I hereby coin the following internet neologism: google://search+terms+here I almost believe that browsers should implement that. Actually, I do believe they should implement search://search+terms+here. Someone go write a paper, OK?
Warning: this link contains flash animation and punk rock kittens.
Midnight in New York. It’s a Quicktime full-screen panorama; I don’t know if Windows users will be able to see it, but I think so. That whole site is just chock full of goodness. Ten years from now we’ll be looking back on this like we look at ViewMasters today, I imagine. There, that’s my unrepentant futurism for the year. Speaking of futurism, go read the best weblog post of 2004. The year’s early yet, mind you, but damn Rob is smart.
Al Giordano, who has been there and done that, explains how press protection works (original). This is a post that a lot of bloggers should read, because Giordano went through a libel lawsuit focusing on his online news site and won. He knows exactly what he’s talking about. He’s also trying out an interesting experiment (original) involving blogs and investigative journalism. I’ll be keeping an eye on it; he’s been publishing online for quite a while now, and is one of the more experienced people working on blog/journalism crossover.
The Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection is why one should be in the habit of saving one’s photographs. Well, if one is Charles Cushman, at least; most of us don’t have his eye. Amazing collection. (Via Electrolite.)
Anita Mui, one of my favorite Hong Kong stars, died today (original). I guess she was better known for her singing, but I really admired her acting. I first saw her in My Father Is a Hero, but she was also pretty special in Heroic Trio, Executioners, and Drunken Master II. This makes me sad.
Distributed Proofreaders is one of those cool things enabled by the Internet. Project Gutenberg has the problem that proofreading OCRed books is painfully time-consuming. So what do you do? You farm out the proofreading one page at a time. It takes a few minutes to proofread a single page; you do five, and you’ve made a difference. Come back the next day and do five more. At the moment, Distributed Proofreaders has provided over 25% of Project Gutenberg’s 10,000 books. It’s neat. Plus I got to proof some James Branch Cabell — in fact, I just proofed the last page of The Eagle’s Shadow. ...
Look, I’m the most cynical guy in the world, and I can let go of all the annoyances of bad Christmas music and overcrowded stores and equitable gift-giving and so on. It’s happy day! It’s happy season! Merry Christmas, y’all.
The roster of Antarctic blogs continues to grow: sandwichgirl.com (original), Polar Cafe, The Seventh Continent, and Sarah Kaye’s letters. Soon they’ll be writing New York Times articles about the phenomenon.
The New Rosetta Stone — parody or a serious challenge to Dave Sim for the misogyny crown? I honestly can’t tell. My theory is simple and is, essentially, an analogy. By projecting the characteristics of “woman” onto a character which is more straightforward and more readily understood by the general population, I wish to make the behavior of “woman” comprehensible. I offer to you Spider Man as the best model for “woman.” My argument is sixfold: ...