Johnny Cash, Johnny Sokko, Dante's Inferno, History of Internet; State Dept. e-mail

Items:

• Punk covers of Johnny Cash, including streams of the full songs. (WTF! No "Ring of Fire"!)
• Speaking of which, maybe you can help develop the Johnny Cash idea at Uncyclopedia: Johnny Cash is a smartcard, used pay for entry to any restroom in the North American Union that charges an entry fee.
• Check out this excerpt of this far out adaptation of Dante's Inferno.
• AWESOME! - Via Omni-Monster -- A bunch of episodes of Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot on Hulu!
• Here's an animated documentary on the History of the Internet.
• LBNL, looks like certain people at the State Department need to start using Diplopedia a bit more. Excerpt: "Department staff hitting 'reply to all' on an e-mail with a large distribution list is causing an e-mail storm on the department's OpenNet e-mail system," says the unclassified cable... ...the result was "effectively a denial of service as e-mail queues, especially between posts, back up while processing the extra volume of e-mails." The cable orders employees to "take immediate action" to ensure they and their colleagues are "aware of the negative impact of hitting 'reply all'" and to delete e-mails addressed to large numbers of people that they might receive in error... ...Officials said the storm started when some diplomats used the 'reply all' function to respond to a blank e-mail sent recently to many people on the department's global address list. Most demanded to be removed from the list while others used 'reply all' to tell their co-workers, in often less than diplomatic language, to stop responding to the entire group, the officials said. Some then compounded the problem by trying to recall their initial replies, which generated another round of messages to the group, they said. We have this same dynamic occur sometimes at my work; I'm not sure if I am comforted or agitated that the State Department does the same thing.
  

Google criticisms; The Nature of Math; Digital Careers

Items:

• I love Google -- It's changed the way the entire world can access information. But, there's always room for improvement. Eleven items here, plus comments.
• Was math discovered or invented? Science News article here, Wikipedia articles on Philosophy of Mathematics and History of Mathematics. Science News excerpt: Those who espouse discovery note that mathematical statements are true or false regardless of personal beliefs, suggesting that they have some external reality. But this leads to some odd notions. Where, exactly, do these mathematical truths exist? Can a mathematical truth really exist before anyone has ever imagined it? On the other hand, if math is invented, then why can’t a mathematician legitimately invent that 2 + 2 = 5?
• Three Emerging Digital Careers to Watch. -- The Chief Customer Experience Officer (and those who work for her); Digital Storytellers; Super Crunchers. Last year I read two of the three books referred (Made to Stick and Super Crunchers) and I have to recommend them both. Excerpt: The digital space is the most addressable media and marketing platform ever. However, most marketers are not “quants” and data is largely under utilized by many companies. Data mining and visualization tools reduce risk, make business more efficient and measurable. Great rewards will come to those who know how to dig into data and make sense of it all and can parse that into insights that help companies optimize the dollars they put online. Be that guy or gal.

Back Again

Back again from another quick business trip. Items:

• Here are a whole bunch of mashups. Some of my faves are Benny Goodman/Beastie Boys, Sex Pistols/My Milkshake, and P!nk/Nirvana. For some reason, Without Vader is only on Odeo.
• Wikipedia entry on the Essjay controversy, in which a college dropout named Ryan Jordan is found out to have been presenting himself as a Ph.D.-holding theologian for purposes of adjudicating Wikipedia disputes.
• The U.S. State Department has come out as pro-Borat. Int'l Herald Tribune excerpts: Baron Cohen, whose bumbling Borat has vexed the Kazakh government and rocketed to fame with his film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," became a victim when Kazakhstan took action against his satirical Web site. Specifically, it took control of the registration of .kz Internet domains in 2005 and revoked the Borat domain, since relocated, because it deemed his site offensive, the report said. The movie depicting Borat's pseudo-documentary wanderings across the U.S. became an unlikely hit and earned Baron Cohen a Golden Globe award. It also generated complaints that he duped his American subjects into making racist and sexist remarks and portrayed Kazakhs in an unflattering light. Borat, for example, asserted that Kazakhs are addicted to horse urine, enjoy shooting dogs, view rape and incest as respectable hobbies and are fond of "running of the Jew" festivals. Baron Cohen is an observant Jew. The State Department report made no mention of the contents of the film or Web site but said Baron Cohen's banishment was symptomatic of repression in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in central Asia. Full State Dept. report here. Kazakhstan-specific comments here.
• A couple of new blogs for the blogroll... Techyum (from the NSFW Violet Blue) and, via Techyum, Bedazzled!.
• Peanuts: A Comic Book History. Charles Schulz has said that he developed Charlie Brown's character largely from his own joys and insecurities (I paraphrase); Interesting how these two covers feature Charlie Schulz/Brown trying to capture the image of Snoopy.