort of a satire rap song about cybersexing on a Mac IM system.  (Relatively safe for work, but sexual enough that you'd want to watch it quietly.)  It strikes me that there are a huge number of people who exercise their sexuality through Web cams and yet you see almost no acknowledgment of that culture in mainstream media unless it has to do with something illicit and twisted.  It called to mind the Kate Beckinsale headline from a while ago in which she revealed that she and her husband make recreational use of a web cam.  Will future generations need to add another "base" to the traditional sexual achievement metaphor?  Would seeing someone naked on a web cam be the new first base?  Shortstop?  ADDING:  In case you can't view the video, the lyric is about checking out, flirting with, and generally seducing a woman through video chat before they meet in person.  I can see how this might be preferable to a blind date.

Like pipes, this is pretty cool for what you can do. It is not so much like PowerPoint as it is like making a magazine or album. Easy to combine things in novel ways - output is Flash, so works on all browsers.
-Paul

Will replies: Thanks Paul, I'll give it a try later when I have time to do the registration.  I'll pass the link along for those who are interested.

Hi Will,
I haven't mailed you in a while, but I found a site you might like.  It's called finetune.com.  It's like Pandora, but better in that you can pick the songs you want it to play (up to 3 by the same artist).  You have to create a playlist of 45 songs to meet their licensing requirement, but it's FREE.  You can give one of my lists a listen.
Thanks,
Jason

Will replies: Wow Jason, that's a great idea. It's basically like being your own radio programmer.  I also love that you can share the playlists easily.  I'm playing with it now and I'm having a little trouble with buffering.  The Nora Jones channel plays OK but the Wolfmother channel can't get past a few notes.  I'll try again from home.  Maybe it'll be kinder if I set up an account.

Yakuza war over
-Bob

Will replies:  Well, that was quick.  Speaking of short mails...

Please see.
Charlie

Will explains:  It's a two minute time lapse of passing through the Panama Canal.  I've seen similar clips from the shore, but this is the first I've seen from the boat.  Very neat.

Hi Will,
Our kids couldn't stop singing this over the weekend so we thought we'd make a tee shirt for politically and otherwise active kids....
Jim

There are many of kids with the same story as the Clinton kid, typical of basket economies that don't care about their citizens, ahh, link.
Regards,
Kayiira

Will remarks:  I'm not sure why the Clinton one was sent to me.  It could be spam.  I just like the idea of reading the news in Uganda.

The issue of e-mail copyright when "sampled" by artists has finally hit a gallery wall and the lawyers are soon to follow.  Read below about a guy who made art from his ex-GF's emails and now the whole thing is all about who owns what...
-Lenny

Will replies:  Thanks Lenny, that is interesting.  Speaking without a shred of legal qualification, I agree with the blogger (and the artist), once you hit send on an e-mail, you don't own it.  That might not be the case if someone mails a song or a poem or something, but a letter is like a gift, once you send it you give it away.

The latest note from the "I and the Bird" carnival:

Fun fact of the day: Neurophilosophy is an interdisciplinary study that lies at the juncture of neuroscience and philosophy. It's true. Furthermore, neurophilosophical inquiry may be pursued down two different paths. Some neurophilosophers aspire to solve problems regarding the nature of the mind, mental functions, and consciousness by employing  neuroscientific data. Their colleagues bring to bear the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science to clarify questions in neuroscience.

Bet you didn't know that!

The reason I'm sharing this with you is that the newest I and the Bird is presented to us by a real, live, possibly self-appointed Neurophilosopher.  MC writes about most aspects of neuroscience, from the molecular to the cognitive, but also covers other topics he finds interesting. This includes, on occasion, ornithology, which is why we are now able to enjoy, in an apt homage to Darwin's legendary Voyage of the Beagle, our own I and the Bird #42, the forty-second voyage of IatBEagle.

Are your inquiries into the lives of wild birds arcane and esoteric, or are you into down to earth, meat and potatoes birding? Either way, your best source for peer review is I and the Bird. Our next edition is headed somewhere sunny and warm, so you may very well want to go with it! Send your links and summaries to me or our next talented host, Tai Haku (p DOT taihaku AT googlemail DOT com ) of Earth, Wind & Water.

Press release:

Hey Will!

I wanted to quickly let you know about a fabulous recipe and lifestyle Web destination, Recipe4Living, for consideration in Clicked.

Recipe4Living is an interactive community enabling its more than 6 million registered users to share unique ways to cook and live a healthy life. From homemade gift ideas to recipe photo contests to wine guides to how to live healthier and feel great, Recipe4Living has something for everyone!

The site includes over 17,000 user-rated recipes, with more than 80 techniques and original commentary from world-renowned chef Wolfgang Puck. It also features enhanced search capabilities and a unique coupon add-on, where users can download more than 100 coupons for brand-name consumer goods by clicking on hyperlinks within a current recipe.

