Bloody Vikings!

• May 27, |

-- Interesting to see how they derive the numbers.

-- One thing's for sure, after that headline, the word "chill" is definitely over.  But for the past few years, every two weeks someone declares the death of blogs, or the death of blog hype and yet still it persists.  And in spite of that 60 million blogs number, today I saw a letter from a reader asking what a blog is and why is it everywhere, and another letter writer mentioned clicking the link for "blots."  And those are from people who are Web savvy enough to be visiting a news Web site and sending e-mail.  So while some people may feel saturated in blog bluster, I think we still have a ways to go.

Speaking of shark jumping, ABC News kicks off .

Speaking of podcasting, "If your goal is to be an A list podcaster, . And invest. And persist."  He argues there will be more room at the top for A list podcasters than there is for A list bloggers.  I wonder if that prospect will put a dent in the blogging population.

I like the idea of a , but jiggling myself to exhaustion just to keep it moving might lose its novelty pretty quickly.

-- This one isn't as graphic as the kids blowing up on the soccer field, but still powerful.

Learning from video, a Video of the Day combo.  The structural integrity chapter:

• .
• Any item of furniture taller than a barstool is not meant to have you .  (Sexual theme to this one, but passes the "no more flesh than a bathing suit" test.)

offer a vision of the future

The link I clicked to said "3D wallpapers" but there are a lot of cool links here.  The blog itself, , says it's the original real estate blog.  That may be, but there are a ton of fun links here.  Put this on the "come back when I have a lot of time to kill" list.

-- When Sigmund Freud designs logos...

-- Lousy service in the age of blogs is a bad idea.

-- The ouch quote: "The school district had put 34,452 stickers on textbooks across the county."

The best way to fake being cool is to be at least passingly familiar with trends you'd genuinely know about if you were actually cool.  To that end, with considerable sarcasm proper online gaming etiquette.  And we learn a little more about the could-be-a-lost-episode-of-Monster-Garage trend of water cooling your PC.  (I think keeping it cool makes it process data faster.)

I almost never come across gossip links, but Tom Cruise's recently seem to be resonating with a lot of people.  tells the story in pictures.  I just hope this buzz doesn't start a trend of making a spectacle of oneself.

NPR with yet another segment on

The guy who thought "freedom fries" was a good idea is no longer quite as .  Maybe "fickle fries" would have been more appropriate?

Speaking of changing stories, it's been a really long time since we had a "click again" item in which what we learn from bloggers contradicts the conventional wisdom.  Today's theme, the Newsweek/Koran story.

• The White House condemned Newsweek for causing the deaths of rioting protestors.  .
• Americans have made it clear that we respect other religions and oppose the desecration of symbols like the Koran.  .
• Well, for all the spin and confused and retracted facts, the bottom line is that people lost their lives, right?  .

"A report in the medical journal Psychopathology notes that , suggesting high-technology can fulfill the role of malign 'magical' forces often experienced in psychosis."  The voices in my computer tell me this is an interesting study.

.  Juan Cole explains why he thinks the answer in Iraq is that there are no answers.

the Congressman who accused him of treason.  He basically says a member of Congress should have better things to do than worry about a comedian's jokes.  Sounds like a perfect opportunity to use to find out just what Congressman Bachus has been doing with his time.

• May 26, |

Map heads take note:  -- Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble with the guys behind Microsoft's forthcoming map product.  (This is the second day in a row I clicked on a 30 minute video and only made it half way through before moving on.  There may be a lesson in that.)

Disclosure:  (I wonder if I can get this on a rubber stamp.)  MSN is among the corporate names people sometimes use to refer to me when I link to them.

-- I don't usually link to NY Times columnists, but what a great headline that is.  (The story is about Chinese bloggers breaking that government's hold on public information.)

Speaking of citizen journalism, of all the citizen journalism efforts out there, the one I run into most often is .  It's a little confusing to understand at first, but the idea is that if you have something to contribute to a news story, you can post that story and your additions (like photos).  P.S.  Their citizen photojournalism award submission deadline is tomorrow.

