Copyrights and copywrongs

• January 19, 2006 | 11:34 AM ET

Lessig is wrong — Lawrence Lessig is a champion of the Creative Commons movement and an advocate for loosening copyright restrictions.  His current battle is over the digitization of books.  Google wants to scan books into a database to make the text searchable.  You wouldn't get the whole book in a search, just an excerpt.  Ignoring whether this is a good idea or a handy utility, this blogger makes a good argument against Google's plan.  For what it's worth, there is a larger issue at play as well, which is whether search engines and other services that surface material from the Web (like RSS aggregators) are taking advantage of the original content holders.

Speaking of which, could a "content consortium" (an alliance of the Web's major content creators) cripple Google?  Would it ruin the Web if all the big players decided to withhold their stuff from Google and make their own search engine with their own ads?  Guess who's quoted in this article as saying it would.

Speaking of corporations going after each other's money, "Cyberextortion" seems a likely word to catch on.  In this case, telecoms trying to get Google to pay for bandwidth the telecoms' customers are already paying for.

And speaking of paying (or not) ISPs, ShareMyWifi maps people offering to share their wifi signal in exchange for money or favors.  Don't get caught, I don't imagine your ISP would approve.

You may recall a couple of weeks ago we saw the Zapruder film with the shakes taken out of it.  Here's a similar job with an animated gif of Bigfoot footage.

Some people are calling this the coolest 404 error page.  I'm still a fan of the Nevermore 404 page.

"Disaffected! - a videogame parody of the Kinko’s copy store, a source of frustration from its patrons. Disaffected! puts the player in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store."  Buzzword alert:  From the Slamedance site: "Disaffected! is the first in a series of persuasive games we call anti-advergames: games that challenge players to rethink their relationship with consumption and encourage corporate critique."

Speaking of things with random exclamation points in the name, "Meet ted! Your new way of downloading tv shows from the web!"  The creators of this app are Europeans who don't like to wait months for American TV to air overseas so they watch the shows online instead.  The program is basically like Web Tivo.  I'm guessing their European status is what keeps them from having their butts sued off as well.

European panoramas

"Gamers are a diverse group, but most fall into one of six categories. Those are: Hard Core, Devoted, Pretend Hard Core, Casual, Clueless and Worthless."

"Both NBC and ABC have seen a rise in viewer ratings since adding select TV shows to the iTunes Music Store."  I'm wonder what the connection would be between iTunes popularity and TV viewing.  If all it took to convert viewers was to give them a sample episode or two, the show could have done that for free on its own site.

Of course, there's also the possiblity the the Office is just a good show and the iTunes thing is a hollow story.  The Golden Globe can't hurt.

A new coffee press called the AeroPress is getting a lot of attention.  Instead of pushing the grounds out of the water the way a French Press does, it pushes the water through the grounds (and a fine filter) so you can use a finer grind and not end up drinking mud.

The 2006 Knitting Olympics — The idea is to challenge yourself to complete a proejct in the course of the 16 days the winter Olympics are taking place.  Everyone who finishes wins gold.  Check out the list of participating knitting bloggers to understand why this qualifies as a significant online event.

A blogger is just a writer with a cooler name; Why Blogging vs. Traditional Media Has Been Oversold  — I nodded my head so many times while reading this I gave myself a strain.  Bloggers are not a separate species of animal.  A regular topic of discussion we have here at MSNBC.com is whether it even makes sense to single out blogs in their own section.  After all, we don't have an "articles" section.  What's so unifying about blogs other than a style of presentation?  "There is no such thing as blogging."  Hear! Hear!

With so many people using satellite maps, particularly Google Maps, it makes sense to paint your logo or other identifying features on your roof.  It's not like we're doing anything else with it.

Ten reasons why no one reads your blog.  Note the warning on that first link.

Speaking of lists of ten, 10 Things Martin Luther King Would have Done about Iraq  (Hint, he was a pretty firm believer in peace and love.)

Speaking of Dr. King, listen to his I have a Dream speech.  (I know these are a couple days late, but that's the hazard of waiting for a link to show up as heavily traded before posting it here.)