There is so much more that Recipe4Living offers users, but I know you don't like long pitches, so please check out www.Recipe4Living.com when you have a sec and let me know if you want more info or have any questions.

Thanks!
Lizzie

Will notes:  I appreciate Lizzie being quick with this presser.  The photo contest is what caught my eye.  Taking a good looking picture of food can be a real challenge.  It looks like some of the winners got it right.  The key is lighting and the problem is that good dining lighting is not good photo lighting.

Regarding your link to the Books Mapped from January 30th... (I was on vacation last week!)

I have a book that's similar called The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.  Basically lists the place names in alphabetical order and tells you what book/author it came from.  Very cute.  I loved the fact that it included the places from The Phantom Tollbooth, which was my favorite book as a kid.
Best,
Wendy

Will,
I subscribe to a YouTube member called duckapuss. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. Instead of disappearing she has continued to vlog. This is her response to possibly losing her hair due to chemotherapy.
Thanks,
cinderellaferret

Will adds:  I'm a little behind in post this one.  I used her YouTube profile to find the most recent video here in which she describes not just the reality of cancer treatment but the reality of sharing the experience with strangers online.  Quite a contrast with the head shaving video.  From the strangers online in the Clicked community, best wishes to Duckapuss.

Without question the most popular toy online since my last post is Yahoo! Pipes.

Now that I've spent the morning playing with it I think I at least understand what it does even if I don't quite have a handle on all of the features.  Basically it's a tool for setting up a string of feeds and filters.  RSS feeds alone send headlines and content from a site to your RSS aggregator or reader.  But what if you want to combine two RSS feeds into one?  Or if the feed is too broad and you only want certain headlines?  Pipes provides you with an array of tools to let you customize what your feeds provide to you.  The most popular pipe right now looks like it takes NY Times headlines from their main news feed and runs the words against Flickr tags, ultimately spitting out photos that pertain to the headlines.  You may need to sign in to a free Yahoo account.  Also look for a "run this feed" button if you're not seeing anything.

I noticed they had Babelfish as one of the tools so I made a couple pipes of my own just to see if I really understood it.  I went to La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper, and found their feed list.  I then created a pipe that takes the top news headlines from the feed, translates them to English and filters out anything that doesn't have the word Bush in the title or description.  Now I've built a tool for monitoring Italian coverage of the president.  The only problem is that I didn't get any results because none of their headlines are about President Bush right now.  So I went for the obvious immediate gratification solution and changed Bush to Anna.

By the way, after a few minutes of maddening clicking I realized the whole thing assembles by dragging, not clicking.  What makes it easier to learn is that you can click on each module you add and see the results at that point in the chain (er... pipe).  When I wasn't getting any results with Bush I could click the translation module and see that the headlines were indeed being translated but nothing was coming out of the filter module.

I still have a stack of links to read to see what folks are saying about Pipes, but I wanted to share this much with you because it really is a fun thing to play with if you're looking to burn off the end of your Friday afternoon.  I'll add "updated" to the headline of this entry when I narrow down the list to some recommended analysis pieces to read.

UPDATE:  I see in the comments that some people are a little intimidated by this, and to be sure there are parts that go right over my head as well.  I approached it like eating at a buffet.  You build your plate and it's OK if you don't know what some of the stuff is as long as you end up with a meal.  A lot of the "about" language uses "remix" and "mashup" which I usually associate with music, so there's probably a handy metaphor there.  If the information on a Web site is a song, this gives you the tools to cut and rearrange that song, or mix it with other songs.

I also like the music metaphor because Pipes can seem like a solution to a problem you didn't even know you had, which is say, no problem at all.  But it can also stand as a means of expressing creativity with information as the medium.  Like any new medium, it requires a change in perspective, but even that in itself is welcome.

I'm also reading a lot of phrases like "the future of RSS" and "the full potential of RSS."  I think that's what's resonating with me the most because I've always only been halfway impressed with RSS feeds.  So what if I can have the headlines from a site show up in an aggregator; it's not that big a deal for me to go to the site and read the headlines there.  But if I, as a person who knows almost zero about programming, can take the information from a site and mix and mash it into something that no site is already offering, well that's a big deal.

It's interesting to see a number of people talk about how this has been an idea long in the making.  While it may seem like a challenge to think up a problem that can be solved with Pipes, for a lot of people this is simply the latest step in an evolving technology.

The link I should have clicked yesterday morning is: Yahoo! Pipes: The Modules For Building Pipes.  Meanwhile I see there are a number of instructional pipe posts from this guy linked in the margin.

This one takes you through the steps of creating a pipe for "apartments near something."
Following along with the pipe editor open is particularly useful.

Yahoo pipes and Google Earth - Most notable is the story of the guy who spent time coding up something that will soon be possible for the most code-ignorant to create themselves (or find from someone else) as a Yahoo Pipe.

