News served salty

• March 11, 2005 | 11

I've mentioned a few times that sometimes a link will be popular not because it's recommended but because it's being criticized -and sometimes both.  With regard to yesterday's eyebrow raiser story about Saddam Hussein's capture, it should be noted that while some folks may take it at face value, others... so .

liveblogs today's shootings in Atlanta.

On this anniversary of the Madrid bombings, Dan Gillmor is in Madrid and posts notes on his working group on .  The post itself is not especially long, but there are quite a few comments worth perusal.  Related: 

  (Exceptions may be considered for clever rhymes.)

Yesterday I mentioned some efforts by state legislatures to regulate Internet downloads. for folks who feel like they don't pay enough in taxes.

I am such a tech whiz, I took my old stereo and plugged the microphone jack into my computer's input jack.  I then used some audio software I found online to record the signal on the computer so I could burn the songs onto CDs.  It's ugly but it works.  If you're not into ugly or you already threw away your old stereo, you might get a kick out of .

-a Mexican blog index

  -More thorough (and more angry) than my complaint about over-romanticizing bloggers.  (This is not the Commuter Click, but I did print it up to read it.)

moves ahead.  But while it may sometimes seem like our privacy is being electronically invaded at every turn, others remind us not to get too carried away:

"This is a public relations film on Florida State University that, in two brief scenes, years before his more recognized role as lead singer for The Doors."

I've read about people who think Harry Potter is anti-Christian or a tool of Satan, yadda yadda yadda, but it's pretty that brings that conclusion into being.

Video of the Day:  This is one of those videos that will end up as the "you gotta see this" story in your local news broadcast.  You can pretty much guess what's going to happen.  My suggested title:  .  .

I wonder if the librarian lobby was as strong as the credit card lobby.

-an interesting comparison chart.

Earlier in the week we saw the results of a study of how a person's eyes move across a Google results page.  For today's Commuter Click, here's a more complete look at the results of that eye-following technology, .

• March 10, 2005 | 11

Bloggers of all stripes are outraged about the bankruptcy bill that earlier this evening.  Glenn has a pretty broad round-up.  There's a organizing online.  And, the trend I like the most, bloggers are to hold legislators accountable.  Bills don't pass themselves.  If you don't agree with the way the person representing you in Congress is voting, let them know.  It'll be interesting to see if bloggers can influence politicians in the way they've influenced the media.

Speaking of uncommon political bedfellows,

The top eyebrow raiser online today: 

Seeming somehow related:

  Contrary to the title, this is not about KKK cells in corporations.  It's about sites created by people who really hate a specific corporation.  The kind of sites with the word "sucks" in the URL.

Speaking of hating corporations, how would you determine the ?

Another headline I misunderstood until I read the piece:    What he means is that the coding was so sloppy that a 7 year old could hack it.  Literally.  I mean, I could hack it.  If you're interested in more, actually breaks down this particular hack, step by step.  As is often the case when you're doing something other people don't want you to do, there's an interesting question of ethics to this story as well.

Speaking of hacking made simple, about Google's cookie and Google print is thankfully mostly understandable and, no offense to the author, surprisingly interesting.

Commuter Click:  I keep running into from popular designer Milton Glaser.  It looks like a list of personal resolutions he made following 9/11. 

.  Text descriptions of missed photos.  What a great idea.  I didn't take a great photo today of a golf cart at a construction site I saw this morning on my way to work that hit a bump and its whole windshield exploded in a shower of glass.

I don't particularly care about , but I had to laugh at this story because every stoner I ever knew always has a mental list of who in the world is also a pot smoker:

Speaking of convincing people to do drugs, -and therefore it's a health drink and you should consume lots of it to lose weight.  Tsk.

- Of particular interest to me were the ones from .

Schneider on Security looks at the Choicepoint story (broken by my colleague and sometimes adjacent cubester, ) and says they are just asking for their industry .

Speaking of regulating, Bloggers beware:  All this free speech through blogging stuff is getting out of hand.  Someone is going to want to regulate it quick.

I played with yesterday, but I came upon it as a pop-up ad.  So it's interesting to see people linking to it directly.  That's a pretty successful viral marketing effort.  Also clever for a company to promote two products at once.

Speaking of successful viral marketing and me wasting time instead of blogging, I don't know what is selling (computer parts?), but it's a fun brain work.

Speaking of games:   The game of placing the guts in the body is why I'm filing late today.  Blame it on the BBC.

It looks like has a blog (or ).  I wasn't even going to mention it because frankly, it's kind of weird, and not particularly Rosie-like in the way she was on her show.  Also, she left the comments turned on.  Rosie, what are you thinking leaving the comments on?  Yikes!  Anyway, while sitting in Cordato's pizzeria waiting for my slices to heat up I was looking through the Times and saw that the reason Rosie's link is all over the place is because they did .  Reading the article makes the blog seem a little more coherent, but it's still weird.

