Saturday, December 11, 2004

A to Z of Google Suggest. Released today in Beta, Google Suggest is a real-time - and significantly less annoying - version of their Did you mean: technology. As you type, Google guesses what you’re entering and offers suggestions in a drop down menu below the search box. Now, at this point, I could discuss how Google could use this to homogenise search queries, thus increasing their AdWords revenue. Or I could delve into the underlying computational mathematics and estimate their increased server load. But that’s far too serious - try Slashdot if you really care… Instead, let’s just play… I wonder what the most searched-for word or phrase beginning with each letter is. Here goes: Amazon, best buy, CNN, dictionary, eBay, Firefox , games, Hotmail, Ikea, jokes, Kazaa, lyrics, Mapquest, news, online dictionary, Paris Hilton , quotes, recipes, Spybot (!), Tara Reid (!!), UPS, Verizon, weather, Xbox, Yahoo (no !), zip codes. So there you have it. A snapshot of 2004 humanity. Google Zeitgeist! [Jottings.com] 5:06:49 PM    comment []

Knicks Fall When Last Shots Do Not. Allan Houston made his season debut for the Knicks, and although his comeback was successful enough, the night was not. By HOWARD BECK. [NYT > Sports] Go, Wizards! 9:02:46 AM    comment []

MarsEdit is a weblog editor for Mac OS X that makes weblog writing like writing email—with spell-checking, drafts, multiple windows, and even AppleScript support. [Hack the Planet] 8:50:46 AM    comment []

Indispensible Applications. Picking up on an old item over at 43 Folders (this post has been marinading for a while), here’s a discussion of the applications and tools I use to get work done. I do get work done, sometimes. Honestly. I’ll give you two lists. The first contains examples of software I find really useful, but which doesn’t directly contribute to the work I’m supposed to be doing. (Some of it actively detracts from it, alas.) The second list is comprised of the applications I use to do what I’m paid for, and it might possibly interest graduate students in departments like mine. If you just care about the latter list, then a discussion about choosing workflow applications [pdf] might also be of interest. (That note overlaps with this post: it doesn’t contain the first list, but adds some examples to the second.) If you don’t care about any of this, well, just move along quietly. [Crooked Timber] Great post and wonderful additions in the comments. I'll note (so I can find them easily later): Ecto. The best way to be one of the bloggers. Manages my posts to this blog. May face competition in future from Mars Edit. Quicksilver. A fantastic application launcher, file-finder, task-executer and other-stuff-doer. [For LaTeX.] Available in convenient form for Mac OS X via Gerben Wierda’s i-Installer. R. An environment for statistical computing. Unison. I have a laptop and a desktop. I want to keep certain folders in both home directories synchronized. Unison is an efficient command-line synchronization tool that can work locally or use SSH for remote clients. [from a comment by Chris Bertram] Adobe Acrobat (full version) is, in my experience, a better way of getting from LaTeX output to Microsoft Word or RTF where you need to do this. 8:50:31 AM    comment []

Breaking News: Cert Granted in Grokster (Donna Wentworth). See Fred von Lohmann's note @ Deep Links. As Grokster goes, so goes the Betamax doctrine. The case is on the March calendar. Opening briefs are due January 24 and opposition due on February 28. More to come on this; for now, check out Fred's take from a while back on Betamax as it relates to the Grokster case: Simply stated, [Betamax] establishes that so long as a technology is "merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses," contributory liability for the technology vendor is foreclosed. The doctrine takes its name from the Supreme Court's 1984 ruling in Sony v. Universal City Studios, a copyright challenge to the "Betamax" VCR. In MGM v. Grokster, no one seriously contested that peer-to-peer technologies were capable of noninfringing uses. The technologies are used today to distribute software, movie trailers, video games and music tracks, all with the authorization of forward-thinking copyright owners. Public domain materials also circulate widely on the networks. The entertainment industry, however, urged the 9th Circuit to look at the proportion of infringing to noninfringing uses. The 9th Circuit disagreed, emphasizing that it is the capability for noninfringing uses that is critical. [Copyfight] NYT story: Justices to Hear Case on Sharing of Music Files. The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether online services can be held liable for enabling copyrighted songs and movies to be shared freely. By LINDA GREENHOUSE. 8:33:17 AM    comment []

Advice for Academic Job Seekers. Those seeking teaching jobs in law or philosophy may want to review the items in this category, which many job seekers reported finding helpful last year.  Best of luck to all job seekers during this stressful process! [Leiter Reports] 8:28:34 AM    comment []

Newsweek: "Bernard Kerik may have a nanny problem. But is that the only reason he's bowed out of the Homeland Security job?" [Scripting News] 8:28:10 AM    comment []

Hoder: Welcome to all who have come here through the Harvard conference's website. To start, I'd suggest to take a look at Iranian blogs' page at Wikipedia, in which dozens of press stories and academic papers about blogs in Iran are collected, as well as a brief history and a sketchy timeline. Please feel free to add or change anything. If you are interested about my future plans as to using blogs as a means of socio-political change in Iran, please take a look at an old posting. 8:17:24 AM    comment []

A Transition (for Dan Gillmor). UPDATED I'll be leaving the San Jose Mercury Newsnext month to work on a citizen-journalism project. I hope to pull together something useful that helps enable -- and demonstrates -- the emerging grassroots journalism that I wrote about in my recent book. Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out. I'm not ready to discuss the specifics yet, mainly because I have many more ideas than I could possibly try to put into practice at this point -- and we're early in the process of working out the venture's actual form. Keep in mind that this project is now in what's known as the seed stage. It's not an operating entity yet, though I expect it will be. But we're some time away from that, with many issues to resolve in the meantime. A friend who knew about this ahead of time asked the question I'm sure some others will ask: "Are you nuts?" I hope not. Of course, I amleaving one of the best gigs in journalism. The Merc has been incredibly good to me. There are so many talented and good-hearted folks here. I hate the idea of leaving. But I'd hate not trying this even more. Obviously, there will be much more to say in the days and weeks ahead... (Continued at Dan Gillmor's eJournal) (This seems like great news for us all. -kc.) [unmediated] Bets, anyone? I'm guessing (given Dan's discussion of it in his book -- or see the conversation with him at The Well's Inkwell) it's a 'merican version of 8:16:03 AM    comment []