• Viral Video and the Rise of YouTube
  (NPR) – estimates about daily uploads in 2006
  (tags: youtube viral videos)

• 10 Worst Foods of 2007
  – in terms of calories, not taste
  (tags: food dieting health)

Jeremy is not the only one working on his Northwestern courses. I am putting the finishing touches on my junior writing seminar syllabus when I glance over at Yahoo! Music and see this (on 80s music random play):

This is generally amusing given the topic of my course (“Adolescents’ Digital Media Uses, Skills and Participation”), but it’s additionally funny since I was just adding an article to the syllabus that appeared in the journal The Information Society.

• Mythbusters: Are Elephants Afraid of Mice?
  (tags: video animals)

• Autocopy
  copy highlighted text to clipboard automatically in Firefox, nice finger-movement saver (thanks to How-to-Geek)
  (tags: firefox extension)
• What song is this?
  (YouTube)
  (tags: video fun music)

• Portraits of purpose
  “Now together for Obama, black alumni in Chicago have leading roles in the life of their city”
  (tags: obama politics chicago people)
• How Do I Get Popular on YouTube Without Talent?
  free ebook
  (tags: video viral howto tips youtube ToRead)
• The Video Blogging Toolbox: 100 Tools, Resources, and Free Software Packages
  (tags: videos edit software)
• 4 Cameras Middling Only in Price
  (NYTimes) – a review of four new SLRs
  (tags: photography reviews comparison camera article)
• How to rename a folder (tag) in Google Reader
  wow, does it really need to be this compilcated?!
  (tags: howto tips googlereader)
• Windows startup screens over time
  (tags: windows video history)

I haven’t posted one of these in a while. (Although this was on my latest links list, I’ll give it a separate entry.) The twist: this one has a worthy cause attached to it.

Free Rice

Test your vocabulary skills and donate rice at the same time.

It’s interesting to note which countries have already fulfilled their pledge in international aid to address world hunger, and which countries haven’t taken any concrete steps. Can you guess?

• Can Atheists Be Parents?
  (Time) – according to the State of NJ: No.
  (tags: religion politics law)
• Learn How to Type Faster With These 8 Sites
  (tags: howto typing tutorial)
• This Into That
  “contemporary fine art furniture from Jim Rosenau’s studio in Berkeley, California”
  (tags: art design furniture books)
• FreeRice
  play a vocab game and help donate rice through the UN at the same time
  (tags: games charity)
• Fun group video
  (tags: video music fun)
• a.placebetween.us
  type in your location and a friend’s location and see what cafe is equidistant from the two of you
  (tags: maps tools fun)
• Second Life as real life
  (tags: funny video)

• TimeTracker Firefox extension
  tracks the amount of time you spend browsing the Web
  (tags: software firefox extensions tools)
• Pedometers help people count steps to get healthy
  (I already featured something similar, but it’s worth another link:)
  (tags: pedometer walking health exercise)
• Hot to make mint marshmallows
  (video)
  (tags: recipes video)
• Edit Clip Art Images inside PowerPoint Presentations
  neat trick
  (tags: cool powerpoint presentations design edit images)
• Master Your DSLR Camera, Part 1: Program Mode
  (tags: howto ToRead photography tips tutorial)
• Master Your DSLR Camera, Part 2: Manual Mode and More
  (tags: howto photography tutorial tips ToRead)
• TripIt
  trip organizer
  (tags: tools travel)
• On Writing A Grown-Up Paper
  (tags: howto teaching writing)

I didn’t get a chance to blog about my trip to Budapest a month ago. I had a really great time and took lots of photos so if curious then click through to my Flickr set on it for some beautiful architecture and some great food. The links below are just a small sampling and not necessarily of the best shots since it would’ve been too much work to customize the mosaic in that way.

