Corporate coffee klatch

• January 8, 2006 | 3:33 AM ET

When I saw all the links to the Planet of the Apes box set from Walmart, I thought it was just spam.  It wasn't until later that I read up on the scandal of their recommendations.  Since the live site has been corrected, I looked at the screen grabs on Crooks and Liars.  I was then interested to click to FireDogLake where they've published a direct reply from WalMart.  "I noticed that you blogged about the Walmart.com incident earlier..."

In a strange twist, WalMart quotes John Aravosis, who is at the center of the briefly revealed possible interest by NBC News in the spying on journalists.  (No, I don't know anything about it.)  An argument could be made that if NBC had been as pro-active as WalMart, there wouldn't be quite as much speculating and theorizing in the blogosphere.  (Unless, of course, the bloggers are correct in their speculation.)

Then again, Microsoft had at least three blog responses that I know of, plus an official corporate response to the Chinese blog story, but that doesn't mean the answers are any more satisfying to advocates of free expression who brought the story to light in the first
place.

Taken all together though, it's still impressive to see individuals actively engaging wealthy, powerful multi-national corporations.  This is indeed a new age.

A few links from last week before we move on to the next:

The RFID zapper from a blog called Global Guerrillas which seems to be about the kind of activities that would use such a disruptive device.  Thus the blog's tagline, "Networked tribes, infrastructure disruption, and the emerging bazaar of violence. An open notebook on the first epochal war of the 21st Century."

Speaking of disrupting the system, here's a theory that Microsoft tried to mislead virus writers by deliberately announcing a wrong date for the release of the recent IE patch.

I'm not sure how old this link is, but it's popular and in the course of trying to figure how what the heck it is I learned something, so I'll include it.  It's an ISO recorder.  An ISO file is like a snapshot (the people who know call it an "image") of everything on a CD.  Apparently it comes in handy for copying CDs and DVDs.

Data Mining 101:  Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists — The writer shows how a bit of programming applied to Amazon.com wish lists can reproduce what we might imagine the government does in spying on U.S. citizens in the course of looking for possible terrorists.

Speaking of books and hunting terrorists.  Is it coincidence that one of the guys who wrote "Bush's Brain" shares a name with someone on the no-fly terrorist watch list?

Know where you can shoot your camera — "If you can see it, you can shoot it."  Includes several useful links to legal resources.  I know I've mentioned a few times here that I photoblog outside of work and have had run-ins with authorities giving me a hard time about taking pictures in public places, so I'll spare you that rant.  Instead, consider what unwritten social laws there are (or should be) about taking photos.  Now that everything with an "on" button also has a camera built into it, some folks are getting a little annoyed at all the snapping.

I never heard of the mystery spot in Santa Cruz, but the description and explanation of optical illusions in this story is interesting.

Science's 10 most beautiful experiments

This is reportedly the Matrix Reloaded freeway and a Mythbusters test area.

Past winners of the wackiest warning label contest.  They hold the contest every year, so if you know one, you can enter for next time.  This is not just a joke site.  The point of the contest is to highlight the impact of frivolous lawsuits.

By bizarre coincidence (as far as I can tell) I clicked two separate essays on the evolutionary superiority of cephalopods; in one case the giant squid, the other, the octopus.  I'm embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me that the fact that the earth is mostly water means that God intended its population to be his chosen creatures.  (By the way, neither essay mentions their being created in the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

Free medical books

• January 6, 2006 | 12:57 AM ET

The antispyware conspiracy - One Christmas while visiting the in-laws I tried to log onto their computer and the thing was completely bogged with spyware, adware, and viruses.  Also in the mix were all kinds of really helpful sounding offers from anti-spyware services to remove all the junk.  Since then I've believed that antispyware companies are in collusion with virus writers in some way.  After reading this entry I have a clearer understanding of it all, but I'm no less bitter.

Brother can you spare a hyperlink?  What happened to the bloggers after the Internet collapsed forever?

iSee - A while ago we saw it explained that the video iPod could be like a portable VCR that could be plugged into a larger screen.  This is one such larger screen.

The patent epidemic - Business and innovation is bogged down with everyone always claiming to already own every idea.  Given the influence of business on the government, I'm surprised this isn't being taken care of.  It even seems to involve an opening to use the "activist judges" meme.

