What are friends for?

Yahoo! announces Social Searching.  Having recently spent some time with PR professionals I happen to know that most people take the advice of their friends by far over the advice of the media or advertising.  So the idea goes that if you have your social network online and mix it with your Web searches, you'll get answers that have more meaning to you because they're endorsed by people you know.

Ross Mayfield, who is one of the smartest people I can think of on social software, discusses the subject here.  The quote that stood out to me:

But subscription is the new search, and sharing trusted annotation and tagging will build the best index to feed it.

It's worth understanding the future he's describing for the Web.  You'll subscribe to feeds on subjects you're interested in and at the same time you'll be labeling the pages you read with tags to help categorize and organize the Web, and your social network will prioritize your results.  This model isn't written in stone, but as far as I can tell it's what the smart kids think will come to be.

Further explanation from Waxy.org.

NOTE:  Yesterday I said the Google Earth download is 2 gigabites big.  I got that from their download page, but it turns out that was just a recommendation for how much computer spaces to have.  The actual program is much, much smaller.  Thanks to reader Dale Hanks for pointing that out.  Meanwhile, they've put a halt to downloads, so I snoozed and losed.  Maybe I'll be able to get it later in the week.

Speaking of things I haven't downloaded yet but everyone is recommending by linking to it... and also speaking of the computer learning about you, here's NERO:  Neuro Evolving Robotic Operatives.  It's a video game, but apparently it employs some kind of artificial intelligence so it learns while you play it.  If you forget to turn it off at night before you go to bed, it will learn English by reading the dictionary and weep when it gets to the entry about War.  (Just kidding.)

Space Ring Could Shade Earth and Stop Global Warming

Speaking of space, who needs a space ship?  Just take the elevator.  This video is a little long, but it's neat how convinced they are that a space elevator can and will happen.

"Doctors in Bangladesh say they have removed a long-dead fetus from the abdomen of a teenage boy who was complaining of stomach pains."  Calls to mind Kuato from Total Recall.

Overlawyered lists all the things Batman could be sued for in the new movie.  (Contains spoilers.)

Is China's economic power a bad thing because of how it threatens the U.S. or a good thing because of all the impoverished Chinese who have benefited?

In reaction to President Bush's request in his speech last night that Americans make a gesture of thanks to American troops, many bloggers are pointing to America Supports You.

- CIA experts saw a secret code on Al-Jazeera that wasn't there.  They thought they saw terror targets in the scrolling words at the bottom of the screen.

Seeing the world through the eyes of a cat.  Blogger recounts a study in which researchers read the signals from a cat's brain cells to construct an image of what it sees.

Freeway Blogger presents the Summer of Truth -- I'm not sure what's so special about the summer because it looks like the same thing Freeway Blogger always advocated (homemade protest signs posted along major roadways).  But if you're not already familiar with it, you may be interested to see what they're doing.  While it would probably be a pretty big mess if a lot of people were doing this, I do like the idea of people adding their own input in the public space.  No reason to leave it all to the billboards for local radio and porn shops.

There was another SCOTUS decision that, according to blogger Susan Crawford, was more important than the Grokster case, the BrandX case.  She writes:

I've blogged about this a good deal, and now it's coming true: the FCC is now squarely in charge of all internet-protocol enabled services.

The implications of all this are staggering. This is the real news from today.

I'm embarrassed to say, I barely understand what she's talking about, but I don't feel too bad because she also accuses Justice Thomas of being confused about the technology.  This is a problem that comes up almost every time I hear about the Internet and law in the same sentence.  We use the Web every day, all day, and yet most of us know very little about what we're really using.

Speaking of learning about the computer... How it works... The Computer -- circa 1971, which is strange because the Yoda-speak title came before Yoda.

I lost track of how I got here, but this blogger has a funny essay about packaging never seems to open as easily as the "press here to open" instructions imply.

Today's front pages on a flash map -- 439 front pages from 45 countries

How does a 646 pound catfish find enough food to sustain itself?

AP Photo shows Iran’s new President as 1979 US hostage-taker -- I'm not familiar with Iran Focus, but a lot of bloggers are upset at this story.  The Jawa Report gives it a more thorough blog-treatment.

Apple's new podcasting tutorial

Remember that Save Toby site with the guy who was threatening to eat the rabbit if people didn't pay him money?  The deadline is today.
UPDATE:  Nothing happened, he just changed the date.

Based on the Nike/Minor Threat incident we saw play out in the last couple days, here's a huge list of Photoshopped album covers if corporations hijacked them.

It struck me as odd to run into a lot of past commencement speeches online today, but I guess it's the season.  I'm going to print this one out as my Commuter Click, but others that I read and can recommend are Jon Stewart, Will Farrell, and Conan O'Brien.

"The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound."  (A lot of contributions from the Harry Potter series.)

I just mentioned the other day that I am learning to play the banjo with online lessons and today I find on a most-linked list this page of banjo lessons.  Did the banjo get cool lately?

"Hello and welcome to Show and Tell, a site that serves as sort of an orphanage for thrift store music and album cover art."  There is some genuinely bizarre stuff in here.  A few mp3s too.

Top Ten Questions People Ask About Switching to Internet Telephones

A Korean girl's dog makes a mess on the subway and she refuses to clean it up.  Someone snaps photos of her and soon the entire nation is deriding her and her family.  The story, blogged here.

Video of the Day:  The news from Iraq.  This must be from a British comedy show.  (That host site is mostly safe for work, but there's some unsafe stuff to be found so be mindful of your wandering.)

