And I love it.

Snagged Me and My Katamari for PSP last night at Toys’R'Us (we were looking for a swingset/play structure thing, now that we have a back yard). Haven’t played more than a hour or so, but starting from the introduction video, I can say that this is the most cracked out game that I’ve ever played. The music, characters, and dialog just scream “weird Japanese game”, and I love it. The theme song is permanently stuck in my head, I’m afraid.

First gameplay impression? The controls are REALLY hard to get used to (at least, for someone like me who never played either of the PS2 incarnations). More after I’ve played for a while.

The concept of car sharing is becoming more and more popular, We have previously featured several companies on TreeHugger such as Flex-Car in the US, GoGet in Australia, Streetcar in London and we recently came across another company operating across the UK called City Car Club. However the concept of car sharing is not only related to these car pick-up schemes, but also the old-fashioned idea of the car-pool where people share the cars they already own. This used to usually be a neighbourly thing, but with the help of the Internet new widespread communities are being created. National Carshare is one such network in the UK where you can register to share your commute to work. Even the UK government has taken note of the car-sharing trend and has given the go ahead for a separate car-share lane to be opened on a motorway in West Yorkshire.

What a good ride today. There was almost no wind, and I felt a little late this morning leaving the house, so I pedaled hard, and it paid off; I got to work quicker than I have in a while.

Here’s a picture of me with City Hall in the background:

pretty cloudy skies, aren’t they?

So I got to work 10 minutes early, part of which was the added speed from not having to ride into a strong wind, part of which was that I was pedaling hard, but I also hit a lot of green lights. I think I only hit one or maybe two red lights the whole way to work, and I usually hit a lot of red lights.

Too bad I have so much work to do today, because it feels like a nice day to go for a long ride.

ride distance: 7.5 miles

Buy on

Buy on cd baby

"instant hooks, rubber-banded synth melodies and mid-tempo beats set one bare foot in the early Reagan years and the other in the less naive '00s." -Cameron Macdonald (Grooves Magazine, Sacramento News and Review):

Eschewing the simplistic, 'cut-and-paste' aesthetic of current digital electronic music, Junobot uses his motley band of vintage synthesizers and drum machines to channel a solid update to the synthpop genre. The way Junobot idolizes 80's synthpop, you might expect a mash of Vicious Pink and Naked Eyes. Instead, he promises a style all his own with The Nature of Technology; electropop with meat on it's bones, electroclash without the irony, industrial with feelings.

Taking the pulsing one-finger basslines of Erasure's Vince Clark and the minor-key despair of Depeche Mode's Martin Gore, Junobot moves deftly between dancy melodies that lodge in your head and darker song subjects.

On "Plastic", he sings "...just give me something/something to live for/just give me something/but don't give me plastic..." The line rings out like a plea for substance in the often tasteless sea of modern electroclash- which is not to say he isn't a fan himself, indicated by the track "Love Me." Dressed up with an eighth-note octave bassline and moog-y melody to boot, the track is a plaintive robotic cry to a lover-to-be with analog chirps in the chorus.

"U R Not Me" rocks the hardest here with a vocodered request for understanding trembling above the dark layers of synth pulses and driving early industrial-like bass drums. Other standout tracks are the remixes by Lemans Electro and the Duke from Freezepop (whose 'Radiant Sun' remix of Smile delivers airy vocals conjuring warm spring days with "...the cute one in the corner..")

Hot dog! They’re doing it with cell phones, and now they’re doing it with WiFi access points. Brilliant.

Loki is the first application to combine the physical with the digital to make the Internet a truly personal and local experience. We let you harness the World Wide Web by automatically identifying your exact physical location and then making the web revolve around you.

With one click, instantly find the nearest jazz band, directions to the closest Thai restaurant, the cheapest gas prices in town…or even pinpoint your exact location on a map. You can even share that location with others.

It is going to be real interesting as the Mobile Virtual Network Operators such as Ampd start to offer seemless coverage from cell to wifi spots.

Here is another version of the ticket for poor vehicle choice, like the one that riled readers in February. Its from the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s, a UK based group whose goals are "to make driving a big 4x4 in town as socially unacceptable as drink-driving, and to increase taxes on the most polluting vehicles, including increases in road tax and a higher congestion charge in London." London Mayor Ken Livingstone agrees: "When you see someone trying to manoeuvre it round the school gates, you have to think, you are a complete idiot." Before everyone starts writing about how useful 4x4's are, we point out that a) the Alliance is against Urban 4x4's and b) this treehugger drives a lovely 4 cylinder powered Subaru 4x4 that is very useful for getting through snow and carrying lots of stuff that we need for our day job. It is all about scale. ::Alliance Against Urban SUV's via Bonnie in London

Is your closet full of mid-century board game titles like Monopoly and Sorry!? Are you still answering questions about 1980's science and technology questions from a dusty version of Trivial Pursuit? The staff at www.CriticalGamers.com can help move you from the drab repetitive gameplay of yester-year into the entertaining world of modern Eurogames and social card games.