Speaking of colorblind, How to Design Web Accessible Pages for the ColorBlind — I wouldn't have guessed that one in twelve people are colorblind.  I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this headline because just the other day I was talking to a colleague about a letter to the editor from a colorblind person:

From: James DeLano
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:37 AM
To: Letters
Subject: To the Editor
This is a good graphical representation of the “players” – however it would be easier to visualize if the players pictures were surrounded by a colored black box when one clicked on Lobbyists, Scotland Golf, etc..  Do not use red as the color blind (myself) impaired users cannot see it. The current method of highlighting the background of the photos doesn’t work well.

Msnbc rocks – better content – better visuals than cnn

Jim

Wikipedia editors expose journalist's plagiarism

Ted  Kennedy to quit club that bans women — One has to think this is due in large part to some of the "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" reaction that followed the Alito hearings.

Did you ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in which Larry (falsely) thinks orthodox Jews have sex through a hole in a sheet?  That's nothing compared to what's being debated in Egypt (and elsewhere I imagine).  This article gets a little graphic, but there's no photos, so if you can read sexual terms without being offended, you'll be OK.

Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits — It's like voiding the warrantee on yourself.

How hard is it to learn Chinese?  Answer: Wicked hard (for Westerners) to pronounce and read/write, but at least the grammar is easy.

Reboot your computer, be anonymous — "Titled Anonym.OS, the system is a type of disk called a "live CD" -- meaning it's a complete solution for using a computer without touching the hard drive."

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse — A bourse is a stock exchange.  This essay gets juicy in part 2.  Basically, it argues that the Iranians have the potential to pull the rug out from under the dollar.

A photo gallery of pool hustlers.

Confessions of a crap artist, Philip K Dick.  (BBC audio -takes a couple minutes to get to it.)  Background story from R. Crumb.

Meetings considered harmful — "A study conducted by the University of Minnesota found that the amount and length of meetings correlate with “negative effects” (burnout, anxiety, and depression) on its participants."  I'm seeing an increasing number of articles about how interruptions in the day detract from productivity.

5 great ways to harness collective intelligence — I'm pleased to be able to use this as an excuse to revisit the "wisdom of the crowds" idea I mentioned last week.  A surprising number of people wrote in to point out either how many stupid things crowds have done or how many good things have come from individuals, not crowds.  Like Ed's note here:

Dear Will,
Do people really believe in groups of people are smarter than any one individual? Seems like every breakthrough in history can be attributed to a certain individual, not a certain society.
Ed in Oklahoma.

The reason I say notes like this are suprising is that the wisdom of the crowds has been foundational to Web development philosophy in the last couple of years, so it sounds like heresy to hear it questioned.  Of course, if I'd explained it better there'd be less confusion.  A quote that is likely to be included in the telling of Internet history is Dan Gillmor's "My readers know more than I do."  You're more likely to get a correct answer from a group than an individual by the simple probability that more people means more chances someone knows the answer, and furthermore, combining knowledge can often produce new, better insights.  To be sure, no one denies that there's such a thing as a stupid mob.  The challenge has been to come up with ways to help people network and surface ideas to best distill the crowd's wisdom without also fostering groupthink.

"These files are here for your listening enjoyment all are from out of print non-reissued spoken word and audio gems from my own vinyl collection."  Fun stuff.

Intelligent Design as Philosophy Fails — When everyone was fighting over I.D. in science class, one suggestion was that it be taught as a philosophy instead of a science.  Turns out, that doesn't really work either.

• January 17, 2006 | 5:19 PM ET

One stop shop for blogs offered — I can't figure out if it's this Boston Globe article that has everyone talking about Gather.com or if there's more to it.  While there are a lot of blog aggregators, I can't think of any that share revenue like Gather plans to do.  That said, there's considerable skepticism about the site's prospects.  (Jason Calcanis argues that this wheel has already been invented.)

Speaking of money and blogs, regarding the blog auction I mentioned yesterday, the mystery blog is The Blog Herald and the highest bid is $72,000.  Now how do you feel about selling your blog?

I found a lot of people linking with outrage to photos of a roller derby player being roughed up by police on this site.  Unfortunately, the traffic seems to have blown out the photos so I had to look around to find them elsewhere.  I found what appears to be a copy of an eyewitness account of the story here, but still no photos.  I finally found a couple of sites with the photos.  (Note before you click: They're of a girl in a short skirt on the ground with a bloody face.  Depending on where you are and who's around, you may want skip it.)  They're here and here.  Finally, this blogger had the name of the roller girl as well as her league and has now updated with a link to an actual news story (ahem) on the matter, though facts are still few.  In the course of all of this searching I didn't learn much about Dallas pedestrian laws, but I did learn that Roller Derby is way bigger than I realized.  In checking out my local league I've learned that there is a national tournament next month in Arizona.

