[UPDATE: I’ve given out the invites I could so this offer no longer stands.]

If you’d like an invitation to GrandCentral, let me know. It assumes you’re okay with giving Google your phone number, which is a big if. But if you are then let me know. I have a few to give out, not a lot though so first come first served.

Oh, what is GrandCentral? It’s a service that let’s you give out a phone number that you can then control much better than your direct numbers by filtering and selectively forwarding based on the caller. It’s similar to creating filters for various emails depending on sender.

I’ve used a similar service before for a research project and it worked well. GrandCentral was recently acquired by Google and they’re presumably revamping it a bit. There are, however, other such services out there if you prefer a site that is, for now, independent.

UPDATE: I will only send invites to people who send me an email from an address that has both last name and first name and preferably some Web site. You know my name, you know info about me and what I’m offering here would link us in the eyes of Google. I won’t do that if I have nothing to go on.

• Free Press : Who Owns the Media?
  interesting summaries
  (tags: reference media top10)
• Plug Your Book
  blog about marketing books
  (tags: books blogs marketing)

• Copyscape – Website Plagiarism Search – Web Site Content Copyright Protection
  it’s not clear what if anything they can do about sites that are copied
  (tags: plagiarism copyright search-engines)
• Converse
  create your own Converse shoe design; reminds me of Reebok back in the 80s
  (tags: shoes products-services design personalization)
• MizPee
  “where to _go_ on the go”
  (tags: reference sms)

• Flip
  write upside down:)
  (tags: funny)
• Reality Desktop Video
  cute
  (tags: video)
• Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo
  amazing!
  (tags: photos wow visualization)
• do.Oh
  another tool for keeping track of to-do items; not clear what its advantages are
  (tags: tools gtd)

The link in my previous post is thanks to a new blog: No Caption Needed. It is both a book and a blog by my colleague Bob Hariman at Northwestern and his collaborator John Louis Lucaites at Indiana. This undertaking is “dedicated to discussion of the role that photojournalism and other visual practices play in a vital democratic society. No caption needed, but many are provided. . . .” The blog just started recently, but already offers all sorts of interesting images and commentary.

Wow.

Try it here.

I should probably add this:

• American Sociological Association 2007 Annual Meeting Program search
  since ASA’s site is so horrendously painful from a usability perspective, I thought I’d create a direct link to its program schedule
  (tags: asa meeting schedule)

• Man finds his baby book on eBay
  (tags: ebay frbk)

• Gmaps Pedometer
  great site for figuring out miles of walking routes
  (tags: pedometer walking exercise maps googlemaps)
• Promotional products : Pedometer 1
  (tags: products-services pedometer wup)
• Promotional products : Pedometer 2
  (tags: products-services pedometer wup)

Maps don’t always give you the best known route to a destination. Now you can tell Google Maps what alternate route you want to take simply by dragging the blue line that indicates directions to another road. Here’s my rerouting of an Evanston-Chicago route that maps always tell you to do by going out to the highway, which is not necessarily the most efficient. (Of course, in that case, you could also just click on the “Avoid highways” button in the upper-left corner, but that still doesn’t give you the best route.) Another change seems to be that clicking on “Link to this page” now gives you a highlighted link right below it ready to be copied.

I understand that some other maps may have already had this feature. But I don’t think other maps are nearly as user-friendly as Google Maps so this is good news. Also, for those not following developments in this realm, the service also has My Maps now, which means that you can create maps with various markers, save them, and share them with others. This is very useful when numerous people ask you for touristy suggestions about the same place over and over again. You have to have a Google Account to use My Maps. Just click on the My Maps tab right below the Google Maps logo.

[thanks]

I don’t seem to be doing too well playing rock, paper, scissors over on Facebook so I’ve decided to focus my energies on taking care of my adopted turtle Turquoise. It’s good prepartion for when I’ll get a real turtle likely in the near future (unlike some turtle plagiarists, it’s a plan I’ve had for a while).