Speaking of coders, Pipes is really best viewed through their eyes.  Anil Dash does a helpful job contextualizing it in terms of other similar efforts.  It may be worth noting that the name "pipes" has its root in Unix, but I can't even get through the Wikipedia entry on that.

ONE MORE LOOSE ENDS UPDATE:  We should do this one as a headline contest.  I'm seeing a million plays on the "pipes" idea.

For those who don't want to go through the trouble of a Yahoo login, what you see when you "run the pipe" varies depending on what the pipe does.  For the New York Times through Flickr pipe you see a long string of photos from Flickr.  The photos are all associated with the words in the NY Times headlines.  For the ones I did with the Italian Newspaper, you see a few story excerpts with very awkwardly translated text.  As the Google Earth item in the first update shows, a pipe may just spit out a link that you can then plug into Google Earth and see information plotted on the map.  Some of the pipe modules call for user input, so you can enter a location and have it spit back a list of real estate results from several listings sites at once.  For that matter, instead of a list you could probably have it produce a URL to a map.  That's beyond my ability (this morning) to actually do, but not hard imagine.

For folks who don't see the slighted hope of learning to use this, don't forget that part of the point is that it's "social" so people who make them are sharing them.  If you liked my little Italian newspaper pipe but wanted it to follow a different word, you could find my pipe in a search, copy it, change that bit and save it as your own.  For that matter, you don't have to change anything.  You could find one in there that does something you've been looking for.  Maybe it takes the sports RSS feeds from every paper in your city, mixes them all together and filters them for just the one team you like and gives you those headlines.  If that pipe doesn't exist yet, it probably will soon and you can take the feed from that pipe and plug it into your reader... free.

When I'm wrong, holy moly I am wrooo-ong with two syllables. Let the record show that I said, "I can't see anyone really caring that much about the personal foibles of a candidate's Web master."  Oh?  How about readers of the New York Times and the Washington Post and ... Catholics?

Not only do Edwards' bloggers run the risk of eclipsing him (and by the way, they were fired [no they weren't **see comments]) but back and forth debates about candidates' bloggers appears to be a new aspect of campaign coverage.

Here's the John Edwards blog by the way, in case you're curious about how these particular bloggers were appearing.

"A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate lays the groundwork for a national database of illegal images that Internet service providers would use to automatically flag and report suspicious content to police."  That sounds like a real Pandora's Box to me, assuming it even works.  I remember an idea for a parent filter once screened for pixel color codes that matched skin tones.  I don't think that one caught on.  Meanwhile, I didn't know that "cartoon minors" counted as child porn.  I don't doubt that pedophiles collect it but I'm surprised they could ban such a thing.  Is there a similar law for anything else?

Commuter Click: The Psychology of Security - I read about this as a presentation here and went to Bruce Schneier's site to see if he had a transcript posted and it turns out he's got a whole long essay.

Speaking of psychology in blog entries, Thinking Faster Makes You Feel Happy and Brilliant

Real-world success with virtual goods - The buzz phrase to know is "real-money trading" which is what they call selling virtual items for real money.  The news in this story is that it's looking like game makers may begin to sanction and even broker real-money trading, which could not only boost the industry but finally put hard numbers to what has been mostly anecdotal reports of moneymaking success.

I don't know how I missed the story of the guy trying to raise money for a Super Bowl ad to propose to his girlfriend because apparently it was in the news everywhere.  In the end he didn't make enough for a Super Bowl ad so he bought local TV ad time on a show his girl watches.  Her reaction is here on iFilm. (She kind of freaks out.  Better keep her away from the scissors.)  That soundtrack from Feelgood Science is nice if you're in the mood for it.

I think the deadline on the Amy Sedaris craft challenge is past, but it still fun to look at the entries.  Especially since we just looked at those "snackimals" photoshop contest entries.

Lopez Murphy for President - When I first watched this I didn't understand how a campaign video from Argentina would make it into mainstream English meme trackers.  If you watch to at least the midpoint you'll understand.  It reminds me a little of the Tom Delay acrostics we saw in December.

Nerf Druids - This is a bit esoteric, but also kind of funny and you gain a bit of insight on gamer culture.  NOTE:  Not vulgar or sexual but you should probably put your headphones on for it if you're at work.  You'll see.

Skateboarding robot - We should just hand our whole civilization over to them now, Sarah Connor and all.

5 Things You Need to Know About SLR Lenses - Very handy basics.

11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations - Ordinarily you'd expect this to be something stupid like the "drive on a parkway, park on a driveway" gag, but actually it's real and interesting.

A "Yakuza War" has started in Central Tokyo

The true cost of bottled water, summarized here, full report here and from memory, "Bad to the last drop."  Basically bottled water is a blight from its starting point to the production to the shipping to the finished product that pollutes the earth with a jillion plastic bottles.

Did you see that Ozzfest is free this year? - Of course, that doesn't mean it's actually free, it means it'll be interesting to see how much the free tickets cost on eBay.