Congress gets a raise and Josh Marshall is quick to point out a quote we'll likely see show up again in the future: "It's not a pay raise. It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."

With the advent of blogs comes greater public access to rumors.  D.C. reporters might meet at events and parties and exchange scuttlebutt until some confirming facts come to light that they can report publicly.  Blogs put the general public into the loop of that rumor exchange.  That said, a post at Red State shares the inside speculation on the short term future of the Supreme Court.

A paper enigma machine (a decoder)

A petition by people who are sick of Tom Cruise and plan to boycott the new War of the Worlds movie.  (I don't care, I'm going to see the movie anyway.)

Speaking of petitions, a number of people have expressed interest in staying at the hotel that would be built on Supreme Court Justice Souter's land if it is taken by eminent domain.

for the feature tower at the World Trade Center site was revealed yesterday.  Still ugly.  I'll be happy to see them do any actual work at Ground Zero, but I was hoping for a design that would make people gawk and gasp at just how amazing it is.  Part of me feels like this design looks like a lost

. 

New thing for parents to have to worry about: What podcast is your kid listening to?

Stuffed animals that need you emotionally -- This seems really creepy to me for some reason.

Stand Aside, It's time for welfare reform in Iraq.  Will Saletan compares the Iraq war to a welfare program.

Why do we forget our childhood?  (This speculates about language as the answer.)

It turns out Stella got her groove back with a gay guy.  That does change the story some, doesn't it?

Mailbag!  Mailbag!

Link

Very peculiar….

- Alexander V. Andersone

Dear Alexander,
Peculiar, yes, but also a hoax.  Jeff Jarvis got a little burned by it the other day, and Engadget called its bluff a couple weeks ago.  I think the "LOL" in the URL is also a bit of a tip-off.  Still, it's not unimaginable, so in that regard it's a little scary.
Cheers,
Will

Dear Will,
A friend showed this internet command line to me as a joke, but it looked like something that might be fun to play with.  The example he used (part of the joke) was the dart command, which sends you to the respective deviantart site. There are a lot of commands though: about seven pages worth. Anyway, good work with Clicked. Keep it up.
-Ajin

Dear Ajin,
Hey, thanks for pointing this out.  I did see it as a popular link in tech circles, but until reading your example, I didn't really get it.  "Command line" isn't something everyone automatically understands and I thought it might be too technical, but now that I've played with it (on your recommendation) I don't think it is.

Basically it's like searching but you also tell it where or how or what to search.  So, with the command "a" it will search answers.com for a definition.  If I type a motorcycle it automatically takes me to the answers.com definition of motorcycle.  Other commands are more specific or just silly.
Thanks again,
Will

Thanks for posting the Fett video.  I love MC Chris's original version of "Fett's Vette".  The video with the remix is hilarious...
-James

Dear James,
I'm glad you enjoyed it while it was up.  My colleague Gael Fashingbauer Cooper who writes the Test Pattern blog here pointed out to me yesterday that Putfile took it down, probably for copyright violations either from the song people or the video game people.  When I first posted the link I Googled Boba Fett rap in the hopes of finding the original source and found that there is a huge number of versions.  I guess the song struck a chord with a lot of people.
Cheers,
Will

Hi Will,
I didn't say it wasn't interesting or worth discussing -- I wrote it won't change file sharers behavior.

The more interesting posts about it were the ones about how the recording industry might change:

• Piracy versus Disintermediation
• The Napster Grokster Cooption Business Model

Cheers,
Barry L. Ritholtz

Hi Barry,
Sorry, I guess I was being a little too flip.
Thanks for the links,
Will

• June 29, 2005 | 2:56 AM ET

Yesterday I clicked mostly just news of the of Supreme Court's latest round of rulings.  Today I saw all the reaction rolling in.

Naturally the one that really struck a chord with blogger is the Grokster ruling.  The excerpt everyone is quoting is “One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement . . . is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.”

Thankfully there's a nice round-up of reaction from this blogger.  As for what I clicked, at SCOTUS blog, Rebecca Tushnet reviews the questions raised by the Grokster decision.

Mark Cuban looks at it from a business perspective and notes that Wall Street didn't even manage a yawn on the matter, but he does ponder whether the ruling will have a chilling effect on the business of new technology.

Barry at The Big Picture, who sometimes writes in to Eric Alterman's blog says the decision is also meaningless to filesharers.  For something that doesn't seem to have meaning to anyone, there's certainly a lot of talk about it.

Speaking of guys who write in to Eric, Siva has a letter in Altercation, and an essay in Salon about the impact of the Grokster ruling.

Speaking of yesterday's Supreme Court decisions, Kevin Drum and the Washington Monthly are trying to rally support for Matt Cooper, one of the reporters who has refused to reveal his source of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.  Reading the blog's comments, not all of Drum's readers are on the same page, however.

And on the subject of SCOTUS rulings, in a show of irony, a group in New Hampshire is trying to convince the local town board of selectmen that seizing the property of Supreme Court Justice Souter by the rules of Souter's own recent ruling is in the town's general interest.

Meanwhile, in the Texas town of Freeport officials are taking waterfront property from two seafood companies to build a new marina.

The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection

I understand the King Kong trailer premiered on TV the other night.  In case you missed it (as I did), here it is.  Disclosure:  NBC, the NBC part of MSNBC, is now partnered with Universal pictures, which basically means the film is mine.  Now if I could just figure out how to get them to pay me for it.

