Merry Christmas to All to and All a Few Days Off!

Happy Holidays everyone, I'll be taking a few days off starting at 3ish today so this should be my last post until the morning of the 26th. Best. 

-- Scott

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I've Been 'Podded or "Walkman Redux"

This morning, in the shower, I was thinking about my iPod.  Or as I call it "being Podded".  Just listen to some of the places where I've taken my iPod / used my iPod:

• Eating breakfast sitting in the Breakfast nook
• In the bathroom listening to some MP3s of Bill Joy lecturing
• Walking to the bank
• In the car
• Cleaning the garage
• In bed (although I did hook it up to external speakers)
• In the living room (same on the external speakers)
• Blogging
• Coding
• Writing
• Emailing
• Working on the car
• (this list could go on)

That's what I mean "being 'Podded".  Now I'm old enough to have experienced the first wave of Walkmans ... when I was still in high school.  So I've seen this once before.  You know where we all don headphones and zone out into our personal world.  Still this is different.  It feels not only more elegant but more personal.   This might not surprise anyone but it really is "personal media".   When you only have one tape at a time then it isn't personal.  Sure it might be a mix tape but the odds are that it isn't.  Now that I have a collection of my "favorite 3,352" songs with me at all times, it is personal.  So that's what I mean by "being 'Podded".  And I was never a person who used to listen to Music much.  I mean rarely.  Apple iPod? Recommended.

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Job Blogs Anyone?

Scoble has some good ideas about Job Blogging at Newspapers [_Go_].  I do have to wonder about this one though ... We're simply at an economic point where there aren't enough jobs for the folks that need them.  Will Job Blogs help or will they just contribute to employers getting even more resumes for the same jobs?  I'm not sure but I suspect that they'll just lead to the latter.  And every employer that I know of that has an open job is getting more resumes now than they can process.  Or (and worse) the number of resumes they get actually slows down the hiring process.  Comments? 

One thing I see against job blogs working out at newspapers is that job ads remain a big source of revenues for newspapers.  Are they going to want to eliminate them?  Or even run the chance of eliminating them?  And if the blog takes "paid entries" then is it useful?

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Did You Know that You Have to Pay for the Moscow Times?

I just followed a Google News link and got asked for my billing info.  Go Figure!  (And I'm not saying that's bad ... Paying for content is just part of the net's evolution.  Whether or not it works is also part of the net's evolution)

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Wow! or Three Reasons You Should Use Google News

I don't even want to get into the ethics of this one:

LONDON -- Britain's High Court has barred a couple from creating a 'designer baby' to try to save the life of their sick child.

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the court said the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has no legal power to authorise such a treatment, the Guardian reported.

The case was filed by pro-life campaigner Josephine Quintavalle who wanted to stop the 'ethically objectionable' screening of test-tube embryos to provide donor siblings for sick children.

The ruling is a blow to Mr Raj Hashmi and his wife Shahana who were given the go-ahead by the HFEA to use embryo selection to try to have a baby matching their sick child's tissue type. [_Go_]

For all the hub hub about Google News when it came out, I'm finding it just plain invaluable -- and one of the best "Christmas Presents" of the year.  There are three ways in which I'm using it:

• The Bigger World.  When I want to know what's going on out in the wider world.  The print Wall Street Journal does a fairly good job for U.S. centric news but its increasingly clear just how U.S. centric that is -- and how unacceptable that is.  Google News to the rescue! 
• Following up on stories that leave the news.  Remember that Finnish shopping mall that was blown up by a student and how that just magically left the news?  Well here's the latest -- they want to use it for Internet censorshp: [_Go_]
• What People Talk About.  Ever have one of those experiences where people say "Did you see what was on 20/20 (or the news) last night -- where XYZ?"  And you say "No".  And then you walk away and forget about it.  Now I just "Google News" for it.  And it's amazing not only that a) they weren't lying to you and b) where you see stories covered -- often in the smallest of papers, NOT in the "mainstream media".  As an example, someone mentioned to me that "The Air Force is giving pilots speed and they shot down Canadians".  What !!!!  So I just did a quick query and got this:

When the two were sent on their mission over Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force gave them $30 million F-16 fighter jets, laser-guided precision munitions, state-of-the-art technology, and something that came as a complete surprise -- amphetamines.

Amphetamines, a prescription drug, are known on the street as uppers or speed. Yet, a 20/20 investigation has found, the amphetamines, the speed pills, are now standard issue to U.S. Air Force combat pilots, to help them stay awake on long combat sorties.

...

Yet not only is the Air Force making the amphetamines widely available to combat pilots, it also has informed them they could be considered unfit to fly certain missions if they don't voluntarily take the amphetamines.  [_Go_]

Commentary: In another article on the amphetamine issue I saw a doctor make the comment that "the standard warning of these type of pills is 'don't operate heavy machinery' when taking them."  Are planes heavy?

Google News versus Your News Aggregator

So there you have it, three reasons why you should use Google News.  To me the debate about Google News versus a News Aggregator just is silly -- they're different.  Google News is about the broader world while your News Aggregator is about your world.

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Odd Google Results

Here's an odd Google result for "Joel's Currency Converter" [_Go_]  Now don't get me wrong -- I understand why it came up.  Still I wonder about this result when what I really wanted was this.  But I can't bitch much at all -- the result I was expecting was right on top.  I'm more just observing.

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MapQuest Even Easier

My friend Nicholas of Anagram "fame" took one of my suggestions to heart.  Nicholas, who I blogged about recently, has technology which auto-parses address into the appropriate elements.  I commented to him that "wouldn't it be cool if you could just highlight an address on a webpage and then click a Map It button and get a map".  We kicked it around a bit and then I said "if you want to do this then see Joel's Currency Converter for a starting point (this is a Javascript bookmarklet which takes text highlighted in the browser window and converts the currency values)".  And, lo and behold, an email shows up saying "Here".  So if you'd like to use MapQuest a little easier then take a look. [_Go_] 

Very cool.  Thanks !

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