Links

Sometime between December 3rd and December 4th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Readers React to David Pogue’s Review of the BlackBerry Storm: For years, tech critics like me have occasionally endured abuse from the Cult of Mac. If you write anything that even hints at a less-than-perfect Apple effort (like my reviews of, for example, the original Apple TV, iMovie '08 or MobileMe), the backlash is swift, vitriolic and heated. We're talking insults, vulgarities and even threats. I've always thought that that vocal sub-population of Mac fans make up the world's most watchful, most hostile grass-roots lobbying arm. But now I see that I was wrong. There's an even nastier one: the BlackBerry nuts.
• Leonard Nimoy on the new Star Trek fim:: "About two months ago my wife Susan and I saw a near finished version of the new Star Trek movie. Some special effects and new score were not yet in place. Susan can be a very honest and tough critic. When it was clear that the story was wrapping up she turned to me and whispered, 'I don't want this movie to end!'"
• The Stories Behind Hollywood Studio Logos: You see these opening logos every time you go to the movies, but have you ever wondered who is the boy on the moon in the DreamWorks logo? Or which mountain inspired the Paramount logo? Or who was the Columbia Torch Lady? Let's find out…
• Mobiles distract drivers more than chatty passengers: Mobile phone calls distract drivers far more than even the chattiest passenger, causing drivers to follow too closely and miss exits, US researchers reported on Monday. Using a handsfree device does not make things better and the researchers believe they know why – passengers act as a second set of eyes, shutting up or sometimes even helping when they see the driver needs to make a manoeuvre. The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, adds to a growing body of evidence that mobile phones can make driving dangerous.
• Holidailies: Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 5 to Jan. 6. (Considering doing this, as I've been a bit neglectful of my blog lately. I do wonder, however, why this site and so many similar ideas appear to skew so heavily towards the feminine side of the blogosphere, in everything from the site design to the participant list. Generally speaking, do guys just not do this kind of thing? Or am I off-base here?)

Sometime between 12:37 and 18:08, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• App Store Lessons: Creating simple application links: Linktoapp offers a handy way to simplify [iTunes App Store] URLs by filtering them through iTunes' search engine. Developed by Arn of MacRumors, Linktoapp is basically TinyURL for the App Store.
• Neil Gaiman’s Journal: Why defend freedom of icky speech?: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art. Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.
• The Witches: Guillermo Del Toro Dances With Roald Dahl’s Witches: Yay! This could be very, very cool. My one hope is that he sticks with the original ending — my one complaint about the otherwise excellent earlier film adaptation of this story is that the ending is sweeter and less dark than the book.
• Vampire Comedy Has Musicians Lining Up to Suck: Alice Cooper is about to make vampires more metal. The rocker joins Iggy Pop, Moby, and Malcolm McDowell in the upcoming horror comedy Suck. A cross-genre cast of musicians and a monster hunting, nyctophobic Malcolm McDowell star in this tale of a wannabe rock band who, after an encounter with a vampire, find that fame and immortality aren’t quite what they expected.
• Does the broken windows theory hold online?: Much of the tone of discourse online is governed by the level of moderation and to what extent people are encouraged to "own" their words. When forums, message boards, and blog comment threads with more than a handful of participants are unmoderated, bad behavior follows. The appearance of one troll encourages others. Undeleted hateful or ad hominem comments are an indication that that sort of thing is allowable behavior and encourages more of the same.

