Quesion: At www.DarkCreek.com, what do the clocks, screws,
             sunglasses, and baseball caps have in common?

Answer: They are all video cameras.

From zaine ridling (one of our favorite members!) who runs the Great Software List:

...
But after sinking time into almost 150 apps over the past five months, the Great Software List is now updated with some kickass apps! I added a new Usenet, P2P/File Sharing Tools section, found/updated 40 fantastic new programs, and managed to ditch 65 old ones for various reasons — unaddressed security issues, lack of development, overpriced in latest version, somehow it got shitty, and so on. I’m excited and completely exhausted.
...

The Great Software List Website: http://www.anova.org/software/

In April of 2005, Scott on our forum requested a tool to submit random search queries to google to prevent search engine tracking.  The program was implemented as a coding snack but we all scoffed at the request.  Scott is seeming more prescient these days. As this new firefox extension TrackMeNot shows, other people are starting to think along the same ways as Scott.

Direct Links:
TrackMeNot FireFox Extension: http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/TrackMeNot/
Random Submitter Standalone Tool: https://www.donation...dingSnacks/index.php

I know I'm not the only one that finds Robert Scoble painful to read (http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/).

Does being so over the top in terms of being self-absorbed, name-dropping, self-promoting, self-hyping, etc., really help people in business?  Personally I find it almost unbearable.  Does this stuff help them get business, or are they naturally this way (or both?)

It's not that I don't believe in being proud of your skills and achievements and being able to express that, but basically what these people are in a whole different universe of self-promotion.  Someone please tell me these blogs just a more subtle form of satire produced by the Onion?

Is there a word for people who sound like they are about to explode from giddiness about how many rich people they are meeting?  I'd like to propose we introduce one: "Scobler: Someone who becomes ecstatic about meeting rich/powerful people so they can mention that they know them"

Actually what really made me finally post about Scoble was this quote on his blog today:

I remember meeting [Adriana], the blogger who keeps 17 blogs, including the one on Linday Lohan. She actually says she hates doing the Lohan blog, but that’s what pays the bills so she does that to fund her other blogging.*

I guess this is what we've come to - people blog now for the money, even when they hate what they are blogging about.  And it doesn't even raise an eyebrow. Hey, if you find yourself writing a blog about something you hate just to make money off the blog - do us all a favor and find a different job.


*Having some experience with the accuracy of interviews, it wouldn't surprise me if Adriana suggested this quote was inaccurate or taken out of context.

Back in 2005, you may have heard about a program for generating random academic Computer Science conference papers.  What you may not have heard is that, funded by donations, they actually traveled to a conference site and gave 3 talks produced by the program, and recorded the results live.

If you're in academia you owe it to yourself to watch the video they added of their fake talk.. you'll recognize all the mannerisms and adlibs that people give while presenting a talk, but this time the material is completely made up and nonsense.  Great fun.

Web page: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
Direct Link to High Quality (80mb!) Avi: http://pdos.csail.mi...ear_science_high.avi