pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/valleywag/2008/11/yum_01.jpg" width="252" height="96"For decades, mankind's brightest minds have struggled to crate the ultimate convergence device, a machine so powerful that it could play Simpsons cartoons and order an extra-cheese combo emat the same time/em. Today, November 17, 2008, that convergence has arrived. First Obama/Biden, now Tivo/Domino's. It's a great time to be alive./p blockquotep11/16/2008/p pTIVO ADDS DOMINO’S PIZZA TO ITS MENU/p pDomino’s is Pioneering a Whole New Way of Ordering…Via TV/p pALVISO, CA amp; ANN ARBOR, MI — November 17, 2008 — TV has never tasted this good. That’s because TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), and Domino#39;s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE: DPZ), the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, have teamed up to give broadband connected TiVo subscribers the ability to order pizza for delivery or pick-up, and track delivery timing, right from their TV sets using the TiVo® service. It’s a service that cooks up the perfect pizza purchasing recipe. /p p“Our commitment to customer satisfaction is what has helped us become the leader in the global pizza delivery market,” said Rob Weisberg, vice president of precision and print marketing at Domino’s Pizza, Inc. “We are confident that teaming with TiVo on this novel, easy, and convenient way to order pizza right from the TV will be very well received by our customers. This is the first step in the future of customer interactions with the brands they seek to engage with and buy from. This is the first time in history that the ‘on-demand’ generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set. You’ll see a television ad for Domino’s and you’ll click ‘I want it’ through your remote. In about 30 minutes, your pizza will show up at your door.”/p pKaren Bressner, Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales, TiVo Inc said, “Joining forces with Domino’s Pizza creates an effective marketing and commerce tool for Domino’s while enhancing and further distinguishing TiVo as the ultimate way to watch TV with a closed-loop advertising experience. This exciting new partnership offers yet another advertising solution as commercial avoidance continues to increase. With just a few clicks of the remote, TiVo users can pause their program, order a pizza, and then sit back, relax, and return to their favorite show without missing a single second. Now, TiVo delivers the absolute best television viewing experience…and a pizza.”/p pTiVo subscribers can seamlessly access their Domino#39;s Pizza order from various advertising entry points on the TiVo user interface including Gold Star Sponsorship, Program Placement, Interactive Tags in live TV spots, and through Music, Photos, Products, amp; More by clicking on “Order Your Dominos Pizza Now.” TiVo is serving up a piping hot new service that’s truly made to order and gives a whole new meaning to the term “TV dinner.”/p pTiVo subscribers can set-up a user name and password on Dominos.com so that each time they use their TiVo remote to place an order, they can log-in with a simple account number. Alternatively, TiVo subscribers can enter their delivery address, build their pizza order right from the television set by selecting type of crust, toppings, and sauces, and get the pizza delivered by their local Domino’s Pizza./p pBressner added: “Our commitment to revolutionizing interactive advertising and commerce on the television is a direct result of the innovative solutions and features we provide. TiVo’s growing list of interactive features also includes the ability to find and purchase products on Amazon.com related to a customer’s favorite TV show or the convenience of being able to search for a movie that’s playing nearby and purchase tickets through Fandango – all by using the TiVo remote.”/p pStarting today, this new service is free of charge to all broadband connected TiVo subscribers and supports both delivery and pick-up orders. Viewers pay in cash when the pizza is delivered. /p/blockquote br style="clear:both" img alt="" style="border:0;height:1px;width:1px" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=2b12cd391689ce68ea6333a7131fa7d3" height="1" width="1" img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=2b12cd391689ce68ea6333a7131fa7d3" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""div a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/valleywag/full?a=XP8HQnY1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/valleywag/full?d=120" border="0"/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/valleywag/full?a=u0yjlytg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/valleywag/full?d=41" border="0"/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/valleywag/full?a=nMWgBR1o"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/valleywag/full?i=nMWgBR1o" border="0"/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/valleywag/full?a=X0351sir"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/valleywag/full?i=X0351sir" border="0"/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/valleywag/full/~4/jkAYla7TsX8" height="1" width="1"Paul Boutin

pembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y7lJpFwAcCsamp;hl=enamp;fs=1" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="true" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/embed/p pThis is something that happened spontaneously during the Phillies World Series parade celebration and is not an orchestrated prank, but if it was, it would be awesome. (Though it’s pretty damn cool as it is.)/p pFrom the YouTube description:/p blockquotepWe snuck out into the middle of Broad Street to snap a pic in front of City Hall and all the crowds. When Will raised his hands for the picture, cheers erupted. So he continued to repeat the gesture, getting wild response from the crowd on both sides of the street up and down the street as far as we could see. We couldn’t have planned this if we practiced and practiced. I wish the video was longer. /p/blockquote pvia a href="http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/11/11"Today’s Big Thing/a./p

