Blogging in a box

Is the blog in its current form coming up against a wall that will keep it from growing and becoming more widely accepted? Frank Catalano eloquently "voices" some thoughts on the matter:

At its core, blogging is a Web publishing mechanism. And it's a confining one, if you don't want to live inside the standard box of dated posts, monthly archives and comments ....

It is the content of blogs that matters, not the tool. The tool is indeed a wonderful thing -- I appreciate being able to post new entries no matter where I am, as long as I'm at a Web browser. The tool has opened up the ability for a broad, non-technical audience to publish news, information and opinions widely ....

But a blog is a Web site. Blogging is a publishing mechanism. One doesn't savor the can. One savors the soup.

The best blogging tool yet-to-be-invented will allow someone to organize the site any way they want (with or without dates, in any order) without directly editing HTML code, and publish from anywhere. You won't notice that it's a "blog." You'll notice is a darned good and interesting site. The publishing mechanism needs to become invisible to the visitor.

Frank also notes that the term "blogger" is itself limiting because it has "become so tied in the mass consciousness to harsh commentary and criticism of politics, the news media and current events." He suggests an alternative that's likely to tweak a few noses.

Engineering lacks appeal

I guess this was inevitable: concern about overseas outsourcing is discouraging America's youth from pursuing careers in engineering.

Even "some of the nation's tech elite -- including many immigrants who benefited greatly from engineering careers -- are finding even their own children shun engineering," the Wall Street Journal reports.

That's not not the only reason, of course: poor math and science curricula in public schools and a high burnout rate among students who do study engineering are issues, too. There's also "a persistent image problem":

A recent study of 2,800 of Silicon Valley's youth by consultants A.T. Kearney found that 73% were familiar with high-tech careers but only 32% wanted to pursue them. In describing tech careers, students in the study used a variety of unflattering terms, including "intimidating" and "uninteresting." Others said they considered engineers to be "socially awkward" or "obsessed with work." Some female respondents linked computer engineering with work that is "tedious" or "antisocial."

Bad boss, bad work

You probably suspected this but the experts agree: Overcontrolling Bosses Aren't Just Annoying; They're Also Inefficient.

As the Wall Street Journal's Jared Sandberg explains:

Deeply untrusting and puffed up with some devil-in-the-details justification, control freaks wrest tasks from colleagues, along with the colleagues' sense of self worth. It's as if they were burned by someone or something long ago, and everyone they come into contact with is a walking evocation of the past demon. The irony is that in the name of efficiency and cost savings, these managers are often the most guilty of operating far below their pay scales.

It's a small world

We've all heard about how the Internet renders geography irrelevant. The practical implications of that, however, are causing headaches for companies whose business plans didn't consider unexpected popularity in foreign markets, Wired News reports:

Friendster, which today has millions of Filipino members, is one of a number of advertising-supported internet sites grappling with the dilemma of how to take advantage of unforeseen overseas popularity. Such sites are finding that business models that work in large, developed countries need serious readjustment in nations with small populations or low internet-penetration rates.

Of course, for U.S.-based websites, attention from overseas is nothing new. Yahoo, Google and other top internet sites have long generated page views from all corners of the globe.

But more recently, among social-networking sites where new users invite friends and business colleagues to sign up, international growth is occurring at an exceptionally rapid rate. Sites that thought they'd grow in the United States before expanding overseas are instead taking off in unexpected places.

Wired News notes that LinkedIn is a hit in Scandinavian countries and Israel while Orkut's population is now 66 percent Brazilian. However, international popularity isn't limited to social networks: more than half of eBay's registered users live outside the United States, according to Byte Level Research.

At the speed of research

Here's an object lesson in the difficulties of dealing with Internet time: a congressionally mandated study of how the domain name system is working has finally been completed -- a mere seven years after it was commissioned.

As the Associated Press notes, a few things changed during that time: "Google emerged to dominate the Web, technology executives made then lost billions in stock options, lawyers shut down Napster over music piracy, high-speed Internet connections soared and the number of Web addresses climbed from 2.2 million to more than 65 million. The job of Commerce secretary, the top U.S. official responsible for overseeing the study, turned over three times."

Charles Brownstein, director of the computer science and telecommunications board at the National Research Council, which conducted the study, cited "dramatic changes" to the topics being studied as one factor in the report's tardiness.

In case you're wondering, the report concludes that the DNS "has performed well" but could be improved.

When millions of Totos attack

On BrandShift, Jennifer Rice recently offered an amusing, but apt, analogy for how the blogosphere is turning transparency into a basic requirement of doing business today instead of a desirable elective:

All this talk of transparency reminds me of the classic scene in The Wizard of Oz where Toto pulls back the curtain on the wizard. He's furiously working his controls and microphone to operate the big talking head: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

If you believe that transparency is a fad, or an option, or a warm and fuzzy buzzword, think again. What you believe doesn't matter. There are millions of Totos running around the blogosphere; they've got good noses for men behind curtains. And nothing pleases them more than to see another talking head fall.

... Social technologies like blogs and community forums are forcing us to completely rethink the traditional tenets of brand management.

Transparency will happen to your company whether you like it or not. One obvious question to ask yourself is, how embarrassed will you be when your curtain is pulled back?

TV as ID

It might be possible to uniquely identify you by your TV viewing habits, according to New Scientist:

Martin Russell at the University of Birmingham, and colleagues from UK firms Ensigma Technologies and Snape Signals Research, compiled TV profiles of 33 volunteers who logged the shows they watched for nine months. Based on these profiles the researchers tried to identify the viewers from a two-week study of their viewing habits. Their IDs were accurate 82 per cent of the time.

