What's it gonna take for me to see you in this search engine?

• February 11, 2006 | 11:39 AM ET

OK, so that archive box was long and ugy and broke the page for some folks.  Instead I put it on its own page.

Note, if you were having problems with it using Firefox, I think you won't now, but do check on your version.  The newest is 1.5.0.1 and upgrade will solve some of the compatibility issues Firefox has with this site.

• February 11, 2006 | 6:30 AM ET

Yahoo is exploring the idea of giving special benefits as incentives to people who use their search engine.  I wonder how they'd police that.  Search your machine for Google cookies?  I also clicked this blogger's broader look at this strategy of "customer acquisition."  I remember not long ago when there was talk of Microsoft doing some kind of revenue sharing with customers (that is to say, blogosphere talk, not internal MS talk, of which I hear very little).

In Tuesday's entry I half-joked about using A-List bloggers as a marketing tool.  When big name bloggers talk, people listen.  An article in the Wall Street Journal has taken that a little further in suggesting that the role of money and consulting contracts raises ethical questions.
My experience is that the big name tech bloggers are very aware of the ethical issues they face, so it's not surprising that some have taken the WSJ article personally.

I also clicked Doc Searls' coverage of the story and this cleverly titled entry, Confliced.blogger.com. 

In spite of the absurd collection of corporate parentage (Microsoft and GE (NBCUniversal) of this blog, I haven't faced much that has left me feeling conflicted.  I'm not aware of anyone here having a problem with my writing about criticism of NBC or praise of MS alternatives.  I sometimes get free books or CDs from publicists pitching chat guests, but that's part of the business, not really a gift.  I can share that the most conflicted I've felt in my career so far happened only a couple of weeks ago when I was doing that bit of business travel.  I ended up being able to talk one-on-one with Chris Matthews when the whole bin Laden/Michael Moore thing was blowing up.  I don't feel any obligation to defend the cable folks, but talking to Matthews in person definitely changed my perspective on the matter.  The conflict I felt stems from not really being free to share that perspective because of the off-the-record, internal-business nature of the trip I was on.  (To clarify, the trip had nothing to do with Chris Matthews and blogstorms, I just happened to grab his ear during a lunch break because he was standing near me.)

Speaking of tech bloggers talking up new companies, the star of the day today is Edgeio.  There is a vision of the Internet that has everyone contributing content through sites of their own and then search engines and other aggregators culling that content into universal databases for everyone to access.  So if you have a classified ad, you can post it on your own site and let the Craigslists of the world find it and list it automatically.  From the descriptions I've read, this is what Edgeio proposes to do.  I also clicked this post, bridging the issue of blogger influence and interest with the latest Edgeio hype.

Another example of the decentralized Web is the brand new Songbird, the "open source iTunes killer," well described by Boing Boing.  It looks around the Web for mp3s and collects them in one place.

A recent Washington Post article about the role of new technology in spreading the Mohammad cartoon controversy has many bloggers expanding on the point.  For my own two cents, I'll add that this is the first time I can think of that the East/West cultural war has been so directly engaged online.  Warbloggers are sometimes teasingly referred to as the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, in part because their commentary, while excellent at rallying support at home, is ultimately ineffectual in actually taking on the enemy.  With the cartoon story, however, keyboard warriors have clearly found a way to capture the attention of the Muslim world.  For all the fretting by newspapers, the cartoons are everywhere online.  New cartoons are everywhere, jokes are everywhere, videos are everywhere, Danish flags are everywhere.  I imagine the fact that the cartoons don't require language has facilitated this new exchange.  For that matter I have to wonder if we'll see a new interest in communicating online through cartoons.

Speaking of jokes about the cartoon controversy, this t-shirt is one of the funnier ones I've clicked.

I made a note of Josh Marshall's defense of Harry Reid in connection with Jack Abramoff and was surprised to see the MSNBC.com Letters to the Editor mailbox fill up with complaints about the coverage.  Now I see why.

Is World of Warcraft the New Golf?  Maybe for tech entrepreneurs (assuming they ever golfed in the first place) but I can't see the corporate golf scene moving inside to sit at computers.

When the future looks back on important steps toward lifelike robot pets, the Pleo dino-bot may be seen as a significant development.

And when the future looks back on important steps toward cooler sci fi space suits, the "second skin" suit may be seen as a significant development.

Trailer for the new Dave Chapelle movie.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  It doesn't look like it has a plot, but if the music is good and the jokes are funny...

Speaking of comedy, it's probably a reflection of my general heathenism that I don't get this theology joke.  But since it's not every day that I actually run into a theology joke I figure it ought to be shared.

Jay Rosen is expanding his PressThink blog to include a grad student group blog called Blue Plate Special.  It sounds like they're going to be looking at the implementation of newspaper blogs.  Now that everyone's got a blog, the real question is what's being done with them.  Blue Plate Special could raise the bar on what it means to keep up with the Jonses of the media.

The science of hit songs — They seek to answer the question of why lousy songs can be more popular than good songs and conclude that how a song is rated has to do with how others rate it.

Speaking of music and mind games, "On the days we play French music nearly 80% of people buying wine from those shelves choose French wine, and on the days we play German music the opposite happens."  It's not mind control exactly.  This essay calls it a "priming effect," so it's more like the music puts you in a certain mood that leads you to make choices related to that mood.

"The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity."  I thought they already had that, but I guess it's still in the works.

But speaking of government spying on your computer, you might want to do some extra research before installing the new Google desktop.

Speaking of Google stuff on your desktop, if you haven't downloaded Google Earth yet, it may be getting close to the point where you're missing out on something.  (Previously Google Earth was cool but not so much cooler than Google Maps that I would make an issue of it.)  I'm starting to run into .kmz links more often.  I don't know what that stands for, but it's a file extension that means Google Earth will open and something will be mapped onto the globe.  Most recently I saw this link, which plots all the Winter Olympics locations with schedules and other details.