Blogpire Productions is pleased to announce the addition of www.CriticalGamers.com to our growing family of product- and category-specific Web logs. CriticalGamers.com will provide news and reviews of social board games, Eurogames, and card games. Critcal Gamer's goal is to weed-out the mediocre from the slew of modern table top game titles, and to keep readers posted on what's new and popular in the world of social gaming.

At CriticalGamers

Sore back and knees do not have to typify the produce-grower's life. And, family organic farmers don't have to make their kids and employees dislike their jobs either. All it takes is a bike mod like this one to pick those berries in comfort (second view here). The Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits Project at the UW-Madison,( Wisconsin, USA) came up with the manually powered wheeled cart design shown, along with other tools along a similar line. If you have Power Point or a PPT viewer we highly recommend you take five minutes to download and view the slide show. Solar variations are practically begging to be incorporated into some of the devices, but, the project certainly deserves credit for "getting the bike rolling". The site offers plans for the do-it-yourself builder.

We've shown you how to make your own biodiesel before, and now there's a way to make oil, too (sort of). Bio-oil, more specifically, made from sawdust, wood chips, or just about any organic matter. Wired has a story about some researchers who, hoping to ease America's addiction to oil, have developed a process to create bio-oil that can be processed into fuels and chemicals. Bio-oil is produced through a process called pyrolysis, in which organic scrap materials are finely ground and heated at 400 to 500 degrees Celsius, without oxygen. In just two seconds, about 70 percent of the material vaporizes and is condensed into bio-oil; the end result looks surprisingly similar to petroleum. Though bio-oil is chemically very different from petroleum crude, it can be converted into a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as "syngas," which can be processed into a high-grade hydrocarbon fuel, such as automotive diesel. Alternatively, the syngas can be combined with steam to produce pure hydrogen, which could be a handy helping hand for the burgeoning hydrogen economy. Looks a little complicated for a typical DIY, weekend project, but cool nonetheless. Much more at ::Wired via ::Make and ::Jalopnik

voxefx posted a photo:

z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/3/4/bush_pilot_button.jpg

Want to see what the new MapGuide Open Source AJAX and DWF viewers look like? The Open Source Geospatial Foundation has a webpage with a couple examples for you to check out. Maybe Digg or Slashdot have linked to them because at least on my end they are pretty slow. I was talking about how ESRI could sell (or give away) the Web ADF so developers could use it in other applications, but maybe MapGuide Open Source could fit that bill also.

Tags: mapguide, opensource, ajax

They probably didn’t know about it. I didn’t even know about it at the time! (I think it got buried in the war news, at least for me.) It did get some media coverage, though.

Yep, PETA sucks. Actually, that’s putting it mildly.

Appropriate words from St. Augustine, quoted by writer Graeme Gibson.The statement, which translated means it is solved by walking, captures Gibson’s firm belief that personal solutions to the climate change threat can be as simple, practical, and economical as choosing to walk rather than drive – and that everyone can help. Gibson and partner Booker Prize winning author Margaret Atwood are passionate environmentalists- read more in Jo Coombe's article in the ::Bullfrog Buzz.

Read Margaret Atwood on Green Roofs. from ReadingToronto.

I didn’t think we’d be seeing it this soon, but it appears that ArcWeb Labs at least has a webpage. I tried to get into the SVG Viewer, but I’m getting a java error on access. At least this is something to add to your bookmarks or del.icio.us.

Tags: esri, arcweblabs

Loki is a killer idea and a precursor to the rise of location-based contextual advertising. So what does it do? In short, Loki is a Firefox/IE plugin that detects your current location based on the Wifi access point you are using - it then allows you to conduct searches in your local area. And this isn’t just a search for businesses and services - you can find news about local sports teams, events, local bloggers, gas prices, traffic reports, weather forecasts and more. All in all, an impressive tool.

What this really hints at - and more so than Plazes - is the new brand of location-based advertising that will presumably be part of Google’s free wifi efforts. The least invasive way to deliver these ads is through an Adwords-style system, although other systems (personalized alerts of local deals, for instance) are a possibility. I’m sure some people will find this advertising invasive, but no one can deny that it’s on the way.

PS. Living outside of a metropolitan area, Loki isn’t doing much for me. Let me know if you have more luck.

Update: On a related topic, Shimon Sandler has a post today about GeoAds for Google Local.