By any other name

As Todd Bishop noted, the clunky monikers for the Media Player-less versions of Windows that Microsoft is required to sell in Europe -- "Windows XP Home Edition N" and "Windows XP Professional Edition N" -- sound "like something a regulator would come up with."

Actually, they were picked by the European Commission after it rejected a short list of 10 alternatives submitted by the company. After seeing that list, which includes the even clunkier "Windows XP not incorporating Windows Media Player" and mystifying labels like "Windows OS/C," I have to say that I'm with the bureaucrats on this one.

iMugged

The iPod's trademark white earbuds apparently scream "steal me" to thieves, the New York Daily Post reports. In fact, police sources tell the paper they credit iPods with helping drive a spike in robberies on subways and at bus stops in the Big Apple.

That's not surprising, really. As the New York Times notes: "It would be hard to conceive of a better criminal target than the iPod. Those white cords snaking down from listeners' ears into the recesses of their jackets signify an instant status symbol, hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and a mark who may be blissfully unaware of his or her surroundings."

Well, I suppose it's a faster way to build a library of illicit songs than downloading them off the Net one at a time.

'Darth Chocolate'

What could be cuter than Mr. Potato Head as Darth Tater?

How about an M&M as Darth Vader?

A larger-than-life-sized "M-Vader" spokescandy appeared in New York yesterday to help launch the popular candy line's new dark chocolate varieties. It's the first time dark chocolate M&Ms have ever been available.

Available for a limited time starting April 2, the special "Darth Mix" features candies in black, maroon, purple, dark blue and silver. There'll also be a "Jedi Mix" featuring milk chocolate M&Ms in more uplifting colors: beige, cream, pastel green, gold and "lightsaber blue."

StarWars.com offers the backstory on the "M-Pire" TV campaign.

Banning PhotoBlocker

Yes, you can buy a product that's designed to mask your license plate from scofflaw cameras. And yes, officials are trying to get it outlawed.

Who's blogging Grokster

Here's a quick roundup of bloggers posting accounts of this morning's oral arguments before the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster, the landmark-in-the-making case on the legality of file-sharing networks:

• SCOTUSblog: "The Supreme Court put on public display Tuesday two conflicting reactions to the apparently widespread practice of downloading copyrighted songs and movies from the Internet."
• EFF's Deep Links: "Here, from the courthouse steps, is the first EFF dispatch. ..." (Followup analysis here)
• Timothy K. Armstrong: "I would say the argument went a little better for Grokster than I would have expected it to ..." (He points out that in its arguments, MGM and its allies conceded that ripping one's own CDs is legal, thereby preventing them from arguing otherwise in the future.)
• IPcentral: "The issues are tough, and the Justices amused themselves tossing curve balls at all the attorneys, not to mention sliders and a knuckler or two. ..."

Others are blogging about the broader issues raised by the Grokster case, rather than today's actual proceedings:

• Michelle Malkin: "P2P ain't just about trading your favorite tunes. It's also about sickos and smut purveyors who have unprecedented access to an unimaginable volume of child porn." (link added 1:20 p.m.)
• herestomwiththeweather: "Let us reframe the question and get at the real question here that the big content companies are trying to hide from us. The real question is 'Are talented musicians going to be allowed an audience or will mass advertising continue to drown them out?'" (link added 1:55 p.m.)
  

And, of course, here's the Slashdot thread. (link added 1:55 p.m.)

Network DVR pros, cons

Mediaweek looks at the promise -- and, alas, potential pitfalls -- of centralized "network DVRs" run by the cable company. Instead of using your own set-top box or a card installed in your computer, you'd simply have the cable company record shows for you, to be played back at your leisure.

The main advantage, of course, is that it would make DVR functionality instantly available to digital cable subscribers without any fussing about with installing or upgrading hardware.

The downsides are all on the content side. One, existing copyright law makes mass recording of commercial programming "for personal use" questionable from a legal perspective. Also, a big boost in DVR usage threatens programmers' business models if too many people skip commercials. One solution cited: network DVRs that don't let viewers skip through ads ... which takes away one of the main selling points of the technology.

The joy of e-mail

Do you remember how you felt when you sent or received your first e-mail?

This delightful picture by P-I photographer Joshua Trujillo captures the magic of that moment for Katherine Herndon, 89, who had just sent off her first digital dispatch with the help of Ana-Maria Standolariu, her 17-year-old instructor during a seniors' computer class at Ballard High School in Seattle.

My first e-mail exchange was about 20 years and I've long since forgotten how it felt. But Josh's photo makes me wish I did.

Who's a journalist now?

In Don't Fear the Blogger, Slate's Jack Shafer pointedly pokes holes in some common arguments that bloggers constitute a class of information purveyor inferior to journalists.

Specifically, he tears apart the arguments raised by Los Angeles Times media critic David Shaw in explaining why he thinks bloggers shouldn't be protected by shield laws.

Read both pieces and you'll get a decent sense of just how complex and murky the definition of "journalist" is becoming in this day and age.

The subjunctive lives!

The Slashdot discussion on the merits of Microsoft Word's grammar checker goes off on a number of tangents. The most fascinating digression: Slashdot user iabervon used Google to demonstrate that the grammatically correct, but vernacularly challenged, "if I were" is actually more common on the Web:

Google finds 4,770,000 hits for "if I were", as opposed to 2,970,000 for "if I was" (which obviously includes indicative conditionals, which are uncommon but still account for some of the cases). That's a 61% market share for the subjunctive, in this construction at least.