Speaking of meaningless disclosures:  "Microsoft's top geek and his newest tech guru explain why they love—and hate—e-mail, and how they plan to fix it."

More quote contradictions, this time from President Bush on the subject of timetables and war.

Speaking of quotes from President Bush, here's his entry in Wikiquote (more than just the jokey quotes).

Well that didn't take long.  The item yesterday about Nike ripping off Minor Threat has a follow up.  They take it back and they're sorry.  Jason Kottke thinks the record label should lighten up.  I'd be more inclined to agree with him if it had been any other band.  And I don't doubt for a minute that Nike has a whole team of lawyers in charge of suing any unauthorized person to infringe on Nike's intellectual property.

Dear Pakistan, sorry, the Internet is closed today.  Actually a cable had some kind of malfunction, cutting off all Internet access to the entire country.  Nothing like that could ever happen here though, right?  Right?  Anybody?

Become one of 50 bloggers going backstage to the Live 8 Concerts.  It's pretty much a giant blog raffle.

Another story about Japan's possible future use of Robo-cops.  Could that photo be any more like something out of a movie?  Is that lady wearing a Judge uniform?  Hmmm.

Speaking of real life science fiction movies, when you see a headline like "Man: Flesh-eating aliens were chasing me when I caused fatal car crash" you probably immediately think the guy is crazy.  But it would be a cool movie if he wasn't (of course, in the movie everyone would still think he was crazy).

The idea of a secret air war also sounds science fiction-y.  Perhaps that's why the U.S. media is reluctant to pick up this story, in which the U.K. press seems to find a new development every few days.

Dumpsterworld appears to be a social networking site for garbage pickers.

Yesterday I saw a couple of blogs reacting angrily to a story about members of Congress asserting their power to make it more difficult for George Soros to buy the new D.C. baseball team.  I skipped them since they seemed like partisan noise, but today I was surprised to see the item picked up by conservatives.  Now that it's a story of Americans finding common ground and criticizing politicians practicing divisive partisanship, I like it a whole lot better.

Nissan plans to eliminate the problem of blind spots around a car by building in cameras all over it and showing you a display of your car and its surroundings on your dashboard.  How soon before we stop having windshields and instead drive by video screen?

Time lapse video of a ten hour Lego session to construct a Star Wars Star Destroyer model.  Even if you can't stand another Star Wars thing, this video will make you want to build a Lego kit with someone.

Speaking of time lapsed films, this blogger made a film of the disruptions in service in the London Underground over a 15 day period.

Video of the day: Le Building  Note:  Has one cartoon naked lady, but not really sexual in the way that would make it unsafe for work.

Open CRS provides you with easier access to many of the research reports that members of Congress receive.

43 places -- After playing with this for a while, what I understand it to be is a social resource for people to talk about where they'd like to travel with people who have been or are already there.  Mix in a little Flickr for photos and you're good to go.  It's brand new, so still small.

Google has a few new toys.  The ones I clicked are the new Google video player, described here with examples, and, Google Earth.  As much as I've had fun playing with Google Maps, I haven't downloaded Google Earth yet because I'm a little intimidated by a 2 gig download.  That's pretty big.
UPDATE:  Reader Dale Hanks points out that I'm wrong on this.  Though the site recommends 2 gigs of hard drive space, the actual problem is much much smaller.  My concerns are unfounded.

Salon is doing a series looking at Scientology, obviously in response to Tom Cruise making the water all frothy.

A gallery of error messages

It's been a while since I've clicked on Back to Iraq.  In the lead up to the Iraq war it was mentioned often because the blogger was soliciting funds to go to Iraq himself and be a completely independent reporter.  Since then he's been back a few times and today files a less than rosy report of what he sees there.

Post-it mosaic how-to -- Yes, that's 2,646 sticky notes.

OK, sit down and take a deep breath, I have some troubling news:  The world is running out of single malt scotch.  (By the way, this article drops a lot of names so it makes a handy guide to some recommendations.)

Larry David still can't get Karl Rove's comments out of his head.  (This is a pain to read, but really funny.)

Christopher Hitchens is sick of the "would you send your kid to war" line of argument.

Remember that kid who blogged about his parents sending him to a Christian camp to cure him of his gayness?  Apparently his blog entry drew the attention of Children's Services.  Nothing came of their investigation, however.

I'm falling behind on mail...

Agriculture as a mistake...this guy is just recapitulating Daniel Quinn's thesis from "Ishmael," which is a popular book amongst the leftist intelligentsia on US college campuses. Ken Wilber decimates these silly arguments adroitly in his clever "Boomeritis" (and other works, esp "A Brief History of Everything"), pointing out that the idea that technological or modes-of-production progress is "bad" and the human race ought to somehow *regress* is flawed...how far back "ought" we go? Pre-industrial? Pre-agrarian? Pre-lingual? Pre-simian? It's an incredibly stupid position to take - that evolution is somehow inherently erroneous and "bad", and that we should (or even could) somehow reverse our evolutionary progress.
-Jason

Dear Jason,
Thanks for your insights.  You have to admit though, that was a pretty good title. :)
Cheers,
Will

My nomination for video of the day.

