Not Using Tweetscan to Manage Your Brand? You're Not Doing Your Job OMG! You're doing it wrong! It is really amazing to see how much the hype about twitter echoes the blog hype of 2002. Back then this headline would have read, "Not Using Technorati to Manage Your Brand? You're Not Doing Your Job." Like blogs we're seeing exponential rates of growth in Twitter use. And even if the numbers aren't huge yet, they're going to be. And even if they aren't going to be, Twitter users are the kind of people (like bloggers in 2002) that you'd be well advised to listen to. Twitter is the must-have for marketers, the must-have for anyone with friends, the must-have for customer service, the must-have for journalists...

And so, How We Use Twitter for Journalism

And of course, where the people go, so goes the spam and now we're seeing strategies for dealing with Twitter spam. The idea behind the spam TwerpScan is meant to fight is that when someone follows you (subscribes to be notified of your Tweets) you get a note informing you of that fact. If you don't know the person, you'll likely click through to their profile to see who it is. In that way they trap you into viewing their ad or whatever. (This definitely happens on Flickr where I've had people with streams full of nakedness add me as a contact and later remove me (but not before I'd clicked through to their porn spam profile.) Plus, they are listed as a follower on your account, which gives them a tiny bit of real estate on your profile. And of course, if you make the mistake of following them back, you've opened yourself up to direct spam messages.

So TwerpScan looks at your followers and makes a ratio of the number of people they're following and the number of people following them. If they're following many more people than are following them, the possible implication is that they're playing games and you might want to block them.

Also rooted in this kind of following/follower Twitter math to root out spammers is The Twitter Blacklist. According to the explainer, this one can also figure out when a spammer is trying to balance out the ratio by using fake profiles as pretend friends.

And then there are people who aren't spammers but for whatever reason you just don't want to hear from them for a while. TwitterSnooze lets you turn off a friend for a number of days and then automatically turn them back on. This past weekend I was reading Twitter a lot for the conference and I was thinking that temporary following would be a handy tool. This is more like temporary un-follow but still I can see where it would be useful.

Staying with Twitter but leaving behind the utility, Twistori scrapes Twitter for a few phrases and scrolls them up your screen for not much purpose other than to be kind of interesting.

"Inexhaustible energy: The red squares show the necessary surface at mirror power stations on, in order to supply the world (left), Europe (center) and/or Germany (right) completely with river." -- Somewhat imperfect but you get the idea translation from Babel Fish. (And I don't meant get too literal about a simple diagram, but how 'bout if we put the world's source of energy in a nice stable country this time?)

The Uno motorcycle has two front wheels and... that's it. I've seen prototypes of Segway-like one-wheeled motorcycles but this is pretty crazy. I keep looking for the April 1 dateline but I don't see one.

"In the late '90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy."

The 100 top Web apps for 2008 - Categorized nicely. A good way to see alternatives to the apps you use regularly.

Here's a cool Google trick I didn't know. When you add a bit of code to the end of the URL of a search result it gives you a time range pulldown menu to narrow your results. The one option I'd want to add is the ability to eliminate short term results.

Worldometers - World statistics updated in real time.

There's no avoiding all the GTA IV hype today so I won't pile on, but I did click this demo of the animation technology the game uses and it's pretty amazing how well it understands human physics.

MySpace Karaoke - That's all I have to say about that.

I'm having trouble getting through to the actual NeoCube site but the video looks pretty cool. How soon before someone has a hard time explaining it to airport security?

Simple brain exercise can boost IQ - This would be a great idea as a video podcast. All you need is video, audio, and a button. Perfect for the train.

Commuter Click: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - I think he's talking about how new technology enables (or requires) you to reshape your life.

I'm looking forward to The Smoking Gun getting hold of the mug shot of suspect number 3 because I'm having a hard time fathoming his condition.

Y'know what bugs me about this Miley Cyrus story? Not that we see the bare shoulder blade of a 15-year-old girl, but that I saw it online first. I recently ordered a subscription to the magazine exactly because of stories like this. It seemed like the magazine kept making news or having some of its articles grow some good legs online. So I subscribed, thinking I'd get a jump on some of these stories. Instead I see all the interesting content online for free and when the dead tree arrives I reminisce with a flip-through and off it goes to the recycle bin. Obviously I won't be renewing my subscription. We hear so much hype about the Web killing the magazine industry but there's a case to be made that the magazine industry is killing itself with the Web.

Not only are there awesome new movie posters for the new Batman out there but there's also a new site feature that looks like some kind of game puzzle. (How the heck do you start it?)

Also of Batman, someone did some creative editing to put scenes from the first Batman movie with scenes from the coming movie. There's no real conclusion to draw that I can see, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Speaking of games, here's one with some social relevance. I had a little trouble getting it to load (eventually it worked in IE) but when it does, it shows a series of photos of scenes with people and you have to decide very quickly whether a person has a gun or not and whether to shoot or holster your weapon. The game is more about the decision than the shooting which makes it an interesting tangent to the Sean Bell shooting verdict. (Yes, that case is not really about whether or not a gun was seen, but it did involve making the quick decision to shoot.)

And on games, here's a new Ralph's Recommendations:

Here's a fun (but gory) new game you can link to.
 

13 Days in Hell: Ghoul Shooting Gallery
Hell's not a fun place for the living. Lots of lost souls trying to flay your skin off. Fortunately, there's a handy gun shop where you can buy the tools to protect yourself.
 
As with most games like this, accuracy is more important than overall brute force. On the other hand, sometimes it's fun to pull out the machine gun and start mowing down the monsters. Just be sure to keep an eye on your ammo levels.
 
Hope you enjoy it!
-Ralph

Will adds: Stone simple controls, point 'n click.

I attended ROFLCon over the weekend, a two-day conference devoted to Web memes and the phenomenon of viral popularity. What follows are some of my observations of the event. This isn't a typical Clicked linkblog post but it does apply to a lot of the themes and sites we explore here. I'll have a regular Clicked up later, including the re-launch of Ralph's Recommendations of free Web video games.

The nature of "famous on the Internet"

David Weinberger gave they keynote address and hosted a panel with such viral luminaries as the Chuck Norris Facts guy and the One Red Paperclip guy. The panel itself would prove to be a template for some of the less impressive aspects of the conference. The people behind these highly successful memes often were as clueless about how it happened as the people trying to harness the power of viral distribution for commercial and marketing purposes. The almost universal formula was "I was bored and just put up this thing to amuse myself and suddenly..."

But one point in Weinberger's keynote did stick with me and I'm still turning it over in my head. He made a distinction between broadcast fame and network (p2p) fame. Broadcast fame is the traditional sort - "one to many" in the lingo of tech conference enthusiasts - with powerful single source feeding its content into the consciousness of its audience. Network fame, then, is the Internet kind that relies on word of mouth and social recommendations instead of a ready-and-waiting audience.

What's bothering me about that construction is that I ordered HBO because everyone in the office was talking about a hot new shot called The Sopranos. And in fact, while I do flip channels and find favorite shows by chance, I think most of the traditional media I consume comes to me by way of some kind of social suggestion, not because I'm simply leaving the TV on waiting for whatever new show or star it puts in front of me. Isn't that "buzz" that surrounds successful shows the same as "network fame?"

And on the other side of the equation, most of the people behind really successful Web memes had some part of their story involve a really big traffic driving site. "And then we were Slashdotted..." "And then we got on Boing Boing..." So was it really a network that created the fame, or was it closer to the broadcast model?

The Web meme is not as new as you think

I don't recall if I've linked to much content on TextFiles.com. I remember looking at it briefly and thinking it was sort of a nostalgia site with a lot of old Web content. In fact it would be better described as an archive or a library, and its host, Jason Scott gave the most unexpectedly fascinating presentation at ROFLCon. He took us all the way back to newspaper headline styles of the 1800s, through the telegraph and Hamm radio and into the early Internet, with the overarching point that memes and in-jokes and other pass-along content is as old as the technology that makes it possible. It was valuable perspective at the outset of a conference celebrating a new wave of memes as though the idea of stupid things becoming wildly popular without the aid of mainstream media is something invented in the last few years (the conference site's tag line is "in the making since '94). It also helped validate the general editorial decision I've made with Clicked about not getting too worked up about every little running gag that comes down the (intar)pipe(s). Then again, Scott was emphatic in pointing out significant figures in the history of communications culture who are nearly literally (but for Scott) forgotten to history.

Scott called it a "natural human thing" to want to share cool stuff and make art. I'm not sure it's a universally natural human thing but certainly some humans seem to do it as part of their nature. I made a note of his recommendation of The Victorian Internet for more on the deep history of people playing with communication technology.

The past is the future

Scott was asked about what he expects for the future of the Internet given its history. More stuff in other languages was one answer that seems undeniable. He also predicted more rediscovery of old things. That brought to mind the "A year ago today" box on http://blogdex.net/">the old Blogdex aggregator and Jason Kottke's Gems from the archive of the New York Times. But in a later panel discussion someone mentioned the story of a Digg user innocently recommending Fark without realizing Fark's significance - particularly to sites like Digg, and that's probably closer to Scott's point.