True, the market share could/should be larger but still, it's an encouraging sign.

Hellions on wheels

Seattle now has its own all-female roller derby league, the Rat City Rollergirls. The opening matches between the Sockit Wenches, Derby Liberation Front, Grave Danger and the Throttle Rockets is chronicled in a fun P-I story today:

Under whirling red and blue lights, a legion of helmeted hellions on wheels rolled out Saturday night to a sold-out audience that eagerly anticipated the Rat City Rollergirls' season-opening rumble at the Southgate Roller Rink.

They weren't disappointed.

Clad in outrageous outfits, accompanied by matching mascots and a pulsating soundtrack, the queens of the rollerama shoved, blocked and skated their way into the hearts of fans.

Adopting pseudonyms such as Betty Ford Galaxy, Ann Munition, Jo Jo Stiletto and Kitty Kamikaze, they showed why watching the new league could become a bone-crunching addiction. ...

Grammar for dummies

If you've been frustrated by the shortcomings of Microsoft Word's built-in grammar checker, UW professor Sandeep Krishnamurthy feels your pain. And, as Todd Bishop reports today, he's begun a one-man mission to get Microsoft to make things better.

Update: Todd offers some more background, and comments on reader reaction to his story, on his own blog.

The story has also sparked a lively and anarchic thread on Slashdot.

Top clicks, top picks

What caught the interest of SeattlePI.com readers during the week of March 21-27, 2005:

Top clicks (most read articles):

1. Microsoft funding of security report decried
2. Policeman accidentally shoots himself at store
3. Five years later, EMP isn't striking much of a chord
4. Seahawks Notebook: Brown to check out Hawks
5. Wife of sailor battles U.S. over abortion
6. Man, 22, dies of injuries after apparent assault in visit to South Dakota
7. Hernandez pitch creates a buzz
8. Thornton's career with M's in peril
9. Seahawks Notebook: Work begins with forceful steps in right direction
10. Woman stuck in bathtub for 12 days

Top picks (most e-mailed articles):

1. What happened to real Republicans?
2. Five years later, EMP isn't striking much of a chord
3. Wife of sailor battles U.S. over abortion
4. It's not your father's America any more
5. He left for war and returns a real hero
6. Search continues in Wendy's finger case
7. War's effect felt across Mideast
8. Bigger, brighter warehouse replaces the very first Costco
9. Difference between sexes X-plained
10. Safety lapses plague oil tankers

Amazon knows all

The Associated Press confirms what you always suspected: Amazon knows more about you than you do:

For years, Amazon has collected detailed information about what its customers buy, considered buying, browsed for but never bought, recommended to others or even wished someone would buy them.

It has built ever-more sophisticated tools to recommend more purchases, direct your searches toward products it thinks you're most likely to want, or even stop the forgetful among us from buying the same book we purchased five years ago.

Here's an entertaining, yet thought-provoking, look at where it might lead.

The death of distance, cont.

Even John Perry Barlow is still surprised by how the Internet brings people together:

I'm rarely surprised by someone I've only met on the phone. But one doesn't get random phone calls from Viet Nam or China, or at least one never could before. Skype changes all that. Now anybody can talk to anybody, anywhere. At zero cost. This changes everything. When we can talk, really talk, to one another, we can connect at the heart.

The story behind that reality-shifting observation is recounted in a great New York Times story that explores the potential of VoIP telephone services -- Skype, in particular -- to connect perfect strangers in far-flung locations. Yes, e-mail, IM, SMS, P2P, the Web, et al., have been eroding the barriers of geography for years but VoIP takes it to a new level. It lets people talk to one another naturally, concurrently, in real time. The technology facilitates a familiar kind of communication instead of imposing new technical barriers.

But, as the Times points out, there's a downside to being accessible to random callers (an optional feature on Skype): you're "subject to the undesirable solicitors familiar to e-mail and phone users: spammers, scammers and perverts."

Broadcasters podcast, too

Podcasting isn't just for the grassroots. Bill Virgin, our radio columnist, notes that broadcast radio stations are also doing it reach out to new audiences.

Bluejacking

Let's face it, any new communications technology will eventually be used for meeting people (preferably potential romantic partners) and playing pranks. Bluetooth-equipped cell phones are no exception, notes the New York Times:

Bluetooth technology was initially developed as a way to create short-range cordless connections between devices, like a headset and a phone, or a printer and a computer. It grew to encompass the exchange of business cards and photos between mobile devices over distances of 30 feet or less. Now it has become a tool for meeting strangers in your midst - flirting, playing pranks, finding a kindred spirit.

"In my view, this is the mark of a good technology, when people take it and expand it further than you initially envisioned when you were designing it," said Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, an industry trade group based in Overland Park, Kan.

Ending on your own terms

What you need to know about a living will. (122K PDF).

It's a subject many of us don't want to think about, let alone talk to loved ones about, but the experts agree that doing so is imperative. As one lawyer tells the Kansas City Star, even if you have a living will stating that you want to have the plug pulled, doctors may not honor it -- especially if loved ones threaten legal action to stop them.

Incidentally, here in Washington state a living will is invoked only if you have a terminal condition or if you're in an irreversible coma, according to an FAQ we published today.

That article offers a wealth of advice on steps you can take to make sure that your wishes are known and followed. Also see the linked PDF for a quick primer on living wills, with hyperlinks to informative Web sites.