Keep up the good work.
-John

Dear John,
That song kind of reminds me of the Mahnamahna song.  But... I'll see your weird Japanese video and raise you weird Michael Jackson video game Japanese fan animation.
Thanks,
Will

Will,
The “100 Grand” story reminded me of the story about a Hooters waitress a couple of years ago.  Apparently, the manager told the staff that whoever had the most beer sales would win a Toyota.  When she won, they took her out to the parking lot blindfolded to reveal her prize to her....a toy Yoda.  She sued and apparently won.
Cheers,
Jason

Dear Jason,
Thanks, I hadn't seen that one.  The Moderate Voice also mentioned that case in connection with the candy bar story.  I think what bothers me most about the story is that these jokes were played on people who could actually use the promised prize.  It's like giving a sandy witch to a hungry person; more cruel than funny.
Cheers,
Will

Will,
I have to agree with you on how great it was to leave my messenger bag at home.  Not only was it a pain to lug around (I insisted on keeping too many things in there "just in case"), it also let everyone know when I was arriving or leaving for the day.  If I needed to skip out early for a legitimate, or not, reason, I had to leave the bag at my desk anyway...

Otherwise, I'd either get stares or have to hear lame jokes about leaving.

Have a good weekend!
Matt

Dear Matt,
I hadn't even thought of that!  Somehow I'm thinking your example is more convincing than mine was.
Yours,
Will

• June 27, 2005 | 2:32 AM ET

The hardest thing about coming late to a big blog story is having to read through it all backward to find out what happened.  In this case I learned about a bit of drama that took place last week by first coming upon an apology from just a few days ago.  An apology from a newspaper to a blogger??  What happened??  (This summary of links was very useful, and this e-mail exchange helped paint the main picture.)  Though much of this matter is probably not of interest outside their community, the story touches on a theme of anonymity and degrees of fame that is interesting and not often discussed.  Usually we hear criticism of anonymous blogging because it could disguise a person's motives for writing.  In this case "getting personal" about the writers of an article and "hiding behind" one's anonymity cast the public as predatory and having a high profile as being dangerous.  I've yet to hear of a blogger being attacked physically, but the pubic eye can certainly be a scary place sometimes.  Strangely, I don't think bloggers' new found fame has provided much insight into being a public figure.

Some not-too-long-ago radio interviews with the recently deceased Paul Winchell.

The marketers are gaining on getting bloggers to compromise themselves.  Obviously I don't have a problem with bloggers getting money to blog, whether from ads or by employment, but it's equally obvious that readers should know when a blogger is saying something because they're paid to do so.

Could these photos be real?  What's the deal with the Nebraska sky?  (I can only get a couple of these to load, which I'm guessing means this guy is experiencing heavy traffic.  You might have to come back another day for the rest to be working.)  UPDATE: Here they are on a different site, bigger.  Apparently they're called mammatus clouds.

Another big poll on public attitudes toward the media.  The headline that I saw in reports about this poll was that there's been an increase in the number of people who think the media is too critical of America.  (A little more than halfway down the page.)  What stands out to me in this report is a little farther up the page.  Even though people view the media as less reliable, that doesn't have much effect on how favorably they rate it.  Weird.

Video of the Day:  Speaking of weird, now THIS is weird.  Not really a video but strangely watchable, you can also use your mouse to catch the body.  Not really unsafe for work, but kind of gross.  Though it may set off misogyny alarm bells, I think it's really just a study in animating human anatomy.  I couldn't find much about it other than that it's of Russian origin.  One site called her a contortionist, which makes it easier to watch.

An orderly if a bit ranting argument against fan fiction.  (Fan fiction being a popular recreation in which fans write alternative or supplementary stories based on an original work.)

Taking the fight to Karl -- Just to prove there's nothing I can't be wrong about, the remark by Karl Rove last week (which I thought was meaningless and soon to be forgotten) continues to make waves, now in the form of a blog representing the voices of offended liberal military members.

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade happened this weekend.  There's not much on the official page, but I did notice a good number of photos at Flickr.  Note: Some images in these two links may be unsafe for work.  Coney Island can be a freaky place, and some costumes in the Mermaid Parade involve things like pasties or body paint instead of clothes.

A lot of people are linking to reports of the U.S. meeting with insurgents in Iraq.  I didn't understand why that would be especially significant to bloggers until I clicked Billmon performing one of his classic quote juxtapositions (along with a bit of fisking).

Atrios does a bit of quote comparison as well.  These examples are liberal bloggers, but I believe this has become a general hallmark of blogger criticism.  When it will it be picked up by the television newsmedia other than Jon Stewart?  (Not these specific quotes, but the general practice of comparing what politicians said before to what they're saying now.)
Update:  Here's an example of a rightie blogger using the technique.

More examples, a Kos blogger writes, "This is an 'action' diary" and essentially assigns readers to the task of researching their Congressional representatives to find what they had to say about military action in Kosovo.  He has a pretty lengthy list, but it's clear that it's not as easy as it sometimes appears.

Another:  Is Dick Cheney the new Baghdad Bob?  Includes a list of quotes from the "All your base are belong to us" guy.

Is there any greater blasphemy than Nike stealing Minor Threat's album cover?  The sheer gall...  (Wikipedia:  Minor Threat)

New bullet train could be world's fastest -- Fastech shinkansen features emergency air spoilers and cruises at 360 kph.  (I figure that's 223.69 mph.)  Why can't we have one of those?

Tom Cruise continues to create a buzz over his comments on the Today show.  While his antics may give some a sour feeling about paying good money to see War of the Worlds, I happened to see his movie Collateral this weekend on HBO and a little crazy works well for making that character more real.

Commuter click to print out and read on the ride home:  The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race -- "[R]ecent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered."

Alice Cooper is a Bush supporter.

