Belle De Jour is blogging sporadically again

Belle De Jour is blogging sporadically again.

David Talbot, founder of Salon, is stepping down as editor-in-chief

David Talbot, founder of Salon, is stepping down as editor-in-chief. OMG! Is this in response to 43ThingsAmazonGate? Let speculation run wild!

43 Things Amazon conspiracy

There’s a doozy of an “exposé” about the company behind 43 Things, Robot Co-op, in Salon. The article’s author asserts that because 1) Amazon.com is an investor, 2) they didn’t want anyone to know about it at the present time, and 3) the company’s employees were a bit “oh shit, how did you know that?” panicky when asked about the deal, that Robot Co-op is nothing but a thin cover for some nefarious activity on the part of Amazon to mine the web’s hopes and dreams.

If you take your tin foil hat off for a few minutes, you might realize that it’s probably not as bad as all that.

1) If Amazon wanted to keep this quiet, why the company web site with a weblog on the front page detailing what the company is up to? Post after post of intentional misdirection? (Oop, hang on….hey honey, where’s my razor?)

2) The front page of the site links to the personal web sites of all the employees that have them. Again, pretty open for such a supposedly stealthy undertaking. (Unless all those employees and their sites are fake!)

3) Did I mention that Amazon is doing a horrible job keeping this whole thing quiet? You’d think that Erik, Josh, and Amazon’s PR department would have been a little more prepared and in sync in the event that someone found out about their little secret. “Nobody’s supposed to know that” is obviously not what you say when a reporter calls you about a company’s investor unless you’re truly unprepared.

4) What company ever wants their business details to go public before they are ready to make an announcement? Answer: no company whatsoever. Since when is waiting to announce an investment an attempt to cover something up?

5) Does funding a company mean that the funder gets access to all the fundee’s data? Until we know the terms of the deal, it’s just idle speculation.

6) The article says, “The people posting their hopes, dreams and aspirations to 43 Things probably don’t realize that they’re effectively whispering them in the ear of the Web’s biggest retailer, a multibillion-dollar, publicly traded company.” Perhaps Salon doesn’t realize that the people posting their hopes and dreams to 43 Things are effectively whispering them to the whole world because — if you’ll forgive me channeling Dooce here — ALL OF THAT INFORMATION IS PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE ON THEIR WEB SITE. Thousands of hopes and dreams, free for the taking.

I agree that it’s important to ask questions about how closely Amazon is involved with 43 Things, their data sharing policy, and future plans between the two companies (I could see Amazon acquiring 43 Things, even before news of the investment came out…I mean, those guys all worked at Amazon and are working on stuff that Amazon would be interested it), but it just doesn’t make sense at this point to assume that Amazon is orchestrating 43 Things from their corporate HQ.

See also:
- A less alarmist article on news.com
- Robot Co-op’s announcement of the Amazon investment
- Robot Co-op on how the company came about (good stuff in the comments)

Dooce was on ABC World News tonight

Dooce was on ABC World News tonight. I missed it…did anyone record it with an eye toward digitizing it and throwing it online?

The Travel and Leisure (magazine) Design Awards

The Travel and Leisure (magazine) Design Awards. Best museums, restaurants, luggage, public spaces, etc.

A quick overview of how Google Maps works

A quick overview of how Google Maps works.

David Denby wrote a negative piece about

David Denby wrote a negative piece about Ben Stiller in a recent NYer and Owen Wilson wrote in to defend his pal. I’ve gotta side with Denby on this one…I can’t watch Stiller in any more movies.

The denizens of Wikipedia are discussing whether

The denizens of Wikipedia are discussing whether or not to delete the entry for “Jason Kottke”. As the entry stands now, I’d vote for deletion too.

Photos from London

Here are the rest of my photos from London:

I kept a (paper) notebook while I was in London, and there’s some stuff in there that I’ll be probably posting here at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

A blog dedicated to The Gates in Central Park

A blog dedicated to The Gates in Central Park. Almost here! Can’t wait!

Open source has made the sharing of

Open source has made the sharing of software easier and may pave the way for the sharing of other things.

The Simple English Wikipedia looks like an interesting idea

The Simple English Wikipedia looks like an interesting idea. “Here at this place, we only use very simple English words and simple writing structures [so] pages will be easier to read by people who do not speak English well.”