Has anyone ever had sex in space?  In the end it sounds like he's saying No, not that we know of.  But in the middle there's a strange bit of implication that the space station is like an orbiting love shack.

The Internet Anagram Server figures out anagrams for up to 12 letters.

I don't know if you got around to reading yesterday's Commuter Click but it's pretty good.  The best quote comes from Clay Shirky:

Pidgin is what gets spoken when people patch things together from different languages, so it serves well enough to communicate. But Creole is what the children speak, the children of pidgin speakers. They impose rules and structure, which makes the Creole language completely coherent and expressive, on par with any language. What we are witnessing is the Creolization of media.

I found that particularly satisfying because lately I've been thinking about the characteristics of online culture and how traceable its lineage is to West Coast tech and East Coast style.  While the Internet has not turned out to be the great unifier early idealists expected, online culture is unquestionably a creolization.

Not all of my questions were answered by the article, but the one other revelation that stuck with me was the idea that fear of strangers ("stranger danger") is overblown and naive.  The understanding that strangers are all pervert kidnappers probably doesn't even have much basis in fact since I imagine most of the bad things that happen to kids are committed by people they know, but that lesson is so ingrained in my psyche I don't think I could ever unlearn it. The new generation of MySpace kids do not harbor that fear/paranoia.

Without question, the biggest link online for the past two days is this Steve Jobs essay about Apple's position on DRM.  The money quote: 

If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

The part of his argument I found most convincing came in pointing out that most music is purchased on CDs that are not protected (no DRM).  So there are no restrictions on songs purchased from record companies (we remember what happened last time they tried), but there are restrictions on songs purchased from iTunes and other online music stores, but only because the record companies have made it that way.  It's not hard to see how that can be interpreted as a contradiction.

Speaking of big companies taking non-proprietary positions on things, a lot of people online are excited to learn that Microsoft will OpenID.  Luckily I found Thomas Hawk's entry to explain what that means and why it matters.  Basically, OpenID is like a universal login.  This item would have gone well with yesterday's piece about social network overload.

The City Cook - "The ultimate guide for pathetically busy, space-compromised urban dwellers who prefer to cook at home."

The Best Place To Hide Money: Conversation With A Burglar - "Your best strategy, then, is to actually leave some money in obvious places for the burglar to quickly find..."  I hate this strategy.  The idea of hiding it in a kid's toy is pretty good. This also recommends keeping a fake, easy to find safe deposit box receipt/list so it looks like you have all your stuff in a bank.  I was once robbed by the neighbor who lived across the hall from me.  I made so many mistakes in that case I almost deserved it.  He said his phone was out and could he use mine.  Sure.  But of course, he was really checking out my apartment.  At the time I was a bartender (robber translation: lots of cash on hand) and was foolish enough to tell him so.  Perhaps the biggest mistake: he said he'd come down to the bar to visit and what shifts did I work?  Like a fool I told him my whole schedule. I might as well have given him the key and told him to drop by and rob me on Friday night between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m.  (For what it's worth, he got in by climbing up the side of the building and into my window, which wasn't locked.)

I know I regularly criticize those "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC" ads, but I have to admit this one with the security guy who asks for confirmation on every little thing has a real ring of truth.  IE7 seems like it pops up a warning for everything, even pasting!

TechCrunch has been doing these overviews lately.  This one on social music sites mentioned a few I wasn't familiar with.

IMified: Use Instant Messages for More than Just Chat - The idea is for this app to send what you type in IM to your blog or elsewhere.  I think IM is an under-celebrated technology.  I use it like crazy.  I prefer it to e-mail and at work I use it more than I use my phone.

Speaking of using IM for more than chat, Emoticoncert reminds me a little of the sign language dancing in Napoleon Dynamite.

The Interstate highway system as straight lines looks kind of like a subway map.  What's interesting to me is to see the numbering system.

"If a woman consents to having sex with a man but then during intercourse says no, and the man continues, is it rape?"

Hoiryeong Incident: Next Phase of Regime Collapse? I have no idea how reliable information can come from North Korea, but this report that "a platoon of border guards in Hoiryeong district committed a mass defection" is interesting - particularly considering the new talks going on there.

"Wow. Check out the corporate jets leaving Miami after the Super Bowl."  I'm having trouble believing this one.

Fifteen geek movies to see before you die - I don't think I ever saw Dark City.  One that never makes these lists that I think probably should is Delicatessen.

The impact of Katrina as reflected in the area white pages.  UPDATE:  Thanks to Doug in comments for point out this link is dead.  I think it's because this guy doesn't have a pro account so his bandwidth is capped.  He reposted a few versions here and here and here so try those or his main page.