Cooler than that is a .kml link I clicked a little while ago plotting the spread of avian flu across the globe over time.  Again, if you have Google Earth on your machine already, clicking the link will automatically open it and spin the globe to show you this new layer of information.

Speaking of plotting things on a map, WeatherBug has weather stations plotted on a map.

It works, and gives you the option of Google maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth.  Since there are a lot of stations with cameras I'm going to see if I can watch the snow come up the East Coast today.  P.S. Did you know there was such a thing as WeatherBug Labs?

You'll recall that machinima is when movies are made with the characters and settings of a video game.  This is a video of a   Rube Goldberg series playing out in the Half Life 2 video game motif. 

Nasty little truths about physics - "It is obvious that spacetime physics has become a cult of crackpottery with tons of fanatical devotees."  Science geeks are having fun with this as a result of this Slashdot post.

Speaking of mentally exercising your physics muscle, Jason Kottke has a lot of bloggers thinking in circles with a brain teaser called The case of the plane and the conveyor belt.

"Rock band Queen, fronted by gay icon Freddie Mercury, has become the first rock act to receive an official seal of approval in Iran."  I guess Freddie Mercury was of Iranian descent.  Still, how bizarre.

Zillow, a site that lets you look up the value of properties, has real estate blog like New York City's Curbed excited.  There is some question about the reliability of the database it uses, but that hasn't dimmed enthusiasm.

Bottled Water: Nectar of the Frauds?  I remember when the bottled water trend was hailed as a good thing because drinking more water is good and drinking water instead of soda is good.  It makes sense that there's a downside as well.  In addition to this article, I've also recently read that drinking bottled water means missing out on fluoride for your teeth, and the Times published an Op-Ed this past summer with a laundry list of criticisms.

There's an expression in the motorcycle community, "Loud pipes save lives," and you've likely heard the thunderous manifestation of that philosophy.  True or not, the idea is that a loud motorcycle is more likely to be noticed and therefore less likely to be hit by a car.  Now it seems hybrid owners are learning a similar lesson.

Speaking of green cars, Hydrogen-Powered Honda FCX to go Into Production.

Speaking of alternative energy, MIT researchers fired up about battery alternative — It seems like every new miracle invention I read about involves nanotubes.

Blurb is for turning your online material into an old fashioned page turner.

Eruption on Augustine Island, Alaska from space.

The roots music listening room — If you like old music, this is a must-click.

The Blogpulse folks are offering a page that graphs the number of blog posts in different categories ... by the minute.  It's as close as you get to an EEG of the blogosphere.

3-D painted rooms — The rooms are painted so that when viewed from the proper angle an optical illusion makes it look like a pattern has been drawn on the room through space.  NOTE:  Serious pain in the butt pop-ups when it first loads.  Nothing that'll crash your machine, just annoying.

StockDigg is like regular Digg, but with business stories.  It also allows individual stocks to be "digged."

"For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards."

Folks who didn't buy the idea of "wisdom of crowds" will feel some vindication in this:  "Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the ‘illusion of group of productivity”."

Why do workouts work?  Apparently no one knows the answer, but they want to find out so they can help astronauts preserve their muscle tone while weightless in space.

"A new device developed by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology uses lasers to project "real" 3D images into the ether."

Video of the Day:  Awesome multi-touch screen.  Minority Report, here we come.  UPDATE:  Oops, they're having bandwidth issues.  Here it is on YouTube.

Ridiculously teeny tiny games.

• February 10, 2006 | 12:50 PM ET

Speaking of getting things done, I finally put together a dated archive list (see it there on the right).  What a long, strange trip it's been.  A few folks have written in looking for past items.  I'll reply to those a bit later when I dig into the mailbag.

• February 9, 2006 | 1:43 PM ET

A few recent news items highlight that bloggers continue to use basic investigative and networking skills to get things done beyond the virtual world.

When a U.S. soldier was asked by the Army to pay $700 for the body armor he left behind on the battlefield after being blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq, an outraged blog community took up a collection and raised almost $6000 for the soldier in just a few hours.  I see there's a follow-up report today that the Army is going to reimburse the soldier.

In other blogs-getting-things-done news, you've likely seen by now that the Bush appointee who'd been trying to keep NASA from being too sciencey in public, has resigned.  Again, a blogger getting things done.

And, since I clicked it and it fits the theme, even Marilyn Monroe auctions aren't beyond the reach of someone with gumption and Google.  Tell me this doesn't remind you of RatherGate: "But I have a small problem with those hair curlers: it took only the briefest Internet research and a call to Clairol to establish that they were first manufactured in 1974. Marilyn passed away in 1962."

In my round-up of cartoon links yesterday I neglected to Daryl Cagle, perhaps the foremost authority on the politics of political cartoons (and my colleague).  He's got a collection of cartoonists' reactions to the controversy and he's blogging developments in the story daily.

Video of the Day:  In an amazing non-prank prank, some folks get together and   drive the speed limit on the highway in Atlanta.  If that doesn't sound remarkable, think about how frustrated you were last time you got stuck behind someone driving the speed limit.

Garfield turns out to be a pretty good comic if you delete all of Garfield's lines.  What weird is that when you read enough of them that way it's hard to imagine what his lines could be.

"Challenging some of their peers, dozens of evangelical Christian leaders on Wednesday issued a “call to action” on global warming — urging governments, companies and individuals to reduce fossil fuel emissions that many scientists tie to warmer temperatures."

Obviously it's not a real alien, and no one is saying it is, but it's still a pretty weird story.

How to cook an egg with your cell phone — Actually two.  Reading through the Slashdot discussion, it's not entirely clear how much of this is bogus and how much is true.  Even if it took three hours to cook an egg with a phone I'd be impressed (and a little afraid).