divpOne of the strangest comments I repeatedly see is: ‘they don’t use their cameras in the real world,’ stated, as all things must be on the forums, as absolute fact. As if the sample galleries that accompany every review somehow generate themselves./p pAs my friends (who can no longer meet up with me without having a camera pointed at them or being asked to stand around as I kneel, climb or wait to ‘get the shot right’) will testify, we all-but sleep with the camera we’re reviewing (and I can’t guarantee some of us wouldn’t do that, if we it weren’t for the fact that the results would be unpublishable). And part of the opinion we build up about a camera is based on that real-world experience, rather than simply shooting test charts all day – though it’s possible to anticipate a lot of the real-world image performance from learning to interpret the different tests./p pWe try to make sure that our shooting experiences are a little bit varied – or, at least, that’s the justification I used to convince Phil to let me attend the first round of the Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester, recently. I’d originally been hoping to take the EOS 50D and a nice, fast telephoto lens; perhaps with an external flashgun of some description. Unfortunately, my all-too-efficient colleague Lars finished and published the review before the day came./ppSo instead I found myself trackside, watching some of the world’s best cyclists - including many of Great Britain’s Olympic heroes - clutching the Panasonic LX3, Canon G10 and Panasonic G1, none of which looks likely to make much of an impression in the professional sports-photography market. Indeed, the packs of D3 and 1DIII-toting pros around me made me feel distinctly out-gunned, if not downright inadequate. And it wasn’t just a case of theirs being seen to be so much larger than mine, so publicly. It was the fact that the G10 and G1 (I was only trying to get a sample video for the LX3), are simply not designed for taking photographs of fast-moving subjects in low light./p p align="center"a href="http://blog.dpreview.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/11/10/p1020155_2.jpg"img height="266" border="0" width="400" alt="You didn#39;t think I#39;d post the medal-winning rear, did you?" title="The Madison" src="http://blog.dpreview.com/editorial/images/2008/11/10/p1020155_2.jpg" style="margin:5px"/a /p pThere is a world of difference between a roughly 300mm equivalent F2.8 lens on a pro-level DSLR and the G10’s 140mm equiv. F4.5 fully extended zoom (or the G1’s 400mm equivalent F5.6 for that matter), before you even start thinking about the speed and accuracy of autofocus. All those unspoken caveats that come with generalisations such as: ‘it doesn’t matter what camera you’ve got,’ felt much harder to brush-over, all of a sudden./p pOur galleries aren#39;t meant to represent the absolute pinnacle of what could be achieved if the camera were to be placed in the hands of the greatest living photographer. They are meant to give an impression of the results that most users can expect to get in a variety of situations, with a bit of patience. It#39;s not at all unusual to clock-up 1500 photos on a DSLR review and 500+ for a compact. And that doesn#39;t include the many shaken and  out-of-focus images I got in Manchester with single wheels arriving in, or leaving, the shot. Or the medal-winning rear I inadvertently filled the frame with./p pIn the end I got a couple of gallery-worthy shots out of it along with a salutary lesson about the value of high ISOs and awful lot of panning practice. What I also got was the chance to observe and chat to other photographers, both amateur and professional, about the kit the use and the way they shoot. Because understanding our audience, as well as getting out and taking photos (and, of course, the charts and testing), is an important part of what we do./p/div