California legislators have been trying to find a way to pass a law against illegal file trading while going too far and accidentally banning the internet itself.  A look at their .

Of course it's more likely that will be a greater detriment to filetrading.

Maybe dropping the price of legit song downloads to would drain illegal trading services of their users.

But then, when it comes to price wars, it's hard to beat free -especially when you're talkin' .

Speaking of music: .  Also explored by my colleague .

Speaking of science bloggers, the periodic round-up of science blogs is called Tangled Bank and the latest installment is .

Speaking of ear worms, I watched this and had the song stuck in my head all day.

Another Commuter Click: 

?  Is it just me or does it feel really 1970's lately?  Is this all because of Lawrence Summers and his female scientists speech?

Speaking of sexism never having been resolved, I would have titled this "."

Video of the Day: The Japanese are ahead of us in .  We're still only up to eating bugs.

Dear Santa...

Oh, you're in a band?  What do you play?  .  (Warning: small bit of tushie exposure in this one.)

Speaking of , some folks are giving it thoughtful treatment.

-  This blogger takes a look at words people tattoo on their bodies.  Also interesting to note the fonts used to write the words.

"Halford et al concluded from these results that people -- academics accustomed to interpreting the type of data used in the experiment problems -- ."

Jason Kottke, who made blog headlines recently by quitting his job to live off contributions from his blog readers describes who and what influenced him to not rely on the sale of ads on his site.  In short, this is an essay about .

Speaking of selling out, in the tech blog community.

...and now it's also how he explained REST to me.

• March 9, 2005 | 7

SXSW (South by Southwest) is an annual music festival and also a technology conference in Austin.  We saw one link about downloading the music yesterday.  We'll no doubt seem more SXSW links in the near future.  Today I clicked from Austin local David Nuñez who presents an unofficial guide and even offers his cell phone number.  When I called him he said not many people had called so far.  Don't be afraid, he sounded like a nice guy.

Commuter Click: 
Skimming quickly, it looks like an outline of the workings of the National Security Council.  I'm not familiar with Foreign Policy magazine, so I don't know which side of the blogosphere is recommending this link, but after I print it out and read it at my leisure, I'll have a better idea.

I am familiar with American Prospect enough to know that it is a liberal magazine, so it makes sense to find there a as Republican tools.  What's interesting is that this showed up on "most linked" lists in part because of the number of people linking to the article in the course of bashing it. 

What I have to wonder about the above link is when the word blogger will shed its romantic connotation of regular person.  While romantic portrayals of blogs focus on the fact that they give equal access to the media powerless, the other side of the coin is that blogs can also be tools for the media (or politically) powerful.  The sooner blogs are judged on their merits and not on the fact that they're blogs, the better.

Speaking of political activism online, today's is an amusing bit of viral video animation.

Speaking of the Internet integrating with the establishment, Ohio residents may soon need to sell on eBay.

The latest hot mashup is   "The Beatles' 1966 album, Revolver, mashed for 2005"  The Eleanor Rigby/Madonna mix is pretty amazingly tight.  Interesting disclaimer on the page.  I wonder how the lawyers will appreciate that.

With the attention on the events in Syria and Lebanon, many bloggers are appreciating the commentary of Syrian author .

As a photoblogger in my non-MSNBC life, I can testify that taking candid photos of strangers is one of the hardest things to do.  Maybe it's a personal hang-up, but it always feels like a real invasion.  I felt pretty let down when I found out that a lot of the people are getting their candid shots from the safety of a zoom lens.  (Incidentally, one of the best tricks I've seen for taking pictures of strangers is to bribe them into posing.)

Speaking of photographs, are taking nominations.

Speaking of photos: .

has one of those "innocent man freed from prison after 24 years" stories that makes your head spin.  Can you imagine spending age 16 to 40 in prison and then trying to mix back into society?

has photos of the car the freed Italian hostage was in when U.S. troops opened fire.  I've read some folks making a big deal about the 300-400 rounds fired at the car -that this was either a sign of U.S. overkill, or an obvious fabrication because it would leave no survivors.  I'm not sure these photos answer any questions.  I'm not seeing much, which may be an answer in itself.

.  I'm not sure why you'd want to do this, but it's a pretty cool demo.

The appearance of the new (and ) on has the Harry Potter online community abuzz.

, the new Iraq war documentary.

Speaking of the war from the soldiers' perspective, the Army Times has of some military bloggers.

And still speaking of the war from the soldiers' perspective:

Powerline blog has a simple answer for people who complain that mainstream media isn't giving them a voice.  .

The underlying issue in the Powerline post above is equality of gender representation -similar to what we've seen discussed in the blogosphere.  In that vein, continues on discussion with a satirical look at linking as a male activity and Technorati Cosmos as a source of phallic pride.  Is that a toolbar in your browser or are you just happy to see me?