From Bonnie in London- Off to “ Well Fashioned Eco Style in the UK” , an exhibition of new green fashions (see Petz's post here) to see if this clothing is wearable and how serious these designers really are. The answer to both questions: very. Obviously the exhibiting designers are small traders whose volume will make very little impact in contrast to the main stream, big designer companies. But they are making use of alternative fabrics like hemp, bamboo and wild silk and recycled materials in novel ways.

According to the Mozilla/Firefox crew, extensions are…

Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox. They can add anything from a toolbar button to a completely new feature. They allow the application to be customized to fit the personal needs of each user if they need additional features, while keeping Firefox small to download.

I’m going to discuss my favorite extensions here with you. I’ll be starting with the extensions I feel nobody browsing the web today should be without and then move onto some extensions that are a bit more specialized in their application.

Advertisements

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I get very tired of looking at all the various advertisements plastered over the internet. Fortunately, there are extensions for Firefox which help to clean up the web. To block advertisements, I start off with Adblock Plus. This extension lets you setup filters to block just the ads you want to block. The “Plus” version of Adblock also allows you to setup whitelists so you can view ads on the sites you want to support. The only downside, to Adblock Plus, is the time it takes to setup all the filters you want. This is where Adblock Filterset.G Updater comes in. The FiltersetG.Updater grabs a set of preconstructed filters designed to eliminate the majority of Internet advertisements for you. Using these filters alone kills 85-90% of the advertisements out there. But even those two combined don’t catch everything, so I’ve also added in NoScript to the mix.

Actually, I added in NoScript originally because so many sites were using crappy javascripts to add “features” to their pages. Features I did not need or want. But since installing NoScript, I’ve noticed it helps to block a lot of advertisements that are inserted into webpages via javascript. Bonus! Also in NoScript’s options, there is a checkbox to have NoScript block Macromedia Flash and other plugins for untrusted sites. I recommend turning these options on as it will catch & block even more advertisements.

Annoyances

Especially if you don’t use NoScript to block a site’s javascript, you should consider installing Allow Right-Click. A number of websites with cool images will use some lousy javascript to prevent you from right-clicking on the image to save it. This is ridiculous as the image has already been downloaded to your browsers cache and is on your computer already. Plus with some of the other extensions I have installed, I like to right-click on webpages to get more info or whatever and to have a site try to block me is a great annoyance. Allow Right-Click specifically blocks scripts that try to prevent right-clicks.

Another annoying thing some websites do is to link to file you want to download but setup the link in such a way that clicking on it will spawn a new browser window. *grrr* This is something that really pisses me off. Fortunately, there’s the Disable Targets For Downloads extension for Firefox to take care of that problem.

Then there are sites that will write out a URL but not make it a clickable link. Linkification fixes that annoyance for you. It can also color code those links it fixes to let you know when a site is being naughty.

And let’s not forget the annoyance of PDF Files. For whatever reason, some sites will put up content as a PDF file and then your browser will¹ load the Acrobat plugin to view the PDF in the browser. ARRRRGGGGHHHH! When I want to view a PDF file, I’ll use a proper PDF viewer and not this plugin crap. PDF Download changes Firefox’s behavior so it asks you what you want to do with a PDF fileL Download, View as PDF, View as HTML or Cancel. The View as HTML feature hasn’t worked for me in a long time, but it’s nice to force Firefox to download the file while still having the option to go insane and want to view it as a PDF file in my browser.

The last of my annoyances with the internet are sites requiring you to register to view their content. I run across this the most when trying to view news articles linked to by Google News. Fortunately, there is BugMeNot to take care of that for me. BugMeNot is both an extension and a service. They maintain lists of usercodes/passwords for various registration only websites to allow people to view the content without filling out yet another registration form and giving out their email yet again. It’s very convenient though I’m sure the sites requiring registration hate it.

Web Development

In my spare time², I like to do small amounts of webdevelopment and for that there’s one Firefox extension which is an absolute MUST HAVE, Web Developer. This extension has tons of features to aid you in your webdev work. The features I use the most are: Live CSS editing (let’s you see your changes as you make them), W3C Validation (submits your HTML/CSS to W3C to see if your code is valid) and Resize (resizes Firefox so you have an idea of what people see of your site at various screen resolutions). While those 3 functions don’t even begin to scratch the surface of what this extension can do; they do give you an idea of how useful this extension is in webdevelopment.

Next up is ColorZilla. This extension is great for helping me decide on color schemes. It let’s me visit a website or look at a photo and find the hexcode I need to use in my CSS to have that color. Current versions also have some other functionality (e.g. full page zoom) but I’ve not really looked into those.

