Will post more shortly - such as what features will be adding. My new project is called Wists.
Have a play, mail me If you like it or don’t like it.

The idea is to bridge the gap between blogging and bookmarking.
It aims to make simple list blogging as easy as bookmarking and make bookmarking take advantages of weblog publishing, with automatic thumbnail image creation etc.

Like Newsblogger (which we worked on at Moreover in conjunction with Blogger to create aggregated bloggable news content) in addition to bookmarking, Wists aggregates content from online stores link to directly.

Wists is simple to start with but the ongoing aim is to treat thumbnails as an image equivalent of a headline and slowly evolve a tool for managing and syndicating image headlines.

(Basically we built it because I am really lazy, I like pictures and hate writing and it takes lots of clicks to blog thumbnails.)

"Even if we expanded our domain at the speed of light - a pretty safe theoretical upper limit - and managed to colonize all available stars and planets within a sphere expanding at light speed, then, increasing our population at 2 percent per year, we will still run out of room and perish in our own wastes within the next millennium."

I was watching a Christian debate an atheist on TV recently. The Christian was against contraception on the grounds that it says in the bible 'that we should fill the earth with all God's glory'. Unfortunately the result of the attempt would either be an extinct earth filled with filth, or continuous war. Perhaps that's what a glory hole is.

Make love with condoms, not war.

From Lonely Planets : The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life

Foremski ups the ante on the Flickr/Yahoo partnership rumor, suggesting that an acquisition is about to be announced.

Silicon Valley Watcher: Scoop! SiliconValleyWatcher reports Yahoo is negotiating acqusition of Flickr

Noah and Evan's Odeo launches - a turnkey service for publishing and subscribing to podcasts.

I've had a sneak peek and it confirms two things: 1. Blogger was not a fluke success, 2. Evan only works with really good people like Noah.

Odeo is a beautifully designed application.

It seems like a small thing, but day after day I can't help thinking that there is a distinct pattern to the business model of things such as the Associated Press going more and more down the route of using open syndication rather than traditional distribution partners.

Wikipedia vs. Brittanica
Writer Branded Blogs vs. Media Brands
Tags vs. Taxonomies
Slashdot vs. Peer Review
Metacritic vs. Critic

What all these things do is place ordinary people or individual nuggets of information as nodes in a non-hierarchical web rather than a series of disconnected pyramid hierarchies.

The way the web looks to the end user, the way it looks to publishers and the way it works in terms of money flow are starting to look the same as the underlying technology - a non hierarchical web.

And the really interesting thing about webs, is that is how the real word works - things that look like hierarchies, like species taxonomies are in fact snapshot renderings of a non-hierarchical web.

For years, people thought that the hierarchical taxonomy of species reflected the way things are, a legacy of a 19th century view of the word. This world view is a metaphor.

It turns out that the definition of a species is not whether two organisms can reproduce with fertile offspring - but whether they normally do so in the wild. I.E. the nodes in the hierarchy are not absolute.

Secondly, although most higher organisms that have evolved as separate species never mutate in such a way as to be able to reproduce with parent species, this sometimes happens with small organisms such as bacteria. As microbiology increases the resolution of biological investigation, this is more apparent. I.E. the hierarchy is in fact a web that tends to look hierarchical at low resolution.

Even the taxonomy of species, the quintessential, immutable hierarchy, is an ever changing web.

So Kottke has set up in an garret in Brooklyn to become the first full-time Blogger with Left-Bank style freedom - which is great news, good luck Jason.

What is irrational is that people somehow think that having patrons, as opposed to a day job or corporate sponsors is selling out.

Er... patronage is what traditionally separates artists from employees. Van Gogh had a patron, he was not a 'for-profit' enterprise.

Take this nonsense in the Guardian:

"For me, a more serious concern is that, like the rapper who runs out of things to write songs about when he becomes a celebrity, Kottke.org's "voice" will become lose something from becoming a for-profit enterprise."

Give me a break!

Guardian Unlimited | Newsblog | Paid to blog

Clearly Apple is doing much better having brought back the visionary CEO that they originally fired. And he was fired for exhibiting all the things that he is now lauded for: creating a culture based upon vision and uncompromising design.

The opposite of this is what is taught at business schools - i.e. to create a culture of products based upon understanding the market, rather than vision and innovation.

Apple is a great vindication of ballsyness rather than MBAness. Jobs is our generation's Frank Lloyd Wright.

That Apple is doing well is also a great vindication of everyday people over faceless corporations. When companies buy laptops they buy boring thing like Dells on the assumption that they are reliable, not Apple's which look too flashy. What Apple owners know is that their product is plain better.