Last night Jon Stewart made fun of some of the easy pun headlines that are being used on the angry astronaut in diapers story.  The ones I've seen so far are:

Astro-nut
Lust in space - The NY Post also uses Space Case, Spaced Invader, and Robochick  
The wrong stuff
Hussy from Houston - this isn't a pun, but it's such bold namecalling it really stood out

Other than the one used on this entry the only other good one I've come up with is "I ain't got time to pee" but I don't know how many people know that quote from Jesse Ventura.  I've been working on the diaper angle because it feels like most of the others have been looking for space puns.  Anyway, let me know in comments or mail if you've seen any good ones or can think of good ones you haven't seen.  Last night a colleague expressed surprise that there are no Star Trek references out there.  Would "To boldly go" work?  Actually, "Star Wars" might  not be a bad one for a description of the love triangle.

UPDATE:  Tsk! I can't believe I missed the obvious "Houston, we have a problem."

- How about "Atmos-fear"

- Love and Rockets -This may be my new favorite.  Does anyone remember this band?

-No-nap nappy - I think that's a Britishism, but it's making me crazy that the word nappy and not sleeping are so closely associated but I can't find a way to put them together.  Maybe Unhappy nappy?

-Assault and pepper - pepper spray reference

-Lucy in the sky with diapers - Actually, her name is Lisa but changing too many words might lose the pun.

-E-mail submission from David: Huggies gone bad - I hadn't considered diaper name brand puns, though I did ponder using "depends" in a double meaning but came up with nothing good.  (Love you can depend on?  nah.)

-Satellite diss

-Diaper rash judgment

-E-mail from Gian: Astronaut a Lunatic? Depends. - Lunatic is a good one.  I completely missed that.

P.S. I do not mean to make light of what is clearly a grave situation for those involved.  No disrespect intended.

Critical mass and social network fatigue - "How many networks can one person join? How many different identities can one person sanely manage? How many different tagging or photo-uploading or friending protocols can one person deal with?"

Speaking of filling out an absurd number of accounts and profiles, Brilliant New Startup: Useless Account - All you do is sign up for it.

Speaking of making a mockery of social sites, Andy Hagans' Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing - Linkbaiting is the practice of writing Web pages in a way that they'll specifically appeal to high traffic social linking sites.  As he points out at the very beginning, there is a lot of talk about linkbaiting lately.  Enough talk that I have to wonder how long these tricks will be effective before people see them as a ploy and avoid them on purpose.

Speaking of people immersed in social networking, Commuter Click: Say Everything - "As younger people reveal their private lives on the Internet, the older generation looks on with alarm and misapprehension not seen since the early days of rock and roll. The future belongs to the uninhibited."  What I hope to learn by reading it is what we can expect to happen as the networked and profiled generation grows up.  Will they value privacy more or less?  Will the people who grew up with a camera built into everything carry on with digital voyeurism and exhibitionism or will it get old?

Pittsburgh gets a Metroblogging site.

Who cut all the faces out of your Skymall catalog?  This guy.

What hands can do.  Yet another in a recent string of hand shadow/puppetry.
[YouTube:2zIODJsnqXE]

Fotolog overtaking Flickr - I don't know if it's evident yet, but I've been trying to find a way to feature photos the way I do links and videos.  Digital photography is such a huge component of online culture but so far I haven't found a convenient way to track it.  I mention this by way of explanation that I'm prone to clicking online photography links more than usual lately in search of insight.  This link doesn't offer any answers to my question but it does make for some good beard stroking on what makes sites popular and the context of the U.S. Web in the global marketplace.

Speaking of photography links, More megapixels, better photos: Fact or fiction?  The question is whether the techniques used to fit in more pixels actually ends up reducing light sensitivity and increasing "noise."  The accusation is that consumers assume that bigger is better so camera makers are in a pixel race that de-prioritizes picture quality.

The pimped out john - You're meant to enter the contest to win it but surely you'd not want to put that kind of time in on the throne.  Bolt it to a Laz-E Boy and you've got something though.

A Kirkland cafe with no prices - This is out near Seattle.  You pay what you want.  So far it's not a total disaster.  I have to think that's a reflection of the location.  Otherwise, what's the difference between this place and a soup kitchen?

I've been waiting for someone to chafe at Hillary playing the 9/11 card so much.  She needs to find a new drum to beat.  I even found her sudden buddying up with rescue workers distasteful.

These Photoshopped animals are really well done.  They look like the kind of thing that comes from a Worth1000 contest but I can't find the original link (though I did spend time poking through the current "snackimals" contest).

How the press can prevent another Iraq - What do you think, is the press capable of this? Would it really have prevented the war in Iraq?  I'm dubious.

I hate Macs - Those "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC" ads manage to spark a backlash abroad as well.

Michael Yon tells the compelling story of a suicide bomber in Iraq thwarted by a villager who sacrificed himself to save his neighbors.