divAs the world watched an historic election unfold, a different scenario played itself out in the alternate reality that is this blog:brbr/diva href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrfmG4G_I/AAAAAAAADlY/BjbJP9c3qxg/s1600-h/poll.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:230px;height:245px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrfmG4G_I/AAAAAAAADlY/BjbJP9c3qxg/s400/poll.jpg" border="0"/abrYes, as of this morning, with 90% of precincts reporting it looks like Ralph Nader and his running-mate, the Swiffer® WetJet® All-In-One Power Mop, have taken a narrow victory:brbrbra href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHBANJLoCI/AAAAAAAADlo/t01Ta0VZfZ8/s1600-h/nader+swiffer.JPG"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:194px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHBANJLoCI/AAAAAAAADlo/t01Ta0VZfZ8/s400/nader+swiffer.JPG" border="0"/abrUnfortunately, Nader could not deliver a victory speech, as he was on the set of a new buddy comedy called "Click It or Ticket" in which he co-stars with Martin Lawrence. (And I'm not going to spoil it by telling you which one will be wearing the fat suit.) But if you saw the speech I'm sure you'll agree the Swiffer was eloquent enough for the both of them:brbrpa href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHAD4vL8UI/AAAAAAAADlg/KZ3GrjpXOPQ/s1600-h/swiffer+speech.JPG"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:369px;height:261px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHAD4vL8UI/AAAAAAAADlg/KZ3GrjpXOPQ/s400/swiffer+speech.JPG" border="0"/aIt's truly inspiring when you consider that we are one botched stunt away (Nader always performs his own stunts) from being governed by a household appliance.brbrMoving on, I recently received an email from a real live publicist, who informed me that the New York City PBS affiliate WNET would be showing back-to-back episodes of the series "a href="http://www.e2-series.com/"e2/a" on November 6th. One of these episodes, "Paris: Vélo Liberté," is narrated by Brad Pitt and is about the Vélib bike-sharing program, and apparently screener copies were available on request./ppNow I don't know about you, but when I hear the words "Brad Pitt" and "PBS" used together, I pay attention. And when I also hear "bikes" and "free DVD" I know I've just stumbled onto something big. Not only that, but I'm very interested in bike-sharing, since I am the inventor of the "a href="http://kwallblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/take-pista-leave-pista.html"Take a Pista, Leave a Pista/a" program. So naturally I requested the DVD, which I watched with interest./ppOf course, I have two requirements when watching anything that has to do with France. Firstly, I need to see the Eiffel Tower immediately. Secondly, there had better be baguettes. So I'm pleased to report that not only did the episode open with this tantalizing "up the skirt" shot of everybody's favorite antenna:/ppbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrTf6UtcI/AAAAAAAADlI/cbakdYgAqUQ/s1600-h/e2+title.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:226px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrTf6UtcI/AAAAAAAADlI/cbakdYgAqUQ/s400/e2+title.jpg" border="0"/abrBut there was also a baguette in a bicycle basket:brbrbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrND0hSiI/AAAAAAAADlA/UztS5Ga5fpI/s1600-h/avec+baguette+a.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:222px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGrND0hSiI/AAAAAAAADlA/UztS5Ga5fpI/s400/avec+baguette+a.jpg" border="0"/a As well as emsur la table/em in a spartan kitchen and accompanied by olive oil and wine:brbrbra href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGq9W1SelI/AAAAAAAADk4/mQnyETLMN3s/s1600-h/baguette.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:222px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGq9W1SelI/AAAAAAAADk4/mQnyETLMN3s/s400/baguette.jpg" border="0"/abrSufficiently convinced that I was watching something authentic and authoritative, I allowed myself to pay more attention. With the help of city officials and people involved in the Vélib program, Brad Pitt explained that Paris has recently begun taking away space from cars and giving it to other forms of transit, and that the plan is to cut traffic 40% by 2020. Obviously, Vélib is a part of this, and it's become the largest and most successful bike-sharing program in the world.brbrbra href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGq4Fz4X2I/AAAAAAAADkw/tfeSRSstwr8/s1600-h/velib+station.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:226px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGq4Fz4X2I/AAAAAAAADkw/tfeSRSstwr8/s400/velib+station.jpg" border="0"/abrBasically, the way it works is that you pay a modest subscription fee, and you can then use the bikes free for the first half-hour. This is to encourage the kinds of short trips Parisians tend to make, such as going to the market to purchase baguettes and cigarettes, picking up their corduroy sports jackets from the dry cleaners, and cheating on their spouses or life partners. Once you go past a half hour, you're charged, and the charge increases exponentially. While this is a good thing in that it keeps Vélib turnover high, I would imagine it has also taken a bit of the passion out of aldulterous liaisons since visiting lovers are no doubt reluctant to go past the half-hour mark. Here we see what very well could be a frugal sex partner rushing to the nearest Vélib station after a truncated rendez-vous:brbrbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqyigbVqI/AAAAAAAADko/4J4S1RnAR0c/s1600-h/velib+rider.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:222px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqyigbVqI/AAAAAAAADko/4J4S1RnAR0c/s400/velib+rider.jpg" border="0"/abrAnd efficient copulating followed by quick riding isn't always enough to save you money. Apparently the fine for running a light in Paris is €90 (which even at the falling exchange rate is still almost $4,000):brbrbra href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqs9fk2JI/AAAAAAAADkg/ssYyTLFNTl8/s1600-h/ticket.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:225px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqs9fk2JI/AAAAAAAADkg/ssYyTLFNTl8/s400/ticket.jpg" border="0"/abrAs for the bikes themselves, it seems the program's architects faced a significant challenge in convincing people that riding a bicycle is not a symbol of lowered social status, and that the Vélib is not their "grandpa's bicycle." At the same time, they also had to design something durable that could be ridden by a variety of people day after day. Unfortunately, a href="http://gizmodo.com/366337/ride-the-bitchcruiser-bike-but-wear-protection-nsfw"their original design/a was already taken, hence the appearance of the Vélib as it is now. Of course, it may seem ironic that the host country of the world's most famous bicycle race has to persuade its citizens that they won't look foolish on a bicycle. Then again, when it comes to the Tour the French have mostly been pack fodder since like 1985.  Also, road cycling isn't always pretty--even in Paris:brbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqnaUooAI/AAAAAAAADkY/yJaXfIv3OJo/s1600-h/roadie.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:225px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqnaUooAI/AAAAAAAADkY/yJaXfIv3OJo/s400/roadie.jpg" border="0"/abrHence, the Vélib bike:brbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqhnIjNvI/AAAAAAAADkQ/aVtsWFXn0u8/s1600-h/bikes.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:224px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqhnIjNvI/AAAAAAAADkQ/aVtsWFXn0u8/s400/bikes.jpg" border="0"/abrI should point out that the subtitle above refers to the bicycle, and not the rider.  brbrI should also point out that one of the few problems with the Vélib program is that people generally don't return bicycles to stations that are situated on hills, since Parisians only want to ride down hills and not up them:brbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqbjDXowI/AAAAAAAADkI/V0F8NT3GL8Y/s1600-h/hills.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:221px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqbjDXowI/AAAAAAAADkI/V0F8NT3GL8Y/s400/hills.jpg" border="0"/abrThis means that the hilltop stations need to be replenished via truck.  I found this interesting in that this innate aversion to climbing might very well explain why the French perform so poorly at the Tour.  To address this problem, Vélib planners will soon start giving riders who return their bikes to hill stations 15 free minutes.  Not only will this serve as an incentive to climb, but over time it will probably also restore the French to Tour greatness thanks to these frugality-inspired hill repeats.  Beyond that, the better climbers will almost certainly use their 15 free minutes for their sexual liaisons, which means that these liaisons will be more likely to result in pregnancy, which in turn means that the next generation of French people will probably be great climbers.  So I would expect a long streak of French Tour wins starting in around 2030.brbrBy the way, if you're wondering how these bikes are maintained, at least some of them are serviced on a bike shop barge that travels up and down the Seine:brbrbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqWuQ_ShI/AAAAAAAADkA/gUF08yCOF1M/s1600-h/floating+bike+shop.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:223px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqWuQ_ShI/AAAAAAAADkA/gUF08yCOF1M/s400/floating+bike+shop.jpg" border="0"/abrI agree that a floating bike shop is a "brilliant idea not to be missed," and it's also a great argument for having a full-blown bike-sharing program here in New York City.  After all, we New Yorkers are an island people (mostly) and there's water everywhere.  I often fantasize about being a seafaring bike shop proprietor, complete with a tri-corner hat, eye patch, and a parrot who repeats my span style="font-style:italic"bon mots/span.   In fact, most of the a href="http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-getting-around-it-cycling-and.html"Great Hipster Silk Route/a travels along the East River.  I smell something, and that smell is opportunity (with a hint of low tide).brbrIndeed, it would appear that Parisians are making great strides in reclaiming their streets from excessive motor vehicle traffic.  Unfortunately, one of those strides apparently includes something called "Friday Night Fever," which is kind of like Critical Mass on rollerblades:brbrbra href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqPg9u6wI/AAAAAAAADj4/GYmORFI7wPA/s1600-h/friday+night+fever.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:189px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqPg9u6wI/AAAAAAAADj4/GYmORFI7wPA/s400/friday+night+fever.jpg" border="0"/abrAnd perhaps best (or worst) of all, Vélib stations are becoming big pick-up spots:brbrbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqHkXHWuI/AAAAAAAADjw/w3vtqKnz2JI/s1600-h/pickup+scene-1.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:223px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRGqHkXHWuI/AAAAAAAADjw/w3vtqKnz2JI/s400/pickup+scene-1.jpg" border="0"/abrI was disinclined to believe this, since it was Brad Pitt who was making this claim, and while a woman at a Vélib station might enjoy being hit on by a movie star she'd probably just hit a regular person with her baguette.  But then they interviewed some goofy French comedian who corroborated Pitt's claim, so there you go.  Just remember, though, that while the first half-hour is free some of those STDs can last forever./ppIn any case, it was pretty interesting and since PBS is free you might as well check it out tomorrow night.  (It's on at 9:30PM, at least here in New York.)  And while we don't have a full-blown bike-sharing program here in New York we are getting more protected bike lanes:/ppbra href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHBw_sKYeI/AAAAAAAADlw/4r2nx1QGE4s/s1600-h/protected+bike+lane+001.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;width:400px;height:300px;text-align:center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wb8bAl1P-N0/SRHBw_sKYeI/AAAAAAAADlw/4r2nx1QGE4s/s400/protected+bike+lane+001.jpg" border="0"/abrAnd where there's construction, there are unattended power tools.  That means you can easily grab one and use it to cut through a few Kryptonite locks.  And span style="font-style:italic"that's/span bike sharing New York City style.brbr/p