Speaking of tough women, UltraViolet is coming soon.  Yes another butt kicking athletic super woman.  Is there much feminist discussion of these new female characters, from Lara Croft to the new Charlie's Angels?  Seems like current generation of young girls has a new category of role model to look up to.

Speaking of superheroines, given the colossal success of this Batgirl drawing fest, I think we can expect more of this kind of meme from livejournalers.  Note: I clicked a bunch and didn't find anything obscene, but that's not to say there isn't a surprise in there somewhere.

The Bunny comic appears to be picking up a following, this time with its model of the media as a double edged sword.

Make Vegan Twinkies — I didn't think a Twinkie had any natural ingredients to not already be vegan, but I guess there's some kind of animal fat in there somewhere.  Update:  There's some question among folks here who pay attention to such things as to whether the use of refined sugar disqualifies this as vegan, but the Vegan Lunchbox folks seem to know their stuff.

Happy Birthday Trogdor — Note:  Keep volume knob handy, sudden burst of loud music.

Video of the Day:  An award winning short film called "Between you and me," currently enjoying wide viral distribution.  More at the source site.

  Web addiction video of the day

Speaking of Web video, Video overcoming Pictures in Online Media — YouTube is getting higher traffic than Flickr.  Not mentioned is that Flickr is all amateur photos whereas YouTube includes bootlegs of commercial video.  Viewed another way, how will all these new video sites be impacted if copyright is enforced more thoroughly?

Mythbusters: The lost experiments — Not exactly bloopers, but some scenes you didn't see on TV.  The water torture one was interesting.

In case you're trying to keep track of past killer robot attacks, we've got a timeline of them.

Speaking of the latest flying killer robot, the New York Times got burned yesterday, printing an incorrect caption on a photo from the scene.  Donald Sensing has much more on the military shell in the photo.  Amazing how much some experts can know from just a few stripes in a picture.

Time.com has redesigned Andrew Sullivan's site.  I like it.  Hate the cartoon though.

Podzinger is a podcast search engine that searches the text of the podcats.  Of course, podcasts, being audio, don't have text, so it uses voice recognition to translate all of the podcasts and uses those translations as the search database.

Cringley's tech predictions for 2006 and an assessment of his predictions for last year.

The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented — In the end its an argument for pre-emptive strikes on Iran.

10 things to do in Tokyo for free

Algae - like a breath mint for smokestacks — The idea is to grow algae near power plant smoke stacks.  It eats a lot of the CO2 from the air.  The resulting algae crop is then harvested for oil made into biodiesel.

Of course, there is also the opinion that it's already too late.  Here's a cheery sentence:  "The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate."

Speaking of the end of the world, Human numbers through time — They have a time-lapse population chart like this at the Museum of Natural History in New York.  The future projections are pretty scary.  (But what's the deal with Australia?)

Virtual NY Tour — What an outstanding site.  It's still being built, but it's not hard to envision what it'll be like once it's fleshed out.  I can't wait to see other cities done this way.

The question is whether baseball stats are historical facts that anyone can use or if they're the property of Major League Baseball with rights that have to be negotiated.

• Baseball Statistics as Intellectual Property?
• Fantasy players may get beaned

Furious cabinet revolt as Blair gives green light for security services to spy on elected representatives

The art of branding — If you're not a marketing person, you may think you don't care about this, but to the extent that we're all constantly bombarded by marketing, it's important to pay attention to what they're doing to try to put thoughts in your head.  I imagine politicians would do well to pay attention to this as well.

New PBS blog, Media Shift — Just what we needed another blog about the media.  (Seriously though, Mark Glaser's articles for OJR are always very good, so his blog will undoubtedly be something to watch.)

How to make lock picks — Lock-picking comes up with unusual frequency online.

Speaking of making things, stuffed felt monsters -tutorial.

Their levees - our levees

"You've probably seen 'Japanese girls in meat hats versus the giant lizard', but have you also seen 'Japanese girls versus the giant black man', and 'Japanese girl in seal hat versus the polar bear'?"  (Note:  I couldn't get the "furry stripper" link to open, so you're on your own there.  Could be a joke, could be what it sounds like.)

Cool flash alphabet — Call your kids over and click the letters.