That leaked cockpit video of the British troops hit by friendly (U.S.) fire appears to be an exclusive of the British newspaper The Sun.  You can find the video embedded in the page here.  It's really fascinating and in spite of the tragic outcome, somewhat reassuring about how often the pilots double check their target.  There's not much to see on the video itself, just subtitles to read.  The total length is 15 minutes.  Note, once they realize their mistake there is some cursing.  Sorry I can't give you time stamps, the video is pretty restricted.  I add a YouTube or Google Video link when I see one with better navigation control.

ADDING:  "Fascinating" is probably not the best description of the video, though it is that.  Really, it's terribly, horribly tragic.  The headline we're using on our cover right now referring to "We're in jail, dude" makes it sound like the pilots are cavalier about it.  In fact, you can tell right away that they're really horrified.  One pilot is crying.  By the time you get to the end it's less fascinating than just plain sad.

I was interested to note Gael's remark about the HP Super Bowl ad last night, "I used to really like "American Chopper." And now I don't even know if it's still on."

That's kind of how I feel about Super Bowl ads in general.  I mean, of course I know they're still on, and maybe we just got a bad batch this year, but I'm having a relatively easy time convincing myself that my regular consumption of clever, entertaining, and interesting (and also sometimes banal) Web video has taken some of the shine off Super Bowl ad day.  Even if the best Super Bowl ads of all time were on last night, do they eclipse what we see online on a daily basis?

In spite of Seth Godin's very convincing explanation for why Super Bowl ads matter to us culturally, there's a daily Super Bowl on the Internet in which media and marketers are always in competition for my attention.  Super Bowl ads may be "about creating a short little movie that spreads," but the Super Bowl is no longer the sole domain for those short little spreading movies.

And I have to think it's no coincidence that the "citizen created" Doritos ad is liked so much.  It's borne of a new rich genre of short little movies that spread.

The Super Bowl analysis piece that seems to have grabbed everyone's attention is this one in the Times about the violence in the ads being a reflection of our wartime angst.  I can't argue with the idea that violence was a way to cheap laughs, but I'm pretty sure that egg came long before the Iraq war chicken. 

Also worth a click are these reviews from people in the ad industry.

Speaking of mainstream links and pandering to the lowest common denominator (and drawing broad conclusions from a small amount of info), does the use by General Petraeus of warrior-intellectuals signal an end to American anti-intellectualism?  Will assessment of the next wave of political candidates draw more on their intellectual competence than their barstool filling character?

That article makes reference to a site called Small Wars Journal.  If you're interested, they do a daily link round up as well as a blog.

As an interesting follow-up to Friday's item about bloggers moving to professional positions comes the point that they also carry with them all the baggage of their personal blogs.  I'm not sure it rises to the level of scandal (if only because I can't see anyone really caring that much about the personal foibles of a candidate's Web master) but it does add a layer of complexity to the blogosphere-as-farm-team model.  ADDING:  As Chuck points out in comments, for the record this particular instance is not at all a scandal and turns out to be a misunderstanding about technical problems.  Still, my point stands about the added complexity of hiring a blogger.

Through Digby's somewhat exasperated explanation ...

I had always known that Cheney was running the show, but I assumed he did it purely by using the power of the executive branch and manipulation of the president. I had no idea that he might have secretly carved out a previously unenumerated institution that derives its power from both the legislative and executive branches.

... I found this Talking Points Memo item about a new understanding of Dick Cheney's role as Vice President.

Photo of the day, and early entry for lightning porn of the week, which I would have posted here directly but it's a funny shape.

Speaking of photos of the day, Spontaneous Combustion - It's a photo (a smoke photo like we saw last week) of a light bulb with no glass burning out in a split second.

$8 Million Car, Still Worth Less Than a Taurus - I'm not sure why the video places so much emphasis on the $8 million dollars worth of R&D.  That seems rather beside the point when you're showing off a 700hp car that looks like a conservative version of the bat mobile.

Speaking of fancy cars you can't buy, check out these concepts from Peugeot.  (P.S. Did you see the feature on the new generation of three wheelers?)

"Wifi Liberator is an open-source toolkit for a laptop computer that enables its user to "liberate" pay-per-use wireless networks and create a free, open node that anyone can connect to for Internet access."  No PC version so I haven't tried any of this, but I'm certainly intrigued by the idea.

Speaking of things I haven't tried that sound handy, check out this video transcoder.

Hey, check it out, I can't embed YouTube videos in the page now.
[YouTube:6gmP4nk0EOE]

Insh'allah: A Nighttime Raid with the Iraqi Army - We hear so much about "training Iraqi troops" that it's nice to see a report on what that actually means.

It appears that the recent demand by Viacom that YouTube take down its videos has resulted in some innocent bystanders having their videos taken down as well.

Bloggers can make money, but most keep day jobs - A nice primer on "contextual ads" and timely given Yahoo's launch of Panama, their answer to Google's AdSense.

Car sun visor DVD player - The FM transmitter is so you can play the audio on your car stereo.  While the idea of watching TV and driving bothers me, I do appreciate the possibility of putting this luxury feature on a low-budget car.