Buzzword note:  You've seen some links here at Clicked about the big telecoms wanting to charge Google and others for use of the network.  If you haven't, you've probably at least seen the recent news stories about it now that there are Senate hearings on the matter.

What's worth noting is that this subject is called "Net Neutrality" - the idea that the Internet remains open to everyone, a neutral environment for anyone who wants to contribute.  Citizens of the Web really do view this as a do-or-die situation.  What I clicked:

• Net Neutrality Not An Optional Feature of Internet
• Un-ending the Internet
• Vint Cerf’s Statement On Network Neutrality

Speaking of buzzwords, how about Ashleeturfing?  (If you don't feel like clicking all those little words, just check this Google search.)  The term has come up lately because there is some question about whether a tech company hired people to be message board community members to promote their products.

The story of Homeland Security spying on a vegan protest in front of a ham store seemed a little local to me, but it's been surfacing regularly for the past two weeks.  Perhaps it's the NSA wiretapping story that's keeping it relevant to a larger audience.  To be clear, the story isn't about NSA wiretapping, but it does color the issue of trusting the government.

Speaking of going vegan, I'm the only one in the office who thought the Whopperette Super Bowl commercial was clever, so I may be the only one who gets any entertainment from this Build Your Own Whopperette site.  I do agree that the beef patty costume is kind of gross.

When we hear about the role of blogs in politics, I think it's posts like these, by national activists trying to find candidates to fill local election slots that are most impressive.

This cool six-slice toaster led me to click around this neat design site to find a 12 panel watch that works by touch and vibration.  No price on it yet, but that's a pretty fresh idea -as long as it's not vibrating all the time, that'd probably make my hand go numb.

Speaking of weird designs, folks online are getting a kick out of this snowsuit/sleeping bag.  I think this is the source site.

Biblical studies carnival II

The Mudville Gazette lays waste to the story of military women in Iraq not drinking water so they won't risk being raped in the bathroom should they have to get up in the middle of the night.  As is often the case, I hadn't actually heard the original story, but he does point out in the entry that other bloggers have heard it and are repeating it.

The company we saw offering podcast searches now offers the ability to search news videos with something called TVEyes.  Voice recognition software translates the video into text so that your search result not only pulls offers a video but gives you the time at which your search term comes up.  I got mixed results while playing with it.

United Nuclear, which we last saw selling super magnets, now has aerogel.  I didn't know it sucks the moisture out of your skin if you hold it.

Haliburton building concentration camps — Those folks at Sploid write some funny headlines.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, sites that show before and after of retouched photos of sexy models should be required reading for kids developing a sense of self awareness.  The de Touch site also gives you a selection of different studios so you can see some of the different styles in retouching.  Note, the site uses Java and takes a while to load.  I clicked the link to launch and had to wait a little while for something to happen.  Be patient.

Commuter Click:  The Ad scientists - "Three case studies in how online advertising is invading the real world."

Steve Rubel calls for better standardization of blog measurement.  As if in response I clicked this site about assigning serial numbers to blogs.  Actually, looking at the Babel Fish translation, it looks like this is in reaction to the Spanish government refusing to assign ISSN numbers to blogs.  One thing that's interesting about this fight to register blogs is that when China said it would require bloggers to register with the government, it was seen as a bad thing.

Video Bomb is a video rating site, meant to function like Digg.  I found some good stuff I hadn't seen before on the popular page.

Flying whales, walking trees, three-eyed killer birds — NASA and SETI imagine life on other worlds.  This is really cool and a job I wouldn't mind having, but after reading it twice I'm still not sure I get it.  They're hypothesizing planets that might have life sustaining environments and then coming up with the kind of life that would live on them.  The idea is that they're not just making it up but are using science-based computer programs.  Really though, flying whales?  I think they're just making it up.

Teddy girl photos — Teddy boys were the precursor to the Rockers in England.  I'm a little fuzzy on 50's youth movements, but I gather they were like greasers.

The myth of the math and science shortage — Argues that if there were truly a shortage of mathematicians and scientists then the market would show that, for example, in how they're compensated.  I don't really agree with how he's framed things here because scientists don't really fill a market need the way other services do, but it's interesting to think about.

How to spoof e-mail without software — Couched as practical joke directions, these are actually pretty scary and simple instructions on sending mail from the address of someone else in your company.

• February 8, 2006 | 2:24 AM ET

This is what I've clicked lately with regard to the Danish Mohammad cartoons.  I don't necessarily agree with all of them but for various reasons I found them worth sharing.

Fact File on Reaction to Danish Caricatures — Juan Cole tracks the early evolution of the cartoon story with news articles going back to last October.  He's addressing a rumor that the whole thing somehow comes from the Saudis.  I hadn't heard that, but at least now I know.  UPDATE:  I take it back.  Here's the Saudi-Arabia-fanned-the-flames theory.

Iran to publish Holocaust cartoons — Oh yes, that should make everything all better.  Related:  The Wrong (and Late) Response from the Iranian Press

The whole how-would-you-like-it-if-it-was-your-religion argument (and its counterpart, when-it-was-our-religion-we-didn't-threaten-anyone's-life) is pretty common online, but it wasn't until I read this Eugene Volokh post that I realized a better comparison in an American context.  What other issue also pits political principle (like free speech) against a deeply held personal principle (like respecting Mohammad)?  How about the political principle of choice versus the personal principle of protecting unborn life?

Christopher Hitchens, The case for mocking religion — "For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows."

I found Josh Marshall's point about borders interesting.  If media is part of what causes the problem, how can we expect reaction to respect borders when media doesn't?  It is a 21st century conflict indeed.