Sometime between November 26th and December 2nd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• change.gov set free: Consistent with the values of any "open government," and with his strong leadership on "free debates" from the very start, the Obama team has modified the copyright notice on change.gov to embrace the freest CC license.
• ’12 Days of Christmas’ items would cost $86,609: That's this year's cost, according to the annual "Christmas Price Index" compiled by PNC Wealth Management, which tallies the single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, purchased repeatedly as the song suggests. The price is up $8,508 or 10.9 percent, from $78,100 last year.
• Students lie, cheat, steal, but say they’re good: In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards. One-fifth said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative. Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004. Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know." (Prairie and I were talking about this study yesterday. It's like the current generation has grown up so coddled that they've never had to worry about consequences, and now we've raised a generation of psychopaths: they know the difference between right and wrong, they just don't care.)
• Still going: Energizer Bunny enters his 20th year: The pink bunny, always pounding a drum, always wearing sunglasses and flip-flops, made his debut in an October 1989 ad in which he marched off the set as the stage manager implored, "Stop the bunny, please." The bunny soon showed up in a series of parody commercials for products such as wine, coffee and long-distance phone service, always banging the drum into the commercial to interrupt. Two decades later, he is still going strong.
• Mashed in Plastic: The David Lynch mashup album.
• GlimmerBlocker: The problem with other ad-blockers for Safari is that they are implemented as awful hacks: as an InputManager and/or ApplicationEnhancer. This compromises the stability of Safari and very often create problems when Apple releases a new version of Safari. GlimmerBlocker is implemented as an http proxy, so the stability of Safari isn't compromised because it doesn't use any hacks. It is even compatible with all other browsers. You'll always be able to upgrade Safari without breaking GlimmerBlocker (or waiting for a new release); and you'll be able to upgrade GlimmerBlocker without upgrading Safari. This makes it much easier to use the beta versions of Safari and especially the nightly builds of WebKit.

Sometime between November 21st and November 25th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Otto the octopus wrecks havoc: "We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water. Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better – much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants."
• An Important Announcement About Gothic Charm School!: Exciting news, Snarklings! Coming to bookstores in June 2009, the Gothic Charm School book! Gothic Charm School – An Essential Guide For Goths and Those Who Love Them. As you might guess, the Lady of the Manners is giddy with excitement about the upcoming Gothic Charm School book, and hopes that all of you are too. Because you see, this book isn’t a mere collection of assorted columns from the history of this site, gracious no! The Gothic Charm School book is full of all sorts of new goodies and artwork by noted fantasy artist Pete Venters.
• Miami judge rules against Florida gay adoption ban: Florida's strict law banning adoption of children by gay people was found unconstitutional Tuesday by a state judge who declared there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman said the 31-year-old law violates equal protection rights for the children and their prospective gay parents, rejecting the state's arguments that there is "a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children." She also noted that gay people are allowed to be foster parents in Florida.
• seattlegothic: Clubbing 101: Don’t be a Douche-Nozzle: I've been a dj at the Mercury/MachineWerks for 12 years, and a nightclub patron for much longer. From my vantage point as a dj, I've seen both the best and worst of human social behavior. Most nights tick along nicely with a minimum of incident, but once in a while you get a night like last night where all kinds of crazy shit goes down, and you're reminded that it might be time for everyone to revisit the subject of club etiquette… After a long week of work, it's finally the weekend! You want to cut loose and have some fun! Here are some guidelines to help you have a safe and enjoyable experience in your Club of Choice.
• Panda bites student seeking a hug: "Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
• Rant: Twilight’s Hidden Morality Plays: Is the Twilight series pushing its own kind of morality along with its love story? I think so — and it is an element that parents and teachers need to be aware is in the books. The narrative suggests that it is better to submit and sublimate yourself to a superior being than to be your own person. Having a will of one's own is not conducive to Meyer's brand of love and living. Only heterosexual relationships are explored, and (married!) sex is always a power play with painful consequences. Plus it is preferable to be a teenage mother above all else, even if it kills you.

Sometime between November 20th and November 21st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Pushing Daisies: ABC ”Cancels” Beloved Fantasy TV Show: As a result, ABC has opted not to order any additional episodes. The network has avoided saying that it’s actually cancelled the show. The series could possibly return at a later date but, considering Daisies’ ratings track record, that is highly unlikely. More likely, the network is trying to avoid backlash from devoted and disappointed fans. (Pity that there are enough "devoted and disappointed fans" that ABC may be trying to avoid backlash, but that's still not seen as enough reason to keep the show around. I'm going to miss this one.)
• Row over altered US Army photo: The Pentagon has become embroiled in a row after the US Army released a photo of a general to the media which was found to have been digitally altered. Ann Dunwoody was shown in front of the US flag but it later emerged that this background had been added. The Associated Press (AP) news agency subsequently suspended the use of US Department of Defense photos.
• MPR: Challenged ballots: You be the judge: Representatives from the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken have been challenging ballots across the state. It's your turn to play election judge. Tell us how you would rule in the case of these challenged ballots.
• Free to Be… You and Me: the 35 Anniversary Edition: the book every kid needs: If you were to distill the messages that every kid needs to hear to grow up to be a confident, loving individual who does what's right even when society sneers, if you were to turn them into great songs, funny poems, without a hint of preachiness or condescension, it would be this book and CD. Every kid needs this book — and the organization that publishes it is every bit as great as the book itself.
• Digital Youth Project: If you care about kids and want to understand how they use technology and why, this is a must-read: The Digital Youth Project, a MacArthur-funded three year, 22 case study, $3.3 million ethnographic study of what kids are doing online, has wound up and published its results. The project was undertaken by the eminent sociologist Mimi Ito and her talented colleagues (including the incomparable danah boyd) and is the largest and most comprehensive study of young peoples' internet use ever undertaken in the US.
  The conclusions are sane, compassionate, and compelling: in a nutshell, the "serious" stuff we all hope kids will do online (researching papers and so on) are only possible within a framework of "hanging out, messing around and geeking out." That is to say, all the "time-wasting" social stuff kids do online are key to their explorations and education online.