Other meme-making panelists made mention of the fact that even once the joke is old there's always someone new on the Internet who hasn't heard it yet. Matt Chapman, co-creator and the voice(s) behind Homestar Runner mused that the Internet makes things become retro cool faster. He suggested the new retro irony cycle is about four years.

In a related remark, the 4Chan founder pointed out that often part of the problem of starting a meme is that by the time it's popular the community where it originated thinks it's an old joke and they're sick of hearing it.

Distributed networking and shattering the monoculture

Jason Scott was also critical of what he called "the monoculture." It's not hard to imagine a future in which the Internet has spawned lots of small communities that elevate their own celebrities and customs. A related theme cropped up a few times through the conference, a theme that could only come up at a gathering of geeks with a sense of history: criticism of the monster sites that are the current gods of Web culture. Scott was bitter about Wikipedia, pointing to the success of Usenet as proof that one site doesn't have to posses everything. At other panels a similar criticism came up about YouTube acting as the video sharing default. And MySpace killing the personal homepage. The interconnectivity of the Internet, its most defining characteristic, means that everything doesn't have to live in the same place. I found myself wondering if computer education will eventually catch up and create a situation in which people prefer to construct their own Web presence.
 
Lessons on fame's lightning strike

I don't have a lot of notes to relay from the panel of Tron Guy Jay Maynard and Matt Harding but it provided some of the best perspective on Internet fame I've ever heard. Harding used the sausage factory metaphor for mainstream television media in a way I hadn't heard before but with an undeniable accuracy. Usually we think of the media sausage factory as the ugly production side that creates the usually clean, professional product that appears on the screen. But Harding's twist pointed out that the other problem with a sausage factory is that everything comes out sausage. No matter who you are or what you have to contribute, the professionals in legacy media are trained to know their product and how to produce it and they'll turn you into a sausage no matter what. He mentioned this as an explanation of why he preferred to represent himself and not submit himself to mainstream machinations in spite of his popularity.

Other advice from Harding that stayed with me: When you do an interview, know what you have to say (in Harding's terms, "know what's in your bag") and keep that in mind. If anyone's keeping track of our list of lessons for dealing with instant fame so far:

• Have enough product. (Don't get caught showing your gizmo as a guest on the Today show if you don't have lots of gizmos ready for sale in the ensuing demand.)
• Know what's in your bag (and bring it).
• Beware of sausage casing!
• And one I learned the other day from a colleague with an interest in documentary filmmaking, make sure you have a "next project" lined up in at least enough detail that you can talk about it when you're inevitably asked "So what's next now that you're so famous?" (Every panelist was asked this question either about their particular meme or about their area of Web specialty.)

We are nerd

Jay Maynard, meanwhile, was the living embodiment of just about everyone at the conference. In short, he's a nerd who has come to embrace his nerdiness in the face of horrible ridicule. Whether he realized it or not he was a constant piece of performance art, mixing with the crowd at the conference and even attending social gatherings outside the conference, his suit a representation of social awkwardness, personal uniqueness, nonconformity, self consciousness and frankly the cruelty of cultural standards. He was the bee girl. At ROFLCon he was us.

(I'll add that this was in contrast to Leslie Hall who also represented nerd empowerment to some degree but only, from what I could see, in acting as a character.)

Where Maynard's example was perhaps most informative was in answering the question of whether (and when) Web memes can transcend online audiences and speak to the mainstream. Writing Clicked on msnbc.com, with its mainstream pedigree and billion plus page views a month, I often struggle with the audience question. Sometimes my mainstream masters want to know how to make the Web work for them. Sometimes I want to know how to make the mainstream work for Clicked.

Both Maynard and Harding have received quite a bit of mainstream attention, Harding on the Today show, among other places, and Maynard on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and I asked them if they noticed a difference in the reception by nerd audiences versus mainstream audiences. Maynard's answer would prove to be one of the most powerful of the conference. He explained that the running joke for his appearances on Kimmel was, "Get laid yet?" which always brought uproarious laughter from the show's audience "but you'll notice no one here is laughing." Sure enough, the hall was dead quiet. Someone quickly lightening the moment with a joke shouted from the back, "That's because none of us are getting laid either!" And I don't mean to imply that nerds don't take humor at others' expense, but there's clearly some aspect of the nerd/geek perspective that makes it distinct from the general population.

Book smart vs. Web smart

Speaking of contrasts, day two of the conference opened with a speaker from academia whose presentation was remarkably parallel to what we'd learned anecdotally from Matt Harding and Jay Maynard the day before - except that she did it with big words and heady taxonomies. Just to be clear, I'm not one to bash academics, but this conference gave such direct access to people so entrenched in Web culture that as insightful as her presentation was, it was hard not to mentally ask, yeah, but when was the last time you were the subject of a Fark Photoshop contest?

Marwick, the day two keynote speaker, also raised, or re-raised, an issue of political correctness that popped up repeatedly throughout the conference. In essence, why were so many of the panelists white males and what were the white males doing to help non-white males achieve panel-worthy status. I'm not looking to pick the fight yet again, but since I'm already talking about social estrangement and bee girls, when the subject is social and cultural there's another oppressed minority that doesn't benefit from the activism of liberal bleeding hearts: smart kids.

A question of style

One interesting phrase that stuck with me from Marwick's presentation was that she described Internet microcelebrity as a style of performance. In a way, this recalls Weinberger's "network fame" (it's a style of fame) but what I like about it is that usually we talk about the rules of the Internet or what behaviors are typical. We see top ten lists and how-to checklists on how to succeed online. But to call it a style speaks more to the philosophy than the dogma.

Perhaps the exception that proves the rule, Randall Munroe, creator of the wildly popular xkcd cartoon confessed that while he's active in online social sites, he avoids feedback threads on his work for the sake of his mental health. I can only imagine how appearing in front of a giant MIT lecture hall packed with adulating fans affected his mental health.

Wow, the video game on the Audi Ironman site is actually pretty fun and challenging. Better than the Nokia one the other day. Given those two plus another that comes to mind (ahem) it seems safe to say that no online ad campaign is complete without a video game component to help it go viral. (I was less impressed with the actual car part of the site. Though visually cool, I'm more impressed by the product placement on Dirt than on Ironman.) [And yes, I realize I'm the only person who watches Dirt.]

Speaking of efforts at viral advertising and watching commercials on purpose, it's also apparently the season for banned ads. I was thinking today as I clicked to a couple that while it's always been the case that banning an ad has brought it more attention from the media (on a slow news day at least), with the Internet a banned ad isn't banned at all and a ban assures a certain amount of viral distribution just for the "do you think this ad goes too far?" factor. To wit: Does this ad go too far? (Note the lack of a NOTE: indicates my opinion.)

Apparently Abercrombie & Fitch have already gone to far in the U.S., so far that they don't bother producing a catalog here in the U.S. anymore (instead they stand behind presidential candidates during nationally televised speeches) but they're still doing it in the UK and waddaya know, it's drawing interest from some Americans anyway - or at least the naked guy photos are. NOTE: This link has censored versions of the images which you then have to click the see the uncensored versions which are frankly nearly SFW anyway. Still, it's a naked guy so...

Speaking of trying to harness the viral, TechCrunch's description of the new Blowtorch initiative
is easier to understand than the actual site. The idea is to bring some
order (and hopefully some viral energy) to user generated Web videos by
issuing challenges or themes.

Also in the "viral" vein, Twist lets you track trends in Twitter. Enter the terms and see the frequency of use of those terms graphed comparatively over time.

Lastly on the viral topic, I'm going to be at ROFLCon this Friday and Saturday. Let me know if you're there as well.

Google Me the movie - A guy Googles his name and finds a bunch of guys who share his name so he films a documentary of himself going to meet them all. He asks them all the same 30 questions.
 
Have you heard about the Dutch traffic experiment in which they removed the road signs and somehow traffic ended up running more smoothly and with fewer accidents? Apparently not everyone is feeling moved by that spirit. How'd you like a traffic signal that throws a holographic wall in front of your car? I vote no thanks.

"PETA is now stepping in and offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat." This is kind of like the challenge to find a way to produce stem cells without having to fertilize an egg (or take whatever step is defined as creating human life). In this case they want to find a way to "make" meat without having to cut it off an animal. I want to say this sounds gross, but really, given what I eat I have no grounds to say anything.
(Slate says the whole thing is a publicity stunt because part of the requirement is that the product has to be brought to market, which kind of defeats the utility of the million bucks.)

Nuclear explosions since 1945 - Interesting to see the one North Korea did in 2006. I remember some pundits deriding it s a dud.

That college student who got in a fight with John Ashcroft over whether U.S. waterboarding is comparable to Japanese waterboarding in WWII. I'm not sure how widely this made news but I caught it on Olbermann last night.

The "leave me alone" box - (When you turn it on it turns itself off.)