On TV, as soon as you say something it disappears into the air.  Online, .

Looks like we're coming into season.

, the blog-based pro-democracy charity gives a progress report.

-- I ran this link through Technorati to see if there's some particular reason why people are linking to this, but it looks like a general word of mouth, hey-check-this-out kind of spreading.

Speaking of surreal photos, -- I don't know if "cool" is the word I'd use.  I think I'd go with "God's wrath is upon us, the end of the world is now."

"Action Squad explores.  This generally occurs late at night, to aid in avoiding other people, particularly those with badges and funny blue uniforms."

-- The first Bluetooth headset for your iPod AND your phone!

  You're looking for a new book, what are people reading?  You want to start listening to jazz, what are people listening to?

Is there anything humans can't make art of?  how to hack the images on Amazon, apparently for no other purpose than to play around with them and make art.

-- This isn't really an advice piece, it's more like a math analysis.

is the group of people who aren't freaking out over the filibuster compromise.

takes quotes from wiki definitions and leaves out the noun being described.

is meant to show different kinds of cross sectional scans of the human body.

-- As I think I've mentioned once before, I was able to do something like this with an old stereo, running a wire from the speaker jack to the computer input and recording it with audio software.  This looks like a better quality solution.

  A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds -- The site is rich with definitional links, but of singularity gives the basic idea.  The Singularity is the point at which technology advances beyond human control.  OK, now all you scifi writers, tell the story.

And of course, "technology advances" may be a bit of an oxymoron as .

Speaking of science fiction, the

That Leno clip is the Video of the Day if you're not into ridiculousness.  However, if you are into ridiculousness, the Video of the Day is the .  And don't try to tell me you haven't considered stuffing electronics into a large orange sausage.

-- This looks more complicated than I remember it being when I first learned, but it should be helpful if you're hitting snags.

-- This isn't what I listened to in the mid 80s, but if you're into early sampled dance music you'll get enjoyment from this.

Mailbag!!

Hello from Hanover, NH.
I assure you that HUFU is not a hoax.  A lot of work went into product development, artwork, editorial content and website design.  I hope you will take a closer look at the site beyond the human flesh alternatives section, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at [redacted by Will].

Regards,
Mark Nuckols

Dear Mark,
Thanks for the note.  You're right, I didn't look closely enough to see that Hufu is made of tofu (something that should have been obvious to me by the name).  I've added a note to yesterday's entry.
Regards,
Will

Will,
I'm a long time reader, and now it seems a first time "caller".  I just found this morning hilarious and perhaps a bit off base, but quite funny.

It made me laugh; hope it makes you laugh.
-Ben Hess

Dear Ben,
Thanks for the recommendation, that is hysterical.  I bet slurpee slurping/brainfreeze endurance could be made into a sport.
Cheers,
Will

Check out .

They run pools on all sorts of political issues.

They're currently featuring a few related to , including how many Dems will vote to confirm, and how many Repubs won't.
Cheers.
- Brett M.

Dear Brett,
Thanks for the pointer.  Something tells me I'm supposed to officially discourage wagering on news events, but the site looks fun.  I particularly like that jackpots are so small.  I wonder if this has been considered as a teaching aid.  Seems like the perfect way to get kids (and people generally) to want to pay attention to the news.
Thanks,
Will

• May 25, |

The filibuster matter is definitely one time when the TV news folks and the news bloggers are in synch.  Filibuster links -or more specifically, compromise links- were everywhere today.  I saw a blogger and our favorite P.M.T.-ist from on the air today.

Check out that round-up on C&L and you get a sense of why there are so many filibuster links getting circulated.  Everyone seems to be checking out what everyone else is saying.  In that spirit, this is what I clicked:

• It is impossible to say whether this is a "terrible" deal, a "bad" deal, or a very, very marginally "ok" deal, but it .

