Monday, July 25, 2005

Google Stalker?. Hot or Not profiles + Google Maps = photos of people mapped to the neighborhoods where they live: http://apps.hotornot.com/jeff/ Why does this creep me out? Fasten your seatbelts folks; things will only get weirder. [Smart Mobs] 8:52:47 PM    comment []

Is Rove in hotter water than we think?. Karl Rove disclosed classified information to reporters. It turns out there's a law against that. [Salon.com] 8:52:33 PM    comment []

With a Push From the U.N., Water Reveals Its Secrets. The forecast for safe access to drinking water is grim, but, using new technologies, the United Nations is working hard on solutions. By WILLIAM J. BROAD. [NYT > Science] 8:50:27 PM    comment []

Will McClellan talk about the leak?. The White House spokesman offers an interesting new guideline under which officials may discuss the leak case. [Salon.com] 8:50:21 PM    comment []

Where Absinthe Makes the Kitchen Grow Hotter. Anthony Bourdain, the desperado American cook, indulges wanderlust and regular lust in his new series on the Travel Channel. By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN. [NYT > Business] 10:51:57 AM    comment []

Pedagogy? No Problem. Fund-Raising? Tough Subject.. U.S.-style marketing and fundraising comes to Oxford and Cambridge. By THOMAS CRAMPTONInternational Herald Tribune. [NYT > Business] 10:51:29 AM    comment []

My Newspaper. RSS aggregator and reader. MyNewspaper is written in Python with a bit of javascript and uses sqlite as permanent storage for the articles. [unmediated] 10:49:04 AM    comment []

Is the Plame leak conspiracy unraveling? The prosecutor in the Plame case seems to be investigating the cover-up, not the leak. [Salon.com] 10:48:55 AM    comment []

What should we say to non-nerds to give them hope from computer technology?. One challenge in admitting to having spent some time as a computer nerd up in Alaska is that folks sometimes ask "What is the next improvement in computer technology going to do for me?"  Mostly they are just trying to be polite and make good conversation.  What should one say?  These are folks who use a Web browser but that's about it.  They don't care about the latest operating system tweak from the lumbering Microsoft elephant or the competitive fleas on its hide. One idea that seemed to excite them was chucking their desktop machines and the associated sysadmin.  I mentioned that their mobile phone had a communications capability, a computer, storage capacity for personal info, and an authentication capability.  Why couldn't it be their home computer as well?  They could plug their mobile phone into a dock at home that would let them use a full-size display and keyboard and maybe augment the storage and computational capacity of the phone. What vision of the electronic future would the readers/commenters paint for a rugged Alaskan who has a DSL line and Web browser at home right now? [Philip Greenspun Weblog] 10:47:55 AM    comment []

For the Vox Populi: A Comparison of How Some Blog Aggregation and RSS Search Tools Work. [Napsterization] 10:47:54 AM    comment []

Beth's Blog: Interview with Lux Mean: Teaching Cambodians in Rural Areas To Blog. Awesome. this is what citizen media is about "Lux Mean works for the IRI. He is currently training young people in Cambodia's provincial areas how to blog. His organization is excited about the potential for Cambodian blogs to generate more political dialogue. Mean was only recently introduced to blogs and the organization got the idea of doing a blog projects from one of Cambodia's better known bloggers, Ex-King Sihanouk." [unmediated] 10:47:21 AM    comment []

'Step Up Surveillance,' U.S.A.. The London bombings have brought pressure on U.S. agencies to increase the use of video cameras to watch over transportation systems in the nation's cities. Privacy advocates question their effectiveness. [Wired News] Excerpt: "I haven't heard of anything being successful that allows us to prevent something by flashing up on a screen somewhere a positive identification of someone on a terrorist database," said Jack Lichtenstein with ASIS international, a Washington-based organization of security officials. Still, "that's where we're headed," he said. Privacy advocates say the London bombings should persuade policymakers to stay away from surveillance rather than invest in it. It doesn't prevent terrorism, and at best only encourages terrorists to shift their target, they argue. "Let's say we put cameras on all the subways in New York City, and terrorists bomb movie theaters instead. Then it's a total waste of money," said Bruce Schneier, author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World. 10:46:54 AM    comment []

Garage Influentials. "What happens when you open up media platforms to bloggers, amateur critics, self-educated experts, passionate commenters, and independent reviewers? You get insightful, surprising and highly original content, not to mention entirely new products and services from GARAGE INFLUENTIALS: amateurs-turned-professionals posting their reviews, criticisms, software, solutions and God knows what else on the web, ready for reading or downloading." [unmediated] 10:46:19 AM    comment []

R.I.P., Mary T. Washington, First Black Woman to Earn C.P.A. Credential, Is Dead at 99. Mary T. Washington surmounted racial barriers in business in the 1920's and went on to become the head of one of the largest black-owned accounting firms in the nation. By LILY KOPPEL. [NYT > Business] 10:46:07 AM    comment []