So Jobs is a star and Fiorina out to pasture. Perhaps there is a god after all - and perhaps Microsoft and Oracle which currently offer substandard or over priced products that companies seem to like, are in for some trouble.

But with the rebirth of Apple something more fundamental is up - people rather than companies are in control. Individuals dictate the marketplace and innovation in tech, - with media PC's, iPods, cellphones and personally owned laptops. And people clearly have more individuality and taste than companies.

Global warming is fact.

As of this week we now know that global warming as a man made phenomenon is a fact.

That the effects of global warming will cause death and destruction is a fact.

Given these facts, government avoidance of action to reduce global warming would now be criminally negligent.

The final proof: global warming is a man-made disaster

I am moving to New York at the end of the month, to continue working on a product which I hope to launch next week.

The product is somewhere between Flickr and delicious and, amongst other things, will build upon the concept of tagging, to allow 'metatagging', where anyone can create their own types of category: restaurant, location=ny etc.

While I'm really looking forward to it (I am still an architect at heart and NY is an architect's wet dream), I will miss San Francisco.

For me, San Francisco is a model of a 21st century city, it is at the heart of an area which is the world capital of both science and liberal thinking. As such, it is one of the few places where engineering is taken to a truly creative level, becoming an art as much as a science.

One of the most memorable things that I have done since living in San Francisco is see Jimmy Smith play at Bimbo's, with my good friend Nick Rossi, who is also an awesome Hammond B3 player.

Jimmy Smith was a true genius, taking an instrument normally associated with church services and inventing a sound worthy of its spiritual origins.

R.I.P Jimmy Smith.

Jimmy Smith dies

It turns out that the reason there has been 1000 times more complaints to the FCC isn't just because activists are spamming them in general. It is because a single group - the Parents Television Council - is responsible for 999 out of 1000 complaints.

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

Thanks Nick

- and yes, this may be a shoe on the other foot scenario, but in my opinion its the right, not the left, that tend to be most vocal and indignant online.

An eloquent argument for US style free speech over European style regulation from Blackadder comedian, Rowan Atkinson.

Current laws prevent 'Incitement of Racial Hatred' it is proposed that they be extended to prevent 'Incitement of Racial or Religious Hatred'

Rowan Atkinson says:

"race and religion are fundamentally different concepts, requiring completely different treatment under the law. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticise ideas - any ideas"

Atheism Central for Secondary Schools - Rowan Atkinson speaks to the House of Lords on proposed Incitement of Religious hatred legislation:

"I question the inarguable nature of the phrase "religious hatred", afforded by the use of the highly emotive word "hatred". So I thought I would modify the name of the proposed measure, by changing the terminology but retaining the meaning and use the dictionary definition of the word hatred, which is: intense dislike.

Incitment of Religious Intense Dislike. Isn’t it strange how that small change makes it seem a much less desirable or necessary measure?...

What is wrong with encouraging intense dislike of a religion? Why shouldn’t you do that, if the beliefs of that religion or the activities perpetrated in its name deserve to be intensely disliked?

What if the teaching or beliefs of the religion are so out-moded, hypocritical and hateful that not expressing criticism of them would be perverse?

The government claim that one would be allowed to say what you like about beliefs because the measure is not intended to defend beliefs but believers. But I don’t see how you can distinguish between them.

Beliefs are only invested with life and meaning by believers. If you attack beliefs, you are automatically attacking those who believe the beliefs. You wouldn’t need to criticise the beliefs if no-one believed them."

The FCC obscenity complaints stats show:

Number of complaints and fines in -
year: 2000, complaints: 111, fines: $48,000
year: 2001: complaints: 346, fines: $91,000
year: 2002: complaints: 13,922, fines: $99,400
year: 2003: complaints: 202,032, fines: $440,000
year: 2004: complaints: 1,068,802, fines: $7,928,080

There have been 10,000 times more complaints in 4 years and 20 times as much in fines.

If complaints are as representative of Americans' feelings as 4 years ago, and 10,000 times more people really are offended by broadcasting, then the FCC is 500 times less effective (since its obscenity guidelines are governed by popular consensus and fines levied accordingly).

If the fines are legitimate and comprehensive, and that there is therefore 20 times more obscene material being broadcast now than 4 years ago then the FCC has to spend 500 times as much in tax payer money to deal with unwarranted complaints (if it deals with complaints individually).

If, on the other hand, you don't believe that Americans are between 500 to 10,000 times more prudish or broadcasters 20 to 10,000 times more obscene now than 4 years ago, then there is something wrong with the system of complaints.