• This site also gives an interesting perspective on how the links on this issue are going around:

• and also do some rounding-up.

And I didn't just click righties:

• "." ... "We don't have a "Republic" tonight. We have a total Republican regime. Welcome to the Theocracy."
• has links to the actual agreement, but it seems to have left him with more answers than questions.

Professor Bainbridge gets the funny quote of the day though I think:

Speaking of alternative diets, , the human flesh alternative.  What that means is that it's imitation human flesh... for food.  I didn't bother creating an account, but it looks like you can actually order this stuff.  It may be a hoax, but it seems like it could be a big seller with goth/vampire types and maybe animal rights people looking to make a point.  I couldn't actually find the page that says what it's supposed to be made of.
UPDATE: No hoax.  It's made of tofu.

And as long as I'm grossing everyone one out,

Speaking of eating meat, may have hit a new high in viral online marketing.  Apparently she did some kind of hamburger commercial.  I don't think we have Carl's Jr. here in New York, so the fact that I watched the commercial and also the "making of" video for a product I can't even buy says something about the success of this campaign.  Hell, we even had about it.  At this point they can stop buying ads on TV and just let the buzz do the work.  NOTE:  This is the second time I've clicked on link having to do with this girl that has automatically started to play music.  Oh, and the video is of her in a bathing suit washing a car.  Depending on what your job is, that might not be safe for it.

Speaking of spending time online, here's the scoffable story of the day:

Hmmm... maybe he should try "e-mailing" with his other hand.

Who knows indeed.

Speaking of Star Wars, I don't know if any of you went after that new Star Wars download, but be aware that .

-- I saw this on BoingBoing the other day, they have some .  I didn't make it through all 30 minutes, I'll have to go back later.

  UPDATE: Nevermind, I found it.  The fine folks at appear to be the catalyst for this spreading.  It looks like something that gets put together for someone's retirement party.  All I can say is thank God they're Norwegian peacekeepers and not Americans or we'd never hear the end of it.

-- I hope you saved your receipt.

-- "A videotape was found nearby by police called to the scene on Sunday."  Looking forward to that leaking to the Web.

On that note, the Video of the Day today is a huge file, actually a sort of short film in which two guys have a .  It's video like this that makes me excited for post-Lucas Star Wars.

gives us an update on the French referendum on the proposed EU constitution.

Y'know that story of the with a kid on the bus?  Compfused has , cursewords and all.  I'm not sure it'll change your mind, but it's different from what you see on TV news.

In robot housekeeping news, the Roomba robot vacuum people have that washes floors.  I'm not sure I like the name.  Shouldn't something called Scooba perform tasks underwater?  That should be the name of their robot pool cleaner.

I had to to figure out what they were selling.  I have a hard time imagining an American TV commercial showing a man-sized rooster getting off a toilet bowl.

  This has to be a Commuter Click, I can't read that off the screen, I'll go cross eyed.

Feeling kind of related to the above:

  Phone scammer nags a guy.  He records it for our benefit.  This scammer is pretty lousy at his scam.  Makes for a funny recording though.  **It does get a little blue at the very end.

  (P.S.  Looking at the diagrams of these, let me point out ahead of time that you try these stunts on your own.  I don't recommend them.)

-- People submit situations and you vote on whether it's normal or not.  Most of the ones I got had to do with relationships.  Fun food for discussion though.

-- At some point after 9/11 there was an explanation offered that no one ever considered that anyone would crash planes into buildings.  I think that excuse ultimately proved false, but regardless, at least one person thought it would be a good idea to harness the power of the online community to make sure that if terrorists strike again, at least no one could say it never came up as a possibility.  Some of them are silly.

Great stuff in the mailbag today:

"And something that was never well established in my mind about the story is how obvious it should have been that Newsweek item would call riots and subsequent death.  Is it predictable that this blog entry showing an American tank with "New Testament" written on its gun will spark riots and death too?"

Are you asking the right question?  The blog entry you link has copied pictures that appear on an official USMC web site.  If you follow the links on Americablog, they will take you to the site.