Unfortunately, you can only earn munny to feed your pet by having your pet pet by someone else or petting other people’s pets. (That’s not as hard to say three times fast as it may seem at first read…) And it turns out that despite having over 150 friends on Facebook, only three of them have (fluff)Friends, one because I asked him this morning. So this is a request that if we are linked on Facebook (or should be since we know each other) then can you please come over and show Turquoise some affection? Thanks!

Anyone wondering why I would spend time on Facebook has to understand that it is imperative for the legitimacy of my research to familiarize myself with these services. It’s a sacrifice, but all in the name of science.

I should add that I have been thinking about a more substantive post concerning Facebook and hope to get around to it one of these days. Lots going on there, it is spreading like wildfire way past college students, and there are some understandable reasons for that. More later. It’s time to check in on Turquoise now.

• Review: Scott E Page, The Difference
  fellow Timberite Henry Farrell reviews a new book on the importance of diversity to decision making
  (tags: reviews books)
• NPR: Talking Plants
  a new blog
  (tags: blogs plants nature)

“We should include vinyl.”
“Yes, LPs, that’s a good idea.”
“Hmm.. What is that? Do you mean records?”
“Yes.”

• The Difference Between Men and Women, Revisited: It’s About Competition
  (NYTimes) – as the author notes and the original study finds, it’s about differences in self-perceived ability that then might lead to differences in interest in competition; this is consistent with findings from my study on differences in self-perceived
  (tags: research gender)
• Understanding the Internet’s Relevance to Media Ownership Policy: A Model of Too Many Choices
  (The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy)
  (tags: research ToRead longtail)
• From Facebook To a Yearbook, Teens Get a Jolt
  (WaPo)
  (tags: article facebook myspace teens)
• Bloxorz
  it’s been a while since I’ve posted a game
  (tags: games)
• About Gender – Gender Roles – Gender Variance – Gender Identity
  Towards a balanced account of human gender and sex differences
  (tags: research gender reference)

• Broadband Reports
  links to reports on broadband
  (tags: research report fordml)

Just this morning I was contemplating how horrible it must be for the people who suddenly lost their homes in the fire around Lake Tahoe. By the afternoon I was watching firefighters from my office window battle flames on Stanford’s hills.

I was sitting at my desk already unable to work having just received word about the death of Peter Marris, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at UCLA, dear husband of Dolores Hayden who was a fellow Fellow at CASBS this year. The two of them had to end their year at the Center early, because Peter was sick, but I don’t think any of us expected things to escalate so quickly.

Unable to concentrate on work, I turned around to look at the beautiful view from my office. I spotted some big red flames. Soon I realized that a large area around it was completely black with smoke and flames on the periphery. Eventually sirens and helicopter appeared, as did firefighters. Some of the smoke was now white not just black, apparently a good sign. But not all the black smoke disappeared and an hour later there was still much activity. I went to an event and by the time I got back to my office, another hillside was completely black (see the difference in the left area of the two photos above).

How quickly things can change.

• Pit Bull vs. Porcupine
  (tags: nature animals porcupine)
• Timeline of Web Browsers
  (tags: history internet browser)
• Creating an image with HTML tables
  mega geeky
  (tags: funny graphics html video)
• Floorplanner
  interactive floorplan tool
  (tags: tools architecture design)
• San Francisco says no to bottled water
  (CNN)
  (tags: environment article)

• An alternative to Google’s Library Project
  (tags: books libraries archives)
• data visualization & visual design – information aesthetics
  (tags: blogs visualization)

• Raspyni Brothers
  saw these guys live in Dublin the other day, hilarious!
  (tags: funny entertainment live performance)

• Google Public Policy Blog
  (tags: blogs policy politics google)
• Study: Canadians and their non-voting political activity
  (tags: research report internet users politics)
• Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups
  (Journal of Social Structure)
  (tags: research article social)
• Melanie Kellar
  research on info-retrieval/searching
  (tags: people research search)