"Gangs of pro-Muslim computer hackers have unleashed a withering cyber attack on Danish and Western websites in the past week..."

Everyone is afraid to criticize Islam:  "Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe."

Speaking of being afraid of Islam, one element of this story came startlingly close to home.  You'll recall that part of how global Muslim anger was sparked was that Danish Imams distributed the cartoons along with three other images that were not published by the Danish paper.  Apparently one of those images was a completely unrelated, nothing whatsoever to do with Islam photo of a bearded man wearing a pig mask from a story published on MSNBC.com.  Yikes!

These cartoons don't defend free speech, they threaten it — "Too many politicians would rather not trust the self-restraint of others and would take the power of restraint onto themselves."

It may have been gallows humor, but friends and I were joking that even if we wanted to boycott Danish goods, we couldn't actually think of any.  So it was handy to find this list geared toward supporting Danish products.

Speaking of humor around the water cooler, we'd also been joking that the Muslim Danish flag salesmen are suddenly in a boom time, and the American flag salesmen are having to do some belt tightening unless they can diversify.  Turns out, even in real life I think that's funny:  "When entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Dayya first heard that Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were being reprinted across Europe, he knew exactly what his customers in Gaza would want: flags to burn."

Speaking of Danish flags, bloggers have found their own way to show their support for Denmark, blog buttons.

Speaking of sympathy for Denmark (and Norway), Sorry Norway and Denmark: "[A] group of Arab and Muslim youth have set up this website to express their honest opinion, as a small attempt to show the world that the images shown of Arab and Muslim anger around the world are not representative of the opinions of all Arabs."

They link to a similar sentiment from the Palestinian Association in Norway.

Most of the print accounts I've read of the outrage in the Muslim community points out that the violent rioters are not representative of the larger body (1.5 billion?).  On TV that point is easily lost among the footage of angry raised fists and things on fire.  Not long ago I clicked a blog called Veiled for Allah, so I went back there looking for more first-hand Muslim reaction.  In addition to her own round-up, she also links to this summary of Muslim blog reaction.  (While on that blog I also got a laugh from the headline on this post about, among other points, the idea that the protests are actually instigated by Arab governments as a means of releasing steam from a population already riled up over U.S. foreign policy.)

I also remembered that Michael Totten had done independent reporting from Lebanon, where the Danish embassy had been set on fire, so I clicked over there as well.  "Most of today's mobsters don't even live in the city at all. They appear to be poorly educated reactionaries bussed in from Tripoli and Hezbollahland."

This Muslim blogger also wondered where these protestors were coming from.

Naturally, the best place to look for global perspectives that are underrepresented in mainstream media is Global voices.  I clicked this big Arab blog round-up on Monday, but I see they've added updates, so you may do just as well scrolling from the top.

• February 7, 2006 | 3:24 PM ET

The fallout over the Mohammad cartoons continues to dominate blog linkage, but while I'm mired in those, the rest of today's Clicked entry is sitting idly by, so here's "the rest" and I'll have some more cartoon links later.

The Web loves Google rumors.  For all the new toys and features Google produces, the Web produces an equal number of rumored toys and features.  Ordinarily I'm not a fan of rumors, but when they're really imaginative they're fun.  Case in point, this article marries rumors about Google buying up darknets, making their own computers, and packing shipping containers with data center technology into a big picture of Google basically creating its own separate internet.  (For added coolness, what's the deal with the tag on the end of that URL?)

Speaking of speculating about Google taking over the world, FON, Google, Skype and Why It Matters — There's nothing I appreciate more than a nice "why it matters" blog entry.  In this case, it seems like everyone is talking about something called FON.  As it happens, FON is a wireless company whose cash backers now include Google and Skype.  The short story is that it all ends up as a global wireless phone network that blends seamlessly with the Internet.

Speaking of new companies sweeping the Web, CoComment is on the tips of everyone's typing fingers.  The idea of the service is to gather all of your blog comments in one place.  You can display your comments as a stand alone blog, and you can be notified when others comment on your comments (lengthier description of the functionality here).  If this catches on, it'll go a long way to stoking the discourse online.

Worth noting is that Robert Scoble broke the news of CoComment, apparently kind of by accident.  This makes it the latest example of a product being launched with the power of A-List bloggers instead of a tradition marketing team and strategy.

Speaking of taking advantage of A-list power, 5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of digg Traffic - Though Web celebrity is not totally random, a lot of people are caught off guard when their site is picked up by heavily trafficked sites and suddenly seeing six digits worth of viral traffic.  Though this piece is about Digg, it's a good overall lesson in how to be prepared for, and take advantage of, a sudden traffic spike.

I think this is a heartwarming story, though I was a little concerned it was going to take an anti-interracial marriage turn.  (Flash video)

In the spirit of the St. Marteen video and photos from last week (which, by the way, about a billion people wrote in to verify -- what's the deal with everyone who reads Clicked going to the same vacation spot?) here are more photos of low flying planes.

Video of the Day:  Bollywood remakes Fight Club — This is actually a collection of video links.  I recommend Trailer 2, then Video 3.

LA Cops Fight Car Chases With GPS Devices — This only makes sense.  They've been doing it in movies forever.  For that matter, I'm surprised they don't yet have something they can shoot at a fleeing car that disables its electronic system.  Car chases are so low-tech.

Valleywag shows us all the free snacks the Google folks get at work.  Of course, that's not the half of it.  Having had access to the free sodas at Microsoft (briefly while visiting out there) I can say that all that free stuff is not always a good thing.

For the longest time, the idea that the Post Office would charge a tax of some kind on e-mail was a popular Web hoax.  But apparently Yahoo and AOL are considering making e-mail fees a reality.  The justification, in case you're not already scoffing out loud, is that you're less likely to be spammed if a sender has to pay money.  If the telecoms start demanding money from the traffic drivers for use of the network, is this how the cost will be passed on to the consumer?