Mystery sea creature — Mystery beast stories always end up having a rational explanation, but I still like the idea of mystery creatures.  (Don't tell anyone, but this looks a little like a Wolf Fish to me.)

"A woman's body odor can help her attract men when she is at her most fertile and repel them when she is not, scientists have said."  This is actually backward.  The article says that a woman has less of an odor when she's more fertile, so the body odor isn't doing the attracting, it's the lack of body odor that's more attractive.  In related news, I swear I rode the bus the other day with a woman who smelled like a buttered bagel.  Very attractive.

Top 50 most influential Christians in America (no Pat Robertson)

"Once you've been in the MRI field for any length of time, you start hearing all of the various horror stories about things that have flown into a scanner. ... This page will contain a collection of pictures and stories of metallic projectiles."

Seeing more than your eye does — Since the issue of the blind spot on the human eye came up recently in discussions of the ocular (and evolutionary [and spiritual]) superiority of cephalopods, I was interested to play with the blindspot tests on this site.

St. Marteen airport - SXM - Renamed the lowest landing airport in the world!  — These are Photoshopped, right?

LSD Geek wonder drug — Recreational drug science is such a weird thing to read about; a strange mix of stoner-speak and geek-talk.

The face of the future: Why Eurasians are changing the rules of attraction — "Scientists now believe that people of mixed race, particularly Eurasians, possess certain genetic advantages that lead to greater health and, as a result, increased attractiveness."  This is what they're really trying to show:  "New research by British scientists also suggests that a link may exist between the gene diversity and beauty."  I'm skeptical.  If evolution favored race mixing to the point of affecting our attractions, wouldn't we be naturally more attracted to members of another race and therefore be already quite mixed by this point in our evolution?  Tsk.  This blog needs a comments section.  :(

• January 16, 2006 | 11:04 AM ET

Rounding up my clicks from the weekend, this entry came out a little long, so pace yourself.

Photographs of an atomic blast.  What makes this different than other mushroom cloud photos you've seen?  "Automatic Camera situated 7 miles from blast with 10 foot lens. Shutter speed equaled 1/1000,000,000 of-a-second exposure."

Speaking of photos of nukes, "100 SUNS documents the era of visible nuclear testing, the atmospheric era, with 100 photographs drawn by Michael Light from the archives at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. National Archives in Maryland."

And speaking of high-energy photos, High-speed Imaging of Shock Waves, Explosions and Gunshots

I'm not sure why photos of nuclear blasts would pop up this weekend, perhaps its the recent bluster over Iran.  Speaking of which, I'm inclined to believe the Iranian nuclear threat, but with a little extra cynicism, this Atrios Iraq redux scenario doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.  (If it loads weird, it's the part titled "How It Goes.")

Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye — Potential readers can make snap decisions in just 50 milliseconds.

Talkman translator - Software for your PSP.  Speak into it, and it'll translate what you've said and repeat it in a different language of your choosing.

The auctioning of an anonymous blog is drawing interest online.  We'll find out today what it was.  How much could you sell yours for?

The latest development in the eBaum battles:  Dramatic readings of cease and desist letters.

Video of the Day:    Tripod performs a love song to video game widows.

Speaking of popular Google videos that make men look like idiots,   this commercial caught me by surprise.

RFID cooking - The pan receives a signal that tells it what you're trying to cook.

I don't personally respond well to being constantly nagged and reminded, but I guess that works for some people.  Those people will find use in HassleMe.

Estate Tries to Link Benihana Incident to Diner's Death — The man died of an infection... after having surgery... on his strained neck... which he injured while dodging a flying shrimp... tossed at him by a hibachi chef.  They want $10 million... all for want of a nail.

Speaking of ridiculous lawsuits, Man sues over chat room — The headline is a little misleading because the meat of the charge is about things outside a chat room, but if you've ever spent too much time in a chat community you'll recognize the real root of the drama.

Speaking of bad things happening when online communities become too consuming, Temp online all the time, gets fired.  "City officials have determined that the Web site was accessed 19,200 times between Aug. 18 and Nov. 2."  The funniest part is that the accused is a guy who posted as "Sassy Sarah."

15 Tech Concepts You'll Need To Know In 2006 — Yes, I have some studying to do too.

A brief history of names — Not specific names, but how different cultures treat naming.

A half hour video on how mobile devices are hacked, found via the DHS.  Story here.

I'm thinking it's the cool spinning photo navigation that drew link attention to this site, but the zombie game is cool too.