Minesweeper beat in 38 seconds.  Could this be a real time video?

8 Reasons Why the Masses Love Lists - Irony of the headline aside, these are good reasons.

In case you're struggling for ideas: DIY Valentines.

"The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight compact dwelling for one or two people."

The folding chair - Actually probably better named the accordion chair.  It'd be cool to bring one of these to a parade so the whole family can sit down.  That's assuming it can be stretched that far out and not sag or pinch.  The demo video here is interesting, but I'm not convinced of its durability by watching two tiny Asian women sit on it.

LisaNova - YouTube to MADtv - YouTube springboards another person into a professional show business career.  I wouldn't say the celebrity barrier is being broken yet, but it's surely just a matter of time... or is it?  They real kicker line in this brief entry asks, "The question is: will TV always be the pinnacle of fame?"  Should I be saying that TV served as a springboard for Saturday Night Live's considerable online success and the online celebrity of its actors?

Meanwhile, in the political arena, Amanda at Pandagon is to be the new Blogmaster for the John Edwards campaign.  Suddenly I have an image of the blogosphere as a giant American Idol audition to which we tune in regularly to see some ridiculous, some middling and some excellent performances and watch the more popular performers rise to the top and become professionals.

"ZINK is a breakthrough technology that produces on-demand color images and photos - without ink, ribbons or toner."  The trick is the paper.  It has some kind of color crystals that are activated by the printer.  The site has video of it working.

Speaking of photos, Lightning porn photo of the week.

Blog fight of the week:  The Washington Post's William Arkin, in responding to a report by NBC's Richard Engel about frustration among U.S. troops with the lack of public support for the war, jokes/sneers that the U.S. military is a mercenary force.  Needless to say, that didn't sit well with some bloggers, the most prominent of which is Milblog Black Five.  Back again to Arkin who recoils at the hostility of the reaction to his post.  ... and pong ... and the inevitable concession.

Speaking of Washington Post blogs, Barry's freezing out Fox.  I can't decide if that's a good thing because he's holding them accountable for the whole madrassa mess or if it's a bad thing in principle for a politician to pick and choose the media outlets he'll deal with.

"Penguin claims to be the first major publishing house to use a wiki for writing a novel from scratch. ...  It's not quite from scratch, though: it's being seeded by a team of students; a Penguin editor will write progress reports."

The Guinness Book of World Records cheerily offers you the opportunity to break the record for most people killed in an act of terror.

How cool is it when the band meets you in the atrium of the theater after the show?

AskMen.com's Top 99 women of 2007 - I never heard of half of them.  Many are beauty queens turned pin-up girls, so they're mostly popular with the "lad mag" set.  I tried to get a sense of whether there are any cultural indications to be observed in the list.  It seemed like there were a lot of Hispanic women I guess, but other than that I didn't really have any ah-ha! moments.

Speaking of women on the list, Tyra Banks is on it.  I happened to click her "kiss my big fat ass" rant today.

Most obvious headline ever: AIDE QUITS AS NEWSOM'S AFFAIR WITH HIS WIFE IS REVEALED - You had sex with my wife?  Can I still work for you?

I feel like I've seen these microgardens before, but just in case I've never shared it, check them out.

"A December 2006 survey has found that 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts."  I admit that I predicted tagging would never catch on; one of my bigger clunkers as predictions go.  But even though I use the tagging on Flickr and YouTube, I find it an awkward and sometimes almost arbitrary feature.

"The Volcano is the Ferrari of tobacco and herbal vaporizers. Instead of burning, it atomizes. There's no smoke, and no carcinogens. Just sweet, sweet, vapor that is so efficient that your herbs will be 3-4 times more effective..."  It captures the fumes in a bag.

"You can now learn foreign languages and stay current on politics all at once. How so?  By taking advantage of a smart podcast concept being used by French and German broadcasters."  Basically, you listen to the news in a different language.  I think the technique works better when you already know the news, so you get an idea of what they're talking about.  Otherwise all I hear is, "Badda badda badda Presidente Bush badda badda badda."

The West And The Veil: Think Again - The point of this one is that just because Muslim women cover themselves in public doesn't mean they shun sex or looking sexy in private.

Speaking of hiding behind things, is the United States erecting an Iron Curtain?

The illusion behind the photographer's leap in the Grand Canyon.

No way!  Unlock your car with a tennis ball??  I don't believe it.  I think it would take way more air pressure than you could squeeze out of a tennis ball to move a car door locking mechanism.

Speaking of blowing up cars, Car Bomb will have its single featured on Headbanger's Ball tomorrow.  Go Jon!

Speaking of finding new uses for things, "The Gulf Coast is littered with the carcasses of unused oil equipment. Now those structures are being repurposed to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States."

The underbed lift is a great idea.  Reminiscent of an automatically retracting roof on a convertible car, this slides a huge TV out from under your bed and lifts it into position for viewing.