Microsoft embraces RSS in a big way — We knew this was coming since it was announced at a recent tech conference, but the new version of Internet Explorer, now out in public beta, makes extensive use of RSS.  There are no trails being blazed with this, but a lot of people believe that by virtue of Microsoft's dominance, the release of IE7 will convert a lot more people to RSS and thereby change the way the Web is used.

As the paroxysms of life scientists' reaction to the Intelligent Design fight fade, it appears astronomers and rocket scientists are next in line to have to explain the basic underpinnings of science to the government propagandacrats.  This surely happened before the State of the Union speech when the president said, "[W]e need to encourage children to take more math and science, and to make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations."  Certainly that means scientists now will be allowed to teach science unmolested, right?

Speaking of the State of the Union, did you know there was a third person arrested at the State of the Union speech?  Apparently they thought he looked like a terrorist.  Of course, they arrested him on the way out, after he sat through the whole speech.  Someone's probably already made this observation, but what does it say about the state of the union that for a one hour speech there were three arrests, all for which the authorities ended up having to apologize?

Naturally, the American hurters who like to keep Americans divided and hating each other would like to paint the defense by scientists as an attack on religion.  The Vatican offers a rebuttal to that notion, however.  Vatican Observatory Director:  "[O]ur scientific understanding of the universe, untainted by religious considerations, provides for those who believe in God a marvelous opportunity to reflect upon their beliefs. ... Science is completely neutral with respect to theistic or atheistic implications which may be drawn from scientific results."

Speaking of the state of stuff, Dave Sifry has a new State of the Blogosphere report.  Lots of good charts included.

Speaking of Technorati, they've given new prominence to their "explore" feature that lists popular blog discussions by category.  Either it's a heavy feature or they're getting slammed with traffic because I'm having a hard time getting it to load on my machine, but it looks like it'll be worth a checkback later.

Speaking of these kinds of interest-gauging aggregators, here's a review of a whole new crop of them, some of which I use regularly, others I hadn't even heard of yet.

Speaking of using social networks to sort through the news, Webs of trust help us navigate the rising seas of blog content — "Now is the time to start building your personal network of peers to guide you through today's new media world."  The idea is that there's more information out there than we can digest and the only way to keep up is by relying on real people we trust (as opposed to faceless institutions or mindless aggregators).

If you're keeping track of personal Web sites of criminals in the news, the gay bar killer's MySpace is here.  UPDATE:  Oops, wiped out.  Not before it was archived here though.  (Scroll to the bottom for a pdf of actual screen grabs.)

McDonalds game — I think this is meant to make fun of McDonalds, but it's hard as heck to learn.

The German BMW site has been given the Google death penalty for gaming the system with hidden "doorway" pages.

Speed-reading techniques — Lots of interesting ideas.  We'll see if I can actually get them to happen.

How ants find food (Note to self:  Come back later to read what Mute is all about and how it works.)

Reporters and parrots - Google's director of Search Quality outlines why he has a problem with the quality of reporting he sees lately.

SawStop is a table saw that can sense when your finger is hitting the blade and stops before you get more than a nick.  How it works: "The system induces an electrical signal onto the blade and then monitors that signal for changes."  Site includes videos.

Well-rendered (no pun) CGI water

Encrypting Bittorrent to take out traffic shapers — Big heavy files being traded through BitTorrent consume a lot of bandwidth.  Apparently some ISPs are blocking their customers from using BitTorrent so they don't have to handle those heavy downloads.  In retaliation, and incidentally fitting the recent theme of hiding online, BitTorrent files are being cloaked.  Not everyone thinks this is a good idea, however.

• February 4, 2006 | 3:19 AM ET

Humor appears to be salting more wounds than it's healing lately.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff, not generally known for having thin skin were recently offended by a Tom Toles cartoon.  And Christians, fresh from a victory over NBC's Book of Daniel and still recoiling from the sight of Kanye West as Christ on the cover of Rolling Stone have launched a new campaign over a Britney Spears reported appearance on an upcoming Will & Grace episode in which she plays a Christian TV chef with a show called Cruci-fixin's.

And of course, there's the Danish Mohammed cartoons.

On the recommendation of a colleague I read this piece on why the cartoons have made Muslims so angry and now I feel even more like there's no resolution coming.  The conclusion says they want an apology, but I don't see how that makes everything suddenly OK.  In fact, now that they've made it clear what a sore point this is, they've given new inspiration to people who would like nothing more than to hurt Muslims.  In addition to seeing those original cartoons everywhere online today (Some bloggers have actually organized a campaign to publish them everywhere possible.  Check Technorati to see what I mean.) I also saw a lengthy photoshop contest with depictions of Mohammed in scenes from the absurd to the obscene.  Too bad they can't just rename the breakfast danish to "freedom pastry" and move on.

Here's The Counterterrorism Blog on why cartoons that were published way back in September are causing this much fuss now.

The Anchoress is a Christian who explains her thinking on how to respond to content she finds offensive.  (Hint: It doesn't involve burning flags.)

"How Products Are Made explains and details the manufacturing process of a wide variety of products, from daily household items to complicated electronic equipment and heavy machinery."

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches

The Madonna tagging project

I don't know if this is spam or what, but if you're really looking to buy an island you probably already have a means of shopping.  For the rest of us this is a nice jumping-off point for some good day dreaming.

How to turn your car into a Wi-Fi Hotspot — This isn't a do-it-yourself project, it's something called The SpeedRay™ 3000.  I'm not sure what the 3000 means because it costs 7 grand.  Though I'm sure it's a compact system, the description still makes me think of Homer's car.

"Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present."

Google now lets you send a text message to your phone for free.