Isn't the correct question, won't this entry on a U.S. military site spark riots and death?'

And, how can our government castigates a news organization when our official sites post such inflammatory material?  Will those who called for journalists to be charged with treason or sedition call for these marines to be charged with the same crimes?

-Name withheld

Dear Reader,
Points all well taken.  I was trying to make the point that it's not really that easy to predict what could set off deadly riots.  Why not that item too?  I understand your concerns though, thanks for sharing them.
Regards,
Will

Regarding the Newsweek story that you couldn't find on MSNBC's Newsweek site, .  They don't appear to have the cover prominently displayed, however.
-William Duncanson

Dear William,
You rock!  Obviously I was looking for the wrong thing.  Actually, the one you cite is not the same as the translated clips .  I wonder if they're on a similar theme from the same issue or if they really do rewrite the same story for different editions, even different foreign editions.
Best,
Will

Hi Will,
.

Is it just me or should someone write these guys a letter asking if they have thought this thing all the way through?  What if they wrote back saying, whew, thanks for that, we could have blown up the State, just never occurred to us—star-core heat, just like a hydrogen bomb, an energy pulse 1,000 times the electric generating power of the United States inside one building.  That would have singed the hair on our asses—what were we thinking?  Maybe we’ll just use the lasers to make some of those cool 3-D thingies.
-Ken
Sudbury, ON Canada

Dear Ken,
For all matters scientific I immediately turn to my colleague, MSNBC.com Science Editor Alan Boyle who blogs on this site over at .  Here's what Alan had to say about safety issues with basically creating a sun in a lab:

I hope that puts your mind at ease.
Cheers,
Will

• May 23, |

As you know, I often find popular links without their context so I have to do some working backwards.  I almost skipped until reading the comments after the brief post.  OMG!  What happened? ... Googling the blogger's name brought me and this from the Daily News.  Add one more to the list of uses for blogs, and someone contact the Law & Order script writers.

Among the more common responses to the Newsweek Koran story last week was "What about the treatment of the Bible" and "What about the treatment of the flag."  So when some bloggers saw a copy of the cover of with a depiction of the American flag in a garbage can, well, let's just say word spread fast.  The cover in question is not in relation to the Koran story but that hardly matters at this point.

I feel like saying something about how America is perceived abroad and media outlets making editorial decisions based on the attitudes of their audiences, but for the people following this part of the story the issue is singular and pretty clear cut, so trying to over think it comes across like a song and dance.

Disclosure?  MSNBC.com hosts Newsweek's site, including some of the .  I looked around to see if I could find this story or even the offending cover in our archives, but I didn't see it.  There does appear to be a site, but I don't think it has to do with MSNBC.com.

Speaking of foreign versions of popular media, .

Speaking of European elections, has just gone through a pretty dramatic election.

Speaking of trying to follow events in a place that doesn't speak English, Google is working on new .  Will it be better than ?

Speaking of translations, what's ?

Evolution debate ping-pong:

• Send a hundred bucks and a cheek swab and they'll trace your roots back to Africa.

from the seventh generation of game consoles -- I'm not much of a gamer, so I thought I would skim through this.  I ended up reading closely.  This may be the most revealing essay on the current state of gaming I've ever read.

Regarding number 5, in spite of what the studies say, I'm really skeptical that there's a correlation between

and whether girls want to play with that character.  Do boys feel bad choosing characters with impossibly big biceps and pecs?  Did the

I played with as a kid affect my sense of self?  Skeptical.

Speaking of impossible upper bodies, the guy in today's Video of the Day has .

-- I looked at the first 40 and they're SFW (although there are a couple of Slave Leias that made me say, "What were you thinking?")

, there's killing for the sake of saving lives, and then there's killing for the sake of saving lives.

Questions about actual regard for human life came up a few times today, whether or in the .

  I guess Starship Troopers was number 101.