I was glad to click the Belmont Club's summary of two essays that have been passing around the Internet all week yet haven't seen much in terms of mainstream light.  There are a good number of people who look at rising Muslim immigration in Europe and see the early stages of the death of western culture.  It's an idea we never hear in the mainstream, but once you understand that perspective, further sentiment about the war on terror and liberalism are also easier to understand.  Every now and then it's useful to have a reminder of what everyone is fighting about.

I've been watching the Internet Storm Center for updates on a fix to the latest IE vulnerability.

Virtual world includes an online prison.  If you're staring at yourself sitting in a corn field on a computer game, it's time to stand up and go outside to play.

Crash course on learning theory — Insofar as it's about how people learn things, it might also be called teaching theory.  Lots of interesting, easy to process stuff here.

New Musical Experiences — This is really long, but not too hard to skim if you're not all the way interested.  Lots of useful links here.  At the end of the above essay he makes a note about finding music on MySpace.  In the spirit of keeping up with "the buzz online" and particularly since lately I'm afraid to play music that comes on a shiny piece of plastic, I've been watching the MySpace top bands page.  They come with a few songs to listen to (full songs, not samples).  Note:  As you can see, that first one, Tila Tequila, is not something you want to be caught looking at at work (the music is dance music, nothing dirty), but she's been up there for a while, so it'll be interesting to see if being popular on MySpace can be a springboard to something more.

"A set of four priceless archival recordings from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) of the outstanding Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman - arguably the greatest science lecturer ever."

Speaking of old video, BBC Creates Public News Internet Archive — This is presently limited to UK residents only, but what a great idea.

Here's a fun Mario game for a Friday afternoon.

Speaking of games, "GEwar is the first truly interactive game built using Google Earth."  It's about armies taking over cities, but it's pretty involved, so I'll let you click through if you're interested.

Curb your need to be right - This is a variation of the online rule that no matter how anonymous you feel online, the Web is a public place.  In this case, he's emphasizing the fact that with all the social networking online and all the archived, cached and otherwise published material, when you're expressing yourself online, you're acting in extension of your real world reputation.

Animated exploding star gif — Takes longer than I thought (than it does in the movies) for a star to explode.

Abramoff winners and losers - Includes the prediction that a third party will benefit from the general perception that everyone in D.C. is a crook.  But if we have three parties, how are the cable news shows going to split screen "both sides" discussions?

Speaking of both sides, you've probably seen or heard some people offering political explanations for the recent mine disaster in West Virginia.  The argument, in a nutshell, is that policy that prioritizes energy industry profits over worker safety results in dangerous conditions and accidents.  Intuitively that might make sense, but it's hard to ignore that, in fact, accidents are on the decline.

Screen grabs of the flight simulator Scoble was gushing over yesterday.  Sorry, I still think of 9/11 training when I see it.

  Bikini calculus — No, I would not have learned a thing from this.

A lot of folks were excited by the Extra Tasty drink recipe site.  It lets you enter what ingredients you have in your bar and tells you what cocktails can be made with it.  Reading the description, I was immediately reminded of Cooking By Numbers, in which you check off the items you have in your fridge and cupboard and it tells you what recipes use those things.

Speaking of recipes, the Food blog awards are taking votes.

Pick the best Fark photoshopped image of 2005.

I think "disgusting but legal" is my new favorite designation.

I have to apologize to readers who clicked on the link to the new Mel Gibson movie trailer link I posted here a couple weeks ago.  You've been exposed to some subliminal loopiness.  There is a hidden single frame in the trailer.  It's so silly I didn't believe it until I went through the trouble of confirming it on my own.  Here's the .mov of the trailer from the official site if you want to find it yourself.  Right click and save it and open it in Quicktime.  Scroll up to 1:46, then go one frame at a time with your sideways arrow and you'll eventually see it.

The Brazilian Butt Lift Is A Very Very Big Trend — I saw an ad for a "butt fill" procedure in the back of the New York Magazine.  Turns out it's like reverse liposuction.  They inject your own fat into your butt.

A new parenting blog that's drawing links from all over:  Parent Hacks.