When you’re working on a new design and times are not lining up correctly, it can be handy to see how wide something is. MeasureIt helps you get that info.

If the design you are developing is based off some ideas you got from another site, it can be handy to look at a copy of that site’s source code. But sometimes their source code is very confusing and it is difficult to figure out how they accomplished specific effects. The X-Ray extension shows you the HTML tags of a webpage while you’re still viewing the page.

And of course, if you’re working on a website, you are going to be concerned with how well your site is showing up on the various search engines. SEOpen lets you track your site’s ranking (amoung other things).

Foreign Langauge Tools

I only read English and speak a small smattering of other tongues. But I do have a variety of interests including some that tend to get reported online more by non-English speakers. So it’s handy to have the ability to translate the other langauges back to English. Moji is an integrated Japanese dictionary (including kanji). I’m sure when I get ready to start studying to read kanji, this extension will prove very helpful. In the meantime, there’s Translate Page for all my foreign langauge needs.

Cool Tools

These extensions either improve on the basic functionality in Firefox and/or add something new to Firefox that trips my trigger. They’re cool, but I’m getting tired of coming up with something to say about all of the extensions I use, so here’s just a list of the remaining ones:

• Ext2Abc
• Header Monitor
• ListZilla
• mozcc
• Nearby
• Nightly Tester Tools
• Popup ALT Attribute
• Reveal
• Tabbrowser Preferences
• del.icio.us
• Google Pagerank Status

Themes

I find the default theme for Firefox a bit dull. Fortunately, there’s a wide number of different themes available out there. I generally use the Mostly Crystal theme for Firefox. However there are some other interesting themes out there and below is a short list of ones I like:

• Mostly Crystal
• iPox

¹ If you have Adobe Acrobat installed.
² Which is to say very rarely these days.

Tags: Firefox, Extensions, Themes

It's not only in India that the caste system is causing suffering. The caste system was one of the practices that the Buddha stood against. Saddening to find it here:

by Stanzin Dawa, The Times of Tibet, March 23, 2006

Leh, Ladakh (India) -- The sugar coated perspective of Ladakh need to be broken if we really want to know the different aspects of peaceful, pristine land. Unless we know the whole truth, we will continue to hold many prejudices, and to know the whole truth we need to unlearn many things which have conditioned our mind to be stereotyped and judgmental.

Behind the serenity of this pristine land,  beneath the Buddhist banner, lurks the ugly demeanor of a segretative caste system

The truth is that there are certain practices in Ladakhi culture which are neither culturally appropriate and religiously relevant nor legally legitimate. Despite the Constitutional guarantee of "Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth" under Article-15 of the Indian constitution and "Abolition of untouchability" under article-17.

Garba (the smiths), Mon (musician) and Beda are victims of many violations in Ladakh. They have separate cups and glasses for drinking local beer (Chang) or tea at the village gatherings or ceremonies. They are not allowed to eat or drink from the utensils of others as they fear that they would pollute them. Normally they are deprived of becoming the head of the village (Goba) and head of the monastery (Lobon) irrespective of their proficiency due to their caste identity. Atrocities against them basically arise in the context of 'keeping them' in their place within the social hierarchy, mediated by caste and untouchability.

The land is known for Buddhism & it is truly known that Buddhism is a casteless religion. Ladakh is known as land of lamas, each village has got a monastery treasured with statues and Thankas, but we have miles to go to lead a true Buddhist life.
read more

Eric Muse submits: Last November, Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (ticker: NABI) announced that the confirmatory Phase 3 study of StaphVax failed to meet its primary endpoint. Because the results were contrary to what the company predicted would occur, they formed an outside advisory panel to determine what caused the “unexpected results.” Two conclusions were reached: 1) the quality of the antibodies generated by the vaccine was inferior to that generated by previous lots, and 2) kidney dialysis patients had impaired immune response and stronger virulence of bacteria.

Although this is a plausible explanation for the poor trial results, it raises questions about the manufacturing of StaphVax given the inter-lot variability. The ability to consistently manufacture a biological product is paramount when evaluating efficacy and safety. Even if a subsequent study does show efficacy, the company is going to have to convince the FDA they have a handle on lot-to-lot consistency. The company said in its press release that they have “defined subtle, but what are now understood to be significant changes in elements of the manufacturing process for the lot used in the confirmatory Phase III study,” which only highlights the complexity and nuances of the StaphVax manufacturing process. Given Nabi is going to develop a next generation StaphVax with additional antigens to improve the immune response, this process is only going to become more complex. This is probably not lost on the Nabi management as they intend to partner with another company with vaccine experience.