Has the Canadian media become hostile to incumbent candidate for Prime Minister, Paul Martin?

America was discovered by the Chinese.  Columbus Day to be renamed Zheng He Day.  (Just kidding, sort of.)

Mashup feed — You'll recall that a mashup is when the functionality of two or more sites are combined.  Usually we run into these randomly as they gain popularity online.  This site is an effort to collect them in one place.

While playing with the above I clicked Tagnautica.  Type a word and "explore the space of related Flickr tags."

In a blow to pro-life advocates, it has been ruled that a fetus is not enough of a person to get you into the carpool lane.

The Meaning of Bicycle Bells (in Germany)

THE (Broken) TRIANGLE: Progressive Bloggers in the Wilderness  — This is essentially an examination of how the liberal blogosphere is not coordinating well with the media or with Democrats (together they make the three sides of a triangle).  Even if you don't care, make a mental note of "triangle" and other shapes as new buzzwords.

"'Tis time to go on a virtual tour of Tiny Bag End!"  A hobbit doll house.

"[M]odern-day staff work for just 11 minutes before they are interrupted by an e-mail, phone call or a metaphorical tap on the shoulder from a colleague."  This explains why I get more done when I work from home than when I go into the office.

10 sites you should know about

Dr. Who is coming to the Sci Fi channel in March.  (Disclosure:  Sci Fi is owned by NBC Universal, which half owns MSNBC.com - a relationship I have to figure out how to exploit better.)

"My name is Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, Ph.D., L.D.D.D. I am a Satanic Dark Priest, Sanguinarian Vampyre and a Hecate Witch.  My Magikal Path name is: Lord Ares.  I despise and hate the Christian God the Father. He is my enemy."  ...So vote for me for governor.  Story here.

What does the world sound like with a cochlear implant?  (Hey look, it's our man Alan Alda.)

Origami hardtop — Video of the new Volvo's retracting roof.  It won't be long now before it keeps folding until it's a Decepticon.

You may have heard about the volcano stirring in Alaska.  You can monitor it here.

Digg vs. Slashdot, traffic vs influence — Jason Kottke got a link from both and is generous enough to share his server data so we can what kind of traffic comes from such linking.  There's lots of room for your own interpretations, but one that Kottke offers is that "Slashdot is far from dying."  I reckon this will be the final word on that subject for a while.

'Doomsday' seed bank to be built — It's like Noah's ark for seeds.

Yahoo bought WebJay last week.  I don't have much to say about that other than that it's been a while since I played with WebJay.  If you have speakers and like to listen to music at work, this is worth clicking around. 

WebJay is also how 15-year-old Zoe streams her radio shows.  (I listened to her year-end wrap up show this morning.)  What would you have done with the Internet if it was around when you were 15?

Speaking of listening online, Pandora has been a consistent popular link online, but it crashed my machine the first couple times I tried it so I didn't post it here.  I tried it again last night and it worked like it's supposed to - which is to build a radio station of song that are similar to the style of the band you tell it to look for.

It did a pretty good job creating a Motorhead station.  With Bootsy Collins it set me up with Parliment and Sly and the Family Stone.  No Carter Beauford in the database, but they did have Victor Wooten (gave me Marcus Miller).  Eventually it asks you to sign up for free registration and if you don't buy a subscription you have to sit through some ads now and then.

"Natural-food grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. said Tuesday it will rely on wind energy for all of its electricity needs, making it the largest corporate user of renewable energy in the United States."  Seeing that AP story around the Web was pretty exciting, but as I was trying to think of where they'd put the turbines, I checked to see if we had a version of it on MSNBC.com and found this Motley Fool report that explains that they're just buying wind credits.  A couple of years ago, Brooklyn Brewery switched to wind power and as far as I know, they're running on actual wind generated electricity.

The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words.  The quotes are fun to think about as is the challenge of thinking of other short quotes.  (My nomination: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.")

"Following the success of our digital line-up over the last seven years, which has resulted in more than 95% of Nikon’s UK business being within the digital area, Nikon Corporation has made the decision to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras."  That's right, if you have a Nikon that uses film, it's about to become a collector's item.

More questions than answers on Star Trek XI.  If Patrick Stewart is afraid of being too old to get out of the captain's chair on the enterprise, as least that doesn't rule out sitting in the chair to play Professor Xavier.

Toothbrush lock pick

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