Speaking of banning alcohol, no more on your 21st birthday in Minnesota?  Looks like the drinking age would be 21 years an 8 hours.

""

Researchers are having trouble interpreting the results of .  All I can say is that English proficiency never did anything for my teenage sex life.  Humph.

with a detailed follow up to an AP article about Senator McCain and campaign contributions.  Could be an interesting foreshadowing of 2008.  Some folks are real angry about McCain's role in campaign finance reform and what they see as a violation of free speech rights.

at eye patterns when viewing a Google search results page.

  -Eugene Peterson talks about lies and illusions that destroy the church.

:  I'm not sure how much energy I have for another "we're all doomed because of Bush" essay.  I scrolled to the end and it looks like it's mostly about the environment.  I'll print it out because it's blog-linked enough to show up on the radar of this blog, but I feel like I've already read it.

Remember of the kid who secretly recorded his teacher screaming at the class?  Here's the video with talking over it.  It's probably worth noting that the original tape is so this isn't necessarily the whole story.

The new game you have to be familiar with if you're not old and uncool:  .  (UPDATE:  So you don't have to do your own digging, I'm reminded that my cube counterpart, Tom, mentioned yesterday, not long ago.)

.

It's ironic that the above link shows up as the blogosphere is again wrestling with a workplace vs. employee blog issue.  Kottke has been keeping .  from Monday is also seeing a lot of attention.

" site is a multi-author blog devoted to illustration, art, cartooning and drawing."

• March 9, 2005 | 1

I was going to take an extra day to dust off the mouse before posting, but since I have to catch up anyway (my vacation was computer-free), I might as well write some notes as I go.  You'll have to forgive me if I miss some context.

Here are a lot of little videos of a machine .  It has a Letterman-esque appeal.  The washing machine puts up a pretty good fight.

Speaking of video of industrial machines performing fun to watch tasks.  This is something of a bird cannon, but doesn't appear to be killing them.

, “Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs,” he said.

Think the cows are weird?  How about ?

Staying with animals, apparently there is a long running effort to .

At first glance I thought this was boring cat blogging, but actually it's to keep his cat from dragging dead things into the house.

looks kind of like Doom.  It didn't load well on my machine, but my fellow cube gerbil, , was able to make it work just fine and had a lot of positive comments to make while he played.

Speaking of photos on the Web...  New York Public Library's online digital image gallery:  Free and open online access to hundreds of thousands of digital images

  Note the struggle he's having with high traffic and "selfish, self-centered people."  There's a reason they call it file sharing.

Lots of traffic pointing to by the grandson of a holocaust survivor.

:  " to music I see colors and shapes and when I watch visual art I hear sounds.  I wanted to express my sensing of shapes colors and music in this short movie."  There's actually a word for what this guy is describing, .

Commuter Click: The Guardian interviews .

nearly causes an international incident with a nuclear power by flinging its traffic driving girth at the North Korea Web site while mocking its tourism propaganda.

  I wouldn't have thought this would work in text, but it does.

Fred Durst is for distributing the hacked video of him showing his Oh face.  Somehow I don't think this is going to put a stop to Internet "leaks."

.  This is a nice "I learned the hard way so you don't have to" piece.

  You can download the entire music festival in one shot.  .

is a competition between online comic artists to see who can maintain the longest Monday to Friday update schedule, following a strict set of rules.

The challenge is an effort to diversify the blogosphere's A List -or at least its B and C list.

Publius Pundit has a that covers more countries than I realized.

It seems like every other news click out there is a "" article.  also has a round-up of democratic movements. (Scroll to the end.)

Video of the Day:  This is a really traumatic .  Not really graphic in terms of blood and guts, but seriously over the top in getting its message across.  If you don't like movies that don't have happy endings, you should probably skip this one.

Talking Points Memo produces a .  Kevin Drum also draws attention for his .

The story of the U.S. shooting up the car of the Italian hostage is seeing a lot of blog action.  The story may be too old at this point to bother reading too deeply into the various spins, but among the links I clicked are:

• This .
• on her newspaper's site.
• doesn't need many words to make a point.

make your fingers dirty.

This essay in , criticizing libertarians is interesting in the context of the links we saw recently by libertarians criticizing the GOP.

I'll be honest and admit that I don't really get understand this , but it seems to be resonating with spirituality bloggers.

Speaking of shocking gospel, I don't know what else I expected when I clicked a link with the words "."  What this lady really needs is a holy ghost paper bag to breathe into.

Are bloggers journalists?  .  And yet, they're being granted White House .  Here's what looks like.

Speaking of stretching the roles and definitions of blogs, should activist blogs count as ?  .

-these are really above and beyond.

Speaking of spirituality, ""

I had read that NPR was podcasting, but when I went to their site I didn't find much.  I should have thought of .

"Welcome to , the free encyclopedia of politically incorrect non-information."

:  "Click a name to listen, then click the button next to your favorite and vote."