onfocus

Whatever your position on the current military action, I've heard one bit of advice today that I completely agree with and want to pass on—"This is not a time to be alone and watch television coverage of the war." I think talking with friends and family about this war helps everyone clarify their thinking about it. An overdose of media coverage without real human interaction on the subject isn't good for anyone.

matt said, "...Imagine a marketing group saying that in 6 months, no one will talk about Google.com any more...Then imagine them pulling it off..." But then imagine that this fictional marketing group owns and controls almost all media. Then it doesn't seem so outlandish. And the marketing strategy wouldn't even have to be that good.

I realized something today that's somewhat related. Big media opinion polls don't just reflect the beliefs of large numbers of people, they reflect the effectiveness of the media at persuading large numbers of people into believing the favored view. Perhaps the unprecedented numbers of people involved in peaceful demonstrations around the world reflect a failing of mass media. And I think the Internet has played a key role in that failure by providing alternative views. (Not to mention its role in connecting and organizing people of similar views.)

Woke up this morning, checked the server logs, found slashdot linking to Google Smackdown. What other site can illicit joy and dread at the same time? Of course the Google API developer key maximum of 1,000 queries has been reached for today, which sucks. But maybe some will get their own key if they really want to try it out.

So far the server is doing ok with the blip in traffic:



I've mentioned it here before, but you can find the code for Google Smackdown in the new O'Reilly book Google Hacks. (Which is currently ranked #10 on Amazon overall!)

The Corvallis Gazette-Times covered the peace vigil.

Andy just put together 80 lines of PHP that turns eBay search results into RSS. It seems like all data will eventually be available as RSS. Resistance is futile.

Meg has been covering the topic of danger and freedom for journalists if there is a war.

Jerry Michalski has gathered together several recent essays that make the case against war.

skp and I went to a candlelight peace vigil tonight at the courthouse in Corvallis. Vigils happened around the world. Many of the pictures I took were too blurry because of the low light, but here are a few...


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I know crowd estimates are really tough, but it looked to me like a few hundred people were there. I sent a couple of these pictures to moveon.org. They're collecting and posting pictures. Update: Moveon.org used one of my pictures.

With a Daypop search for vigil, I've already found photos from vigils in Bury St Edmunds in England and St. Louis.

Took some pictures earlier today...

Talking smack(down) in Fast Company: How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows. "Most companies would sooner let temps into the executive washroom than let customers -- much less customers who can hack -- anywhere near their core intellectual property. Google, though, grasps the power of an engaged community...More important, Bausch says, opening up the technology kimono 'turns the world into Google's development team.'"

Hacking Coupons: What in the world do you do with this much free soda? Bathe in it? Apparently, they're not the only ones.

A quick search turned up some more Oregon-based weblogs:

• The Oregon Blog
• Oregon By AboutItAll.com
• Beaverblog
• Portland Communique
• Portland Bill of Rights Defense Committee
• Jack Bog's Blog
• Rivervision
• seething
• Brad Fitzpatrick
  (of LiveJournal. Missed meeting him at SXSW this year.)
• Jon Cellini's Blog
• lilloca.com\\:blog
• what if...?
• strange chord
• biohabit

And these were already on my reading list:

• Raelity Bytes
• saturn.org