On a related note, one of our most popular stories today is the tale of Susan Winn, a local woman with cancer who has elected to forego painful treatment. Instead, she plans to "travel and live well under her death." And yes, Winn "took all the legal steps recommended by experts to ensure the death she prefers."

'My vlog's bigger!'

Vlogging -- or video blogging -- is the next wave, Michael Rogers notes on MSNBC.com.

It's even becoming yet another cause of sibling rivalry between kids: "Indeed, an 11-year-old vlogger named Dylan Verdi ended up on the ABC nightly news in January as the youngest vlogger in the world; subsequently, her 7-year-old sister absconded with the title."

OK, he also cites a lot of other examples to bolster his point. I just find this one particularly amusing. (Although younger sister Lauren actually says that it's "cool to be the youngest videoblogger's sister!")

(Via Lost Remote.)

Why Wi-Fi?

The Onion, in its inimitable style, points out some "advantages" of the Wi-Fi revolution that might not have occurred to you, including:

• "Brings Internet to the needy laptop-toting underclass"
• "Allows consumers to shop online while they shop offline"
• "Puts modem, hub, and router maintenance in municipal government's able hands"

(Via Wi-Fi Networking News.)

Cool, 'if only' products

What cool, innovative gadgets might Apple Computer deliver next? Business 2.0 had the creatives at award-winning design firm Pentagram mock up a gallery of five totally speculative products, including wrist and phone- and camera-equipped iPods.

The gallery accompanies an article on "what a trail of intriguing evidence reveals about where the world's hottest company is going."

(Via Boing Boing.)

Another right-to-life case

The case of Terri Schiavo is dominating the headlines but, as P-I military reporter Mike Barber notes, "right to life" issues are at the core of another case quietly making its way through the federal court system:

When she learned that she was carrying a baby with almost no brain and no chance of survival, a devastated young Navy wife from Everett pleaded with a federal court in Seattle to force her military medical program to pay for an abortion. ...

She won her case and had the abortion. But more than two years later, the federal government continues to fight her, trying to get the woman and her sailor husband to pay back the $3,000 the procedure cost and trying to cast in stone a ban on government-funded abortions.

The case of Jane Doe. v. the United States will be argued before a federal appeals court next month. Like the Terri Schiavo case in Florida, involving a severely brain-damaged adult, this matter involves questions of what is human life, when can family decide to end it and how far can the government go to block that decision.

On a related note, D.C. correspondent Charles Pope talks to Rep. Dave Reichert, R-8th District, about why he voted against the bill that moved Schiavo's case to federal court. Reichert was one of only five Republicans who cast "no" votes. As the former King County sheriff puts it: "Why are we, Congress, getting involved in this case? It didn't make sense to me."

At issue in AFP v. Google

Terry Steichen does a good job of framing the key questions raised by AFP's suing Google for incorporating the news agency's photos and text in its Google News aggregation service without permission (see filings here):

I'm not a lawyer, but, as I understand it, there are significant legal issues regarding several aspects, including:

* Can a publisher actually copyright a factual headline? (because you apparently can't copyright facts, and you can't copyright titles)

* Can a publisher actually copyright a factual lead? (when it is arguably more factual than creative)

* Can GoogleNews' use of publishers' content be authorized under fair use rules (because they only use a few articles, and only a part of each, because they arguably generate more traffic than they divert, and because they aren't - currently - making money themselves)

* Can a publisher successfully challenge GoogleNews on violating their terms of service (where the questions, as I understand it, center on enforceability)

I can't speculate on what the outcome would be if these issues were contested. But, if a court made adverse findings on any, let alone all, of them, the impact on publishers and their understandable desire to control their product, may be quite significant.

High price of free parking

Why free parking is bad for society.

Disaster looming?

Today, P-I investigative reporter Eric Nalder begins a four-part, in-depth special report looking at how safety measures enacted after the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill "are being evaded and undermined."

The main story in the first installment details how an oil spill in the middle of the Pacific Ocean went unreported for four months until a whistle-blower told the Coast Guard. Was there a cover-up? Depends on whom you ask ...

Erika on the spot

Journalists don't always ask puffball questions when interviewing actors and actresses. For example, D. Parvaz puts Erika Christensen ("The Upside of Anger") on the spot with queries like, "You're young, pretty and famous. How the heck are you staying out of the tabloids?"

D. also quizzes her about Michael Jackson, "anger, drugs and faking orgasms."

Previously, D. made Naomi Watts uncomfortable in a memorable interview about playing a (fictional) P-I reporter in the original "The Ring" -- a portrayal that she reality-checked.

Searching for search

The ways that people use the Internet never cease to amaze me. Today's jaw dropper: among the most common search terms entered at leading search engines are ... the names of other search engines.

A word for all seasons

If you're at all interested in tracking how language twists and adapts in pop culture, check out this odd, but fascinating, New York Times story on the many, many meanings that "bitch" has adopted on network TV. Turns out that it's a remarkably versatile word, used as everything from an implied threat of sexual abuse in prison to a term of endearment when spoken by Paris Hilton.

Allen's ailing icon

Have you ever visited the Experience Music Project? If not, you're hardly in the minority if our daily poll today is anything to go by.

But low attendance is just one of many ills facing EMP. Pop culture reporter D. Parvaz penned a detailed special report exploring just what has kept Paul Allen's ambitious rock museum from blossoming. One key factor cited by insiders and critics: an unusually secretive organizational culture that follows the practices of the intensely private billionaire's other business ventures rather than the open-door style favored by arts groups.