Seth Fisher died.  Fisher's Flowering nose in Slugland game

As I post this entry I'm watching last night's Tivo'ed CSI.  Yes, that was Rocketboom he was watching.

New Gawker media blog, Valleywag, a tech gossip blog.

Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders — Both of these music services use your preferences to build a custom music stream for you, but they use different philosophies (and therefore technologies) to do so.  While the subject matter is pretty narrow here, it does have some interesting implications for social software generally.

The Lego suicides — scenes of horror rendered in Legos.

Stemming from the confirmation of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, the liberal blogosphere is trying to assess whether their activism had any impact on the proceedings.  (You'll recall that liberal bloggers have been struggling with what the call the broken triangle, their own lack of influence on the media and politicians.)  Though it was Kevin Drum who raised the original question, Digby seems to be drawing more link attention for his insistence that 25 senators voting for filibuster is more than there would have been had the blogosphere not been advocating.

Malcolm Gladwell on profiling pit bulls

Web 2.0 map — A look at where the innovations are coming from.

Putting Star Wars to the MythBusters Test — No real tests, but I didn't realize the Mythbusters guys used to work for George Lucas' special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic.

VTunnel — Another example of an online anonymizer.  Other than being a little slow and putting your browser in a frame, you don't see what it's really doing, which is changing the way your computer is identified when you visit sites.

Law & Order Valentines — Dear NBC colleagues, don't underestimate the kitsch value of your products.

Speaking of my NBC colleagues, I didn't realize Dwight Schrute from The Office has a blog.  Good stuff.

"[F]or 15 million Japanese, paper money is a thing of the past, according to the Japan Research Institute. No longer solely used for online purchases, e-money, accessed via a smart card or mobile phone, has become a way of life for many consumers in Japan."

War on Terror - the board game

I think the idea of having public trees to pee on is ridiculous, but at the same time, there is a disturbing amount of public urination already so maybe there'd be some benefit...  Um, no.

Is there a name for the new movie trailer parody craze?  In this case, sleeplessness in Seattle is due to nightmares.

Modded laptops — Really they just have painted lids.  I wonder why this isn't more common to see.

Tic Frac Toe — I needed Firefox to make this one work.  The "frac" in the name is from factal.  It's tic tac toe on a fractal board.  I think it's only two player.  I can't find a way to play the machine.

Video of the Day:    Ass kicking drummer kid

Mapping veins as a human 'bar code' — Not only would I not have guessed that our vein systems were that unique, but I didn't think they were static.  Don't' veins swell and shrink and move and grow new pathways?

SuitSat launched today.  It's a space suit floating in space, transmitting a radio signal.  You can look up when it's flying over you to listen to it pass by.  UPDATE:  Oops, you probably knew this one already.

• February 3, 2006 | 2:07 PM ET

"Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century -- and much of America is being left in the dark."  Talks about how competing commercial interests (among other things) are slowing progress in the distribution of broadband in the United States.

Speaking of power struggles, AT&T wants to charge Google and other high traffic sites for use of the network you already pay for.

Elsewhere, Verizon is being accused of hogging network bandwidth for its own purposes.
"Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Verizon Communications (VZ ) is setting aside a wide lane on its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service. ... [M]ore than 80% of Verizon's current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service, while all other traffic jostles in the remainder."

Meanwhile, a new book called "The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal" is bringing attention to the question of whether American customers have already paid for system upgrades to the national broadband infrastructure that have never been made.  The accusation is that telecoms made promises to build a faster internet, they took money to build a faster internet, but... well, you can guess how that story ends.  (The battle cry to you may be seeing from some bloggers is "Where's my 45Mpbs?")

Speaking of fighting the power, Google is also getting a hard time from newspapers, who accuse it of exploiting their content without reward.  This is apparently a global fight.

In interesting juxtaposition to that story is the news that CBS is going to sell its own online videos rather than relying solely on Google.

A while ago we saw the recommendation that content providers form a coalition of their own and withhold from Google (Why should Google make all the money while they make all the content?).  I have to wonder if we aren't seeing the beginnings of that in these stories.  But if everyone begins to put up local "virtual toll booths" to their content online, will it spell the end of the Internet?

Speaking of telecoms and lawsuits, "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications."

Your senator needs an iPod — Though I'm loathe to pile more gifts on members of Congress, it does make sense that in order for them to legislate on matters of technology they need to understand it and even -gasp!- use it.  

Blue light makes people alert at night — The researcher is quoted as saying it "directly reduces sleepiness."  I wonder if I can find a way to add it to my laptop.

The Universe: The New Axis of Evil - This is not about the U.S. declaring war on the universe.  This axis of evil in this case is an unexpected feature in the Big Bang afterglow.  This is one of those articles that convinced me, however briefly, that I actually understand something that is way over my head.

Google Redux: a design exercise — I hear so much about how wonderful Google search's simple design is that it's refreshingly novel to see someone criticize that design and come up with a better one.

A photoblog of Cuban televisions

Speaking of very specific subject matter, here's a site devoted to hay in art.

"Amateur satellite spotters can track everything government spymasters blast into orbit. Except the stealth bird codenamed Misty."  Imagine Trainspotting meets star gazing and mix in some military intrigue.

President creates cabinet-level position to coordinate scandals

The 32nd (or 33rd) annual Pazz & Jop critic's poll.

This year's Bonaroo festival site is up.

Cruise control + radar assist + "lane keep assist" = autopilot for your car.  All it needs now is a pre-programmed GPS route.  But if you hate driving this much, maybe you should just take the train.

In the stall with those cheerleaders — What a great headline.  Tell me you didn't know exactly who they were talking about.  The Smoking Gun got the full police report, including witness statements.  (Note:  Some of the content is a little racy, but it's text on scanned legal documents, so the risk is to your own personal taste.  There's no over-the-shoulder risk.)