p align="center"img width="343" height="345" src="http://cuteotters.com/uploads/OtterVote.jpg" style="border:0px none;padding-left:5px;padding-right:5px"/ppDid all of you vote today?  This little otter did his civic duty!  Thanks to Evan for sending in this cute voting otter./pbr pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/CuteOtters?a=TzJd3N"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/CuteOtters?i=TzJd3N" border="0"/a/p

This week, our Trondheim-based a href="http://www.google.com/alerts"Google Alerts/a team launched support for feeds, a highly requested feature you can use to receive alerts via the feed reader of your choice. (Of course, span style="font-style:italic"we/span think the best places to view your updates are a href="http://www.google.com/ig"iGoogle/a and a href="http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page"Google Reader/a.) Until now, alerts have been delivered via email only, but those days are over. Now your News, Web, Blog, Video, and Groups alerts are more easily accessible than ever.brbrOnce you sign in to Google Alerts and create an alert, you can opt for feed delivery by clicking 'Edit' next to your alert on the a href="http://www.google.com/alerts/manage"'Manage Your Alerts' page/a and changing your 'Deliver to' selection from 'Email' to 'Feed' (click on the image to see larger).brbra href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SQtUakWAmTI/AAAAAAAACDM/jj3HyNDs70E/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"img style="margin:0px auto 10px;display:block;text-align:center;width:400px;height:166px" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SQtUakWAmTI/AAAAAAAACDM/jj3HyNDs70E/s400/Picture+1.png" alt="" border="0"/abrbrTwo other notable improvements to Google Alerts are that we've made them faster (especially News alerts) and are now including — where possible — images in News alerts. It's a busy time in Trondheim these days, so stay tuned for more changes to Google Alerts in the coming months.brbrHave feedback or a feature request? a href="http://www.google.com/support/alerts/bin/request.py"Send your thoughts our way/a.brbrspanPosted by Jaime Forman-Lau, Online Operations/spandiv a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?a=xuWnM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?i=xuWnM" border="0"/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?a=aG0Km"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?i=aG0Km" border="0"/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~4/438410669" height="1" width="1"