The Repent America splash page has two

The Repent America splash page has two buttons: “Christians enter here” and “All others enter here”. It should work like the USDA’s classic Hay Net page: “Need God” and “Have God”.

I Ate iPod Shuffle, a poem

I Ate iPod Shuffle, a poem. “The iPod shuffle’s not a snack! Don’t make me go get Wozniak!”

What the? If you use Amazon’s Web

What the? If you use Amazon’s Web Services, you can’t link to or direct traffic to any other commercial web site.

Without Reservations: “All the best tables are

Without Reservations: “All the best tables are booked this Valentine’s Day.But for $40, you can have one of ours.”.

The pirating of the 2005 Oscar DVD screeners

The pirating of the 2005 Oscar DVD screeners. “The results? Out of 30 movies, all but five screener copies were leaked online by pirate groups.”

A quick overview of the theory of intelligent design

A quick overview of the theory of intelligent design.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is auctioning off

The Wildlife Conservation Society is auctioning off the chance to name a new species of monkey.

A mastochistic dining experience at ultra-expensive Masa

A mastochistic dining experience at ultra-expensive Masa. “The headwaiter then greeted us by slapping me in the face and telling Babette that she looked heavy, also in Japanese.”

OrganicHTML Flash app grows flowers based on

OrganicHTML Flash app grows flowers based on URLs and Tre pits sites against each other in flower beauty contests.

Great interview with Stewart about Flickr

Great interview with Stewart about Flickr. “Capturing the creative energy of the hive can be scary. It requires giving up some control, and eliminating lock-in as a strategy.”

Google Maps is in beta

Google Maps is in beta. Safari not supported yet.

Interview with Roger Black

Interview with Roger Black. He’s working on a redesign of Nintendo Power: “You can’t put big, babe-alicious, head-smashing stuff in there. You have to figure out something that doesn’t look either too juvenile or too grown up.”

New York City’s eating and drinking establishments

New York City’s eating and drinking establishments and their customers are getting used to the smoking ban.

The Vatican has official exorcists?

The Vatican has official exorcists?. And how is Catholicism not a wacky cult? (Cue angry reader email…)

Maybe you shouldn’t be using that cheapo

Maybe you shouldn’t be using that cheapo UV filter on your camera.

An oldie but goodie: alternate lyrics to Alanis Morrisette’s Ironic

An oldie but goodie: alternate lyrics to Alanis Morrisette’s Ironic. I’d forgotten all about this until a friend reminded me of it today.

They’ve got answers

Just noticed the other day that Google switched their “definition” link from dictionary.com to answers.com. When I first saw it, I was irritated about the switch, but after I realized that answers.com is a better resource, my irritation lasted about two seconds. On one page, they list not only the definition of a word, but also the thesaurus entry, the Wikipedia entry (if applicable), translations into more than 10 languages (including Greek, Arabic, Chinese, and Hebrew), and some related topics. They’ve even got pages for terms that dictionary.com doesn’t have, like “snoop dogg”. And for a word like “reaganomics”, answers.com brings in info from Investopedia, a useful-looking financial information site.

Walter Mossberg recently profiled answers.com in the WSJ. I wonder if the folks from Google read this (or had seen answers.com previously…more likely) and thought, hey, we should be linking to these guys instead of dictionary.com. The cynic in me feels like money had to have changed hands in order for this to have happened (maybe Google is an investor in GuruNet, maybe GuruNet paid for that placement), but the optimist in me says that Google is still a weird little company where the members of project teams can stumble across a better resource that will make their users happier and more productive and implement it on the live site quickly, even if the company that provides that resource could be considered a competitor. Would love to know which it is.

Update: it’s the user experience, by a landslide.

Wow! Finally, after all these years, I’m

Wow! Finally, after all these years, I’m the #1 Jason on Google. The JASON Foundation owned it forever, but I think the front page redirect they’ve got going now is killing them. Update: crap, that didn’t last long…I’m back down to #2.

Fantastically creative chef makes dishes of flavored edible photographs

Fantastically creative chef makes dishes of flavored edible photographs. “He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon.”

Where have all the female rock bands gone?

Where have all the female rock bands gone?.