The most interesting part of this explanation of how to identify a Persian prostitute is this weird marriage option:

"But there's a loophole in Islamic law called sigheh, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date. There's no legally required minimum duration (a day, a week, anything goes) and no need for official witnesses..." 

'Til 3:45 p.m. do us part.

"Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft." Somewhere there's an African Seinfeld episode waiting to be written.

Type racer is definitely the best typing game yet. The speed of your typing is reflected in a little car that moves along a dotted line. You play against other visitors to the site to see who can type the same piece of text the fastest. It's like those carnival games where you roll the balls into the holes to make your horse move faster. I lost the first one miserably but won the second game. I haven't tried to play it as a registered user yet so I'm not sure if gameplay changes once you're signed in.

I'm not sure what this video is about but it's pretty amazing to see a railroad tanker implode in an instant. The explanation: "Hot gas/air in a sealed container and you let it cool. The air pressure difference inside is so great that the structure is compromised."

The idea behind the inchworm shoe is sound. Stretch the shoe as your kid's feet grow. I'm skeptical about two points. First, I don't believe it doesn't get all floppy after a few months of use. Second, so far my kid needs new shoes because he wears out the bottoms as fast as he outgrows them, so this would need a retread feature to appeal to me as a consumer.

Pictures of Dell's Eco Bamboo Computer - You know I'm a sucker for the natural cased technology.

NOTE: Lot of cursing in the following links, even from the kid. Engage headphones.

In what appears to have begun as a YouTube video that was taken down and is now hosted on a hip hop site and a variety of other places, a kid rambles for nearly ten minutes about his intention to kill the president and maybe himself too. UPDATE: the video has been taken down. No one seems to want to host this hot potato. UPDATE: Found it in pieces on UK YouTube. I wonder if the UK site doesn't answer to the same laws or maybe they just haven't caught up to it yet.

It's hard to get too worked up about a kid being an idiot on a Web cam and I definitely don't look forward to the possibility of having to watch this played in loops on TV but it's hard to ignore the issues it raises, from matters of race (the kid is black) to the role of spree killers in American culture.

What else makes it noteworthy is the degree to which is has a certain political segment worked up. A quick look at Blogrunner shows the story has made the rounds of some very prominent right wing blogs and online commentary. And yet it doesn't appear to have cracked the mainstream media. If nothing else it's a classic example of how different political cultures arrive at such different perspectives. They're responding to different news.

It was nearly one of those heartwarming stories of the cooperation of an online community bring two people together. This fellow used photos of himself holding signs to ask a girl to prom and asked Digg to raise the profile of his offer so she'd see it. Thousands supported his cause, elevating it to the front page of the popular social site. But no answer was forthcoming. A clue on the suspected profile of the girl in question has led some to suspect that she had already turned him down once. The same fellow was later beseeching the community to take back what had been done, apparently at the request of the object of his affection (whose name, address, Facebook and more were eventually revealed in the thread of hundreds of comments).

Tech nerds may be impressed by the power and enthusiasm of instant viral digital mobs - especially ones as skilled and savvy as the Digg community - but teenage potential prom dates, perhaps not so much. The lesson for our well-meaning Romeo: with great power comes great responsibility.

Speaking of the power of the lovin', I'm still trying to make sense of this page on which a woman named Tania Derveaux offers to have sex with every virgin (male, I guess) who defends the Internet by tangibly supporting net neutrality. Apparently she was also involved in some kind of political ad in which she offered oral sex to tens of thousands in exchange for their vote. The joke was a play on the more traditional political promise of "jobs." Given that, I'm wondering if the joke with the virginity offer has to do with how screwed the average Web user is if net neutrality is outlawed.  NOTE: No nudity but she's naked from the waist up holding a relatively small sign, covering her dangerous bits with her arm.

Speaking of nerd love, Nerd rings. Pretty impractical. I like the idea of rings that fit Wonder Twins style though. I'll have to think if there's a more subtle connector.

A smart man compares the local TV weather forecasts with the actual weather conditions as recorded by his school-age daughter. Care to guess the result? The most laughable part is that no forecaster in the study was better (or much better) than simply assuming it won't rain, no matter what. Maybe this is all an unfair challenge but I've always thought the weather report should include a look back at whether the previous forecasting had actually been accurate. Instead of bragging about the size of one's Doppler, how about bragging about the accuracy of one's record. Why does no newscast advertise itself as "the most accurate weather reporting in the area"? (One point I have to concede is that when a station has a wide broadcast radius they can sometimes be dealing with a wide range of weather conditions depending on where their viewers live. It's definitely the case that I get different weather in Brooklyn than the folks in northern New Jersey even though we're both served by the local WNBC station's weather so who are they talking to when they say it's going to rain tomorrow?)

New Nokia ad uses a familiar video technique to cool effect. In the middle is a Breakout video game.

Surgeons give hope to blind with successful 'bionic eye' operations - No Geordi stuff yet but still cool that it's real.

Uncartooning Jessica Rabbit - I don't know if anyone even knows who Jessica Rabbit is anymore but the point is that photographic human textures were added to a cartoon to give it a weird real-but-obviously-not quality. Don't miss the Homer rendering. There's also a video showing in time lapse how it was done, basically using elements of Angelina Jolie and other actresses.

Speaking of photo manipulation, The Impossible Art of Li Wei. That's a bit of a link jack but the actual artist site is hard to navigate.

It would definitely never occur to me that a sports car might perform better with six wheels.

Download the new Gnarls Barkley for free... um... and backward. (But if you bothered to download that Audacity program I mentioned I've been using to produce the Voices in my Head series, it has a "reverse" effect that basically puts it forward again.)

Speaking of free albums, the new Portishead can be heard as a free stream on Last FM. NOTE: Autoplay. Volume check first.

Speaking of free stuff online, I put in today for free access
to the online version of the encyclopedia Britannica. They have a
strange program whereby they're giving free access to "Web publishers"
which includes bloggers. They also have a way to allow these Web
publishers to offer links to Britannica content to non-Web-publishers
that allow specific access to the linked content but not the general
access Web publishers will have. That'll be an interesting trick.

A lot of folks were entertained by the idea of a mini computer in a hamster ball as a pet.

What's more, the idea that it could use that Web cam as an eye is pretty close to true. Check out this video of a mobile visual search engine on the Apple iPhone. (The actual site for the product is here.) It's funny to think we were just talking about QR codes and putting these odd bar codes on everything that could then be translated by special software on your cell phone. But why bother when you phone can be programmed to recognize actual real images?

Speaking of search engines, green search engine Ecocho: "For every 1000 searches that users make on ecocho.com, up to two trees will be grown to offset carbon pollution emissions." It's getting hit pretty hard but I found that if I got a "too many connections" error I could hit refresh and get through on the second try. Also comes in less-energy using black version. (Is this how that rice site worked?)

Speaking of rice, this article about food rationing coming to America feels like the one we saw recently about tent cities forming because of people losing their houses. Is this total crap or do I just not realize what's going on because I don't buy rice by the sack?

I'm gonna git you Spamma

Cool map of where news breaks - As the blogger anticipates, my first reaction was that this is really then just a map of population because people = news. "But even allowing for population, some locations account for a disproportionately high number of news items."

My Commuter Click today was The Reality of Depending on True Fans. I really liked the idea of the 1,000 True Fan theory that says that in order to make a living in your niche you need to be a microcelebrity to a thousand True Fans. I especially like that it addresses the broader problem of trying to put online numbers in context. How many is a lot online? How many hate mails means you're hated? How many page views means you're popular? How much is "viral"? The personal immediacy of online communication makes it difficult to be objective about the size of a crowd. Have you ever been in a chat room with 3000 people? It's mayhem. Have you ever tried to put a positive spin on a memo to an NBC executive about a live online event  that only drew 3000 people when even bad TV ratings are measured in millions? The True Fan idea, though not specifically about Web traffic, at least begins to offer some meaning to the numbers. Anyway, the Commuter Click is a follow-up in which a guy who actually has a thousand True Fans talks about what their worth is in his particular niche (ambient music). Turns out you probably need a few more than a thousand True Fans to make a living.

I was so certain this was a leftover April Fool's joke that I didn't believe it until I went to CNN.com and clicked for myself. See the links in the "Latest News" area on their front page, and some have an icon after them that sort of looks like a little t-shirt? Well it is a t-shirt. That button allows you to order that headline on a shirt. Actually, I still don't believe it even after seeing their shirt page.

What made me even more suspicious of this feature is the amount of mockery already being made of CNN headlines on Gawker and a couple of designated blogs - most recently with illustrations.

The ease with which custom headlines* can be made to appear on the shirts (by manipulating the URL) calls to mind the "make your own SUV ad" campaign Chevy did a while ago that drew environmental activists to use the site's own resources as a protest platform. It's just a matter of time before pundit blogs everywhere have fake CNN headline shirt graphics bashing the network and/or candidates. A win for CNN after all? Better take your screen grabs now before someone thinks better of this whole operation.

*(The answer here if you missed that story.)