The current rise and fall of the Global Economy is enough to make you reach for some a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimenhydrinate"Dramamine/a. With all the volatility surrounding pricing/ costs and ever-increasing leadtimes, it is enough to make many in the cycling industry wonder about their profession. But even though nearly all indicators look really bad, things might actually prove to be better than a href="http://bicyclemarketingwatch.blogspot.com/2008/03/bad-news-brewing-for-bike-industry.html"many of us have feared/a.brbrIn a slumping world economy, it is certainly very easy to fear for the worst. After all, our potential consumers have less and less money to spend- if any at all. So why should we remain optimistic for even a second? Well, the economic squeeze has begun to cause a shift in the way people think of bicycles. a href="http://bicyclemarketingwatch.blogspot.com/2008/04/feeling-gassy.html"I thought for sure that gas prices would have to climb much higher/a before people began to drive less and ride bikes more, but I am pleasantly being proven wrong there. I continue to hear from retailers and read about how repair business is increasing for many shops because people are pulling old bikes down from the rafters and out of tool sheds so they can drive less. Many retailers are even having a hard time finding replacement parts for older bikes because the demand has gotten so high for them, due to repairs. Those same retailers are also reporting that some of those consumers are coming back after a short while to upgrade the old clunker for something newer, lighter, better designed for their commuting needs. This is something that I personally did not expect to happen this soon. We still don't possess the proper infrastructure to support proper commuting, but people are braving the rough streets to save a little money, improve their health or help the environment.brbrConsumers, who many of us feared would no longer buy bikes when the pricing increases went into effect, do not seem to be as sticker shocked as expected. Let's face it, they are seeing prices go up on all of the things they buy and they have seen the dollar drop value against nearly every other currency, so they have come to expect the prices for everything to go up. It doesn't mean they are happily accepting it, nor does it mean they are making the same planned purchases... but they aren't all storming out the door without making a purchase. On top of it, many new consumers are walking in for the first time. Commuters and city cyclists are sprouting up all over the place. I've heard from retailers who have seen this shift taking place in their shops, seeing many new faces for the first time. Sure, some of these new or returning cyclists need a little more educating but they are walking in on their own and without us (the industry) having to drag them in kicking and screaming.brbrCycling has also become much more fashionable, with plenty of a href="http://justjared.buzznet.com/2007/12/21/brad-pitt-bicycle-built-for-four/"celebrity bicycle sightings/a and an ever-growing a href="http://rememberdelawareblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/urban-hipster-culture-fixies.html"urban hipster bike culture/a, it is becoming "cool" to ride a bike for the first time in decades in the US. I'm not trying to pass judgment on whether any segment or niche in the market is some sort of passing fancy or not, people riding bikes for any reason at all is a good thing in my mind (and in the minds of many of us in the industry). I mean, when you have a href="http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=/photos/2008/tech/news/10-06/gallery-10-06"bikes like this one/a showing up in the world- you know you've reached a certain tipping point. Many of these consumers will come in and spend a lot of money to look cool and then vanish from the market when they hop on the "next thing", but there will be at least a small amount of retention of these new cyclists- especially if we embrace them and share our love of cycling with them and let them develop their own... even if we don't "get it".brbrAs many of us have been screaming for years, cycling is also fun and enjoyable. Remember, in a bad economy, folks still need to have fun and others want/ need to escape their fears and worries. Riding a bike is incredibly good for that. Some of those new consumers might have been planning to buy a bigger car this year and might opt to save some money and buy a bike instead. Or, maybe, they want to escape the worry of their stock portfolio suddenly being worth less than a politician's promises and riding a bike has popped into their heads. It has been seen in the gym/ health club world in the past; when things get tense, people want to work off their frustrations or fears by trying to get into better physical condition. For millennia, humankind has worked out frustrations, fears and anxieties by working up a sweat or taking the time to enjoy the outside world in some fashion. Cycling is an excellent vehicle for that.brbrWhen you take all the above into account and then toss in a growing global consciousness, things don't look quite so bleak. Many people are thinking very much about the environment and fears of global warming, as well as the impacts of oil demand on sociopolitical issues across the globe. Cycling provides an excellent way to combat these concerns as well as local concerns about traffic congestion, etc. It's an altruism, certainly, that many people say they believe in and don't really- but altruism has also become fashionable... as it has been for countless decades.brbrSo what does it all mean? Well, on the very surface it all means that things aren't necessarily as bad as feared. More significantly though, I'm trying to point out that the bike industry sits poised to see growth that is actually sustainable and maintainable. I can not tell you how many conversations I had during a href="http://www.interbike.com/ib/index.jsp"Interbike/a this year about the hope many retailers felt about the future. Sure, there were many concerns about the economy, but overall the atmosphere was full of hope- much more so than recent years, by a huge amount. The cycling industry is paying better attention to the birth and growth of niche markets as well as the development of the commuting market. Nearly every bike manufacturer had a fixed gear bike and/ or a commuter bike in their line. And almost all of the clothing and accessory manufacturers had gear aimed at urban cyclists and commuters. I've never personally seen so much energy aimed at these segments of the market and the consumers who use the products. Hell, Interbike even put on the a href="http://demalagatio.blip.tv/#1343743"Urban Legend Fashion Show/a with the help of my friends in Canada at a href="http://www.momentumplanet.com/"Momentum Magazine/a. When was the last time you saw or felt so much energy in this segment of the industry? I never have and I've been in the industry in one way or another for 26 years now.brbrIt might not look or feel like it, as you watch the news and listen to the politicians painting a picture of doom and gloom, but the cycling industry stands on the precipice of fantastic potential if we just listen to our customers and friends. As long as we are aware of what is happening and what they are asking for- even if they don't yet know what it is- we can bring them into our club and they will hopefully bring their friends along for the ride as well. I'm not advocating false hope or idiotic optimism beyond reality, but I do see great potential for cycling in general. The race scene will have its usual ebb and flow and I'll be right there watching it, but the other categories of the cycling market and cycling culture are looking really primed for growth and expansion... and span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic"fun/span.brbrLet's not lose hope too soon, even as worldwide money markets look very frightening. Things look better than expected. Even pricing concerns seem to be diminishing slightly as oil prices come down to match dropping demand and shrinking economies. Strap on your helmets; it's an open road ahead.brbrTim JacksonbrChief Kool-Aid Dispenser

divbrpbr img title="funny-pictures-your-cat-warns-you-about-lolpox" src="http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/funny-pictures-your-cat-warns-you-about-lolpox.jpg" alt="cat"/p pCDC cat warns about lolpox/p ppicture: dunno source, via our a href="http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com"lolcat builder/a. lol caption: Delfosse/p pa href="http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/default.aspx?tiid=332287amp;recap=1#step2" » Recaption This/a/p       a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/91857/"/a img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=icanhascheezburger.comamp;blog=994826amp;post=91857amp;subd=icanhascheezburgeramp;ref=amp;feed=1"/div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/q8CwLPOUi272Pia-WxaN93mj0TU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/q8CwLPOUi272Pia-WxaN93mj0TU/i" border="0" ismap/a/pdiv a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=eeNZoxc4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=41" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=gdkZpp0O"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=131" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=jZzW551M"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=52" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=YUeGJqXW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?i=YUeGJqXW" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=9EtaeniM"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=133" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=y1gkKbLn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?i=y1gkKbLn" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=nJOGbblt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=134" border="0"/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~4/6SK8tMjVhB4" height="1" width="1"

Anti-Globalism writes with an excerpt from a story at Ars Technica, according to which "a preliminary study from a group of researchers in Quebec suggest that working on a computer may have an additional impact on our waistlines: taxing mental effort appears to cause people to eat significantly more food, even though it doesn't burn many more calories than sitting around and relaxing. The publication, published in a journal called Psychosomatic Medicine, arose from a pilot study that the researchers were performing in order to determine whether a potential connection between mental effort and eating was worth following up on."pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/0334251amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/09/07/0334251"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/0334251amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/8USkt19Jun5GW2rTVqFwfzfo0io/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/8USkt19Jun5GW2rTVqFwfzfo0io/i" border="0" ismap/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/pLeJ4Vk-ksY" height="1" width="1"timothy