The bottom-line: StaphVax still has a ways to go before getting to market

NABI 1-Yr Price Performance:

I think that while it is wrong, I echo the comment above, where were they when PETA was comparing the slaughter of animals to the Holocaust?

PETA sucks. I think I’m going to eat a steak for lunch!

The Microcap Speculator submits: Medical device company BSD Medical (ticker: BSM) announced this morning that it has finally filed for FDA approval of its BSD-2000 cancer treatment system. The BSD-2000 uses focused RF energy (also known as hyperthermia) to attack tumors, and allows treatment of cancer located deep in the body. According to the company, the system borrows cutting edge technology from deep-space radio telescopes and advanced phased-array communications. The PreMarket Approval Application (PMAA) is a full filing, covering 24 volumes and 7,243 pages. This is very different than the abbreviated filings we often see for medical devices under section 510(k).

In 2005, business consulting group Frost and Sullivan gave the BSD-2000 its “Technology Innovation of the Year Award.” The BSD-2000 has also received favorable mention in articles appearing in prestigious journals such as Cancer, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Radiology Today.

I don’t know much about this company, and thankfully don’t know much about cancer. That said, I think the stock is an interesting speculation at this point. The market cap is only $92M and the company has roughly $18M in cash. As a development stage company, earnings are far off. However, the technology looks promising and the potential application is very broad. I have taken taken a small position and may add more.

DISCLOSURE: I am long BSM. Not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. For informational and educational purposes only.

BSM 1-Yr Price Performance:

Piper Jaffray’s Safa Rashtchy released a note on wireless value added service provider KongZhong (ticker: KONG) yesterday. Key extracts:

We continue to believe that KongZhong is well positioned for the transition to 3G and that the incremental investment on the WAP portal will solidify its position when 3G licenses are granted. We would be buyers of KONG at these levels. We maintain our Outperform rating and a price target of $15 (16x 2006 EBITDA plus cash).

KONG 1-Yr Price Performance:

The Joy of Tech is just about my favorite tech cartoon site. They have done it again with another great cartoon about Apple possibly not holding a 30th Anniversary event. Check it out.

Tags: joy of tech, apple, 30, birthday, cartoon, 30th anniversary, apple event, video ipod, iPod video

Nomura Holdings Inc (NMR) issued a press release following the market’s close in Tokyo regarding its forthcoming wholly-owned subsidiary, Joinvest Securities. Originally I had heard Joinvest would launch in April but it will now be launching its website on May 14th and start receiving orders May 28th. In the press release it says Joinvest “aims to have 500,000 customer accounts by the end of March 2007 and plans to be profitable by the year ending March 31, 2008.”

Despite already having an on-line trading service and offering personal brokerage services, Nomura management doesn’t believe Joinvest will cannibalize commissions. A key strategy nonetheless of Joinvest is to be the low-cost leader in commissions and offer the widest variety of tradable products. I question Nomura’s optimism on avoiding cannibalization but I do believe that it faces little threat of customers switching, especially if it can match or beat E*Trade Japan’s commissions.

NMR 1-yr chart:

Nikko-Citi Securities increased its target share price on Kirin Brewery (KNBWY) to 1,780 yen from 1,480 yen while maintaining a “buy” rating. Although I haven’t been able to find any comments from Nikko-Citi, it’s safe to say that Kirin is gaining ground on rival Asahi Breweries.

From what I understand, Kirin has a broader product selection and is doing well in attracting both price conscious drinkers and those willing to pay extra for premium beer. Beer sales are expected to be strong in Japan (despite a trend towards declining popularity in favor of wine), especially during the first half of the year given higher consumer spending, the Winter Olympics in which Japanese figure skater Shizuka Arakawa won gold, Japan winning the World Baseball Classic, and the upcoming World Cup Soccer tournament. Lastly, it is also hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season now, meaning a lot of beer is being consumed as Japanese gather to sit under the cherry blossoms and welcome in spring.

Kirin Brewery’s ordinary shares (Tokyo: 2503) closed .82% higher at 1,601 yen. The news of the target price increase seems to have come in after market. Kirin’s ADRs closed yesterday down 1.39% at $13.45. A 1,780 yen target converted at Y118/US$1 equals approximately $15.10. The USD value should increase as the yen is expected to strengthen in the second half of the year.

KNBWY 1-yr chart:

Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, regarding Christian convert Abdul Rahman.

The only thing more repulsive to me than this statement is probably a burning bag of dung on my doorstep. As a matter of fact that is a terrific metaphor for this situation. As a student of spirituality and God, I sometimes compare the different religious texts about God in an attempt to understand Him better through the ways humanity has been experiencing Him.