For this interview I was fortunate to get access to Marci Hamilton, a law professor and author who specializes in the legal line between religious freedom and the criminal acts. I was anxious to hear her thoughts because the story in the news right now about the raid on the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound in Texas raises so many social and cultural objections that the actual legal strategy of prosecutors gets lost in the din of moral outrage.

The short answer: You can believe what you want, but any actions you take on those beliefs have to be within the law. Law comes before religion regardless of Constitutional guarantees.

Also interesting is the question of whether to treat each child abuse case individually or whether the law is allowed to prove a pattern that covers all of the children taken in the raid.

The mp3 link is here and the formal page with the video is here.

Lessons this time: The video is buggy, so I recommend downloading the mp3. We're working on figuring out why it has those odd little skips in it.

I have to be careful when I book really timely subjects like this because it makes my production time more urgent (and stressful). I actually had a new video idea where I mixed in general video of the compound and the women while the audio played but I didn't have time to wrestle with the fine points so I went with the standard book cover loop.

This time I didn't record an intro like I usually do. Just two brief introductory slides. The explanation is in the text. I did this because the intro always felt like a boring formality. Better to get to the meat and provide the details another way.

Unavoidable: The miserable head cold I've been struggling with that makes it sound like I'm talking with a clothes pin on my nose.

From the mailbag:

Some people are pretty ticked off about that debate, huh?
Thought you'd like this, just featured on YouTube, 50 seconds of funny.
-Denise

Wow, you said that right Denise. I actually bothered to round up some links about it before I realized they were everywhere and all over the TV too. Just a few links of note: The item on ABCNews.com has cleared 20,000 comments, which probably makes them the biggest hub for reaction to the debate.

I also thought the moderators did a poor job so I was looking for a contrasting perspective. David Brooks at the NYTimes gave them high marks, though his readers are mostly critical. One comment in the vast scroll of reaction there made me pause. Would a debate full of substantial questions have been a lot of boring "plan" recitation? Is there a way to talk about real issues that isn't too wonky but also doesn't become a caricature?

I didn't watch all the way through the end so I missed the audience booing.

Attytood did an interesting tracing of where the Nash McCabe lapel pin question came from.
George Stephanopoulos did respond to the criticism in interviews with both Talking Points Memo and The Politico.

The one I liked was the Crooks & Liars resurrection of my favorite non-partisan meme, stop hurting America. I don't think many people in the media really understand what Jon Stewart was talking about on Crossfire but it's the one political slogan that has the most resonance for me as an American. I like America and I like liking America. And as an American I like liking Americans. My biggest political pet peeve is people who make it their business to encourage Americans to hate each other. Maybe I'm naive but I think we're more alike than our media (including the Web) leads us to believe.

Speaking of stop hurting America, the story of the Yale art student is a hoax. No doubt it will live on in the rhetoric of people who like to encourage Americans to hate each other but in fact the girl didn't get pregnant just to have miscarriages as an art project.

Speaking to the question I asked above about talking about issues, here's the unexpected linger link of the day: Rachel Lucas did her taxes and came up with a number she's not happy with. As is the prerogative of a blogger, she vented a bit online (Note: F bombs). Obviously her rant wouldn't be appropriate as a debate question exactly but she does a good job picking a scab that her commenters are able to work through and weigh in on. (I realize this seems like a violation of my Americans-hating-Americans rule but my bias is the -admittedly possibly naive- expectation that the dialogue ends up reducing the hate through greater understanding.)

"A dog whistle to the kids" - Obama makes a subtle rap reference in a speech about dirty campaign distractions. Especially interesting to call it a dog whistle because I've mostly only heard that "dog whistle" expression used to describe coded racism from politicians. I think I first heard it in connection to Trent Lott's remarks about Strom Thurmond's presidential candidacy - that making nice remarks about a segregationist campaign was a "secret message" to racists. SECOND THOUGHT: I just remembered when else I've heard the dog whistle expression. It was when people recognized Biblical references as being a coded message to pious Christian Americans who recognized them.

We Need a Science White House - Can you imagine the crazy Twilight Zone parallel universe in which the U.S. government and its citizens prioritized science somewhere higher than "would like to have a beer with him/her" as a criterion for electing a president?

The "two's a trend" of the day: silent dancing. Apparently some libertarians had a silent dance celebrations to honor Thomas Jefferson's birthday the other day and it didn't go very well. Meanwhile, there's a silent rave scheduled for New York City later today. In case you're not familiar, what we're talking about here is people showing up with music on their iPods and dancing to the beat of their own audio. Actually, I can bolster my "it's a trend" argument with a third example the Improv Everywhere folks whose work we admire so much have long incorporated mp3 synching to give simultaneous (and silent) instructions to large groups of people. That seals it, it's a thing.

The latest South Park is about the Internet disappearing overnight. Watch it online for free. LATER: Oops, NOTE: I was blogging while watching and made this note before reaching a pretty objectionable scene. Contains one extremely adult theme that makes this not safe for work or kids. Yes, I know I just said that about a cartoon.

Sony has another cool reality-transforming commercial in this Foam City clip.

Amazing, though somewhat uneventful, security cam video of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. (Goes with this article.)

The World's Hardest Game is genuinely wicked hard. I made it through the first level just to establish some sense of dignity but gave up after that.

YoungMe/NowMe - The latest game from Color Wars. Participants take a picture of themselves as a kid and then try to re-take the picture as an adult. The sibling shots are the best.

The Korowai "Tree People" of West Papua, Indonesia

Tests show BMW's hydrogen car cleans the air - I've read this about other, less fancy, commercial low emission vehicles - that when you drive somewhere really smoggy like L.A. on a bad day, the car's emissions are actually higher quality than the air going into the intake. That might just be urban legend, I've not researched it very deeply. ADDING: Ok, I just did a little and I think it was the natural gas Honda Civic GX that I read that about.

Speaking of not researching urban legends, Mystery creature of the day! Don't think too hard, just go with it. It's a dragon or a surviving dinosaur. The world is more fun that way. NOTE: When I loaded the page today a Best Western ad started playing audio automatically. I don't know what's up with that but be aware, mute button alert.
     
How to make a Sawed-off USB Key - Wicked cheap, pretty easy, quite amazing to see just how small the guts of a flash drive can be, and generally cool.

'Cancer cured' headline of the day: "If all of a tumour's stem cells could be killed then it would torpedo the old wisdom that no patient is ever cured of cancer, but merely goes into remission. True cures for cancer would be possible."

'Cancer cured' headline of the other day: "The Kanzius Machine: A Cancer Cure?" (We haven't had a CCHotD item in a while so for new readers, I highlight these for two reasons. One is that I think it's cruel the way the media recklessly declares -on a surprisingly regular basis- some new breakthrough that will cure cancer (or not). The second reason is that while there's nothing funny about cancer, the frequency of these stories [with their careful use of "could result in" and "if trials are successful" and "researchers hope that"] approaches satire.)

Treehugger rounds up vertical farm ideas.

U.C. Berkeley student's Twitter messages alerted world to his arrest in Egypt - This is a cool story even though I think it's a little weird that they put him in jail with his cell phone. Couldn't he have just called someone?

The ultimate irony about the UK surveillance system is that actual citizens taking pictures is seen as a threatening act.

Light-emitting wallpaper set to wow - I like the idea of this but there's something about electrifying the walls in a room that seem unhealthy - like if you sat on a metal tray you'd get cooked like a Hot Pocket. Then again, I'm writing this from an office building so stuffed with wired it could probably function as a giant electromagnet, so who am I to judge?

You have to give the UK's Daily Mail credit for knowing exactly what's going through your mind when you see the headline and answering your response before you realize you've made it. Today's example: "Vladimir Putin rumoured to be leaving wife to marry rhythmic gymnast half his age." And yes, the answer to whatever you just through will be revealed in the scroll of the page.

Banksy put up a massive piece criticizing security surveillance, directly under some surveillance cameras. This refreshes my suspicion that having security cameras everywhere is mostly useless. I'm sure there are counter examples of CCTV helping catch and prosecute criminals but it seems like most of the time the camera images are either too poor to be any good or they aren't useful after all. I don't mean to suggest that we therefore need more and better cameras, but like so many other security measures, it does seem like there's a disconnect between what they're for and what they do.

Speaking of cameras not doing what they're supposed to, I've heard that red light cameras actually end up causing more accidents even as they reduce the kind of major fatal accidents that come from running red lights, but it was never clear to me why that is. The best I could figure was that people would overcompensate and stop at yellow lights out of fear of being photographed and the car behind them would not expect the stop. But this report on a possible gaming of the system by shortening the timing of yellow lights is an even better explanation. Are drivers who expect a longer yellow than they're getting causing a spike in the accident stat when they jam on the brakes at the early red?

Speaking of video cameras testifying, if they hadn't already made Sliver I'd say this was a possible premise for a movie: "They didn't find evidence of rape. But they did find videotapes of hundreds of sexual encounters with men that Barclay had filmed on high-tech surveillance cameras. The cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, among other places. There was also one at his business office." (The twist in the story is that the guy used his secret sex tapes to prove he didn't commit rape.)