On a lighter note, D. also invites all of you to tell us what you would do with the EMP's distinctive building if the museum were to cease to exist.

Risking your reputation

The idea of an online shopping mall never made much sense to me when they first started popping up about 10 years ago. Since any Web site is, at least in theory, as simple to reach as any other, what possible advantage was there in congregating several online stores at one address which, in all likelihood, was newer and had less brand name recognition than the individual merchants?

None, basically. And that was the answer for years.

Then Amazon.com really made the idea actually work, offering real advantages that brought both big-name retailers (Toys "R" Us) and small merchants (the legions of zShops sellers) under one virtual roof. They could take advantage of Amazon's e-tailing technology and infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, they could bask in the glow of Amazon's dominant brand-name recognition.

But, as P-I retail reporter Kristen Milares Bolt explains, the deal has a huge potential downside for Amazon -- and its affiliated merchants. Amazon's sterling reputation for good deals and good service is, to some degree, entrusted to each and every one of those third-party sellers.

Reputations, especially good ones, can be quite fragile. So a zShops merchant who cheats or defrauds customers gives a black eye to Amazon.com and, by extension, other zShops merchants.

It's not quite the same with eBay, which has been described (correctly, I think) as a bazaar rather than a shopping mall. The latter implies that there's some kind of central management vetting the "tenants" and enforcing standards of quality and conduct. Not to knock eBay's well-documented efforts to combat fraud, but let's face it, "buyer beware" remains one of the basic rules when bidding in its auctions. Its rating system, after all, is designed to help customers decide how wary they should be in any given case.

Not so Amazon. It projects an essentially monolithic face to customers, whether they're dealing with an "anchor" tenant or a fly-by-night kiosk. And it has built a pretty desirable reputation for service. So cases of fraud are much more damaging to Amazon's reputation than they are to eBay's or a less branded aggregation of retailers like Yahoo Stores.

Balls bash all 'bout bulls

There's still time to put in your bid at eBay to become the King and Queen of the Ball at this year's Cowboy Caviar Fete in the town of Conconully, Wash. As a story in today's P-I explains, the event "celebrates a delicacy of the prairie cowboy -- bull testicles."

What do they taste like, you ask? According to rancher Rod Haeberle, the testicle festival's reigning king:

"I think they really resemble really nicely prepared filet mignon," he said. "Some people say they're more like chicken. ... Kind of depends on how they prepare them."

Update, March 21: The item sold Sunday night for a winning bid of $1,225. The winner's a name that you might have encountered in stories about previous oddball auctions online: Golden Palace Casino.

Update, March 22: See the P-I's followup story.

Versatile zombies

New research by the Honeynet Project found that the power of hijacked PCs is being harnessed to do a lot more than just send spam. Botnets comprising hundreds to thousands of "zombies" are employed for all sorts of scams and attacks, as BBC News summarizes:

During the monitoring period, the team saw 'bot nets used to launch 226 distributed denial-of-service attacks on 99 separate targets. These attacks bombard websites with data in an attempt to overwhelm the target.

Using a 'bot net of machines spread around different networks and nations makes such attacks hard to defend against.

One DDoS attack was used by one firm to knock its competitors offline.

Other 'bot nets were used to abuse the Google Adsense program that rewards websites for displaying adverts from the search engine. Some networks were used to abuse or manipulate online polls and games.

Criminals also seem to be starting to use 'bot nets for mass identity theft, to host websites that look like those of banks so confidential information can be gathered and to peep into online traffic to steal sensitive data.

Bug-eyed altruism

I'll just let New Scientist's own abstract explain this story:

Human altruism is puzzling enough, but why do people donate more to charity if they are being watched by a bug-eyed robot called Kismet?

Kiosk communities

You've probably heard about how digital photography is buildling communities through online pic-sharing sites like Flickr. But did you know that people also forge bonds around the offline photo-printing kiosk? Per the New York Times:

At Concord Camera in Concord, N.H., customers are invited to perch on stools and sip coffee while customizing images from their digital cameras on one of the store's five Agfa Image Box desktop kiosks, each placed on its own cafe-style table. Coloring books are provided for children.

"Customers bring friends and show them how much fun it is to make prints," said Michael St. Germain, owner of the 2,600-square-foot independent store, where customers pay 39 to 49 cents for a standard-size print, depending on the quantity ordered. That is more expensive than at chain stores in his area and around the nation, where the price for a 4-by-6 print is typically 29 cents.

Yet business is flourishing at Concord Camera because, the owner says, he allows his customers, mostly women, to work on images at their leisure. He plans to add more kiosks to reduce wait times.

Sure, you can make prints at home but market researchers say that many consumers prefer to use an in-store kiosk for large print jobs because it's cheaper per print. One estimates that homemade prints could cost as much as $1 each.

Fun with cover art

Got a spare moment? Check out AmazType, a truly astonishing tool that lets you search for authors and titles in Amazon.com's catalog -- then spells out the search words using letters formed from miniaturized versions of the cover images for matching books.

You can, of course, just type in your own name and watch it AmazType spell it out, too.

Even the error message AmazType uses when it can't find any matches uses this eye-catching effect.

(From Boing Boing.)

IRS time machine

A Seattle woman who asked the Internal Revenue Service to send her some tax forms, including a Schedule B, got a surprise in her mail. The IRS sent her a Schedule B, all right -- from 1969!