One of my favorite sources, outside of the Bible is the Upanishads. These hindu texts try to narrow down the experience of God the eternal to it's most profound contemplative level. I find that many of the great mystics of the Christian faith, Julian of Norwich, Teresa Of Avila, and John of the Cross, have a similar experience in their deepest contemplation as the hindu mystics. The similarity? When one enters into God's presence and goes beyond word and image (the human constructs of our understanding) God remains incomprehensible and thouroughly MORE than our concepts can explain.

In our experience NOONE can claim to know God's thoughts, outside of the revelation He gives in the scriptures. These scriptures are man's way of making sense of the incomprehensible, within the limited expressions of word and image.

This is all to say that I believe no man can speak for God in the way this cleric is speaking. I do not believe the Koran is a revelation from God. I believe it is a conquerors handbook disguised as a holy book. It, like the Book of Mormon, is an example of a text whose origin and experience is shared by only one person, it's author. The other religious texts fall into a catagory where their development is shared by numerous people and drawn togther by scholarship.

If God were so insulted it would not take a cleric or a fascist religion of murder to right the wrong. Just ask the folks of Sodom, Lot's wife, or Ananias and Sapphira.

God handles his own "bid'ness" just fine. He doesn't need any meddling Mullahs in there confusing things.

Mails an Toni [at] spreeblick [punkt] com.

YouTube-Direktlink
iPod-Version (MP4, 5:07, 25,6 MB)
Handy-Version (3gp, 5:07, 2,8 MB)

don’t know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere in the territory of modern North Japan around the year 1025.
Your profession was that of a monk (nun), bee-keeper or lone gunman.
Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Such people are always involved with all new. You have always loved changes, especially in art, music, cooking.
The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your lesson is to learn discretion and moderation and then to teach others to do the same. Your life will be happier if you help those who lack reasoning.
Do you remember now?

Consider this. After the recent James Frey controversy over his book, “A Few Million Pieces”, where people assumed, and he didn’t discourage their assumption, that his book was true and auto-biographical, USA Today claims “Writers Watch Out”.

One first-time memoirist says she had to answer a lot of questions about her experiences but doesn’t think the publisher checked them out. Another hired an investigator to be sure she had her facts straight.

In the wake of the James Frey fiasco, the ripple effect on other writers is, if anything, making them more cautious, though not very worried.

Janice Erlbaum, whose memoir of her life as a homeless teen, Girlbomb, has just been published by Villard, says she had “an extensive legal review with the Random House legal department, but I don’t think they followed up.”

“They asked me a lot of questions like, ‘What were the dates that this happened?’ They really wanted to know who was who. I don’t think they did any independent verification, but they certainly did ask me about every person and every detail in the book.”

…Jenny Frost, president of Crown, Brown’s publisher, says Crown didn’t fact-check Brown but says of life after Frey: “I would like to think that we’ve always been intelligent about our authors and good judges of character…”

But, she adds, “we’ll never be quite as innocent as we were before.”

Has this issue of truthfulness in book publishing crossed over to the blogging world? Many people have their blogs turned into books, or write their blog as an online book, so the line between book and blog blurs.

Do you think that you have to “watch out” and be honest with your readers? If you are blogging about your personal life, do you now feel a responsibility to “stick to the truth” with your stories, and be able to prove them? Should an auto-biographical blog be held to the same inquisition for truthfulness as a book? What do you think about this?

Site Search Tags: honest, honesty, blogger, james, frey, million, pieces, writer, writing, truth, biography, autobiography, journal, personal
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen

C’est vrai c’est un vrai test web 1.0 mais le référencement sur les moteurs de recherche reste le référencement de base. Petite comparaison avec 3 autres bloggeurs lyonnais…

C’est fou le nombre d’url sur Yahoo versus les autres moteurs! Seraient ils moins sélectif?

C’est le site de Marketleap qui propose ce service de popularité.

Un autre outil intéressant c’est la conservation de l’historique des données… Voici mon graphique depuis 347 jours! J’ai progressé, cool :

Heute nachmittag werden wir die Ergebnisse der schriftlichen Prüungen bekommen. Also entweder schon direkt die Note, die auf das Zeugnis kommt oder aber die Prüfungsnote mit dem Hinweis am nächsten Montag eine mündliche Prüfung zu absolvieren. Ich wünsche mir, das ich nicht in die mündliche muß und meine Vornoten mit der schriftlichen Klausur bestätigt habe.

Seit einigen Stunden schon lag ich im Bett und konnte einfach nicht mehr schlafen. Jetzt, eine halbe Stunde bevor ich eh aufstehen muß, brauch ich mich auch nicht mehr weiter rumquälen und nutze die zusätzliche Zeit eben anderweitig.