Coalition fatalities in Iraq.  This is probably the most interesting display of this information I've seen yet.  Instead of a long list by date, or a scrolling counter, it starts at the beginning of the war and shows the deaths on a map of Iraq as time passes.  Note, it also makes a little noise for each death, which might get annoying to you cubemates if you play this at work.  I'd like to see this across other data sets as well, including rebuilding.

BoingBoing points to but isn't buying a bacon smell alarm clock -- basically an easy bake oven with a piece of bacon in it on a timer.  Why do I feel like I would be more likely to wake up to the sound of the fire department breaking down my door than the bacon cooking near my bed?

Six Apple rivals talk about competing with the iPod.

Boffins create zombie dogs -- Basically, scientists are replacing dogs' blood with ice-cold salt water for a while, then putting the blood back in and bringing them back to life.  It kind of reminds me of that Kiefer Southerland movie Flatliners.  (Boffin is slang for scientist.)

Speaking of playing with the dead bodies of animals, how about making a dead frog kick with a computer?

"The Web's Largest Collection of Cliches, Euphemisms, Sayings and Figures of Speech"

Ten free games worth downloading -- I'm going to try Seiklus.

The world's healthiest foods.

How to meditate -- Not very promising when this shows up in an early paragraph:  "Many people try to teach themselves meditation by reading books etc., but I think I have never met an enthusiastic self-taught meditator."  Still some interesting info though.

I'm running into the you-the-man kid all over the place today.

I had the impression that hydrogen cars had been shot down as an idea because of problems creating and handling the hydrogen itself.  Apparently some folks are still pursuing the matter.

• June 24, 2005 | 2:10 AM ET

I usually don't bother linking to the pettier dust-ups from the hurting America crowd, but there's such a mess of them that I can't ignore the theme.  It's blasphemy to say this, but there may be a drawback to many of the victories that put bloggers on the map.  Going all the way back to Trent Lott, a key blog-activism strategy is to rally outraged supporters to force a political opponent to act (resign, apologize, retract, etc.).  But by now bloggers have the system down so well, everyone is trying to use it to their advantage. 

And so today, in the wake of the fuss over Senator Durbin, Democrats demand an apology and resignation from Karl Rove and Republicans are outraged by Nancy Pelosi and a day can't go by without another Nazi comparison.  I know that part of free speech is the freedom to criticize others' speech and stand up for what you believe is right, and I don't advocate compromising those freedoms in any way, but this game of partisan outrage of the day is getting really ridiculous.  What's worse is that it plays right into the hands of the America hurters.  By definition, they want Americans to hate each other.  It makes for good partisan politics just as it makes for good shout TV.  Unfortunately it makes for lousy public discourse and worse national morale.

Speaking of being critical of discourse, Chris Bowers has some gripes about conduct among his fellow progressives in the blogosphere.

The story that's really rocking the blogosphere, particularly given its active libertarian population is today's Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain.  As my list of what I clicked grew I was relieved to see Arguing with Signposts doing a massive round-up of reaction -most of which is really angry.

Planet Quest 3-D New Worlds map -- This is wicked cool.  Naturally I started playing with it without reading the instructions first, so I was especially pleased to realize that clicking on a star zooms in to that star's solar system and clicking on that shows you the planets.  Very neat.

My backpack's got jets.  I'm Boba the Fett.

How water reflects emotion -- It's like talking to your plants, only different.

Now this is a fun trend:  Decorer, process of cheerful decoration fashion trend  (Safe for work, but if you're a guy you may not want co-workers seeing you look at photos of colorful Japanese schoolgirls.)

Here you'll find instructions on recovering a lost Master lock combination -- We've seen lock-picking pages before and I don't recall if this is a repeat, but in case there are new Clicked readers with an everybody's-got-one dead Masterlock in the bottom of your junk drawer, here ya go.

Speaking of locks:  A time lapse photo montage of a bicycle withering on the vine, so to speak.  It's funny to see the seasons pass.

An essay about not carrying around all that crap anymore.  One of the most liberating things I ever did was stop carrying a bag to work.  Every day I would take a shoulder strap messenger bag back and forth.  I would put the Times in it and not much else, it had pens.  I never actually opened it, I just carried it back and forth to work.  I see all my colleagues doing the same thing and I'm pretty sure they don't open theirs either.  Now I leave work with my hands in my pockets and I feel like I'm actually leaving.  (Until I come home and turn the computer on.)

Do you feel like the news repeats the same stories over and over so that you could probably recite them?  Prognosticate is the game for you.  They play you a news story and you guess the missing words.

The Beaterator -- Basically a drum machine.

How to deal with burnout

There's some debate over whether this is really a picture of a mushroom cloud in North Korea.

I would love to know what kind of mail these people get.  (I found it while checking the source of a car chase video.)

Video of the Day:  If School House Rock went all the way up to law school.  UPDATE: I'm not sure how much traffic the BlawgCoop is ready for so I found the video in Putfile as well.

When digital bullying goes to far -- What's new about digital bullying is the use of the Internet to publicly humiliate others.  It's one thing to get pantsed in gym class, it's another for a video of you getting pantsed in gym class to be spread across the globe and laughed at by morning TV show hosts.

Interview with the writers of the new Superman movie (actually video journal #17)

The history of predicting the end of the world -- It starts here and goes up to predictions made before 1700.   Use the nav at the top for more recent predictions.

Bluegrass music is the new hope of impoverished Appalachia.  By coincidence, my grandfather left behind a banjo and just last weekend I put new strings on it and started learning.  I was interesting to learn that New York City has a small but active bluegrass community, and there are a lot of free banjo lessons online.