Don't worry, the agency does have an explanation for the mix-up -- which affected "fewer than 500" taxpayers nationwide -- and for why it keeps 35-year-old tax forms lying around.

Sports on satellite

P-I sportswriter Angelo Bruscas looks at the high-stakes war between satellite radio rivals XM and Sirius, in which professional sports has emerged as major artillery:

With satellite receiving systems now coming installed in many new cars, with heavy promotions and pricing plans under way for the newest in portable receivers and the content providers, sports programming is becoming a major consumer issue.

"When you go to Best Buy or Circuit City, the kid on the front line is going to say, 'Sirius is $12.95, and you get Howard Stern and the NFL.' Now for the same price, you can have Opie & Anthony and Major League Baseball," said April Horace, a Denver-based emerging technologies analyst for Janco Partners Inc. ...

"The demographic of the sports fan matches up really well with the demographic of our customer base right now," said Ron Rodrigues, Sirius media relations spokesman. "They tend to be men in their 20s through 40s who have average or slightly above-average income and education levels."

With millions of dollars at stake in the new rights fees they are paying out, XM and Sirius are betting sports consumers will attract satellite radio to the masses once they become comfortable with the technology.

"You tend to go where the audience is, and you serve it, so sports came definitely as a priority for us," Rodrigues said.

XM's $650 million deal to carry baseball games is expected to help boost its subscriber base to 5.5 million by the end of the year. Recently it bolstered its sports-talk lineup with the debut of "The Tony Kornheiser Show," a weekday show for the Washington Post columnist and co-host of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption."

With its NASCAR and NFL agreements, Sirius has spent more than $800 million in the past two years to lock up new programming.

What do local radio stations that depend on "exclusive" sports programming think of the potential competition from satellite? Angelo reports in a sidebar that they're confused and skeptical.

A better trash can

Forget about building a better mousetrap, some entrepreneurial University of Washington students have built, and are hoping to market, a better garbage can for fast-food restaurants. Its hands-free operation is supposed to help cut down the mess.

TiVo's appeal

As a TiVo owner, I'm happy to hear that the company has secured a new lease on life by licensing its technology to Comcast. For those who don't have TiVos, however, Salon's Farhad Manjoo did a great job explaining the DVR's appeal to aficionados:

They say necessity is the mother of all invention, but when it comes to household gadgets, the best devices are most often inspired by sloth, greed and self-indulgence. Anyone who's fallen in love with TiVo knows this well. The best thing to happen to TV since Larry David, TiVo is hardly a necessity. The device, which hoards and serves up weeks of your favorite shows on demand, is the product of an epicurean age, a media hedonist's best friend. If you want to start your day with last night's "The Surreal Life" and end it with three episodes of "The Ashlee Simpson Show," your TiVo will acquiesce to your (bizarre) wishes without even snickering. There is probably nothing or nobody else on the planet, not even your spouse or your personal assistant, so completely committed to pleasing you.

That's the opening paragraph to a piece arguing that it really does make sense for Apple to buy TiVo, whose product Manjoo says comes close to being the Perfect Machine.

Addressing weaknesses

CareerJournal.com lists seven strategies for answering questions about your weaknesses during job interviews.

Putting a price on pets

Malpractice lawsuits against veterinarians are on the rise -- with grieving pet owners seeking damages in the five- or six-figure range when their animals die, USA Today reports. It reflects a bigger trend, the paper notes, of court decisions that "essentially have treated animals as human under the law":

In a reflection of the special place that pets have come to hold in Americans' hearts, U.S. courts are bucking centuries of legal decisions that have defined animals as property.

In recent years, courts in New York, Maryland and Texas have resolved custody disputes involving pets by deciding what's best for the pet. Judges in 25 states have administered financial trusts set up in pets' names. ...

Since 1997, courts in Kentucky and California have awarded damages to pet owners for loss of companionship, emotional distress and other factors that go beyond the way courts have long assessed animals' worth: by their market value.

Blogging boys' club

Newsweek's Steven Levy asks a pointed question: Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem?

Viewed one way, the issue seems a bit absurd. These self-generated personal Web sites are supposed to be the ultimate grass-roots phenomenon. The perks of alpha bloggers—voluminous traffic, links from other bigfeet, conference invitations, White House press passes—are, in theory, bequeathed by a market-driven merit system. The idea is that the smartest, the wittiest and the most industrious in finding good stuff will simply rise to the top, by virtue of a self-organizing selection process.

So why, when millions of blogs are written by all sorts of people, does the top rung look so homogeneous? It appears that some clubbiness is involved. [Halley] Suitt puts it more bluntly: "It's white people linking to other white people!" (A link from a popular blog is this medium's equivalent to a Super Bowl ad.) Suitt attributes her own high status in the blogging world to her conscious decision to "promote myself among those on the A list."

The issue came to the forefront during a recent conference at Harvard on blogging and the media, during which Suitt issued the Ten New Voices challenge to attendees: Find, introduce and link to 10 bloggers who are not white American men. Specifically, the list must include five women, at least three non-Americans and no white males. She's started a report card to track their progress.

Gmail opening up

It looks like Google is now openly offering Gmail accounts to random users of its search engine. I've seen the link below in two different Web browsers tonight when visiting Google tonight (although it doesn't show up in four others I tested):

The link URL is different in each case, but both point to a "Create a Google Account - Gmail" page (see this cached example) that gives the following explanation:

Since we launched Gmail in April 2004, we've been focused on improving the service, relying on our users to spread the word and invite others to try it out. The response has been great, and now we're ready for some more Gmail users. ...