First High Definition Moon Map Released, Uranium Sites Located

Our 12 Favorite Green Technologies - Look! They list my power-generating revolving door idea! (I blogged it = "my idea")

Speaking of saving the world, Colbert and Kamen Solve the World's Water Problems - I missed this when it was on the air. Pretty remarkable. The discussion at Gizmodo is good reading but I didn't see an answer to what happens with the impurities that are removed from the water. The actual amount of resources it would take to get a program off the ground also seems problematic. Power for it, fuel for the power, instruction, maintenance...

Pongout is Pong and Breakout in the same playing screen. Stupidly hard.

Twit Links comes pretty close to being a service I've been looking for since Twitter was released. How can you find out what the most popularly traded links on Twitter are? Tweitgeist shows the most used words every hour, which is pretty cool. I often follow that with TweetScan to see if there's any telling why some words are more popular. But Twit Links is the only service I know of that shows the links being shared. The drawback to Twit Links is that they aren't drawing from the whole Twitter pool. They're only taking results from a pre-selected list of tech bloggers.

The Sony World Photography Awards - The awards are this weekend but the finalists in both the pro and amateur categories are selected and available for viewing.

Benedictions is blogging the Pope's visit to the U.S. Actually, it's always blogging the Pope.

Yankee pitcher Phil Hughes has a blog. No post yet on the recent loss to the Red Sox.

As long as I'm listing cool sites generally, Polldaddy lets you make polls in Twitter.

Mug Shot du Jour seems like it's an authentic portrayal of something, I'm just not sure what.
America's hard-luck class?

Photocrank is a photo comments application that takes caption contests to a new level by allowing the addition of talk/thought bubbles. When it's embedded in a blog the comments run like a slide show.

Mickey Kaus has the best explanation I've read of what's wrong with what Obama said in that bitter/clinging quote.

Rocketboom Founder Puts His Twitter Account On Sale - This is mostly a theoretical exercise since most people expect that either it's a hoax or Twitter will pull the plug on it but it still makes for good mental cud. We're all familiar with the way marketers gather names and contact info for sale to spammers, but to voluntarily follow someone on Twitter only to have them sell your subscription to someone else is a new level of betrayal. Then again, haven't you already bought into some degree of exploitation just by participating in online communities?

What?

Speaking of "what," I'm not with-it enough to know if Rye Rye is already popular but her "Shake it to the ground" looping is working for me. (Wikipedia: Looping)

The formal landing page is here but I'll reproduce it in Clicked for the travel averse:

On any given day it's likely that a scan of news headlines will include at least one story of marital infidelity. On the heels of the scandalous revelation of New York governor's Elliot Spitzer's patronage of high priced call-girls was news of Senator Debbie Stabenow's husband also stepping out. This while Hillary Clinton's presence in campaign news reminds us of her husband's famous dalliance and the raid on a polygamist compound in Texas delineates the farther reaches of unacceptability in America's family values.

But does the news give us a distorted sense of how many people are committing adultery? And to what extent are these scandals strictly American in nature? Was the attendance of French president Mitterrand's funeral by his mistress and illegitimate daughter a sign that the French have greater flexibility between husband and wife?

In her book "Lust in Translation" Pamela Druckerman digs into the statistics on who's cheating and how much of it they're doing, and then travels the world to look at how different cultures regard the bond of marriage and deviations from it. Druckerman joined msnbc.com's Will Femia on the phone from Paris to share some of the insights from the book.

Here's the direct link to download the mp3.


Further notes: I'm still waiting for my formal audio set-up and it's pretty clear that the system I've got is a pale replacement. I'm recording the audio directly to my computer using Audacity software. I was pleased to find that some effects in the software helped thicken up the thin phone call sound. I used the Windows Movie Maker that came on my computer to do the video. Yes, that's my desk in the opening. For some reason the mp3 audio is significantly better than the audio track in the video even though they're the same thing. I'm going to have to figure out why that happened.

Thankfully Ms. Drucker was a good guest so this first time back was fun. I don't think I've had an author give me a hard time about whether I've read the book or not - at least not while we were taping. It's always cringe-inducing to hear myself speak but my two big take-aways for next time is to make the first question be about what the book is about. This one feels a little like we're starting in the middle. I have to stop interrupting myself when I ask a question. Some of them are pretty messy.

Tomorrow I'll be talking to Marci Hamilton about the legal issues surrounding that polygamist group that was raided down in Texas. A chance for new lessons.

[YouTube:JW4LLwkgmqA]
The piece that appears to be providing the hook for the Oprah backlash story is this L.A. Times blog entry on how much her favorability ratings have fallen since her Obama endorsement. Weirdest is the number of views on the video. Four million views of a video that doesn't include a talking dog, a skateboard nut smash or a bikini girl? Who the heck is watching this thing?

The Harry Potter Lexicon is the fan site full of Harry Potter words. The lawsuit is over a book version of the site planned for publication. In a nutshell, Rowling says it's theft of her ideas, the publisher says it's a legitimate guidebook to complicated material. Personally, I'm surprised Rowling's publisher hasn't already been churning out related reference material to the series. There's a lot of milk in that cash cow.

I don't know about you but seeing a collection of trivia makes me think contests. So Harry Potter fans (and people who know how to perform a Web search), what modification did Arthur Weasley make to Hagrid's flying motorbike? (Yes, I know it was Seirious Black's bike, but you know what I mean.)

The first person to give me that answer wins an MSNBC logo version of the thing Hagrid hid his wand in. As a bonus, if you can name the celebrity who interrupted my interview with Robbie Coltrane when he was doing publicity for the first Harry Potter movie, I'll give you little beeping cube with LEDs that flash when you tap it. (I think it's meant to be a digital die.")

As for last week's contest, the winners are John who sent the Blackarachnia answer, David who sent the V'ger answer and Greg who sent the "I, Mudd" answer. I was going to do just the first right answer but these were the first of their kind and I happen to have three mugs here cluttering up my desk.

Congrats guys, I'm going to send you an e-mail asking for your mailing address. I'm hoping you all put valid e-mail addresses in your comments. If not, get in touch.

Oops, I forgot the photo:

Thank you Vanna.

My previous item on sensitivities about linking brings to mind an issue we ran into earlier this week with the story of those teen girls videotaping themselves beating a peer. Generally speaking, the identity of minors involved in crimes is withheld and their images blurred or otherwise masked. In the case of that particular story the horse got out of the barn before the media thought twice and their names, ages, hometowns and mug shots were all over the news along with the unblurred video (actually blurred only to protect the victim). None of that is really my problem as far as Clicked is concerned (and I think the matter was rendered moot once they were charged as adults) but I did face the Web version of that ethical dilemma in deciding whether to link to their MySpace pages. On the one hand I didn't list their names or ages or show anyone's face. On the other hand I provided quick access to those things and more (but then on the third hand, it's not like the links are secret, anyone could have found them).

Also coming to mind is a recent dust-up in the pundit blogosphere in which Glenn Reynolds was accused of linking too closely to a racist blogger. Without getting lost in the back and forth of that particular case, it's a good illustration of how Web culture hasn't quite resolved to singularity the meaning of a link. The easy answer is that a link does nothing more than point to a location of information, but it's clear from the tone of the debate and the comparisons to Barack Obama's relationship with his minister that a link is often seen as carrying some degree of social endorsement.

I see confusion about that message of endorsement sometimes in feedback from readers. Like that item about Obama's connection to Kenyan politics. Also the suicide blog Michael mentioned in his comment on my earlier post. Linking is not always casting a vote of support. And yet while I'll always insist that my linking is dispassionate but I can't deny there have been times I've gone looking for a different version of the same story because I wasn't comfortable linking to the one I had.

Perhaps the best example of a link being more than a link it ceases to be a link - that is to say, in the act of "delinking." A few months ago a local Brooklyn blogger insulted the friend of a friend of a fellow Brooklyn blogger and a bunch of us other Brooklyn bloggers received a formal mail declaring that the offending blogger was being delisted (!) and encouraging us to do the same. So aggressive is the act of delisting that bloggers who remove some links in the course of a redesign or general site cleaning will often post clear reassurances that no offense is intended.

There's no ignoring that the simple act of linking means both traffic and page rank (higher placement in search results) but sometimes a link is just a link.

Self-assembling Nanofibers Heal Spinal Cords - I recall a similar technique employed to help heal broken bones. The idea is that the healing is better able to take place when there's a structure of some kind for the tissue to grown on.

"I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I'll be back later this evening to pick it up." Reminds me of the cameramail project.

Colorwars is holding a nerd rap competition on SayNow. Nice demonstration of both SayNow and the Colorwars concept.

Speaking of games, Random Defense is a prettier, more varied kind of Desktop Defense.

Still speaking of games, I had to have the "You have to burn the rope" game explained to me. Not the instructions, of course, but why it's so damn popular. Apparently it's the cute song after you win. Vaguely "Flight of the Conchords"-ish.

I'm listening to the free songs on Devendra Banhart's site to see if there's some magic in the music that might reveal how he won the heart of Natalie Portman (in spite of... um.. the odds). P.S. I'm not digging it.