Translating proxy — Added to your Yahoo messenger, you type in one language and it shows up to your buddy in another language, automatically translated by the program.  Like Star Trek, only typed.  My experience with online translators makes me wonder how well this works, but as an idea I love it.

iFilm's viral videos of 2005 — Most of them we've seen here.  Do note that the first one has a "mature" label, which means NSFW.  I'd probably put the Paris Hilton commercial in that category as well.

• January 5, 2006 | 11:53 AM ET

Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble points us to a reply to the China censorship story from a product unit manager at MSN Spaces.

Speaking of Scoble, his downright jubilant live blogging of the Bill Gates keynote at CES is a pretty funny read.

And speaking of explanations for things that raise eyebrows online, NBC has explained to TV Newser the editing of an Andrea Mitchell transcript on this site:

Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.

In case it wasn't obvious, Microsoft and NBC both own this blog, so I'm pleased to be able to relay their explanations.

• January 5, 2006 | 11:33 AM ET

Robots kill Iraqi family —

"An unmanned aerial vehicle... observed the would-be attackers as they dug a hole following the common pattern of roadside bomb emplacement," he told the AFP news agency.

"The individuals left the road site and were followed from the air to a nearby building.  Coalition forces employed precision guided munitions on the structure."

Were there any humans involved in this targeting?

Domestic spying history:

• Why the NSA's snooping is unprecedented in scale and scope.
• Bruce Schneier introduces us to (reminds us of?) Project Shamrock and points out that the current NSA domestic spying story is not new.

I looked around, but I still don't get this blond joke.  Oh wait... I get it now.  That is pretty funny.

Allpeers is the FireFox killer app — People have been buzzing about this for a couple of days.  Here's how I understand it.  At the most basic level, it's a buddy list in your browser that lets you share files with your buddies.  Interestingly, it looks like when you download a file from a buddy, you download from all the buddies on the list who also have that file (like BitTorrent I guess).  It's going to take me a bit to play with this, but if you're interested, it doesn't look too hard to learn.

The Abramoff coverage includes a lot of mentions of nervous members of Congress but few names are being mentioned.  Think Progress looked up his financial dealings to give an idea of the scope of the case.  (The site has specifics on what they researched.)

Carnival of homeschooling

It's that time of year again.  The 2006 Bloggies.

"Imagine a gun with no recoil, no sound, no heat, no gunpowder, no visible firing signature (muzzle flash), and no stoppages or jams of any kind."  At 120,000 rounds per minute, it better come with a dump truck full of bullets.  There's a corny video at the end of the article that reminds me of the vignettes in Starship Troopers.

Warp drive when?

Web sheds light on 9/11 — It looks like the site with the video linked from this article is down, but since I missed most of the media coverage that morning, it's interesting to read how the different outlets handled it.

Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century by Michael Crichton — In short, it's not the end of the world, it's just the world.  His point is that people have been really afraid of things in the past and nothing has come of it.  The world is a resilient place.  I had flashes of annoyance in reading through it, but if you keep a light heart while you read, it's enjoyable.

Draw a sketch and Retrievr finds it on Flickr.  I couldn't get it to work very well until I drew a Christmas tree.

Speaking of Flickr toys, this one draws from Flickr categories to make a screen saver.  (I haven't tried it, but fun idea.)

100 things we didn't know this time last year — Mostly trivia.  Some fun ones.

Number 11 on the above list is "One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed."  And speaking of Ikea, apparently a lot of people are abusing the cheap and free customer services at Ikea in Germany.  It's like pigging out on free samples at the mall food court and then taking a nap in the chairs at Barnes & Noble -- only moreso.

Handed watches have outlived their time.  The future is now.

A description of conditions at Guantanamo.  I didn't know they had a 4 day riot there.  UPDATE:  I misread it.  The riot was at Camp Bucca Detention Center in Iraq.

Unified Physics Theory Explains Animals' Running, Flying And Swimming — "For example, the stride frequency of running vertebrates bears the same relationship to the animals? mass as does the rate at which fish swim. Similarly, the velocity of runners conforms to the same principles as the speed of birds in flight."

Barbie.com promotes gender confusion because it offers "I don't know" as an option in the "sex" pulldown menu.  I can't find the pulldown menu on the actual Barbie site, but the option reminds me of the "boy meets girl" segment of Free To Be You And Me.