As we make room for more Gmail users, we want to first extend invitations to Google users. We're still working to make Gmail better, so for now, we're just inviting a small number at random. Looks like that's you! We're really excited to share Gmail with you and we hope you like it.

Anyone else seen this yet?

Update: A Google spokeswoman tells IDG News Service that about 1 in 20 visitors to Google.com are getting the open invitations.

Pharm crisis

Wired News looks at pharming, the latest cyberscam to step into the spotlight -- and potentially, the hardest one for most people to detect. Pharming silently redirects browsers to counterfeit Web pages when users try to load the URLs for real commercial sites, tricking them into entering personal information.

The scammers employ tactics ranging from malware that rewrites infected computers' hosts files, telling them to use bogus sites' IP address for common domains, to DNS poisoning, which enters the false information in the upstream address translation system.

In any case, it's hard to tell if you fall into a pharmer's trap because, as far as your browser's concerned, it is going to the legitimate site you specified:

"Phishing is to pharming what a guy with a rod and a reel is to a Russian trawler. Phishers have to approach their targets one by one. Pharmers can scoop up many victims in a single pass," said Chris Risley, president and chief executive officer of Nominum, a provider of IP address infrastructure technology for businesses.

Bye-bye, Pat

Longtime Seattle morning radio host Pat Cashman is signing off for good this Friday, Bill Virgin reports.

"After 12 years on morning-drive radio, the time is right for me to do what I have long dreamed of -- run my own business and turn my alarm clock off," he said in a statement.

He's eyeing "some new broadcasting and advertising ventures" but you'll still be able to enjoy his wit and wisdom in the column he co-writes with his daughter Kate for the P-I.

I was an avid fan of Pat's show for most of the '90s, starting with his delightfully off-kilter weekend program on what used to be KING-AM, but drifted away when I switched to the night shift several years back. Judging by the messages at his fan site, The Pat Pack, his unique brand of broadcast lunacy continues to entertain and enthrall what Bill once described as "one of the largest, most devoted followings of any local radio personality." I'm sure his absence from the daily scene will be missed.

Paying for news

It probably won't come as any surprise when I tell you that quite a few people in the business believe it's not only desirable but inevitable that someday, we'll all have to pay to read news online.

The real questions are when and how that might happen. A New York Times story does a good job of examining the many obstacles that stand in the way -- and why some publishers have already decided to plow through them.

Why photo sites work

Newsweek's Brad Stone ruminates on the deeper meaning behind the success of photo-sharing sites:

Welcome to the digital age, where the customs surrounding the 150-year-old practice of photography have been almost completely exploded in a staggeringly brief 24 months. Just as blogs turned armchair writers into a journalists, the newest generation of photo-sharing sites—companies like Fotolog, Flickr, HeyPix and Smugmug—allow shutterbugs to publish their photos before mass audiences and find others who share the same pictorial predilections. ...

With the proliferation of digital cameras and particularly camera phones (150 million sold last year alone), taking pictures is suddenly easier and cheaper than ever before. So shutterbugs are now more inclined to snap—and to share—more than just significant personal moments. .... [P]eople log on for attention and validation; if it’s easy and harmless, they’ll happily blast their photos out to millions of people.

A piercing issue

Here's one for the Slippery Slope File: Consumer affairs reporter Candace Heckman writes that a bill to regulate body piercing has been stalled in the Legislature by concern that "conservatives will argue that if children require parental consent to get a nose ring, they should need parental consent to have an abortion or take birth control."

Top picks, top clicks

Continued rumblings at Mount St. Helens and continuing fallout from the latest Boeing scandal -- plus the continuing controversy over Teresa Heinz Kerry -- dominated readers' interest during the week of March 7-13, 2005:

Top clicks (most read articles):

1. Large plume billows from Mount St. Helens
2. In The Northwest: Teresa Heinz Kerry hasn't lost her outspoken way
3. Ex-teammates Collison, Hinrich finally face off
4. Stonecipher's lover ID'd
5. E-mails sent at work anything but private
6. Seahawks Notebook: Dilfer traded; Hawks in Surtain sweepstakes
7. Woman pulls trigger on one of her rescuers
8. Seahawks Notebook: Gardner grows on Hawks
9. Okeafor: Seahawks players, coaches have wrong attitude
10. Seahawks willing to entertain offers for Alexander

Top picks (most e-mailed articles):

1. In The Northwest: Teresa Heinz Kerry hasn't lost her outspoken way
2. 'Napoleon Dynamite' fever makes little town a hot spot
3. Wal-Mart off the school-supply list
4. Stonecipher's lover ID'd
5. E-mails sent at work anything but private
6. Dean offers new ideas to Democrats
7. Dylan never ceases to surprise
8. St. Helens blows again
9. There goes the neighborhood tavern
10. Large plume billows from Mount St. Helens

Benefits of blogging

Tim Bray counters the recent hoopla about the hazards of blogging with a list of
10 reasons why blogging is good for your career.

What drives cybercrooks?

D. Parvaz probably voices the unanswered (and unanswerable?) questions of many a besieged Internet user in Den of online thieves is baffling: What's their point?:

Thievery and deceit generally are carried out with an end in mind. There's always something to be gained by the wrongdoer, some sort of quantifiable advantage, however evil and ill-conceived.

Which is why, for the most part, hacking and spamming leave me baffled. ...