1. Santas on motorcycles, 2. Santas on motorcycles, 3. Get Off Signal sign, 4. Opera, 5. Street lights, 6. Mini telephone booth, 7. Basilica, 8. Old building, 9. O utca, 10. Train station by Eiffel, 11. Train station by Eiffel, 12. Heroes’ square, 13. Art Museum, 14. Heroes’ square, 15. Museum, 16. Men’s restroom sign, 17. Women’s restroom sign, 18. Fried mushrooms, 19. Hortobagyi palacsinta, 20. Chicken (with roasted garlic), 21. Gundel palacsinta, 22. Museum, 23. Women’s restroom sign, 24. Men’s restroom sign

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

• Taskbar Shuffle
  Little app for Windows that allows you to move the taskbar and tray icons around – awesome! I’ve been hoping for something like this for a long time.
  (tags: freeware software tools windows)

A few hours left for those in North America to participate in the One Laptop Per Child program. $399 plus shipping pays for two of these special laptops: one for a child in a lesser developed nation and one for you.

While most of my research is about pointing out that simply offering access to devices will not get people connected effectively and efficiently, gaining access to digital media is an important first step in the process.

Here’s a review by a 12 year old (not part of the target audience though) and a video review by David Pogue. I would’ve offered my own review, but I didn’t order it in time to get my hands on it by today’s deadline.

Photo credit: mike3k on Flickr

• The Lives They Lived – Andrée De Jongh – World War II
  (NYTimes)
  (tags: ToRead article wwii history)
• How to Lose Your Job on Your Own Time
  (NYTimes) the consequences of digital footprints
  (tags: article privacy sharing content frtchng)

• Don’t fear Starbucks
  (Salon) “Why the franchise actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses.”
  (tags: article business)

• Lovin’ It All Over
  (WaPo) “McDonald’s has made more millionaires, and especially black and Hispanic millionaires, than any other economic entity ever, anywhere.” [..] “Quite a state, Illinois.”
  (tags: article business food)
• Public access to NIH research made law
  (tags: science law free)

• Singing the pink blues
  (Salon) “Why do makers of toys and computer games still practice segregation?”
  (tags: article gender toys socialization)
• Miles of Aisles of Sexism
  (Rethinking Schools) – “You sure wouldn’t know our society has experienced almost 40 years of significant changes in the area of gender equity in education after a trip to the mall.”
  (tags: article gender socialization toys)
• World Internet Project Hungarian results
  (tags: report stats users internet)

Shortly after I found the great blog outside the (toy) box, its author decided that she couldn’t maintain it, not right now anyway. I completely understand her decision, but it’s still a bummer. There’s some great writing there about parenting, gender issues, and consumerism, and her voice will be missed.

So here’s a post along similar lines inspired by my stroll down 5th Avenue in Manhattan yesterday. One could probably write a whole book about the experience on that one street Christmas Eve, but I’ll just restrict myself to the NBA store. I’m more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan, but I like basketball enough in general to have been intrigued by the store and so I went inside. (Yeah, clearly this isn’t a generic anti-consumerist post.) There’s tons of merchandise likely about any NBA team of interest. Naively one might think that most sports and fan gear could be gender neutral. But no, there is a separate “NBA for her” pink section, because how could a girl or a woman possibly appreciate a green or orange jersey, right? In addition to that pink section, I was really annoyed by the gendering of some playful items. I thought it would be cute to buy a little plush basketball as a gift for a child. Then I thought: hey, let’s support women’s basketball so I’ll buy the one that says WNBA instead of NBA. But the WNBA balls all had a bow! Why can’t a little plush basketball with two eyes, two hands and two feet not have a bow even if it is supposed to be female? Uhm, and why does something that supports WNBA have to be female anyway? Or would somebody like to critique me for assuming that the bow and big eyelashes are supposed to represent a girl?

I find this all so stupid and frustrating. Needless to say I walked out of the store not having spent a penny.

• Chez Joel Bistro
  very yummy French food in the UIC area, see my Flickr stream for some photos of their food
  (tags: restaurants chicago food dining)

• Pew Internet: Teens and Social Media
  report on teens 12-17 based on data from October 2006 on content creation and sharing
  (tags: data surveys reports internet users research)

• At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star
  (NYTimes)
  (tags: article science teaching)
• Examples of bad logos
  (tags: funny amusing graphics design lists)