Gleich werde ich mich wieder in Richtung Bahnhof begeben und einen Zug in unsere Hauptstadt besteigen, um dort einen Termin wahrzunehmen, der sehr vielversprechend klingt.

Gestern hab ich übrigens einen Anruf eines b.i.b. Dozenten bekommen, der mir eine sehr freudige Mitteilung gemacht hat. Über den Inhalt dieser werde ich aber noch ein paar Tage Stillschweigen bewahren und zu gegebener Zeit ein paar Worte dazu verlieren…

Übrigens: Leise, still und heimlich hat mein Blog vor 12 Tagen, seinen zweiten Geburtstag gefeiert und ich hab es dank Prüfungsvorbereitung völlig verschwitzt…

Bin grad wieder nach Haus gekommen und froh, das jetzt Wochenende ist… Die vergangene Woche war doch sehr arbeits- und ereignisreich. Spannend, interessant und anstrengend zugleich. Bonn, Frankfurt und Berlin waren die Stationen der letzten Tage und zwischendrin musste auch noch eine Prüfung geschrieben werden… Ich bin so gespannt, was daraus wird…

Aber jetzt geh ich direkt ins Bettchen, denn ich todmüde. Seit heute morgen um 5 Uhr wach und den ganzen Tag unterwegs. PB -> B -> PB, das fordert seinen Tribut

Achja und ich hab ein neues Suchtmittel für mich entdeckt… Da ich heute direkt an der Filale in der Friedrichstr. vorbeikam, hab ich dort eine kleine Kaffeepause gemacht und einen sündhaft leckeren Caramel Macchiato genossen… Schade das es hier kein Starbucks gibt

Komme grad aus dem bib zurück und ich hab es geschafft. Ganz nach dem Motto “Für Sie gibt es hier nix mehr zu tun!” hab ich meine Noten überreicht bekommen und muss keine mündliche Prüfung absolvieren… Jetzt heißt es nur noch am 31. mein Zeugnis in Empfang nehmen und verabschiedet werden. Und das beste ist, ich hab mein selbstgestecktes Ziel eindeutig erreicht, da ich das bib mit einem Notenschnitt von 1,5 abschließe. Ich glaub das grinsen, welches ich vor heute vor Erleichterung im Gesicht hab, das müsste man mir operativ entfernen…

A new french PR blog entered the blogosphere yesterday, PRojetZ, authored by Philippe Cherel.
If you can read french, I fully recomend it to you as he is a very smart writer and I am sure you'll find his blog a great daily RDV while drinking your first coffee in the morning...;o)

Welcome Philippe !

Tags: philippe cherel, projetz, projet z

NewsGator has been a roll lately. They've just released updated versions of Netnewswire (mac desktop RSS feed aggregator) and FeedDemon (PC desktop RSS aggregator). Steve Rubel now reports NewsGator is upgrading it's web based aggregator. Take a look.

Using RSS feeds for reading the content you want, from who you want and when you want it is nothing short of life changing. Just ask lawyers or other business professionals who've mastered the use of RSS feeds.

The problem in advancing the use of RSS to more lawyers and other professionals has been the lack of easy to set up and use aggregators. Netnewsire and FeedDemon are good but they require downloads. Netnewsire downloads on a mac were not a problem. But most business folks are using PC's locked down by IT to prevent them from installing new software like FeedDemon. Bloglines has been okay, but there are shortcomings when trying to monitor keywords and key phrases by RSS.

I've found Newsgator's user interface till now to be among the most confusing on the net. If these guys can master an easy to use web based aggregator of selected blog RSS feeds combined with getting RSS feeds by selected keywords, game's on. And NewsGator will have 10 to 20 new law firms and professional business firms a month in the form of LexBlog clients using NewsGator. We'll include it part and parcel in our RSS training.

On Sunday, I had a brilliant idea. I was going to CPK on Sunday with Pete and some other friends, and knowing I’d use my ATM card, I decided that I didn’t want to worry the waiter about how much money goes with what card. So, I stuck a Post-it on the card, folded it over, and stuck it in my wallet. When it came time to pay, I just wrote the amount on the Post-it and handed it over.

This’ll definitely come in handy when you’re with a big group of people and you’re not the only one using a card.

I’m very impressed at your grasp of Islam and the Muslim world. Very impressive. It is crucial for people to be aware of these issues. Great blog!

Chicagoist is a sucker for a deal. Marketers know they can wow people like us with anything that can be purchased for a dollar, be it a Buffalo Snacker or a can of PBR. So when we heard about Megabus.com, the discount bus line that will begin offering $1 fares from Chicago to eight Midwestern cities next month, we could hardly believe it. We can’t even get across town for $3.