"A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens." Lacking a better explanation, I agree with him. It's aliens.

Computer viruses hit one million - That sounds like a big number but recently I was wondering just how likely you are to pick up a virus, particularly if you aren't stupid about your e-mail. In the past few days I've download a few programs that I couldn't really verify as being from a reliable source because I was a little out of my depth. So I download the thing, scan the file with my security software and then... that's it, I click install and hold my breath. I'd love to know how risky this behavior is. Where does the hype end and the danger begin?

Anime eyelids - and eyebrows.

7 Random Objects Sold as Exercise Machines - The lesson: Stop buying stuff and go exercise.

Speaking of stop buying stuff, I love "you don't need it" stickers. (I'm secretly waiting for high consumer prices to trigger an American "enough" backlash.)

Just when I was reading about Microsoft improving the 3D renderings in Virtual Earth I also saw the Viewfinder project which aims to let you place 2D photos into 3D map worlds. (I wonder if they've seen Photosynth.) [Alan's Space World demo is worth playing with if you haven't seen the technology.]

"Some experts hope that the perfect condition in which the body of the mammoth was found could allow extricate intact DNA from his cells, and, as a result, clone the animal in future." I will never give up hope for cloned prehistoric animals.

Garbage Island - A documentary series about people who travel out to the Pacific garbage island.

Unlimited electronic bubble wrap isn't a bad idea but I need to be able to stomp on it or twist it.

I saw a woman in the park balancing on a rope tied between two trees in the park and though she was an acrobat of some kind, maybe connected to the nearby trapeze school or maybe one of those high-flying Cirque Du Soleil kind of shows. But slackline yoga was not on my list of guesses.

[YouTube:BIWeEFV59d4]
I call fake. I don't doubt that he can jump that high but there's no way he'd risk it. Even if he would I imagine there'd be insurance lawyers tackling him to the pavement and throwing themselves in front of the car.

I wonder what the msnbc.com record is for shortest story.

Y'know, I'd seen the links to the photo of smiling Dick Cheney and didn't get what they were about. I thought I was missing the text. Boing Boing has the full story arc along with a high resolution shot that shows the reflection more clearly. Given the clarity of the hi-res shot I don't see how some news outlets are still adding the "you decide" tag to the story. Sorry, it's not like seeing the Madonna on a piece of toast. There's a reality to this one that doesn't leave the decision up to you.

How is it that I've never heard of Creature Comforts? This is hysterical! It looks like it's from the Wallace and Grommet people.
[YouTube:Dtk5qs3HvlI]
There are tons of them online. The official site says it's been on CBS since the summer. How come only one person in my cube farm has ever heard of it? I know what I'm watching tonight.

Time.com has launched an annual index of the top 25 blogs on the Web according to them. (Smart readers will skip the annoyingly paginated original list and see Valleywag's handy simple list instead.) The idea of such a list, especially the way they derived it, is as preposterous as it is obnoxious but you can't fault the blogs themselves for that so enjoy the list for what it is.

It's fun to see The Reverse Cowgirl* on there. (She was also on Rex's list this year.) I think I've told this story here before but when she used to blog on Salon in 2002 and I was writing Weblog Central here at msnbc.com my editor decided we shouldn't link directly to her because of the sexual content. Outraged, she drafted a cartoon in which I was represented as a man in a suit with an NBC logo for a face spanking a woman in a schoolgirl uniform (her). As you know, years later I now link to occasional sexual content without much concern about getting it past my editors (the NOTE I add is a courtesy to readers). I wonder if there was much debate at Time about the inclusion of a sex blogger on the list. I wouldn't be surprised if there was none. I'm not sure where the turning point was in linking to content that might otherwise be out of bounds. Maybe when the meaning of "NSFW" became widely known and it was unavoidably apparent why such a marker would be useful. I do remember arguing at one point that one couldn't very well claim to report on what's popular online while ignoring all of the (extremely popular) sexual content. Maybe that argument now goes without saying.

*NOTE: In case you don't actually read the words on Clicked, I'm talking about a blog that covers the porn industry and other aspects of sex worker culture. It's not a porn site but there's a good chance you'll see some naked body parts (or more) in some of the photos.

By the way, The Reverse Cowgirl is a great example of the difference between a blog and a tumblelog. Her Tumblelog is here. In the way that writers are advised to "show don't tell" it is sometimes the case that seeing what a person highlights in the course of surfing the Web is more revealing than the long form thoughts expressed in a blog. (And speaking of hard to discern turning points, when did blogs become the "long form" option?)

Speaking of changing times, years ago the common advice given to companies who wanted to keep track of online opinion of their product or service was to search regularly through Technorati. Somewhere in the past year (or the coming one) the tech evangelists who work the conference circuit are going to have to amend that slide in their PowerPoint presentation to include Twitter.

More interesting than today's launch of Flickr video (which we knew was coming and doesn't really break any ground as far as video goes - though the sleepy cat video is one for the ages) is the new Pitchfork.tv.

Speaking of popular music sites turning their attention to video, Stereogum now has Videogum. In this case, however, the subject matter is actually visual media.

Where on Earth is Waldo?

20 Percent of Scientists Admit Using Brain-Enhancing Drugs -- Do You? No, caffeine doesn't count.

Magic Pen is like that Crayon Physics game we saw a while ago. Draw the shapes to roll the ball into the flag.

Charlie Daniels is angry that Guitar Hero has taken his Devil Went Down To Georgia song and made it more about the Devil than he ever intended.

Al Gore's new slideshow.  This is actually his recent TED talk. A half hour long. If I can figure out how to play the video on my phone I'm going to try to make this a Commuter Click for today. I always the people on the subway watching video need to break their TV addiction but today I'll be one of them.

Speaking of using your phone for something other than calling, I found New Media Bytes by accident and have been watching the coverage there of QR codes - like funky bar codes. Today's entry is about how to make your own. The idea is that you point your phone's camera at the code and the software you've installed translates it into something - a message or sometimes a link, which you can then click through on you phone's Web (or presumably bounce it somewhere to look at later on your computer).

Here's an odd subculture even your kids may not have heard of: Shriiimping. It's graffiti on bikini girls. It seems a little like a fetish but I think it's more like body art. NOTE: NSFW Contains boobies.

Speaking of putting graffiti on stuff, I got a kick out of this series of Darth Vader helmets.

The New York Times shows us the hand signs used on the floor of the stock exchange. I thought they were more complex than this.

The first few pages of the upcoming Oliver Stone movie on George W. Bush have been released/leaked. Even if you're not interested, this is a pretty cool way to build buzz about a movie. I'm sure we'll see a lot of fact check stories when the movie finally comes up but here's an early look at Bush biographers giving it the sniff test. ADDING: Ok, I just read it and maybe I'm missing the vision (or it's been greatly improved since this October draft) but it seems pretty crappy.

Speaking of kicking Bush in the pants on the way out, I also clicked this item about how American historians rate him. (Answer: poor.)

But (yes, this isn't an all out Bush-bash item) I was more convinced by this brief blog entry explaining why history will treat Bush well. In short, he's attached his name to some big ideas that will likely eventually come to fruition. Time will forget the specifics and associate him with any successes farther down the road.

The Segway people have a new cool thing being demo'd. I say "cool thing" because I'm not sure what to call an omnidirectional rolling platform. The guy shooting the video calls it creepy but I don't think it is, though the wheels are really cool.

The more I poke around MySpace the less I like both for content and searchability but did find this cool instructional video on how to do a streetball slip and slide. Ultimately I lost some of my day to Streetball.com.

"Kettering University student Will Foster builds half-scale Panzer." He built it for paintball, so yes, it does fire. Authorities treated him much better than the guy who built his own submarine.

The Improv Everywhere folks struck again, this time in California they treated a random little league game like the most important game in the world, complete with mascots and autographs and shirtless men with letters written on their bellies, Goodyear blimp and real actual NBC Sports newscasters and Jumbotron. I don't recall if it was Improv Everywhere or another group but something similar was done with unknown rock bands once as well. A whole team got together and acted like the band's biggest fans.

Hot Pads foreclosure heat map shows per capita foreclosures across the US. Zoomable by town or even neighborhoods. I see confirmation of what I've heard from folks I know in Florida who say the situation is grim down there.

Somehow, even when Yahtzee the video game reviewer in Zero Punctuation likes a game it still sounds like he doesn't. NOTE: Some coarse language but the guy talks so fast you may miss it anyway.

Did Absolut just think no one in the U.S. would notice their Mexican ad campaign? I can already imagine the "Absolut World" parody maps being Photoshopped across the blogosphere.

ADDING: Rob in the comments asks if I'm declaring a new contest with my Photoshop mention. As a matter of fact, the swag box arrived today and there was extra stuff in it so I'm looking for another reason to have a contest. This subject is a little hot though and I'd like to keep the contests to something fun. A Photoshop (or whatever program you have) is a good idea though. Do you think enough people know how to do it? I don't know very much beyond sharpening and cropping images so a contest would be a good excuse to learn. Let's keep an eye out.