I can at least respect hackers who deface the Web sites of corporations they don't like -- I know, yes, it's illegal, but at least it's an action carried out on some sort of principle.

What I don't get is what good all the spam and random viruses do. I've had the same Hotmail account for about six years, and I get so much crap in my junk-mail file on an hourly basis that I can't help but wonder what sort of magical result could be gained if these people focused their energy on something other than trying to sell me porn and diet pills.

A reviewer's rationale

Speaking of the marketplace influence that Internet titans wield, Dave Taylor explains how one becomes a Top Reviewer at Amazon.com. Actually, he quotes prolific reviewer Thomas Duff's explanation of how the rating system works.

Duff, currently the No. 270 reviewer at Amazon, also explains just why he spends his time writing for someone else's business. Turns out that there are quite a few dividends:

I have relationships with most all the major tech publishers to get review copies of books.  For a book junkie like me, this is nirvana.  I have been able to influence sales traffic on Amazon with books I really feel strongly about (like Head First Java).  When an author credits you with that type of influence, it feels really good.  That's their livelihood!  I have "virtual friendships" with a number of authors, like Dave Taylor and Kathy Sierra.  Once again, a very cool thing.  And now that I'm in the upper rankings, I often get email requests from authors (both tech and fiction) asking if they can send me a review copy of their book.  Of course!  Getting emails from notable mainstream authors thanking you for your Amazon review always perks up my day.  ...

I'd like to think my writing has improved, and I know more about some areas of technology than I would have otherwise.  The drawback that I have to fight is that I know a lot *about* certain things, but I end up not having enough time to really delve into them to really *know* them.

So...  That's why I review on Amazon.  I'm forever amazed that people make decisions on books based on my opinion.  But Amazon gets valuable feedback that draws people to their site.  Publishers and authors are able to get input on their titles that might help someone else buy a book.  I learn a great deal in the process, and become a better technologist and writer because of it.

Oh yeah...  and I'm surrounded by BOOKS!

Blogging Rosie

I wouldn't have pegged Rosie O'Donnell as a textbook example of how a blogger is born, but the New York Times makes it work:

... she began to drive her friends crazy with all of her opinions.

"One of them finally said that I should start a blog," Ms. O'Donnell said in a telephone interview from her home in upstate New York. "I have had offers to do books, but what I do is too rough and raw for them. They always want it to be more linear than I think. This way I can just put it out there."

The blog - which can be read at the slightly bereft address onceadored.blogspot.com - is part journal and part political rant. It offers a plain view of some rococo mental architecture. Written in a style that eschews trifles like punctuation and narrative, Ms. O'Donnell has used her unlimited space to riff on Howard Stern, Boy George, the television show "Fat Actress" and the serial killer David Berkowitz. A dispatch posted on Tuesday veered quickly and precipitously from "The Nanny" to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Scooby-Doo ...

Granted, hers is probably not the story of how all -- maybe not even most -- bloggers get started, but I suspect it's a pretty common one.

Mossberg on AutoLink

The Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg weighed in this week on the growing controversy over the new Google Toolbar's AutoLink feature. Although he still champions "the right of Web publishers to control the content and appearance of their own sites," Mossberg is less perturbed about AutoLink than he was over a similar feature Microsoft once planned to build into Internet Explorer.

And he clearly considers Google a party that's willing to listen and negotiate:

I've had long conversations about this with senior Google officials, and they say they are actively considering changing the way the AutoLink feature works so it might not actually alter the Web pages themselves. They note that the feature is a work in progress. But the Google officials also insist their first principle is user convenience.

A compromise is easy to imagine. Instead of adding links to a page, Google could limit the feature to the drop-down list of information it already creates. Or Google could require the user to highlight the address or ID number in order to get the added information. Or it could allow the user to click on an address or ID number while holding down a key. Or it could invite Web site owners to voluntarily enable their pages to accept AutoLink links.

Last call for the tavern

The neighborhood tavern has become an endangered species in Seattle:

Taverns, legally defined as bars that sell only beer and wine, are disappearing faster from Seattle than inexpensive homes. Significant changes in liquor laws have prompted many to become full bars. The Viking did, six months ago. Mike's Chili Parlor just started pouring spirits. The Blue Moon wants to switch. Same for Targy's. ...

For longtime locals, it's troublesome enough when formerly funky Fremont and Belltown go bland swank, when boats that never worked for a living reside at Fishermen's Terminal and when coffee isn't a cuppa but a cappuccino.

But this is different. This is no pastel condo facade or sweeping cultural shift; it's smaller and more personal. This is remodeling the living room, and maybe replacing the family too. The "tied house" laws that Washington bar owners have called both onerous and antiquated unintentionally created a tavern culture that marked Washington as different from much of the modern West.

Fearing Google

I'm not one of those people who thinks Google will bring about the end of the world, but I am a little concerned that it's become such a cornerstone of the online economy. Entire businesses are now built on Google AdWords and competitors' click-through ad programs.

The downsides of this become apparent in Adam Penenberg's Wired News column on click fraud. Small businesses can be hammered by illegitimate clicks that deplete their ad budgets, he writes:

You'd think that victims ... might consider confronting the search engines. But many are afraid to complain because of the fear they will get blacklisted by Google, Yahoo and the others, which provide most of their traffic.

"I am scared to death," [said Tammy Harrison, president of 2K Medical, who pegged her total losses at $100,000] said, "but I feel someone needs to speak up so this problem will be resolved. They are the search engines gods and I respect their powers."

Earworms explained

Researchers at Dartmouth have