Time's 50 coolest Web sites of 2005

Bionic Man Moves Artificial Arm With Brain -- Obviously this guy needs this, and I hope everyone who is missing a limb can have a useful prosthesis.  But, without belittling the tragedy of the infirm, I do think it would be cool to just have extra artificial parts.

Cracking the Flag-Burning Amendment -- Makes a mockery of the proposed amendment by playing with the definition of the American flag.

It's the oldest trick in the book to tell someone you'll give them 100 Grand and then hand them a candy bar by that name.  Good thing this woman didn't quit her job or buy a car before picking up her winnings.

BoingBoing has the story of a new law designed to censor online porn -- or at least force it to be outsourced beyond U.S. borders.  I'm surprised this didn't get picked up by the TV news folks.  What a great excuse to show hoochie-coochie girls while discussing issues.

How the Web changes your reading habits -- and some ideas people are working on to improve reading.

The story of the guy having his car key taken away by airport security reminds me of the Steven Wright joke about putting his car key in his apartment door because other than walking around starting things, what could he do with it?

One day, when I came home from work, I accidentally put my car key in the door of my apartment building... I turned it... and the whole building started up.... So I drove it around.... A policeman stopped me for going too fast... He said, 'Where do you live?'... I said, 'Right here'... Then I drove my building onto the middle of a highway, and I ran outside, and told all of the cars to get the hell out of my driveway.

(Steven Wright jokes)

Here's what you need to know about Gitmo.  A sarcastic FAQ.

The real news in the Downing Street Memos -- This is written by the reporter who broke the story.  He argues that the real news is that the Iraq war started before the Iraq war started.  Something you don't hear in American media very often is the accusation that the U.S. and Britain tried to draw Saddam into war before resorting to jumping through the UN hoops.

Lessons learned:  IEDs in Iraq -- These lessons from a soldier in Iraq cover a lot more than just IEDs.  Interesting insight.

Design Clichés

Private Warriors -- Frontline reports on the private contractors in Iraq.

Mailbag!  Mailbag!

Gotta say hi and love your "Clicked."  One item today has caused my blood pressure to rise just a little bit...the item about men's birth control.

"The researchers plan to test about a half-million chemical compounds to find a pill that does not involve hormones that men could take weekly or monthly. They also hope to find something that is close to 100 percent effective and has no risky side effects."

Be nice if they could do the same for women's birth control.  No hormones or risky side effects....yeah, that'd be nice.

-Shauna

Dear Shauna,
When I hear about girls being encouraged to pursue careers in scientific fields, I seldom hear the reasoning that it would better the lives of women, but that seems like an area that could use some more (native) brain power.
Cheers,
Will

Will,
You stated in your June 23 post about male birth control that you might be "a little concerned that if men could have unprotected sex without fear of impregnating a woman... well, things could get a little out of hand."

Perhaps you've never heard of vasectomies?  I know lots of guys in their 20's who are done having children and the first thing they do is go get "fixed" (just find a good veterinarian...).  If they subsequently become single, well, you've got a bunch of guys with no fear of impregnating women.  That doesn't mean they don't worry and take precautions against disease.
Dave

Dear Dave,
I did think of vasectomies when I read the article, although I don't know any guys in their 20s who've had it done.  I've even heard of them being reversible.  I don't mean to disparage guys with vasectomies as unaccountable sex fiends.  My thinking was that we already have a lot of having-of-the-sex and STDs so removing one of the biggest risk factors would only increase that activity.  Of course, it might be flawed to assume that it's risk and not lack of opportunity that's preventing men from having more sex.  Are men with vasectomies more alluring to women for the lack of pregnancy risk they pose?
Regards,
Will

• June 23, 2005 | 1:13 AM ET

Note: A glitch in publishing last night prevented this from being public until 9:45 a.m. ET.  Since I wrote it last night and the publishing did work in the archive, I didn't change the time stamp.

While responsible news reports on the fate of Natalee Holloway try to avoid speculation on what could have happened to her, we all know that in our own heads we're imagining the horrible possibilities.  And so it is that in some corners of the blogosphere the issue of rape and the risks women face is being debated.  Cousin Vito does a nice job rounding up the discussion.

Married men earn more if wives do the chores -- I saw a few angry letters to the editor over this one.

I understand the equality issues behind inventing birth control for men, but part of me is a little concerned that if men could have unprotected sex without fear of impregnating a woman... well, things could get a little out of hand.

Today I clicked on three different sites describing themselves as being for guys who like stuff.  It's getting a little annoying.  Unfortunately, I actually am a guy who likes stuff, so check out this cool vacuum tube car stereo.

Video of the Day:  There's something inherently pleasurable about watching someone do something they're genuinely good at.  This guy drums so hard the camera goes out of focus.  And once again I find a community I didn't even know existed.  Check the media section of the host site and scroll a little for other drum competition winners.

It's time again to feel the thrill of clicking on something I can't actually read.  The site is called Candle Night, and when I click the one thing I can read (the enter button) it opens a live Flash timeline to which, it appears, people have uploaded their own photos of candles.  I'm not sure if it's a vigil for something or just a cool group project.  UPDATE:  Behold!  It's about energy conservation.  (2008 candidates, are you paying attention?)

Tiny nation aims to be 1st `cyber-island'...

...Oh!  But they're too late based on this description of a tiny island in New Jersey for sale.  (Is it just me or does that seem like a really cool deal for less than a million dollars?)