There isn't a whole lot of background material to be found
on this story about the teen girls in Florida who confronted a former friend
and beat her mercilessly. This in spite of the fact that the story's origins
are in MySpace postings. Most of the girls involved have set their MySpace profiles
to private, including what is likely that of the victim, Victoria Lindsay (who
communicates through her profile's headline that she is "just fine"
and "happy."

One MySpace page not set to private is that of Mercades
Nichols in whose house the beating takes place and with whom Lindsay was
staying, according to the police report. Nothing new has been added to the online account since the
incident so it doesn't serve as much more than character color for the story.
It's interesting to note that the Lindsay account has left an affectionate
comment on the Nichols account as recently as March 4th.

It's Nichols' mother who is featured in the latter half of
this video. Speaking of video, the clip in the Orlando Sentinel coverage
has clearer audio. It's mostly screaming
but you get a sense of what the beating is about.

The Ledger, whose coverage includes AP video of Lindsay's
parents, has scans of the police affidavits which describe the attack in
greater detail. (It says 17 pages but really it's just a few pages repeated.)

The answer to Friday's contest question was more complicated than I'd anticipated but I've spent the morning researching sexy robot aliens so I feel like I can render a judgment with some authority.

Number 6 doesn't count because, like all the Cylons, she's of human origin, so she fails the alien test. But in case you were wondering, yes, it was Alan's post that got this whole thing started. For the purposes of Alan's post it's fine to call Cylons aliens but I was wondering if we could find an example that was truly unconnected to humanity.

I'll sort out the prize part later today but so far here are the answers I've assessed:

Blackarachnia was not the answer I was thinking of, but to the extent that animated characters are all hyper-sexualized in their depiction I can't really argue against her or I guess any of the other femaleTransformers including Arcee. For that matter all the male Transformers qualify too I guess... if you're into that.

V'ger wasn't a sexy robot, but it did arguably make one. I think I'm going to count Lieutenant Ilia's artificial counterpart as an alien sexy robot even though she retained some of her consciousness. And actually, she was an alien already, before she was a robot, so whatever sense of herself might have been left wasn't human anyway.

The Borg Queen, as with 7 of 9, is a cyborg so more human than we are considering for this contest. I'm not sure if the Borg Queen is an assimilated human or something else, but the point is that she fails the robot test.

All the Terminators are like the Cylons, human-made robots gone bad.

Maria from Metropolis was man made.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disqualify Andrea from the Star Trek episode "What are Little Girls Made Of." Even though her creator at that point resided in an alien robot form and she is built of alien robot technology. Really it was human motivation that brought her into being. It's a fine line, I know.

The Mudd robots, however, totally qualify.

Bishop and Data were both human-made. As was Pris in Bladerunner.

C-3PO is an odd case because while he was rebuilt by Anakin Skywalker (human), he apparently originated on the "Cybot Galactica foundry world of Affa." There are some interesting ideas about his origins but it's not clear where the lines are between human and alien technology. And then there's the whole "sexy" question, which I didn't want to get into because, y'know, "different strokes" and all that, but until someone shows me evidence of a C-3PO fetish culture I'm disqualifying him.

Martian Girl from Mars Attacks! wasn't a robot, she was a Martian in a human suit.

None of these count: 5 hot lady-bots you probably shouldn't have sex with

By the way, the best answer I had when I asked the question was Reese from Stargate. It's not totally clear who her creator was but the speculation is that he was an Atlantean, therefore alien to humans. (Kudos to Lori for that one.)

Readers who are familiar with my "technology should come with natural
material cases" complaint will be pleased to see wooden memory sticks
topping the list of recommendations at ThisNext, a new social shopping site in which users make recommendations to each other (among other things).

By the way, the coolest page on ThisNext is the Watch People Shop page.
(The site has coined the term "shopcasting.") Thankfully not the video
I was fearing, it's another one of those map apps (mapps?) that shows
online shopping recommendations in real time around the world. The
coolness content is actually high enough that it's watchable as a
recreation in itself. The flow is so consistent that I secretly wonder
if there's something more than the community powering the thing.

Before I go on a string of shopping related segues I'd like to point
out that aside from the technical back-end that makes this real-time
map thing happen, the real reason it works is the ease of bookmarklets.
This may be remedial for some Clicked readers because bookmarklets have
become a standard part of a site's tool set, but before last week I
didn't really appreciate them so I imagine I have a few readers in the
same boat. To me, bookmarklets were for shortcuts to Web pages and
there are plenty of others ways to do that without cluttering up the
browser.  Since I've been making an effort to sort my various
categories of online interest to discrete Web services I've come to
understand the utility of the bookmarklet. Bookmarklets are the answer
to the question, "How the hell do you have time to be putting stuff on
all these sites all day long?" The way it works is that while you surf,
you see something you want to note or share, you click the bookmarklet
(a button that says something like "Share on Tumblr" or "post to
delicious" and a little window pops up that tries (with pretty good
success) to intuit what you want to share. You might add a little note
or caption but otherwise you click some version of an "OK" button and
continue along. No keeping an extra window open all day, no leaving
what you're doing to go to a new site. The most successful sites have
figured out that the way to get people to use your service is to make
it as easy as possible to use.

So speaking of shopping, if you're working under the cloud of April showers SheFinds has done a round-up of odd umbrellas.
Though they all look professionally produced, they each seem like
they'd be pretty easy DIY jobs. I'd like to see how that tandem
umbrella folds. Maybe they're connected with hinge.

The Monocycle is back in the public eye apparently thanks to being offered for sale by Hammacher Schlemmer ($12,999.95). Yes, of course it's an easy thing to crash. (I see a few now carry a tiny wheel or stopper on the back to prevent full roll-overs.)

Speaking of creative transportation for sale, how about letting your kid build his or her own vehicle with Moov?

As long as we're consuming, did you see that Jelly Belly has a new flavor set called BeanBoozled?
It's a jelly bean version of Russian Roulette because each color has
two associated flavors, one good, one foul. So not only do you have to
distinguish white w/yellow flecks (buttered popcorn) from white with
orange flecks (caramel corn) but even if you get it right you could end
up with their repulsive twins rotten egg and moldy cheese, respectively.

I don't know what I would say if I met a woman wearing an "I was raped" t-shirt. I mean, are you supposed to say something?

I was pleased to catch the repeat of South Park last night because
everyone's been talking about the "meet the Internet stars" segment.
Don't worry if you missed it because now that's that new free South Park video database.
Among the many layers of meaning in the scene it's funny to think how
much the lesson that there's no money to be had from being a viral hit
on YouTube is a part of this new South Park site.

Seeqpod search term of the day, Yelle. (I always go for the DJ remixes first.) Reasons: This new video (no nudity but some wiggly short-short dancing) and being last week's Mtv artist of the week. Her MySpace is here.

"The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget."

Remember those funny graphs of song lyrics we saw a while back? GraphJam
seems to be a hub for those (and similar non-lyric graphs). The cool
thing is that if you don't get the joke, you can click the cheat sheet
link and hear they song or whatever they're trying to represent in the
chart.
 
The actress who was Lonelygirl is starring in a new Web series called Blood Cell. It's a horror series. (Funny that it's still only "coming soon" but already has an online store selling t-shirts.)

Speaking of low budget videos, here's a nicely done cardboard Tron.

"TwitterLocal lets you generate an RSS or XML Feed to filter out Tweets around a certain area."

Can you imagine if the US made a set of coins that fit together like a puzzle? I imagine we'd have to consult the Freemasons if not the Illuminati themselves.

Couple Sues Google Over "Street View" - My first thought was that they were surely caught doing something bad like dealing drugs or peeing in public but it turns out it's just a picture of their house, pool and garage.
But looking through the lawsuit, the couple claims that's a private
drive, not a public street. If that's the case, sorry Google, stick
with the satellite view.

Related: How to get off Street View.

Speaking of satellite view, it looks like the view from 140 stories is just about the point at which mortal views become celestial. (Photo source)

Nothing short of creepy.

The pdfs of the Clintons' tax forms are linked at the bottom of this page.
It's pretty crazy to see 7 and 8 digit numbers in the same little boxes
I fill out (which is not to say I fill out all the forms they do. Holy
crap I'd die if my taxes were this many pages (of course, if I had
their numbers I probably wouldn't be doing them myself.)

I'm trying to think of a better name than Batman bin Suparman but I can't because there isn't one.

The recoil on this gun is like some kind of practical joke.

Finger piano for tappers.

How to speak hip. (What a cool audio player.)

Clicked contest: This one occupied much of our watercooler
energy. Name a sexy alien robot. Not just a sexy alien and not just a
sexy robot and not just an alien robot, all three. In this case we're
defining alien as "of non-human origin." So even if it was made by
non-Earthlings, if it's human-made it doesn't count. So far I only know
of one answer but I'm open to others. I don't know what the prize is
yet, but I'll hit up the marketing lady for a hat or mug or something
with msnbc.com on it. Submissions accepted in the comments, by the
e-mail address there in the left margin, or even try to Tweet it to me
and we'll see if that works. They all produce a time stamp, so I'll
still be able to figure out the first right answer.