-- In brief, there's a service that describes what's on TV for blind people and this is a recording of what that sounds like.  I think it may be even funnier.  The narrator has to describe some of the visual gags, but it totally works.

"As head boy at a legendary choir school, Lawrence Lessig was repeatedly molested by the charismatic choir director, part of a horrific pattern of child abuse there. Now, as one of America’s most famous lawyers, he’s to make sure such a thing never happens again."  In case you can't place the name, Lawrence Lessig is a pretty huge figure in the online world, so was alarming news to many.

Speaking of Lessig's field of specialty,   (This is Part 2 of an essay we clicked last week.)

Speaking of television, .

Isn't that called "rolling down the window with the radio up"?

Speaking of "casting," .

And still casting, you can watch online.  Check out their whole , there's some really good stuff there.

-- To fans of the TV show Lost, those numbers mean something.  Although as this site shows, they don't quite agree on what.

-- This is a participatory database cataloguing very small objects.  They have a guide for how to name them and a whole gallery of them.  This is also very silly.

-- Example: Design a plate for practicing addition and multiplication tables.

Speaking of educational tools, I just brushed up on Spanish words starting with the letter A at the .

smallest coolest apartments.

Are you having second thoughts about that video game instruction manual you threw away because you thought you wouldn't need it?  Try .

That's the only strategy I thought there was!

The blogosphere has a few terms for sudden spikes in traffic.  Pundit bloggers refer to an "instalanche" when Glenn Reynolds links to them and sends a flood of new users.  Among tech bloggers there is a phenomenon described as both an honor and a curse, known as getting slashdotted.  Traffic from Slashdot comes in such a volume that they regular crash the sites they mean to showcase.  Now, having offered those few sentences of foundation, .

Commuter Click:  -- It's funny to see bloggers cited in footnotes.

Coming full circle to the subject of Newsweek's Koran story and related themes, "Reporting on abuses that have been committed by our troops, in our name, is ."

And is losing patience with the matter.  "Newsweek and the rest of the media need to get up off their knees and start fighting back. They've done enough apologizing." 

is also losing his patience, but for a different reason.

And something that was never well established in my mind about the story is how obvious it should have been that Newsweek item would call riots and subsequent death.  Is it predictable that showing an American tank with "New Testament" written on its gun will spark riots and death too?

Phew!  Monday entries are always a workout.

• May 21, |

The idea of a site that deals in blogger gossip and celebrity bloggers calls to mind an interesting question.  At what point does a blogger give up the expectation of privacy and become a public figure?  Provided it's not a parody, , or its , may answer that question.

One of the many things I've learned in the course of writing this blog is that it's not very polite to speculate that someone else's site is a parody (particularly if it isn't one).  In this case what sparks my suspicion is that Blogebrity is participating in the .  We clicked on the Showdown when it was announced, but the official kickoff was last night.  Basically it's a contest to see who can create a site and get the most traffic without advertising.  (Read the rules, it's more specific than that.)  So basically everyone on the list is trying stunts and strategies to get attention on the Web. 

Already is showing up on all the popular lists -- not without reason, it's weird enough that it spread even without a contest.

I also got a kick out of , but only because it's Friday and I'm tired.  But already in just these three examples you can see the different strategies being employed.

Can bloggers on the right "Eason" another loose talking media person?  If they do, will "Eason" really become a verb?  .

Meanwhile on the other side of the pundit blogging rainbow, you know that Senator Santorum .  ()  It seems like every few days some new person is comparing someone to Hitler and then quickly apologizing for doing so.  Earlier this week .  The pattern is so common I can't help but think it's deliberate, but after reading mention of , I'm wondering if perhaps it's just part of human nature.

Star Wars links (hang in there, these are bound to go away soon):

• -- Is the Jedi Council really all it's cracked up to be?
• -- Now you can look as cool as the people in these pictures.

Yesterday I complained that I didn't know what to make of the new "My Google."  One explanation is that all they've done is .