Judge orders man to prove the existence of Christ — I didn't think there was any question about this.  I thought it was just the Son of God part that required faith.

Given all the fuss about Wikipedia and "getting it," this comic is seeing a lot of attention.

I think this is remarkable because it's uncommonly dramatic use of stereo by an mp3.  You might want to do a right click/save to play it more smoothly, and of course, you need more than one speaker to get it.  UPDATE: More explanation here.

Video of the Day:  I agree that it was a cheap shot, but I really can't summon much sympathy for the guy who gets punched here.  There's no kissing in staredowns.

The problem with this game is that if you have any success at it, you can fool yourself into think you actually understand the strategy.

Fork Art — I read this as Folk Art at first and wondered when forks became a popular medium in folk art.  Duh.

• January 4, 2006 | 4:23 AM ET

Rebecca MacKinnon has a lengthy entry about Microsoft censoring Chinese blogs on MSN Spaces.  Scroll down to second update for new-to-me term "bridge-blogging" - translating media from one language to another.

A reader named John wrote in to ask if this story is true.  In spite of our mutual Microsoft affiliation, I don't actually know much about what MSN Spaces is up to.  On the broader question of whether I believe the story, I can say that Rebecca MacKinnon has a solid reputation.  I believe her report.

Speaking of restrictions on the Web, with increasing frequency I am reading about a "two-tier Internet."  The meaning shifts a little, but the idea is that there's what the Internet can do and then there's what you're allowed to do on the Internet.  The bottom line is that a free Internet threatens too many people's money.

Speaking of the Web they give you, to the mailbag!

Just wondered if you saw the latest on the copy protected CD front.  Apparently, the record industry really, really doesn’t want anyone to buy their products.
—Jason

Will replies:  Yes, I saw this one and later clicked the one you're offering with that long list.  Pretty soon all you'll be allowed to do is hold the CD up to your ear and try to guess what it sounds like through the plastic.  There aren't many products on the market that fight with you about what you're going to do with them once you buy them.  (And why do they put "Guidance" in quotes when talking about car stereos with GPS?  The whole thing comes off as real paranoid.)

Pirate Party launches in Sweden.  As much fun as a pirate party sounds, it's about building a political base around filetrading and other copyright and intellectual property issues.

Speaking of the international scene, Mumbai metroblogging.

Top 10 Free Time Wasting Sites on the Net

Military Times polls military members about attitudes about the war.

What the media can't get right about Wikipedia.

New Year's panoramas from around the world

How much power should Bush have?

Who wants to die Elmo - If it didn't already say it, someone would have surely come up with a hack to make it so.

Paul Ford reviews 2005 in three paragraphs.

First jet powered birdman flight — Rocket shoes aren't the kind of thing you can try just a little before the real thing.  Don't miss the video.

Avril Lavigne is going to be acting.  (I actually don't care about this at all, and I don't imagine many of you do either, but gossip blogs are such a significant part of the blogosphere that I feel like I should include one now and then.)

Speaking of SuperSize Me, 8 months experimenting with banned sports drugs.  This is a really long piece but you might want to check out the NPR audio if you're interested.  It's like a sports drug Hunter S. Thompson.

Like you didn't have enough security concerns to worry about, check washing is literally applying a solvent to a written check to make the ink come off so a thief can write in a larger amount.

A fascinating tour of a tar lake in Trinidad.

Can a site that sells CDs for $1.50 each be legal?

"For the last year I have been taking a picture out of our living room window at random intervals."  The photos are edited into a sort of slide-show video.

The Learning Channel's Hacker Hall of Fame

This video compares the speaking ability of a young George W. Bush with the current one.  The purpose is to make some kind of medical diagnosis about him being an ex-drinker.  If Bill Frist is going to get bashed for diagnosing Terry Schiavo on video, surely this is no better.  Setting that aside, it is remarkable to hear that younger George Bush speak.  If he said the same things but in that manner, I can't help but think he'd be in a different situation today.

Ralph Goings, realistic painter.

Carrying on the mass-quantities of Silly Putty theme from last week, will a huge ball of it bounce when dropped from a parking garage?

The Ten Commandments of the Ethical Atheist.  "Just consider them suggestions."