Since Comedy Central started putting more of their videos up on their own site it's less common to see viral bootlegs of The Daily Show, but Jon Stewart's recent bit on Oprah and James Frey seems to have struck a nerve.

What do you call it when you can enter a definition and be told what word has that meaning?  Oh yeah, reverse dictionary.  The other day I was having a mental lapse with "schadenfreude."  This site would have helped.

I think we've read about this artificial gill invention before, but I don't remember it being presented in the context of sustaining underwater habitats.  When we eventually kill the Earth, is it more likely we'll move to another planet or move underwater?

5 reasons why torture is always wrong

Mailbag!

Will…

Regarding the game Triglav, it is a game written in JavaScript, not Java.  There is a huge difference between the two!  Yes, they are similar in name, but that is where the similarity ends.  JavaScript is a simplified version of C, and is mostly a scripting language.  It is wrapped inside HTML code, and is mostly used in web forms & DHTML.  Java, on the other hand, is syntactically similar to C++, and is an interpreted platform independent language.

A game written entirely in Java is no big thing; that happens all the time.  However, a game written in a scripting language using JavaScript & DHTML is a pretty big accomplishment.

Refer to this and this for more information about the two.

P.S.  Triglav is an addictive game.  Very well done and easy to play with challenging puzzles!

Patrick

Will replies:  Dear Patrick, you are right sir!  My work process here is to fill a NotePad doc with links and notes and then flesh out the notes as I read the stories/play the games/watch the videos.  If I write the note sloppily, and especially if I'm falling behind in moving the notes to the blog, the mistake can carry through to Clicked.  Thanks for pointing out my error.

• February 2, 2006 | 1:33 PM ET

It seems clear now that the most resonant message from the State of the Union speech was the president's disdain for human-animal hybrids.  Pharyngula explains what that's really all about and what benefits come from such research.  ADDED:  Kieran Healy points out that putting every Type I Diabetic in America into hypoglycemic shock would probably not poll well.

Speaking of hybrids in the SOTU, top ten hybrid myths (we're talking cars now, not the children of Moreau).

Also, hack your hybrid — Including how to make it run on electricity alone.

Speaking of excited environmentalists, Winds of Change offers some catch-up reading on new energy solutions.

And speaking of new energy solutions, World Changing provides a look at airborne windpower.  Why put a wind turbine on top of a tower when you can fly it like a kite instead?

With regard to all of this new energy enthusiasm, yesterday Eric pointed out that President Bush always touches on this subject.  Out of curiosity, I took a look:

• 2002 — "This Congress must act to encourage conservation, promote technology, build infrastructure, and it must act to increase energy production at home so America is less dependent on foreign oil."
• 2003 — "I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home. ... Tonight I'm proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles."
• 2004 — "Consumers and businesses need reliable supplies of energy to make our economy run -- so I urge you to pass legislation to modernize our electricity system, promote conservation, and make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy."
• 2005 — "And my budget provides strong funding for leading-edge technology -- from hydrogen-fueled cars, to clean coal, to renewable sources such as ethanol."
• 2006 — So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research -- at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas.  To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy.
  We must also change how we power our automobiles.  We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen.  We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass.

Mystery Pollster offers a thorough look at post-SOTU speech bumps, bounces and spin.

Cindy Sheehan's version of her arrest at the State of the Union sounds generally believable.  It's kind of funny that they'd treat a protester like a sniper, but it doesn't stretch the imagination.  That's not as funny as the other woman who got the boot for her t-shirt.  They ran   a clip of her on Nightly News last night trying to explain that "Support Our Troops" is not an anti-war slogan.

As you've probably seen, that cartoon business has spread to France.  Perhaps more interesting is that the story is on Wikipedia.  I wonder how much editorial debate went into deciding to display the cartoons.  Presumably there are Muslims trying to edit the page to remove them, so someone would have to lock it down.

Video of the Day:  Hysterical:  Brokeback to the Future

Speaking of Brokeback Mountain parodies, Broke Mac Mountain

And still speaking of Brokeback Mountain parodies, Defamer points out that there's a whole new genre of Brokeback videos.

The world's 12 best new buildings — There are some photos here, but other's you'll have to look up.

Heavy link attention to a discussion of Christianity and homosexuality forced me to do some extra clicking to understand the context.  In a very small nutshell, Brian McLaren is an influential American Evangelical Christian.  Last week McLaren wrote an essay about the complexity of "the homosexuality question."  As might be expected, quite a bit of reaction ensued, culminating in his final response.  There's probably more content here than most people care to sort through, but it's interesting in terms of characterizing Christian discourse in America.

A lot of folks are having fun with this JavaScript RPG game called Triglav.  They've posted a note that the game is slow because of high traffic, but I was able to play it without too much lag.

Much more clicking to come later this afternoon...

• February 1, 2006 | 1:33 PM ET

I didn't take the story of congressional staffers spreading misinformation throughout Wikipedia very seriously, but apparently the Wikipedia folks did.  The solution to the problem?  Ban computers from the Capitol.  Meanwhile, if they have dirt to spread, Wonkette has volunteered to host it all.  P.S. This is a fascinating demonstration of the Wikipedia judicial system.

This ad is not just cool for its content, but I don't think I've ever seen a video advertisement for a crossfader.  Note: the soundtrack is a mix that includes the F word.  Direct download here.

Today's Video of the Day points out a contradiction in the utility of Google Video.  Google's videos are really low resolution, which is not surprising given the volume they deal in, but while that might not matter for some clips, for others it's a real loss.  On the other hand, Google Videos is a good way of spreading the word about a video, with a link to the original, better quality source.  Such is the case with   Alive in Joburg, better quality on the original site, where there's other good stuff to be found.  It's a short film about space aliens in refugee camps in South Africa.