pIt's a particularly busy week for me: on top of a few looming deadlines, I'll be at Business of Software 2008 in Boston. So, I figured it'd be the perfect opportunity to revisit some classics./p pemJob Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!/em was originally published on May 15th, 2007, and is one of my personal favorites./p hr pimg style="float:right;margin:5px" alt="" src="http://img.worsethanfailure.com/Images/200705/question.jpg"Some years ago, someone at Microsoft noticed that they were having a bit of a Resources problem. A emHuman/em Resources problem to be specific. There were a whole lot of job openings (thousands, in fact) and a whole lot of applications (hundreds of thousands, in fact), and no easy way to match the right applicants with the right jobs. So they decided to reinvent the Job Interview./p pTraditionally, job interviews are used to ascertain two things: how competent the candidate is and how well his personality (or lack thereof) will fit in with the organization. With their introduction of Job Interview 2.0, Microsoft included both of those features and added one additional: how the candidate responds when presented with asinine, utterly pointless, and completely ridiculous brainteaser questions./p pOf course, common sense tells us that a candidate who enjoys solving silly riddles would most likely enjoy solving a silly riddle at a job interview. The same can be said about pepperoni pizza: chances are, if a candidate enjoys eating pepperoni pizza, he will also enjoy eating pepperoni pizza at a job interview. Both are facts which, while completely enthralling (emno way, you like pepperoni pizza, too?!/em), are equally as irrelevant when determining whether someone would make a good programmer./p pIf you haven’t seen any of the Job Interview 2.0 questions offered by Microsoft, here are a few:/p ul liHow would you determine the weight of a Boeing 747?/li liGiven an opaque box with three light bulbs inside and three switches outside, how would you determine which switch corresponded to which bulb if the box could be opened only once and only after all the switches were permanently set?/li liYou are at a ravine with three others and need to cross a rickety bridge. You can cross it in one minute, the three others can cross it in two, five, and ten, respectively. A flashlight (your group has only one) is always required to cross, and only two people can cross at a time. How do cross as quickly as possible?/li /ul pNaturally, being that they’re brainteasers, no common sense or practicality is allowed. And this is precisely why I would fail miserably at this part of Job Interview 2.0:/p ul liI’d ask Boeing… I can’t ask Boeing?! Uhh, I’d ask a librarian… Of course a librarian would know, they look stuff up, that’s their job!/li liWho would build such a stupid, broken box? I’d fix it of course… I haven’t even seen the stupid box! How do you know I can’t fix it?/li liObviously, we’d leave the slow guy behind. We’re clearly in a bad place, in a bad situation, and we don’t have any time for the big fat fatty to slow us down. It’s survival!/li /ul pThankfully, Microsoft realized that the type of people who enjoy these riddles aren’t always good programmers, and good programmers aren’t always the type who enjoy these riddles. In fact, some of the folks who emcan/em solve these riddles are precisely the type of people you don’t want as programmers. Would emyou/em want to work with the guy who builds a water-displacement scale/barge, taxis a 747 to the docks, and then weights the jumbo jet using that, instead of simply calling Boeing in the first place?/p pUnfortunately, Microsoft’s realization came too late: a whole mini-industry has spawned around the concept of Job Interview 2.0. If Microsoft did it, it must work, right? There are books written on brainteasers in the interview, consultants who will help your company annoy the hell out candidates with your very own custom brainteasers, and now, everyone from small software firms to big ole’ banks are asking stupid riddle questions./p pThey will eventually realize how useless of a practice this is. They will eventually give it up. In the meantime, however, you – the job seeker – will have to put up with it./p pOr not. One reader shared with me the story of his brainteaser interview./p blockquote pDuring a screening interview, I was asked how I would design a bike fit for someone visually impaired. I responded something to the effect of, quot;What, like, for blind people?quot;, and she answered yes./p pI thought for a moment and then I responded, quot;Well.. a blind person riding a bike doesn#39;t sound like a very safe idea, so I would make the bike stationary, maybe with a fan blowing in the person#39;s face. He probably wouldn#39;t even know the difference.quot;/p pShe was speechless./p /blockquote pNow, granted, he will not get the job. Despite the complete absurdity of the design request, and the complete practicality of his answer, the job will go to a candidate who manages to answer the question by designing an extremely overcomplicated solution for a completely non-existent problem. And that candidate will be the same person who designs their software./pbrhrbrBrought to you by the a href="http://jobs.thedailywtf.com/1001/browse.aspx"Non-WTF Job Board/a:bra href="http://jobs.thedailywtf.com/1001/rsslink.ashx?PubPostId=6184"img border="0" src="http://jobs.thedailywtf.com/1001/img.ashx?PubPostId=6184amp;Record=False"/abrhrbr pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tUDgh6K4fwv9DIwPjSNjU4jaH4g/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tUDgh6K4fwv9DIwPjSNjU4jaH4g/i" border="0" ismap/a/pdiv a href="http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/~f/TheDailyWtf?a=vnNlZ1dY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TheDailyWtf?i=vnNlZ1dY" border="0"/a a href="http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/~f/TheDailyWtf?a=CU9ARqg6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TheDailyWtf?d=41" border="0"/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyWtf/~4/ce9_k3fkQ3w" height="1" width="1"Alex Papadimoulis

divpa href="http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.6.html"What’s New in Python 2.6/a. The new multiprocessing package looks pretty useful, especially as it provides a way to work around Python’s GIL./p /div(author unknown)