The new year means the new annual Edge question has been posed.

The new banished words list — Funny to see "breaking news" on there because I was just grumbling that the cable folks have kept "breaking news on the screen since the start of the West Virginia miner disaster as well as any Jack Abramoff news - even the re-hash.

When it comes to making predictions for the upcoming year, there seems to be a technique of simply exaggerating what happened last year to an absurd degree.  So:

• Joss Whedon on the future of TV
• Firefox co-founder's predictions
• And Reddit looks back to look ahead

Tale of the tortoise and the hippo — A much happier ending than the tale of the snake and the frog.

Top 50 music videos of 2005 — Too bad this isn't on one big play list, it's kind of a pain to go one by one.  Lots of fun stuff here though.

By the way, that whole story about the NSA visiting the student about his library book was a hoax.

Favorite fonts of 2005 — We know from the Rathergate fracas that typographers are in large supply online, so it would be wrong to ignore that community's contribution to the year-end wrap ups.  It's also interesting to see font commentary, which reminds me vaguely of wine criticism.

"More than four years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, many U.S. adults still believe some of the justifications for the invasion of Iraq, which have now been discredited, according to a new Harris Poll."  I wonder what the social margin of error is on something like this.  I don't mean the scientific margin of error, I mean there's a certain percentage who believe the earth is flat, can't find Iowa on a map and don't know the president's name.  Those folks are always going to give the wrong answer to a pollster, but what's their total percentage?

A guy implants an RFID tag in his own hand.

How to make an RFID blocking wallet - using duct tape, naturally.

I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life.

Commuter Click:  In Praise of Idleness, a Bertrand Russell essay from 1932.  Not long ago I attended a panel in which one of the speakers, a professor, explained that one of his greatest challenges with his students is to get them to stop and think.  There's so much information available and it's so easy to obtain and so fun to find, it's easy to get caught up in mass info-consumption.  This professor pointed out that sometimes you need to stop and let some of it soak in and just think on what's already in your head.  Because it's the Commuter Click, I haven't actually read it yet, but that's the spirit in which I'm printing it out to read on my commute.

Top 10 ways in which technology has impacted our culture during 2005, in no particular order.

Waiter Rant offers great advice on how to order wine without looking ... um.. bad.  Of course, he's also the reason I order Pinot Noir with fearful timidity lest I be sliced to pieces by a peppermill lightsaber.

How men and women differ on Internet use?

Passion of the Spaghetti Monster — An interview with creator/high priest Bobby Henderson.

Video of the Day:  They're called loop kicks.

Since everyone is gushing over the new panda cub, but there aren't enough cubs to go around, maybe you can get yourself a panda dog instead.

A fish with two mouths is too freaky-looking for me to be able to make a Blinky joke.  Luckily, the article covers that base and more.

After reading this history of pranks, The Economist invites you to submit your nomination for the finest prank in history.  You have until January 20th.

Knit graffiti — Reclaiming public space one stitch at a time.

Speaking of graffiti, how about anonymous community cup graffiti?

The bold Note: section:

• Weirdest case mods — A "case mod" is a modification of the box your computer is in.  Not unlike car or motorcycle culture, people want to customize their gear to make it look cooler.  Note:  The last one is a little risque.
• For almost every photo on the internet, you can right click on it and look at its properties to see the direct link to where it lives on the hosting server.  If you know this link, you can put the picture on your own site using the same path.  You can, but you shouldn't.  It's called leeching because traffic to your site would be sucking up bandwidth from the site hosting the photo.  The host of the photo is not without recourse, however.  He can change the name of the photo you're using, leaving you with a dead image, or he can change the image at the link you're using, essentially putting a photo on your site.  All of this is a really long introduction to this funny bit of leeching revenge.  Note:  Pretty close to not being safe for work, contains an image of shadowy male frontal nudity, not to mention non-utilitarian leather straps.
• Somehow this person got the state of Virginia to issue a goatse license plate.  Note:  If you don't know what that is, DO NOT look it up -or at least, do so at the risk of your own sanity.  It's just about the dirtiest thing online.  It's not, however, a secret by any means.  I suppose it's the equivalent of getting a license plate with a foul curse in a foreign language.

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