Jason Kottke talks about the scuttlebutt on Google Wallet.  He makes the point that since people already make and spend money through Google, it makes sense to be able to set up some kind of PayPal-esque account with them.

Dave Winer has a Pac Man guitar.

Mall blog -- Vintage photos of old shopping malls of the '60s and '70s.  The newest post is about bird cages in malls.  The lobby of the hotel I stayed in in Ft. Worth had two parrots in a cage next to a koi pond with a bunch of turtles in it.  Neat, if a little smelly for a hotel lobby.

"So it's looking more and more certain that our space mission may be a failure."  It sucks when you start a blog to track a bold new space program and the whole thing falls apart.

A new role of the military wife, to update the blog when the MilBlogger's been injured.  Best wishes on a successful recovery to Capt. Ziegenfuss.

Bollywood record album covers -- good stuff.

Durbin wrap up from Balloon Juice.

You've probably seen some parts of this comedy skit done before, but it's still fun to watch.

You too can get a free online portrait when you solicit the services of a prostitute in Chicago.

If you take an oath to tell the truth in court by swearing on a Koran instead of a Bible, does it count?  Not in this court.

Giant popsicle attacks Manhattan -- This blogger rounds up local media reports.

Common virus kills cancer cells

Storm info charted on Google Maps.  Is there no bottom to the Google Maps toybox?

"It's a baffling phenomenon that in today's society an individual, who might in other circumstances be considered smart and wise, can sit down in front of a computer screen and instantly lose every last shred of common sense he ever possessed."

"I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster."  (It's a sarcastic letter to the Kansas school board.)

"With Foundcity you send photos and text messages from the street to your personal map and tag it, share it, blog it and more..."  A little limited right now, but new cities are coming.  Naturally, as a New Yorker I always go to the New York maps to play, but thinking back on my recent trip to Ft. Worth, if I could have gone to something like this and found photos and other notes from people there, it would have been real handy.

Resonata -- I'm going to call this one a weekend click.  It's an applet that lets you play with waves and then offers a whole lot of explanation of wave properties.  Playing with the applet is pretty, but really I have no idea what I'm looking at so I'll need to come back and read the lesson.

I saw reports earlier today from northern Alaska where they are experiencing the longest day of the year.  Folks in the blogosphere are also paying attention to the other end of the earth where this blogger in Antarctica reports on "Midwinter's Day."

I didn't know there was such a thing as the Forbes Fictional Fifteen.  The top fifteen richest fake people.  It's an old link, but still funny.  **For some reason, all Forbes links are talking out loud as soon as you click them today.  It's just a lame ad, nothing unsafe, but still annoying.

League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots -- With some cool audio and video.

From How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet:

1. everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2. anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3. anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

I was just remarking to someone the other day on how many "how-to" links we see here at Clicked.  Even if I can't actually do the "to" I think it's neat to see how things work.  Now the folks at Pew have released a study to put some numbers to that impression.

"[O]n the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance."  (I don't buy it.)

One of the interns here was looking for a way to measure her typing speed.  In looking around I found this cool typing game.

Bill Roggio sees infighting among insurgents in Iraq as a sign that the foreign jihadis fighting there are losing their favor.

AFI List of Top 100 Quotes From U.S. Films

Building a Digital SLR Camera System -- We've seen camera reviews before, but this goes into greater depth talking about how they're put together.  NOTE:  There is one artsy fartsy black and white nude on this page.  You have to click the thumbnail to really see what it is so the page itself is relatively safe, but just so you know, it's there.

How companies are using RSS in strategies other than blogs -- And just wait until all the browsers have integrated aggregators.

Percentage of Americans Reporting Zero Tax Liability Is At All-Time High -- The thing that bothers me the most about paying taxes is the sinking feeling that if I were smarter I wouldn't be paying as much.

"The following is a list of 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings. The documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965."

Urinals too pretty to pee in.

Don't you hate when your Ferrari runs out of gas?

Kevin Drum suggests Credit Freeze as a means of preventing I.D. theft.  There is good commentary in the comments section.  It would be cool if we had some kind of system of government that represented the people, then they could pass a law to protect people from identity theft.

Arianna Huffington complains about too much fluff on TV news and proposes a boycott.  Most bloggers (and indeed non-bloggers) have already moved on, so she may be preaching to the choir, but she does make one point that I don't hear very often.  A very small percentage of Americans actually watch TV news -especially cable TV news.  Why do they all fight over the same tiny piece of the pie?

Telephone ads through the decades

Mailbag!  Mailbag!

Perhaps what you're recalling is a link you posted to a web site with eerie photos of an abandoned amusement park in Japan? They had some similarities, especially with the children's camp in Moscow on the Abandoned web site.
Cindy

Will,
I followed your abandoned link and it made me think of this.  This is a woman who takes motorcycle trips through Chernobyl.
Peter

Dear Cindy and Peter,
Actually, both of those sites came to mind when I read this New York Times article on tourism at Chernobyl.

Incidentally, regarding the motorcycle woman, there have been some suggestions that the site is somehow a hoax.  After poking around, the accusation appears to be that she drove in a car and brought the bike along.  Regardless, the photos are still real.
Cheers,
Will

I read an article where you were quoted:

"Definitely more. The mother's maiden name you can see right here," says Femia as he shows us one Web site. "Also the PIN number that you would enter in an ATM machine, expiration dates, date of birth, the credit card number itself."

Do you know that PIN stands for Personal Identification Number so you don't need the word number after it?  And ATM stands for Automatic Teller Machine so you don't need the work machine after it?

Just thought you'd like to know!

