Yahoo was all hacked this morning, so when you looked for the main US page, up came a page for a web security company. Unless it was a joke (hard to figure out when these things are, since I apparently have a very different sense of humor than your run-of-the-mill script kiddie or hackin’ geezer), why would this be a good way to promote your company? Sure, you get a lot of eyes on your page, but you also are immediately associated with the very jerks you’re looking to protect people from.

I’m sure this avian flu thing will burn itself out without jumping the species barrier (oops, too late) and killing us all. No need to panic.

My first thought on seeing this story about a suspicious powder (later determined not to be BoTox or plague) shutting down a Tacoma postal processing facility: “Shit, that better not slow down my Netflix shipments.”

This is Adbuster’s TV Turnoff Week (no, I won’t link to them, find it yourself). I, as you might suspect, disapprove of TV Turnoff Week. I think that most people have the needed critical faculties to know that TV is pretend and have the digits needed to turn almost any appliance on and off at will. Forced Perspective now challenges you to watch a program that you wouldn’t normally watch and rent a stack of movies you’ve been meaning to see.

And if we start taking lifestyle direction from people in British Columbia, we will all be dead from sunblock poisoning and stupid car accidents within a month.

Have you ever wanted to be a hardy Canadian explorer/fur trader or just look like one? Me neither. But just in case…

The Media Lab’s European outpost does work in “human connectedness,” which starts with the premise “Humans have a biological need for contact with other humans,” and intends “partly to develop technologies and experiences that allow us to build, maintain, and enhance the kinds of relationships we are used to having in new ways.” My initial reaction to some of their work was that it seems an awful lot like stalking to have a flower by your computer that opens up when your girlfriend is on-line. But maybe it’s only stalking if the person it opens for isn’t your girlfriend. But still, a deep interest in what she’s doing at every moment seems like it could easily cross a line.

The other device highlighted in the article, created by BTexact, reminds me of a sales “tickle file,” to ensure that a salescreature doesn’t let contacts get stale.

Ultimately, I guess I’m just leery of technological responses to a biological need.

Microsoft has developed some probably interesting techniques for 3d reconstruction from 2d images. The BBC article has an interesting emphasis: “A virtual world that allows people to walk alongside the apostles or Christ himself has been created by researchers.” Granted the Christ reference appears to have come from one of the MS researchers, but why not “a virtual world that allows people to walk through Guernica or The Garden of Earthly Delights“? Construction of further interesting tours is left as an exercise for the reader.

On a more technical note, I wonder how well they do with forced perspective-style tricks in paintings (if I get any time to find pertinent links, I’ll link to them): stuff that looks right, but when examined closely indicates that the figure’s legs are drastically different sizes or similar chicanery.

A list of what Google employees are being served while they toil away. I don’t actually work 60+ hours a week, but could someone please cook me super-nice meals and deliver them to me at work? I think I really do deserve it.

Worth downloading if only to see what informative uses Flash can be put to, a diagram of retractable urinals. Or browse the Grauniad’s other informative and sometimes goofy Interactive Guides.

Since the first time I heard about those decks of Iraqi villain cards, I’ve wanted one. Apparently I’m not alone, but if anybody can get one to me (preferably genuine), I’ll be eternally in your debt.