This brings about a Malthusian problem, where the fines levied grow arithmetically but the population of complaints (and the cost of dealing with them) grows geometrically. In other words, if the FCC were a company, it would bankrupt them.

The real problem is created by the fact that the cost of making a complaint (via their website or email) is far less - and organized religious activists are exploiting this to swamp the FCC in flashmob fashion. It is the equivalent of a spam email campaign, but we are all paying for it.

Like spam, the only solution to this is to either make it more difficult or introduce a cost to send a message to the FCC, or to deal with large volumes of complaints like spam. In the latter case, the number of programs being complained about has only increased 3 times, so the value of an individual complaint, and the time spent dealing with it, should be inversely weighted when there are a large number about a single broadcast.

Google Video Search, boing boing :

... Eh-oh! Hee Hee! [Humming] dipsy! Hee Hee! Hee Hee... Whee! Wow! Yay! Ha Ha! Dipsy! Hee Hee! Ooh! Look! Yay, dipsy! Narrator: Circle. [Boing boing] [boing boing] [Boing boing] [boing boing] [squish] [squish] Hee Hee! Laa-laa Ball! Hee Hee! Uh-oh! Hee Hee! Ooh! Oh, dear! Hee Hee!...

'Intelligent Design' in the Schools (washingtonpost.com):

"Many school boards are arguing about whether to include "intelligent design" in their curriculums, The Post's editorial said. If they are serious, the appropriate way is not to have scientists trying to discuss intelligent design in classes such as biology or physics...As the editorial said, such discussion is legitimate, however, in a history or philosophy class."

Ford said - 'history is bunk'. If you can relegate discussion of meaningless nonsense away from science to philosophy and history classes, then you prove him right.

(Oscar Wilde described fox hunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. My dad always describes philosophy as the unintelligible in pursuit of the unanswerable.)

My good friend Nick Aster has been doing an MBA with a difference, one that combines business with sustainability, at the Presidio World College.

They are shortly having open days for their MBA in Sustainable Management.

Part of a democracy is to prevent election of the undemocratic which happened disastrously in Algeria.

In December the Associated Press ran this:

Key among its [Iraq's] parties is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, a group closely allied to Iran and led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim...

Al-Hakim's prominence on the list and his close relations with Iran give ammunition to many secular and non-Shiites to attack his coalition, saying Iraq's political future will mirror Iran's Shiite-run establishment if he and his supporters gain power.

Mustafa Alani:

"The nightmare scenario in the region is the election of an Iranian-influenced Shiite government in Iraq will lead to the creation of a 'Super Iran'"

The UIA have two thirds of the votes counted so far.

CTV.ca | Iraq Shiite win may bring 'Super Iran': critics

Tom Foremski on what would happen if someone created a treasure hunt with a large cash prize awarded to a single click of an unpublicised adwords ad. A subsequent clicking frenzy could drain advertisers' accounts, prompting them to ask for a refund.

This hypothetical idea is part of a more serious problem - pay-per-perfomance advertising is open to fraud - when you click something, money drains out of an account - this doesn't happen with TV, print or radio ads. See Adbombing.

In the same way that companies like Paypal spent a considerable proportion of their resources dealing with fraud, so will Google.

If Google succeeds then its anti-fraud measures will be a competitive edge. If it fails there will be a problem.

The moral to all this is that Google's business model landed on their laps via Scott Banister at Idealab, it is a new model and its weaknesses are not yet exposed, let alone tested.

Given the risk (and the fact that the existing behemoths like Ebay are beginning to plateau earlier than thought) a price/earnings ratio of half its current level of 140 would seem optimistic.

There was an ad on my site today that read:

Iraq
Visiting Iraq? Compare
hotel prices, reviews,
maps
travel.yahoo.com

There is one genuine looking review from an aid worker, where the Palestine Intl. Hotel in Baghdad, gets one star:

"Nice swimming pool, otherwise a dump
Service and food were terrible, bed was uncomfortable, dirty. The pool, however, was clean and very nice."

"As present world temperatures are already 0.7C above the pre-industrial level, the process is well under way...

when the temperature moves up to 2C above the pre-industrial level, expected in the middle of this century - within the lifetime of many people alive today - that serious effects start to come thick and fast...

when the temperature moves up to the 3C level, expected in the early part of the second half of the century, these effects will become critical. There is likely to be irreversible damage to the Amazon rainforest, leading to its collapse...

There will be a rapid increase in populations exposed to hunger, with up to 5.5 billion people living in regions with large losses in crop production, while another 3 billion people will have increased risk of water shortages...

Above the 3C raised level, which may be after 2070, the effects will be catastrophic: the Arctic sea ice will disappear."

Global Warming timeline