a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jdgaGaDfeqE/SK2PdqrO7qI/AAAAAAAAA4w/eB9teTJPuaY/s1600-h/cityhallprotest.jpg"img style="display:block;margin:0px auto 10px;text-align:center" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jdgaGaDfeqE/SK2PdqrO7qI/AAAAAAAAA4w/eB9teTJPuaY/s400/cityhallprotest.jpg" border="0" alt="Image of San Francisco Bicycle Coalition protest at City Hall"/abrFrom the a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121919354756955249.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"Wall Street Journal, 08.20.08/a:blockquotespan style="font-weight:bold"San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?brCity Backpedals on a Cycling Plan After Mr. Anderson Goes to Court/spanbrNew York is wooing cyclists with a href="http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/05/15/eyes-on-the-street-fresh-paint-on-prince/"chartreuse bike lanes/a. Chicago is spending nearly $1 million for a href="http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalContentItemAction.do?blockName=Chicago+Bike+Program%2fI+Want+Toamp;deptMainCategoryOID=amp;channelId=0amp;programId=0amp;entityName=Chicago+Bike+Programamp;topChannelName=SubAgencyamp;contentOID=536999377amp;Failed_Reason=Invalid+timestamp,+engine+has+been+restartedamp;contenTypeName=COC_EDITORIALamp;com.broadvision.session.new=Yesamp;Failed_Page=%2fwebportal%2fportalContentItemAction.doamp;context=dept"double-decker bicycle parking/a.brbrSan Francisco can't even install new bike racks.brbrBlame a href="http://district5diary.blogspot.com/"Rob Anderson/a. At a time when most other cities are encouraging biking as green transport, the 65-year-old local gadfly has stymied cycling-support efforts here by arguing that urban bicycle boosting could actually be bad for the environment. That's put the brakes on everything from new bike lanes to bike racks while the city works on an environmental-impact report.brbrCyclists say the irony is killing them--literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006, when Mr. Anderson helped convince a judge to halt implementation of a massive pro-bike plan.(It's unclear whether the plan's execution could have prevented the accidents.) In the past year, bike advocates have demonstrated outside City Hall, pushed the city to challenge the plan's freeze in court and proposed putting the whole mess to local voters. Nothing worked.brbr"We're the ones keeping emissions from the air!" shouted Leah Shahum, executive director of the 10,000-strong a href="http://www.sfbike.org"San Francisco Bicycle Coalition/a, at a July 21 protest.brbrMr. Anderson disagrees. Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It's an "attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy," he wrote in his blog this month.brbrMr. Anderson's fight underscores the tensions that can circulate as urban cycling, bolstered by environmental awareness and high gasoline prices, takes off across the U.S. New York City, where the number of commuter cyclists is estimated a href="http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/2008/05/washington-post-on-nyc-cycling.html"to have jumped 77% between 2000 and 2007/a, is adding new bike lanes despite some motorist backlash. a href="http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/2008/06/chicago-more-commuters-choose-to-pedal.html"Chicago/a recently elected to kick cars off stretches of big roads on two Sundays this year.(a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121919354756955249.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"Read more/a.)/blockquoteInteresting article in an important national media outlet. As we marketing professionals say, any coverage is good coverage, even if it's not entirely favorable. It's always better to be noticed than ignored.brbrI might have preferred to see more from Leah Shahum--who is intelligent, responsible, and leads a href="http://www.sfbike.org"a 10,000-member organization/a--rather than Rob Anderson, who is, as described in the article, a wingnut. But the writer did a good job portraying him as a lonely eccentric, and the article illustrates a real problem of our polity when such iconoclasts can derail sensible public policies.brbrThe article and associated video also spends too much time with a href="http://www.runmuki.com/paul/writing/urban.html"Critical Mass/a, which really has little relation with Anderson's lawsuit. An undeniably high-visibility event, Critical Mass as a once-monthly protest/celebration is far less significant in San Francisco politics than the everyday advocacy of the a href="http://www.sfbike.org"San Francisco Bicycle Coalition/a, which has been truly effective at gaining significant bicycling enhancements. However, Critical Mass is an attractive subject for biased reporters seeking to malign bicyclists. The traffic impact of Critical Mass is minimal--generally causing only a few minutes delay to any individual motorist--compared to the delays routinely caused by the automotive "Critical Mass" each and span style="font-style:italic"every/span day.brbrAnderson's argument is, of course, ridiculous. Essentially, he's saying that narrow streets cause air pollution from vehicles stuck in traffic idling. Sooo, we should bulldoze some buildings and widen streets, Mr. Anderson? Sorry, a href="http://www.runmuki.com/paul/writing/classandtraffic.html"been there, done that/a. And all we got was even more vehicle traffic. This case should have been tossed immediately, if not for the city's inept and sloppy defense of the bicycle plan.brbrThe temporary delay has for the moment prevented any on-street improvements in San Francisco. But as Leah Shahum indicated at the a href="http://bikescape.blogspot.com/2008/07/battle-for-san-francisco.html"Car Free Cities Conference/a in Portland, important planning and preparation work for bicycle infrastructure has continued at the city's transportation agency, and many projects will be ready for rapid implementation once the stay is lifted. And the SFBC's cultural efforts have continued: a href="http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/2008/05/bike-to-work-2008-garners-big-press.html"Bike to Work Day/a was a huge success this year, and the coalition's membership continues to surge.brfont size="1" face="Verdana, Arial"brstrongImage:/strong a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhondawinter/2690714287/"Rhonda Winter/San Francisco Bicycle Coalition/a.brstrongVisit:/strong a href="http://www.cyclelicio.us/2008/08/rob-anderson-says-i-ride-because-of.html"Rob Anderson says I ride because of political motivations/a, CycleliciousbrstrongVisit:/strong a href="http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/2008/07/biking-walking-gain-in-san-francisco.html"Biking, walking gain in San Francisco/a, Bike Commute Tips BlogbrstrongVisit:/strong a href="http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/2008/01/warm-planet-bikes-opens-in-sf.html"Warm Planet Bikes opens in S.F./a, Bike Commute Tips BlogbrstrongVisit:/strong a href="http://www.runmuki.com/commute/index.html"Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site/abr/font

