18. juli 2003

Publish your own books for free Cafepress, otherwise known for allowing anybody to sell custom-made t-shirts and mugs, goes one step further by offering print-on-demand books. You write it, send it, set a price and they print and send the book. Could be an interesting alternative if this idea takes off. Downside: you will have to market your own book. 10:47:08 PM    comment []

Googleholes in the argument I criticised Steven Johnson's Slate article about "googleholes" the other day, and I have obviously not been the only one. In his blog, he complains about being "flamed to high heaven" in Slate's fray (message boards), and offers some defense: The general critique seems to be that I don't understand how to refine a search, which I guess I should have made clear in the piece itself. Yes you should. (I do, for the record. I also think Google is absolutely brilliant.) But as you can see if you follow the link, it's not a piece about how to use Google more effectively; it's a piece about ways that Google's system implicitly pushes us in certain directions, which makes it less like an authoritative reference source, and more like an op-ed page. (Nothing wrong with that, just something we should keep in mind.) So, essentially he complains that the search results favours some pages over others. Since most users don't refine searches, at least not at first, some pages will get disproportionally more hits than others. How does that make it less "authoritatively," I ask? Would he prefer search results to be reported in alphabetical order? I guess we'd all call ourselves "aardvark's blog" if it did. 8:18:45 PM    comment []

The French hunt for English words continues The French government is ever vigilant against English words coming into use in France, and the most recent target is "e-mail." The Culture Ministry has announced that the term is now banned from all official documents. The replacement word is "courriel," a fusion of the words "courrier electronique." E-mail is however deeply entrenched in French usage, and there is little hope that a newly coined upstart word will have much success among ordinary users. 6:47:51 PM    comment []

Iraq expert found dead Dr David Kelly (picture), who is claimed to have been the source for the BBC's assertion that the Balir government 'sexed up' the weapons dossier on Iraq, has been found dead this morning in a wooden area in Oxfordshire. A positive identification is not made yet. Dr Kelly denies to have been the BBC's secret intelligence source, but he has been under intense media scrutiny after he admitted meeting BBC's defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan. The MoD thinks it is him, but the Commons foreign affairs select committee concluded this was "most unlikely." Nobody openly speculates about the cause of Dr Kelly's death yet. The closest we get is probably this statement: Tory MP Richard Ottaway, another committee member, said: "He is not used to the media glare, he is not used to the intense spotlight he has been put under." It is difficult to believe he took his life unless there was more to the story than we know so far. 5:06:39 PM    comment []

You missing a roof? German Jessica Wolbers, 38, is searching the owner of the roof that landed on her Volkswagen Golf and did damage to it, hoping that the owner's insurance can help her recover some of the cost. The roof landed on her car during a storm. 1:00:15 PM    comment []

Piercing the veil If you are feeling great, you may think that mental illness or depression is never going to touch you. You may be right, of course, and then again, you may be wrong. In the western world, depression hits roughly one person out of six. One minute you're having a great life, feeling totally in control, doing your job, everything is fine, the next you are a wreck wondering what hit you. No offense to people suffering other forms of bodily diseases, but it is particularly distressing to realise your brain, your mind, indeed your own self, doesn't behave the way you're used to. Ben Kerschberg sent me an email telling me about his blog and his book. I have just read small parts of his excerpts so far, but I have to say, based on my personal experiences (some years back) it does hit a chord. If you know what I am talking about, or even if you're not,. have a look. 4:15:06 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2003; 01:51:58.