Friday, March 19, 2004

following up on referrers, with the inevitable reference to Google. One of the best things about actively blogging is being able to look at your blog’s referrer list. This is very interesting for a number of reasons. Most of this discussion will be about the referrers lists that are available... [explodedlibrary.info] 11:47:09 PM    comment []

Whence three-letter airport codes? [bOing bOing] 11:43:55 PM    comment []

Elaine Lafferty, Editor in Chief, Ms. Magazine, with An Open Letter from Ms. in Support of Martha Stewart. 3:33:46 PM    comment []

Two from BNA News: MAN GETS YEAR IN JAIL IN ID-THEFT CASE A man who pretended to be an editor for New York-based FHM magazine to scam victims out of more than $26,000 has been sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay restitution. He pleaded guilty to charges of identity theft, false impersonation and six counts of grand theft. COMPANIES TRY TO FIGHT CYBER-CRIME The National Cyber Security Partnership has released a series of recommendations for minimizing the threat of cyber-crime and hacker attacks. The recommendations include a request for congressional funding of an early warning alert network and a national media campaign to promote safer Internet use at home. 10:32:18 AM    comment []

They Wanted to Teach Him a Lesson. Police often pose as minors in chat rooms to snare pedophiles. But when a group of vigilantes took on the task, a 42-year-old high school teacher's life was turned upside down. Second of a two-part series by Julia Scheeres. [Wired News] 5:49:13 AM    comment []

Nichols from Charleston to Utah. Shaun Nichols--one of a growing number of philosophers who have been at the forefront of bringing empirical psychology (beyond cognitive science) in to contact with ethics and epistemology--has accepted an offer from the University of Utah; he is currently an Associate Professor at the College of Charleston. Other philosophers working in a similar vein include John Doris (UC Santa Cruz), Gilbert Harman (Princeton), Joshua Knobe (Princeton PhD student), Peter Railton (Michigan), Stephen Stich (Rutgers), Peter Vranas (Iowa State), and Jonathan Weinberg (Indiana/Bloomington), among others. If successful, they'll help effect a long-overdue empirical revolution in moral philosophy. [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] 5:46:03 AM    comment []

The sound of science. A little-known Swedish inventor's insights are quietly pushing digital audio technology, such as MP3 and AAC, beyond what had been previously imagined. [CNET News.com] [Ted Ritzer: Free Music] 5:44:28 AM    comment []

E-commerce = in-E-fficiency II (Real Estate). Let's get depressed two days in a row...  It is the 10th anniversary of the consumer Web.  We have very good mapping services both on- and off-line.  A wide variety of sites are visited by people from all over North America every day.  Yet when people want to sell a house they almost always are forced to pay 6% to a realtor, just as they did 30 years ago before all of this fancy computer technology was widespread. Has anyone tried eBay House?  Why doesn't it work? [Philip Greenspun Weblog] I can think of some reasons off the top of my head. (Is Phil working rhetorically here and I just don't get it?) It's a bit hard to establish reputation in a market where almost every individual makes only very infrequent transactions. Much less advantge is gained for sellers by increasing radically the geographic scope of those to whom sellers advertise a house than a set of Pez dispensers. There are already pretty good mechanisms in place for potential buyers to learn what houses are available on the market, so there isn't as great a need to be satisfied as when eBay broke out. 5:37:12 AM    comment []

Activists Clamor for Paper Trail. Electronic voting critics run full-page ads in Maryland and Florida newspapers calling for paper records of each ballot cast. Meanwhile, Maryland officials say the machines have never recorded an inaccurate vote. [Wired News] 5:37:11 AM    comment []