But, to our amazement, it seems to be true. Well, at least mostly true. Megabus.com will begin daily service on April 10 with express runs to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

Here’s how it works: Travelers must book their rides on the company’s Web site up to 45 days in advance. Fares start at $1 each way, plus a 50-cent reservation fee. For each trip, three or four $1 seats are reserved, and the remaining seats can range from $9 to $27. In other words, you’ll have to book early to get the super-cheap fares.

Megabus.com has operated in the UK for three years and charges an average of $10 for a 200-mile trip. Reviews of the UK service seem to be generally positive, but several reviewers noted that introductory fares became scarce once the line became more popular, and that buses don’t always leave on time.

But really, for a dollar, it's not going to be first class.

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No está uno acostumbrado a estas cosas… El otro día publiqué un post hablando de la magia del Hombrecillo Indomable, y Netdancer me lo meneó.

Y vino el caos :) No solo las visitas a este blog se han duplicado dos o tres días por lo curioso de la historia (lo lógico es pensar que ya van volviendo a la normalidad), sino que ha servido para que alguna gente se reencuentre con aquel Hombrecillo, igual que en el comentario que originó el post (la historia se repite, como en el libro), y han enlazado la página que preparé con el flash… Si tenemos en cuenta que el librito pesaba unos dos megas (quizá hubiera podido hacerlo más pequeño, pero fue una cosa así rápida), está claro: el ancho de banda consumido se ha disparado.

De modo que he tenido que tirar de lista de hosting gratuitos para archivos hasta encontrar algo medio decente para un flash. Y allí se ha quedado, en directupload, que te muestra el flash en pantalla, no para descargarlo.

Si no, este mes palmábamos con exceso de tráfico, y no está la economía pa muchos aires…

Por cierto, me ha encantado que le haya gustado tanto a la gente la historia, y el libro. Una pequeñesisísima aportación a difundir el gran trabajo de Hanz Traxler (con la traducción de Miguel Azaola). Que ilu.

Le habló un arkángel casi muriendo de éxito :P

• They're always so cute when they're asleep. But when they wake they can be nightmares. Take this little chihuahua, for example. Please. (t/y Louise)
• The Indian Shankar Drum Ganesh Machine. Sometimes a sitar is just a sitar.
• Turban Outfitters. Turban-wearers we have known and loved.
• The Chronicles of Nianhua. They say posters of fat children make for happy Chinese communists.

Watch her spred that yummy butter all over my hard buns.

Author: RabidToasters
Keywords: Devon Butter Bread Erica
Added: March 20, 2006

Ce soir à lieu la soirée de lancement de mon livre pour présenter les nouvelles technologies au grand public.

Vous pouvez feuilleter un aperçu ici : http://www.fannysparty.com/livretq.swf

et l'acheter ici : http://www.fnac.com/Shelf/article.asp?PRID=1799178&OrderInSession=1&Mn=1&SID=1f74e076-2015-d126-77c5-5f5d7acfdc1c&TTL=210320061709&Origin=FnacAff&Ra=-1&To=0&Nu=1&UID=1ED4E5371-AB84-12C3-9845-519D28B8B26B&Fr=3

Perso, je déteste la couv, mais la maquette intérieure est très chouette.

Den Clip habe ich lange vermisst, nun hat ihn Scott wieder aufgetan: Die Bibliothekspolizistin in Overdue ist auf der Jagd nach fälligen Büchern…

Thanks Matt, I’ll do my best not to sound like Inspecteur Clouzeau. Oui d’accord ?

[via]

We have indeed some very exciting news for AllPeers and I will talk about them next week. Hey sorry but I don’t do major announcement on Fridays afternoons.

Meanwhile, I’ll be flying to London next week for the OPA ’06 London: Forum for the Future conference. If you happen to be there too and want to talk about AllPeers, feel free to send me an email to cedric *at* allpeers.com

Had made this for Clifford Lee and have decided to release it to everyone since it has been highly requested.

You can now download the header for Connections Reloaded in .psd. You will need Photoshop to open the .psd file.

The .psd contains three layers, viz. BG, header and topnav.

header is the image of the car in the tunnel you see above.
topnav is the top navigation bar just above the header.
BG is the rest of the image.

BG has been placed above both, followed by header and topnav.

If you want to change the colour of the top navigation bar, all you need to do fill the topnav layer with the desired colour.

Fill the header layer with whatever colour or image you want. It has to be a minimum of 741×143 pixels in order to fill the rectangular area. Ensure that the image doesn’t go too high up or it will cover the top navigation area.

Note that this psd can be used even if you are using the original Connections theme and would like to customize the header. I have created the psd using the top.jpg file.

Download: CRHeade