Sometime between November 17th and November 20th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Race in D&D: I do not want to spend too much time beating a dead war-horse, but your average D&D game consists of a group of white players acting out how their white characters encounter and destroy orcs and goblins, who are, as a race evil, uncivilized, and dark-skinned. To quote Steve Sumner’s essay again, “Unless played very carefully, Dungeons & Dragons could easily become a proxy race war….” I would argue with/ Sumner’s use of the phrase “could become,” and say that unless played very carefully, D&D usually becomes a proxy race war. Any adventurer knows that if you see an orc, you kill it. You don’t talk to it, you don’t ask what it’s doing there – you kill it, since it’s life is worth less than the treasure it carries and the experience points you’ll get from the kill. If filmed, your average D&D campaign would look something like Birth of a Nation set in Greyhawk.
• Stevens loses Alaska Senate race: Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn't survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. (Hooray! My old home state isn't completely wackadoodle after all! Mostly, sure…but not completely!)
• Thieves Target Pay Parking Stations And Rip Off Thousands From City: "The City believes the criminals used something to cut the units from the bolts cemented in the ground, and then used a truck with a wench to hoist them out." Emphasis mine — apparently, the lead suspect in this crime is the Society for Creative Anachronism….
• Fireweed 7 slashes price of movie tickets to $3: Wow. This is the theater I worked in, slinging popcorn, for about a year and a half when I was 18/19 years old. The Fireweed has quite a history of Anchorage movie-going, from being a drive-in (many years ago) to having one of the largest single auditoriums around. Dolby Digital was installed when I was working there, and at the time, Theater #1 was the largest DD and THX certified screen on the West Coast. I got to sit in on the demo reel that was screened for the press just after the installation which had short clips from a few movies, including the first Tim Burton Batman. The scene shown was whe the bats fly out of the cave and past the camera, and at the time, the difference in audio clarity between standard (optically read) Dolby Surround and the new, all-digital, multichannel Dolby Digital was mindblowing. In a way, it's sad to see such a storied theater turn into a second-run cheap-seat house…but at the same time, what a great second-run theater!
• How to process photos really, really quickly: I take a lot of photos — I'm on pace to have taken more than 150,000 photos in 2008. Not bad, since I'm not a sports-shooter and very rarely mash down the shutter button for continuous shooting. The good news of the digital era is that I didn't have to spring for more than 4,000 rolls of film. The bad news is that I have to process each of these photos myself. As you might imagine, I've streamlined the process a bit.

Sometime between November 14th and November 17th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Best Seat in the House | Election Night: The Seattle Times photography blog's experiences on Election Night 2008.
• Timeline twins, music and movies: When I was a kid, "oldies" music and movies seemed ancient. Even though I'm now in my 30s, the entertainment that I watched and listened to in my youth still feels pretty recent to me. Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn't all that long ago, right? But comparing my distorted recall of childhood favorites to the oldies of the time jogs my memory in unpleasant ways. For example: Listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller today is equivalent to listening to Elvis Presley's first album (1956) at the time of Thriller's release in 1982. Elvis singles in 1956 included Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, and Love Me Tender.
• Obama’s Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani: The most detailed and fascinating explication of Barack Obama's faith came in a 2004 interview he gave Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani when he was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois. The column she wrote about the interview has been quoted and misquoted many times over, but she'd never before published the full transcript in a major publication. Because of how controversial that interview became, Falsani has graciously allowed us to print the full conversation here.
• Tube-side chat? Obama takes radio address online: President-elect Barack Obama is taping Saturday's weekly Democratic address not just for listeners, but for YouTube viewers, his office said Friday. And he plans to keep videotaping the radio addresses after taking the oath of office on Jan. 20. Before then, the videos will be posted on Obama's transition Web site.
• unlibrarian: Journey: The secret behind the Obama logo…