The sculptures in Chicago’s Millennium Park are

The sculptures in Chicago’s Millennium Park are copyrighted which means you can’t photograph them. “The copyrights for the enhancements in Millennium Park are owned by the artist who created them. As such, anyone reproducing the works, especially for commercial purposes, needs the permission of that artist.” Absurd!

Google funded The Stanford CityBlock Project, which

Google funded The Stanford CityBlock Project, which seems to predate the A9 YP use. Plus, they’re doing some neat things with panoramas. Can Google’s implementation of something like this be far behind?

An interview with Frank Chu, SF’s resident protester

An interview with Frank Chu, SF’s resident protester.

In recent years, selling the idea of

In recent years, selling the idea of skateboarding has been easier than actually selling skateboards.

First Contact tours take people into the

First Contact tours take people into the West Papua jungle to meet tribes that have never seen outsiders before. “There are a handful of places in West Papua that are untouched — still Stone Age tribes, still cannibals. It’s just that a lot of people are too scared to go look for them.”

Alexander

Checked out Barcade in Williamsburg last night

Checked out Barcade in Williamsburg last night. I maintained my composure and socialized for a couple of hours, but Dig Dug eventually got the better of me (must get watermelon…). I’d still be there if I hadn’t run out of quarters.

Brain analysis of a blind man expert

Brain analysis of a blind man expert at draw raises questions about what vision is. “But when he drew, his visual cortex lit up as though he was seeing.”

How to get good quality sound out of your iPod

How to get good quality sound out of your iPod. Short answer: throw money at the problem.

How not to choke

In this interview on ESPN.com, Malcolm Gladwell offers his view on the upcoming Super Bowl and how the lessons of his most recent book, Blink, might apply. My favorite suggestion relates to training quarterbacks to deal with stressful situations:

I’d run them through a live-fire exercise at Quantico. I’d have them spend the offseason working with a trauma team in south-central L.A. It is only through repeated exposures to genuine stress that our body learns how to function effectively under that kind of pressure. I think its time we realized that a quarterback needs the same kind of exhaustive preparation for combat that we give bodyguards and soldiers.

Field goal kickers could benefit from this as well. And poor 4th quarter free throw shooters.

Earlier in the interview, Gladwell supposes that “Joe Montana’s heart rate barely got above 100 in any of his fourth-quarter comebacks.” I remember reading about a study where researchers hooked heart monitors up to various NASCAR drivers while they took practice laps around the track. The drivers’ heart rates were slow and steady in the straightaways and increased markedly in the turns due to stress. All except for Jeff Gordon…his heart rate remained slow and steady all the way around the track.

Thanks to Jorge for the link.

How not to get your bike stolen in NYC

How not to get your bike stolen in NYC. “Locking your bike next to a badly locked up bike is a good idea.”

Faces of London

Without intending to, I ended up taking photos of a bunch of faces while I was in London. Here are some of them:

It’s been awhile since I’ve seriously picked up a camera (not that I was ever that serious about it) and I’m a little rusty. I’m hoping to get in lots more practice in the coming months, so the quality should hopefully improve.

The Holy Grail of celebrity photography has been achieved

The Holy Grail of celebrity photography has been achieved. Everyone, meet Britney’s nipple. Update: false alarm…it’s a fake.

Saft, a plugin for Safari

I’ve been using the Saft plugin for Safari for a week now. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do, but I’m finding it indispensable so far. At any one time, I typically have about four browser windows open with 10-15 tabs in each, so the auto-save and restore tabs feature is a life-saver and worth the $12 cost. Check out the site for more features.

Now, someone make something like this for Mail.app…just a few small features here and there would really make it a whole lot better.

Eric Etheridge compares Ed Ruscha’s 1966 book Every

Eric Etheridge compares Ed Ruscha’s 1966 book Every Building on the Sunset Strip with A9’s block view yellow pages feature. “Four decades ago, Ruscha mounted a motor-driven 35mm camera on a car and drove up and down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles”.

Rio thero is back

Rio thero is back. Congratulations to the ten people who actually know what I’m talking about here.

Trailer for Gunner Palace, a documentary about

Trailer for Gunner Palace, a documentary about American troops in Baghdad.

R.W. Apple on Danny Meyer and

R.W. Apple on Danny Meyer and his new restaurants at the MoMA. Huh, I didn’t know “hospitalitarian” was a word…