"Burger King is now reporting that because of the sales of the three games, their company has achieved a 40% increase in profits for the financial quarter, with a total of 3.2 million game sales so far."  This is sure to have an impact on the marketing industry.  Maybe we won't have to watch any more of those creepy Burger King ads on TV if they sink their marketing budget into hooking kids on their video games.

When people testify before Congress and say "I'll get back to you on that" because they don't have the right information handy or something, I always wonder if they actually do get back.  Turns out, not necessarily.

A savant with no obvious mental disability is able to describe his ability from the inside.  Turns out he's got synesthesia.

Burn almost any file to a playable DVD - I haven't tried it yet, but I have downloaded the (free) program and no alarm bells went off on my machine.  Obviously use your own discretion when downloading unfamiliar software to your machine.

10 shopping tricks that stores hate - There's a general theme of not taking the "switch" in "deals" that are basically bait and switch.

Can you imagine going into the hospital to give birth and coming out with no arms or legs?

I saw this one linked to as a "why they hate us" example, but as the caption points out, my understanding is that in many cases American troops cannot afford to sit still for too long.  For that matter we don't know where they're going or coming from.  I give them the benefit of the doubt, particularly because they're not laughing or taunting or anything.  NOTE: One F bomb at the very end.

Oh, and I added one more update, but I swear I'm trying to move on.

*There are now 6 updates to this entry.

The story, in case you missed it, is that some guys hung LED computer-game-looking cartoon figures around Boston as part of a TV show promotion.  Being prone to jumping at shadows and not recognizing any pop culture or subculture more obscure than Ronald McDonald, authorities pushed the panic button, news services broke out the bright red freak-out banners and now everyone's grumpy about it.

The artist's actual site is Zebbler.com but it's pretty much nuked right now so we'll have to accept the YouTube version.  One site that does work is GlitchCrew, mentioned at the start of the video.  You'll recognize Zebbler at the bottom of the list of artists.

Of course no.

UPDATE:  Best press conference ever.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Zebbler's MySpace page

The Interference Inc. site (crashed at the moment).  Does this help or hurt them?  Would you hire them for some guerilla marketing now?  They certainly managed to generate publicity anyway.

The Graffiti Research Lab, though saluted at the end of the video, was not responsible for the stunt.  (They are, however, responsible for this amazing project in Rotterdam.)

Via AdRants I clicked a Boston.com story pointing out that a generation gap is the real culprit:

"The episode exposed a wide generational gulf between government officials who reacted as if the ads might be bombs and 20-somethings raised on hip ads for Snapple, Apple, and Google who instantly recognized the images for what they were: a viral marketing campaign."

(There are some interesting links and comments in the AdRants forum.)

Not only is this about new marketing tricks that are familiar to a younger generation, but I think there's an argument to be made that there is a rising tide of new ideas about public space.  I know I keep harping on this, but seriously, get used to it.

Speaking of gaps, Boing Boing covers some of the confusion about whether Make magazine had any involvement (they didn't).  This week I've been chewing people's ears about the rising problem of sourcing on the Web.  Who is the girl in the bride haircut video?  Who is the guy crashing his car in the YouTube PWNED compilations?  Granted, this is a little different, but there's definitely a new environment for journalists to deal with when it comes to tracing online tracks.

UPDATE 3:  The t-shirts are here.

UPDATE 4: I was thinking about what my reaction would be if I'd seen one of these signs and it occurred to me that I'd probably have photoblogged it and sent it to the Streetsy photo pool.  So I poked around to see if anyone had actually done so and let me just say there are some funny parodies out there.  Anyway, I did find one in a search for "throwies," which you'll recall is what they call these LEDs stuck to magnets.

Speaking of finding stuff on Flickr, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the reason for the mistaken association with Make magazine is that they featured photos from Flickr in the context of how to make "Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED art."  Those photos came from someone who found one under a bridge in  Boston two weeks ago and took it home.

UPDATE 5: Own your own today. Bidding is up to $425.00 as of now. How well do you think this thing will hold its value?  Thanks for the tip Kate!

OK, ONE MORE AND THEN I'LL MOVE ON:

"...Stop using the word "hoax." There was no hoax. Hoax implies they were trying to make their signs look like bombs. They weren't. They made Lite-Brite signs of a cartoon character giving the finger."

Here's Boing Boing coverage making a similar point and somewhat embarrassingly including my cable colleagues.

Here's another one for the list:  Don't say these guys shot themselves in the foot by giving an obnoxious press conference.  How compliant they are with the press or sympathetic to the public has nothing to do with their court case.  The judge isn't going to say, "Well, obviously you didn't intend to terrorize the city, but since you were rude to the media, I'm finding you guilty anyway."

The real question for Boston is how did other cities manage to handle these devices without shutting themselves down for hours?

A home made LED t-shirt