DeeDee

Dear DeeDee,
Yes, I guess you're right.  I'd like to say I won't make the mistake again, but the article you read was actually a transcript of something I said on TV.  I may be able to catch myself when I write those words, but when speaking I'll probably always say PIN number and ATM machine.
Regards,
Will

• June 22, 2005 | 2:56 AM ET

Brazilians buck rising gas prices with innovative fuel -- I've seen zero political leadership on this issue, and zero corporate leadership on this issue, and yet every other day I seem to be clicking a story about alternative fuels. 

The latest leftie blog sport appears to be "Operation Yellow Elephant," goading war supporters into joining the military.

The Clowning, Wilding-Out Battle Dancers of South Central L.A. -- Yes, you have to know this for the coolness test.

Abandoned --  Pictures of desolate buildings and landscapes.  I feel like I read about this somewhere recently but I can't recall where.  Is this one of the guys mentioned in the recent NYTimes Chernobyl tourism story?

Think Progress has a list of examples the White House doctoring reports to suit its agenda.  Seems like that shouldn't be allowed, but I can't think of who would be in charge of enforcing any rule against it.

Kos takes a straw poll of his readers for 2008 Democratic candidates and Clark wins.  It's interesting that Eric published a letter today from a reader who supports Clark.  Where did this come from?

Speaking of straw polls, "Right Wing News emailed more than 200 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of whom they believed was 'screwing up America.'"  Probably the most interesting name on the list, as the blogger later points out, is John McCain.  It'll be interesting to see how indicative conservative bloggers are of American Republicans.

The L.A. Times has already killed its terrible wikitorial idea.  A lot of people are wanting to give credit to the Times for even trying, but I've seen enough empty gestures toward the latest Internet buzzword that the charm has worn off.  Deeper insights and discussion here.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets...

The hot new game your kids are going to want to play because you aren't going to want them to play it.

How much more data loss can we stand?  And should we tolerate any? -- I was on NBC Nightly News for about three seconds to talk about this issue.  It's pretty outrageous that companies are allowed to buy and sell your personal information and aren't responsible for keeping it secure.  And then you're the one who gets screwed when your identity is stolen.
UPDATE:  By the way, my colleague Bob Sullivan, who writes about I.D. theft for us, has a handy guide to what to do if your identity is stolen.  If it happens to you, you're bound to be in freak-out mode and wishing you'd at least familiarized yourself with the steps.

The Onion in the year 2056

Neoconservatives are bad for your health.  (Isn't that what killed Hunter S. Thompson too?)  What's interesting is that I saw links to this obit from both sides of the political spectrum.

Andrew Sullivan says Durbin did nothing wrong.

Durbin apologizes anyway.

So that should be the end of Nazi comparisons, right?  D'oh!:  Germany in the 1930s and America today -- That link is a little old but has apparently been resurrected by this post at the Volokh conspiracy which is more specifically pointed at the question of what is fascism.

Did you know the volcano on the Scientology book has a name?

  Xenu.
CORRECTION: Thanks to reader Brian Hesterley for pointing out that I have this totally wrong.  As the Wikipedia entry clearly explains, Xenu is the name of a galactic ruler.  The volcano fits in the story of Xenu, but I don't know how I got into my head that the name of the volcano is also Xenu.  It's not.

The latest Gallup poll results, war down, Gitmo up

For all the fuss about the Downing Street Memo showing that Iraq war was in the works before it was presented to the public, Tom Paine points out examples from Bob Woodward's book to make the point that these insights aren't really new.  Looks like the Daily Howler is going to do the same thing tomorrow.

Things to make and do (mostly nerdy)

Trophy Wine - In defense of drinking expensively.  I can't bring myself to spend more than 20 bucks on a bottle of wine, and that's only if there's a good reason.

Adopt a Chinese blog -- The idea is to help host one that's been banned.

"We're now well past the point where any of us can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with."  Tell me about it!

Really cool anti-gravity machine -- also very good way to get yourself hurt.  The source for this video is here, where there are some other fun things, like the Rollator, in the projects gallery.

Video of the Day:  Tom Cruise kills Oprah.

A pretty engaging Batman game.  I didn't see the origin of this game, only that it's hosted on a lot of video sites.

Pot-flavored candy takes a licking

Time magazine offers ten cool sites

"Each month, I ask one of my favorite DJ's to contribute a 30-40 minute mix of whatever they're feeling at the time."

Treknologies is a  travel gadget blog

Census data mixed with Google Maps.

Speaking of Google maps: "Today Google quietly updated its map service to add high-resolution aerial photography for much more of the globe than the previous limited coverage of North America."  You can actually do quite a bit of global map dragging at this point.  Lots of fun.

And speaking of Google, folks who Google I am lonely in sad desperation find a community of their peers.

People are worked up over pending legislation regarding a broadcast flag.  As I understand it, a broadcast flag is a signal embedded in a broadcast that only allows authorized recording of that broadcast.  It may have to do with more than just recording, but the main point is that it introduces the need for everything to be "authorized."

Speaking of BoingBoing and copyright, they also have an interesting debate about whether it's ridiculous or reasonable for a cake maker to be worried about legal problems from putting copyrighted images on cakes.

Home made flamethrower -- I know from personal experience that it's foolish to think you can control a plastic container full of flammable material.  This clip is mostly engaging for the anxiety it produces while you wait for the kid to blow his arms off.  (He doesn't.)  (The host site looks safe for work, but I clicked at least one link that took me to another site unexpectedly, so be careful.)

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