"I'm Over Twitter" This blog entry leads off with a great graph of "The Novelty Curve" which is a good thing to keep in mind when you're facing the hype of new technology. For me, somewhere on the up-side of the curve would be "post to Clicked" and "develop extreme paranoia that you're the only one on Earth who doesn't get why this is a big deal." (This is only slightly less than my paranoia that I won't "get it" in time to then "get" the next big thing.)

Speaking of technology solving problems you didn't know you had, I like how this headline promises to "make running easier." What's next? A faster way to fall off a log?

But seriously, speaking of trying to find a use for Twitter, see Twitterholic. If you're trying to follow the advice of using Twitter to follow A-listers rather than draw a lot of followers yourself, this list of popular Twitter users might be a good place to find interesting people to follow. One thing I've learned about Twitter in the past week or so is that it makes a lot more sense when you watch someone use it well.

Speaking of it making more sense when you see it done right, this is a little late to get involved in now, but Colorwars is doing bingo - or what I imagine is actually massive multiplayer online roleplaying bingo.

Tooth Regeneration May Replace Drill-and-Fill - I'd like a nice list, or maybe a chart, of some kind that tells me what aspects of my health I should care about and what I can let go because we'll just grow me a new one when I burn it out in 50 years.

Just what the blogosphere needed: a new layer of paranoia. "A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested 'clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers.'"
Hiring warbloggers seems like it wouldn't be necessary given how many bloggers there are that voluntarily support the military and/or argue on behalf of its actions.

Robin Williams' younger hottie girlfriend's art site.

Use "postage paid" envelopes to send heavy junk to junk mailers. The site says this is legal but I have my doubts. I do like the idea of using it to clear the house of junk though. I have some old batteries I haven't gotten around to recycling yet.

Leftover April Fool's story that almost made a fool of me: Fluegel's 'B-Flat' Starts on a Good Note (I saw John Cage perform live what amounted to not much more than a really long throat clearing, so I'm vulnerable to credulity when it comes to silly music ideas.)

April Fool's joke that looks like it made a fool of Vannah White: A bald Pat Sajak

A few weeks ago Jay Leno made a joke to a guest, asking him to make his "gayest look." Gay people didn't appreciate the suggestion that there's such a thing as looking gay and told Leno so with a certain universal non-verbal gesture. I had heard that Leno apologized but the toothpaste has already left the tube for MyGayestLook.com.

I'm glad I watched the NY Times interview with the guys who did the new Bjork video before I clicked the Encyclopedia Pictura video or it wouldn't have made quite as much sense.

Speaking of things Bjork has already done, I'm listening today to the top ten Radiohead fan remixes. The details are here if you'd like to make a remix yourself.

Still speaking of things Bjork already did, the notion that jeans are part of an American or Western uniform and are therefore to be avoided is also something I believe Bjork has asserted. ADDING: Here it is: "She would never wear jeans and a T-shirt, she says, because they are 'a symbol of white American imperialism, like drinking Coca-Cola'." I really like Bjork and I wear jeans (and I'm a white American) so I guess we have kind of a Rev. Wright relationship.

Everywhere I turned today people were talking about Oliver Stone's upcoming George W. Bush movie, "W."

Here's a great video game review of outside. Not "Outside" but the actual outside, that place you might go if you weren't playing video games. (Note: the link isn't wrong, I'm pointing to a comment in an almost unrelated thread.

One of my favorite news memes: Mystery creatures from the deep!

• Crawling fish may be part of new family
• Weird fish discovered in Utah

Speaking of music, my friend Matt won a quick round of ridiculous guitar video poker by topping my two guitar Tetris theme with some four-handed bluegrass.

Skewz offers a cool twist on votes/ratings/diggs. You set the dial on how you feel the story leans politically. Depending on the results the story is placed in a blue or red column.

Speaking of assessing political value, I'm not sure if this video is helpful or hurtful to McCain, but how is video of John McCain singing Streisand not all over the airwaves? (via)

Speaking of must-see political videos, just when you thought the "I'm F-ing Matt Damon" copycat meme was killed by weak imitations, this imitation has some comedic merit. Making it rhyme is a pretty good trick too.

Speaking of having strong feelings about Obama, conservative blog Atlas Shrugs has made a project of tracking Barack Obama's connections to Kenyan politics through a cousin. While Obama's lineage has been the subject of a lot of discussion, his actual interest in the goings-on in Africa is not something I've seen explored in the mainstream. Will an America lead by an Obama administration take a more active role in African politics? Just seeing bloggers take such an interest in African politics is pretty remarkable.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Statue Outside of Tennessee Courthouse - It's too bad the construction doesn't look very durable but it's fun to hear a newscaster say "flying spaghetti monster." I really like the idea of a public memorial space as well. Definitely a better idea than banning everyone.

Engadget and a slew of supporters have gone magenta - in defiance of a demand by Deutsche Telekom that they cease using the color because it belongs to T-Mobile.

Life Before Death - Matching portraits of people before and after they've died. Not as gross as it sounds. what's most striking to me is how different they look after they've passed. Some look extra tranquil but all of them are pretty clearly no longer in corporeal residence.

I know it's weird to recommend a site I don't like, but you should look at AllTop. It starts off simple and clean, just some clear categories. But within those categories are tons of sites with several headlines each. Before long your "to read" list is out of control and your browser is crippled with tabs. For me this is all too much. But it could be that either you already read the headlines in a particular category so this is helpful or you want more from a particular category and this is full of good tips, so there ya go.

That most recent Craigslist crime where someone posted an ad offering a house worth of free stuff turns out to have been a track-covering ruse. Of course, the thieves were idiots, but it's a clever idea for a mystery novel to cover up a crime with a flash mob or other anonymously organized online event.

Algae: 'The ultimate in renewable energy' - The last time I read about algae energy it was in conjunction with balancing CO2 production. The idea was to put algae marshes downwind from CO2-producing chimneys so it would absorb the gas while it was growing. This idea of more controlled algae farms looks a little more sensible.

Report: sub-$200 WiFi touchscreen iPods from Apple by holidays - I always said if I didn't already have a smartphone I'd prefer to have a cheap little phone and one of these touch iPods. Of course, that was easy to say because the iPod price was beyond my consideration. But for under 200 bucks? I predict a bloodletting.

Though it's usually the case that I only find out about April Fool's sites after people write in on April 2nd to point out that I missed a joke, this year my skeptical eye is better prepared. Eventually someone usually writes up a massive hoax link round-up so I'll link to that when I come upon it. ADDING: Looks like this may be it though it's struggling with the traffic.

ProBlogger Launches PayPerTweet

Search tomorrow's web, today! (Oops, that's part of the long list here: Google April Fool's Jokes Galore)

Speaking of time travel, Dodo: Web-based time machine!

YouTube RickRolls users. In case you're reading this after April 1, here's the description.

Live, from New York, it's...Mark Zuckerberg?

Flying penguins found by BBC programme (The Telegraph does more fake story round-up here.)

Google Seeks to Organize All of Human Ignorance

It's the ThinkGeek stuff that gets me every year.

ADDING: One more worth noting, popular online comics have traded home pages for the day.

Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks

Al Qaeda talk show guest frustrated that his hard work planning the 9/11 attacks are discounted by conspiracy theorists. (It's always April Fool's at the Onion.)

Darth Vader attacks Jedi church leader. Help them Obi Wan, you're their only hope. (I don't think this one is a joke.)

Remember a while ago we debated whether it was worth trying to capture for energy production purposes the air pushed by a subway in a tunnel? In this more creative use, the air is used to inflate a little bear. Strangely creepy. I prefer the second video with the garbage bags coming to life.

More of that Web justice.  In this case a guy's car was stolen by a prospective buyer with a fake ID. Members of the victim's car discussion forum spotted the car, photographed the thief in the car, posted the photos, yadda yadda yadda Web justice, video of the arrest posted on YouTube.

OK, let's quickly cram a bit of utility into this post:

 The 101 most useful websites - That's a pretty big boast and a pretty big list. Ironically, I'm not sure the list itself is very useful because the items are so different. Still, worth a scroll.

Speaking of lists worth scrolling,  The Best Online Tools To Help You Know Everything About Web Sites - This is a list of sites for researching things like who owns a Web site. Next time there's a mad scramble for background info about an online prostitution site that ended a governor's career, this is a good place to start.

Since I've got a number list thing going here, The Ultimate Writing Productivity Resource - I keep an eye out for these in the hopes that they'll be helpful translating my very non-digital writing habits to digital efficiency. The danger is in spending too much time playing on the computer with tools and aids and not doing any actual writing.

USA 2008: The Great Depression - This one's inspiring a lot of debate. Like the tent villages near L.A. story I didn't know anything about the food stamp situation in the U.S. "Great Depression" still seems a little extreme. Surely this isn't what the actual Great Depression was like.