Sometime between November 12th and November 13th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• High quality YouTube video hack: By default all videos on YouTube and embedded on other sites load at normal quality, but there's a way to set your default viewing quality to high, link to high quality video, embed HQ video, and even save HQ videos for later viewing.
• James Bond: 5 Things I Learned About Women From The James Bond Books: Did you know that James Bond has the power to turn lesbians straight? And that lesbians were only gay in the first place because they have the right to vote? We always knew the Bond movies were trashy exploitation fests, but it turns out they're Gloria Steinem sit-ins compared to Ian Fleming's original books. The books are a treasure trove of wisdom about female sexuality, explaining why women should only sleep around at the office, and why "No" means "Take me now." What important lessons did those politically correct movies leave out? Here's our list.
• More evidence that Pushing Daisies is dying: Sad, but certainly no surprise. Prairie and I have said since it first debuted that there was no way PD would be around long-term — it was just too good, and quirky enough that most people "just wouldn't get it." We've been resigned to seeing it disappear for some time now, and are just enjoying what we get before they officially pull the plug. (Of course, if, by some miracle, it does get to continue, we'd be thrilled!)
• Australian mistakenly surfs over big whale: "At first I thought it was the shadow from my kite. But I quickly realized it was a whale," said Sheridan, a 42-year-old high school teacher. "The whale kept coming up. … I did not know what to expect and I went over its back just past its fin," he said. "Next thing I felt was its tail come up and hit me on the back of the head."
• D700 Field Report from Web 2.0 Summit: So how did it go? I won’t make you wait until the end of the post for the verdict. In a word, it rocked.
• Disney on iTunes: There's a lot of classic, vintage Disney hidden in iTunes, and this page has a great roundup of what you can find.

Sometime between November 11th and November 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Roadside Attraction: The Alternate History Theme Park Where Dinosaurs Fought in the Civil War: Most speculative fiction surrounding the American Civil War imagines how the world would be different had the Confederacy won its independence. But roadside attraction creator Mark Cline has imagined an entirely different kind of Civil War science fiction. His fiberglass creations tell the tale of a group of Union soldiers who discover a lost valley of dinosaurs in Virginia and plot to use them as weapons against the South. (This is AWESOME and I'm so going if I'm ever in the area!)
• Election windfall: Word spread quickly last week through Sto-Rox High School when students learned that the administrative offices were filled with Barack Obama paraphernalia. Students snapped up posters and stickers for their lockers, backpacks and bedroom walls, eager to commemorate the victory of the first African American to ascend to the nation's highest office. The enthusiasm excited administrators, but it's not what brought tears to the eyes of Jean Schmalzreid, the district's director of federal programs and special projects. That happened when she saw school facilities workers bring in dolly after dolly piled high with thousands of dollars worth of supplies donated from Obama campaign offices in Pittsburgh.
• 10 Reasons for Zenfolio Account: One possible spot for trying to sell some of my photography.
• Lonesome penguin cheered up by his new friend… a stuffed toy: The penguin – called Pingu – began to lose weight and appeared weak after its bigger relative regularly helped himself to all the fish on offer. Concerned keepers were forced to remove Pingu from the enclosure, but at just three-weeks-old the penguin was in desperate need of company. Staff bought a £3.99 toy penguin from the zoo shop which acts as a surrogate sibling to the chuffed chick – who cuddles up to its new friend all day.
• First Full Image Of New Star Trek USS Enterprise: The moment everyone has been waiting for is here. In anticipation of the upcoming Star Trek trailer premiering this weekend, Paramount has released the first full image of the new USS Enterprise (NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C or D). EW’s Popwatch blog got the exclusive first look at this beauty…