divbrp/p pa href="http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/popvssodamap.gif"img src="http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/popvssodamap.gif?w=680amp;h=410" alt="" width="680" height="410"/a/p pWhen on a hot summer’s day you buy a strongcarbonated beverage/strong to quench your thirst, how do you order it? Do you ask for a soda, a pop or something else? That question lay at the basis of an article in the Journal of English Linguistics (emSoda or Pop?/em, #24, 1996) and of a map, showing the regional variation in American English of the names given to that type of drink./p pspan lang="EN-US"The article was written by strongLuanne von Schneidemesser/strong, PhD in German linguistics and philology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English.span  /spanAnd although there might be weightier issues in life (or even in linguistics) than the preferred terminology for a can of soft drink, there’s nothing trivial about this part of the beverage industry. /span/p pspan lang="EN-US"“According to an article last year in the emIsthmus/em/spanspan lang="EN-US", Madison’s weekly newspaper, Americans drink so much of the carbonated beverages sold under such brand names as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew, and 7-Up that consumption averages strong43 gallons per year/strong for every man, woman, and child in the United States,” Von Schneidemesser begins her article. “The emStatistical Abstract of the United States/em/spanspan lang="EN-US" (1994) confirms this: 44.1 gallons per person in 1992, compared to the next most consumed beverages: beer (32.7 gallons), coffee (27.8 gallons), and milk (25.3 gallons).”/span/p pspan lang="EN-US"It must be that ubiquity of soft drinks that has made this pop vs soda map the strongsingle-most submitted map/strong to this blog, sent in by over 100 contributors. The map details the areas where certain usages predominate./span/p ul lispan lang="EN-US"strongcoke/strong: this generic term for soft drinks predominates throughout the South, New Mexico, central Indiana and in a few other single counties in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. /spanspan lang="EN-US"‘Coke’ obviously derives from Coca-Cola, the brand-name of the soft drink originally manufactured in Atlanta (which explains its use as a generic term for all soft drinks in the South)./span/li lispan lang="EN-US"strongpop/strong: dominates the Northwest, Great Plains and Midwest. /spanspan lang="EN-US"The world ‘pop’ was introduced by Robert Southey, the British Poet Laureate (1774-1843), to whom we also owe the word ‘autobiography’, among others. In 1812, he wrote: emA new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn. span style="font-style:normal"Even though it was introduced by a Poet Laureate, the term ‘pop’ is considered unsophisticated by some, because it is onomatopaeic./span/em/span/li lispan lang="EN-US"strongsoda/strong: prevalent in the Northeast, greater Miami, the area in Missouri and Illinois surrounding St Louis and parts of northern California. /spanspan lang="EN-US"‘Soda’ derives from ‘soda-water’ (also called club soda, carbonated or sparkling water or seltzer). It’s produced by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in plain water, a procedure developed by Joseph Priestly in the latter half of the 18spanth/span century. The fizziness of soda-water caused the term ‘soda’ to be associated with later, similarly carbonated soft drinks./span/li lispan lang="EN-US"Other, stronglesser-used terms/strong include ‘dope’ in the Carolinas and ‘tonic’ in and around Boston, both fading in popularity. /spanspan lang="EN-US"Other generic terms for soft drinks outside the US include ‘pop’ (Canada), ‘mineral’ (Ireland), ‘soft drink’ (New Zealand and Australia). The term ‘soft drink’, finally, arose to contrast said beverages with hard (i.e. alcoholic) drinks./span/li /ul pspan lang="EN-US"emThis map was found a href="http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html"here/a at the a href="http://popvssoda.com:2998/"popvssoda website/a, dedicated to gathering info on the usage of pop, soda, coke and other variant terms throughout the US./em/span/p p/p img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/categories/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/" img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/tags/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/" a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/strangemaps.wordpress.com/815/"/a img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.comamp;blog=407396amp;post=815amp;subd=strangemapsamp;ref=amp;feed=1"/div

divbrpbr img src="http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/funny-pictures-bomb-squad-cat-chooses-the-blue-wire.jpg" alt="cat"/p pBomb squad kitteh/p pa href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/07/12/funny-pictures-teh-dog-u-okay/"wuz bom ment 4 da goggie?/a/p ppicture: Jair. lol caption: a href="http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/pictures-by-foxumon/"foxumon/aa/a/p pa href="http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/default.aspx?tiid=474251amp;recap=1#step2" » Recaption This/a/p img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/categories/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/" img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/tags/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/" a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"/a a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/84446/"/a img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=icanhascheezburger.comamp;blog=994826amp;post=84446amp;subd=icanhascheezburgeramp;ref=amp;feed=1"/div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/qo70pf9qdredlgb1rdlg4qld4s/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/qo70pf9qdredlgb1rdlg4qld4s/i" border="0" ismap/a/pdiv a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=gqHtLFN3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=41" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=y7Z1rUXn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=131" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=BshRdMZN"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=52" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=lt3xqIa7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?i=lt3xqIa7" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=NpMh9jfI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=133" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=H5GoKOL2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?i=H5GoKOL2" border="0"/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?a=BiKWjEw4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ICanHasCheezburger?d=134" border="0"/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~4/7yPvgWyjFxU" height="1" width="1"

Commenter Stephen Sclafani figured out that replacing one cookie which YouTube's servers stuff into your browser will get you through to the site's U.S.-blocked beijing2008 channel. I'm watching Argentina vs. Cote D'Ivoire right now. Here are Stephen's instructions, slightly edited (I used to write documentation):

1. Open YouTube.com in your browser.

2. After the site loads, find the option in your browser for editing cookies. Here's the instructions for Firefox 3.0:

• Click the Tools->Options (Windows) or Firefox->Preferences (Mac) menu option
• On the Preferences pane that appears, click the Privacy Tab.
• In the Privacy panel, Click on Show Cookies...
• In the Cookies panel that appears, search for "youtube" in the search box.
• Look for a cookie named "youtube.com GEO"
• Select the GEO cookie and click Remove Cookie

3. In the same browser window that has YouTube loaded, set your own GEO cookie by trying to open this URL in your browser. Be sure to remove any line breaks that might creep in from cutting and pasting.

javascript:alert(document.cookie="GEO=bb84fb3cd7df0311bb5026df4d6b524fcxkAAABLUixubyByZWdpb24sc2VvdWwsLCwsLC0x; path=/;domain=.youtube.com")

You should get a dropdown dialog box that says "The page at http://youtube.com says GEO=bb84fb3cd7df0 ..." This is not an error message, it's a notification that you've set the cookie successfully.

4. You should have a rigged GEO cookie for YouTube now. Try opening youtube.com/beijing2008. If you don't get the splashy red Beijing 2008 page shown above, you may not have set the cookie correctly.

Paul Boutin