As I pointed out in the update to yesterday's entry, it is possible, at least for the time being, to see more familiar search results for Tienanman in Chinese Google depending on the spelling.  And contrary to the message of the Tibet Will Be Free blog, my search for Tibet and Freedom did yield results (though not the same results as the .com search).

Related:

• How Google Censors Itself For China & Paid Exclusion As Being Evil
• Since this is clearly a developing story, Wikipedia may be the best place to watch it grow.
• Quite possibly the most passionate defense of Google I've ever read.

The trailer for the new Bettie Page movie.  Gretchen Mol looks like a good casting choice.  (Note:  There's no nudity or much else that's objectionable in this, but she was a pin-up girl and sort of icon of bondage fetishism.)

"Phoenix Rising, a conference devoted to all things Harry Potter, will fuse the intensity of academic debate with the improvisation of exploratory dialogue, the rhythms of New Orleans with the colors and pageantry of art."  Coming May, 2007.  That gives you a lot of time to practice your quidditch.  (This site was crashed last night but worked this morning.  If you get a dead page, try to Google cache or just hand loose and try later, I reckon they're seeing a lot of traffic.)

"Where the women bloggers are"  The new BlogHer site is up.  Looks impressive.  It's hard to imagine how this won't end up being a force online.

Speaking of shared interests organizing online, it's amazing how much the Carnival of Homeschooling has grown since its recent beginning.

Cityrag notes a striking resemblance between Ashlee Simpson and David Lee Roth.  Don't miss the mashup, which actually rocks.

Speaking of celebrity lookalikes, why does Brad Pitt always look like who he's with?  (That's kind of creepy.)

Commuter Click:  Is blogging a fad?

Speaking of blog staying power, Blogs versus NY Times can be our thought seed of the day.  Jason Kottke takes a look at this long bet and checks on progress so far:

In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site.

The results are mixed, and in some ways the experiment raises more questions than it answers (like the old chestnut of where the line is between blogging and journalism)... which makes it that much more compelling for bloggers to wrestle with.

Speaking of that blogger/journalism line, it looks like that very question may prevent Japanese Olympians from blogging.  Actually, this article is a little confusing, it sounds like the rule applies to all Olympians, but I've done chats with tons of Olympians while they were at the Olympics.  I think the real rule is that you can't make money while you're competing.

The Houston Chronicle has launched a blog to follow the Enron trial.

The Catholic blog awards are taking nominations until the end of the week.

Speaking of award nominations, nominations for the Razzies have been announced.

Iranian blogs debate nuclear row — The BBC offers some translations of Iranian bloggers' thoughts on the nuclear situation with Iran.

Cartoons bring Muslim wrath on Denmark — Tsk.  What doesn't bring their wrath?  I believe these are the cartoons in question.

The 30 most spoken languages in the world — Don't click yet.  See how many you can write down, or at least try to guess the top 5.

It's hard to imagine a stupider business move than suing Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow for something he said.  This is a funny line though: "Your article violates approximately 11 international laws."  LOL!  At issue is a bit of software that prevents video games from being copied.  Needless to say, they're not making many friends online.

100 best first lines from novels

Strongbad explains technology — "The word technology means 'magic.'"

How can you not click something that says "Graphs that blow your mind"?  It's a graph of global cement production by country - probably a pretty good gauge of construction activity in those countries.

Let's take a few more mails...

Hi Will,
I haven't been successful, so far, in locating the film clip of Melissa, a.k.a. newyorkhack.com.  She's been a fun person to exchange eMail with but up till now I had no idea what she looked like.  Any chance of seeing the clip ?  wav file or something with sound?  URL maybe?  Thanks.

Thanks also for your great blog.  I go through it every night that it's posted and again on weekends.

Mike Cady  (a Calif. fan)

Will replies:  Hi Mike.  I couldn't find the video but I did find pictures of her everywhere, including screen grabs of the video.  It's funny that I thought she was a small time blogger getting her 15 minutes of fame and meanwhile, she's been interviewed and reported on by half the media universe.  The video you're looking for may actually exist, I just got tired of looking through all of her search results.

Will,
According to Snopes, Atari did indeed dump millions of E.T. cartridges in the desert, as well as some other games.
—Jennifer Vance

Will replies:  Thanks very much to Jennifer and others who wrote in with that bit of fact checking.  Thanks also to Dan who pointed out my typo.  The games were not buried in a giant cake or any other type of dessert (D'oh!).

Regarding your link to the USB record player.  Here is a link to a tape player that installs in your computer.
—Robert

Will replies:  Thanks Robert, I know a lot of people will appreciate that link because I got a lot of feedback on the turntable.  One issue that kept coming up was the question of how to actually record the audio, so it's good to see that this comes with audio software.  In the past I've used some bootleg software and plugged my old stereo output into the computer input.  Not very pretty, but it worked.

Hi Will!
In your January 17, 2006 post, you gave us this link:

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

Well, I don't think they're Photoshopped.    Check out this video!

Jim Balogh
Columbia Station, Ohio

Will replies:  Holy moly, Jim, that's amazing.  Actually, I have two initial thoughts upon seeing that.  First, I thought planes of that size created some kind of turbulence that made standing under a landing plane a bad idea (wasn't there a Billy Bob Thorton/John Cusack movie about that?)  Second, this video is surely pre-9/11, right?

Hi Will,
Great list your put together here.

Just to let you know the "Carnivale of Couture #1 — The first fashion blogger round-up" is not the first fashion blogger round-up.  Almost Girl was the first to get a fashion blogger round up going back on Black Friday.

Thanks for the great blog though.
Anita

Will replies:  Thanks Anita for the clarification.  These round-ups are a great service for elevating the visibility of communities that otherwise exist below the radar for many blog surfers (myself included).  I see the new Carnivale of Couture is up now.

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