-- Actual headline: Too much knowledge can be bad for some types of memory, study finds.  The idea is that the more you know, the more you assume and end up taking for granted so you stop noticing actual real details.

How to (for purely educational experimental purposes) . 

-- This is a little old, but I didn't see it when it came out and it really is great advice.  Basically he's saying the odds are good that your blog will suck, so don't bother.

-- I don't understand this.  Everyone knows Ted Stevens is .  With all the watchdog groups and all the shame-on-you media reports this stuff still gets through.

gives big media a pep talk.

Yesterday we saw a post celebrating newspapers.  Today we find one promoting old fashioned paper .  All this "the future is now" stuff is exciting, but maybe we're getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Bill Whittle has a lengthy two part essay on his blog.  (, )  I was hesitant to post them here because it's hard to summarize and it is pretty long.  Having read through Part 1, he's expressing his frustration with people he feels aren't contributing to, or are actually obstacles to progress in the war on terror.  Some might deride it as a blog rant, but the sincerity and the authenticity is such that if you want to understand that perspective this paints the picture well.

shares the news that Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" is being felt in Syria.

I can only assume with some extreme contortionism, but it's really hard to see a body in there.

Video of the Day:  -- Backhoe Ballet -- This is also my first time visiting the films of .

may be the most popular on the Web.  I can't figure out a specific reason why it showed up on my radar today, but I'm happy to include it because photoblogs generally aren't part of the link trading game, so we don't see them here very often.

From the site for that just happened here in the City I clicked for why bloggers may not be so quick to if they move their Op-Eds behind a subscription wall.

• May 20, |

I read a new-to-me term today, neoluddite, which I think refers to  people who reject technology on purpose because they fear a sort of attack of the machines future like the Terminator/Matrix movies.  Reading about and the CIA , I can sort of see where they're coming from.  (I wonder how much the are a catalyst to developing more unmanned devices.)  Note: the swarms link doesn't mention military uses, I'm just being dramatic.

A lot of bloggers are linking to about the U.S. role in the UN food-for-oil scandal.

When I read it I thought, woah, did we have that story on our site?    I guess I wasn't paying attention.

And that's along the lines of what Al Franken writes about in (which, by the way, is a counter example to yesterday's "fodder for Hollywood haters" ).  At least I was already aware of the missing 8 billion.

Speaking of all that, of Galloway's opening remarks is here.

-- "Newspapers are the only consistent source of real reporting we have."

Spot the hoax:

• "; A real-life supermom used a bottle of breast milk to douse an amputee yesterday after his wheelchair was set ablaze by punks on a Staten Island bus, cops said."

(OK, it was kind of a trick question.)

on why the (some?) Senate Republicans are looking to declare the filibuster unconstitutional rather than just changing the rule.

Speaking of the filibuster bluster,   (not exactly an impartial source, but still interesting)

, circa 1951 -- I was more fascinated by the follow-up chapter on homosexuality, .

-- Mostly political themed.  For a broader contest of a similar nature, check out the folks at .

Y'know, this Star Wars hype is running out of steam.  I reckon Harry Potter will be the new hype soon.  They still have a lot of movies yet to come and the new book will be out July 16.  Have you started planning your yet?

:  "This site was built to provide current information on what our representatives are doing in Congress!"  The only thing I wish it has was a link to the legislation itself so we can read it, but the site just started, so maybe that'll be added in later.  Perhaps working with the folks would be a good idea.

Awesome! !  The link for the first one is , but it's taking a while to load.  I imagine they're using a lot of bandwidth to serve the new one, so if you didn't get a chance to play the first one you may have to come back to it in a few days when things calm down.  Not that you need to.  Hapland is one of those figure-it-out-by-clicking-on-things games.

-- That's cool and probably even life-saving, but the is the one that really blows my mind.

-- Since the general rule for this blog is no nudity on the first click (any clicks after that are your own fault) this is probably about as close to linking to porn blogging as Clicked will ever get.

You know the Newsweek story is over when it's degenerated from being a story about Guantanamo to a story about a story about Guantanamo to .

Speaking of meta, I'm not familiar with the music site called Pitchfork, but today I kept running into this that makes fun of Pitchfork reviews.  Thankfully, arriving late to the party does not make the pieces less funny.

You may recall, not too long ago we clicked a designed to tell you where your fit in the political spectrum.  They've now compiled those results into .  Choice quote:

"Some web addresses (URL) are very long and complicated. creates for you a short URL with a keyword you choose, making it easy to remember or give away. This link will not break in emails and never expire."  I haven't tried it yet, but I admire the idea.

for uber geeks -- no letters on any of the keys.  If a store-bought blank keyboard is for uber geeks, what kind of geek has a keyboard with all the letters worn off through use?  I inherited my keyboard from whoever worked here before me, so by now, not only are the letters worn off, but the keys themselves are misshapen.  That's geek pride.  (The Das Keyboard also has variable weighted keys, which I've never heard of.  I wonder if that makes up for it being flat.)

, which outside of search engine blog circles.  I often miss what the big deal is about .  No doubt next week sometime I'll be posting a link to a tech blogger who explains why this is either evil or the greatest idea ever.

Speaking of making mainstream news, finds itself once again under the crush of a mainstream traffic frenzy, this time with news and a peek at a leaked "workprint" of the new Star Wars movie.  If you're not able to see the clip, it's brief and just shows the quality and what a workprint is.  It has the counter numbers on it, probably for editing or something.  Reading through the comments on Waxy and sites where the file is actually being traded, this leaked version is generally being seen as a fan item, not really worth the immense download for the casual viewer.  There also appears to be a general expectation that there will be a higher quality version out there shortly anyway.

Speaking of movies,

to draw a calendar photo using MS Paint.  It sounds stupid they way I just described it, but really, it boggles the mind.

The matter of UFOs on the Google Sightseeing site is .

Speaking of Google Maps, mixes Google Maps with movie listings.  It loads a little slow and it got my neighborhood movie theater wrong, but those are work-out-able.  Cool idea.  (From the same folks who do , which again, doesn't quite work for me in my area, but is still really interesting to compare gas prices around the country.)

The Morning News announces its -- A great list of cool sites.

Feeling in a rut? 

Video of the Day: -- The names of the moves are funny.

- A field guide to chess tactics

has a trackerless version in beta.  The explanation on the site of what this means is pretty clear, but in brief, the only way to offer a torrent file is to have access to a server.  This new version aims to make that no longer the case.

Commuter Click: -- I understood the first part and then it got real technical, so I have to print this one out and see what I can get out of it.

Less hard to understand Commuter Click:

Mailbag!

Hello,
I was aboard Alitalia flight 618, diverted from Boston to Bangor when a no-fly suspect was, well, flying. The FBI later declared there were no terror suspects aboard, but among the passengers there was... a blogger!  .

Plus there's already some interesting comments from a Bangor resident and an airline pilot.
Thanks,
Nick Genes

Dear Nick,
What a great story.  I'm glad you shared this because I definitely would have freaked out if I looked out the plane window and didn't see the airport we were supposed to have landed at.
Thanks,
Will
P.S.  Readers may be interested to know that I passed Nick's note on to the cable folks and they've invited him to tell his tale on the air some time Friday during the day.  I'll keep an eye out for a video clip.

UPDATE: The aforementioned clip:

People always talk about the hit music ratings.  lists the most requested songs (music tablature) that guitarists are wanting to play.  The list is re-set daily.  The #1 most requested on 5/19/05 (by a long shot) was BYOB by System of a Down.  Now that is a song that is not even on the radar of most people.  Just goes to show that musicians and the music marketers don't see things the same way.
-Jan and Scott

Dear J&S,
What a cool site.  I see there are bass tab offerings as well.  I love the idea that people are figuring out songs and sharing their notes with each other.  I'm sure the music publishers are freaking out, but I think this is a worthwhile community.
Appreciatively,
Will