Nice summary of experience with Orkut, the new social networking site from Google. Conclusion is that perception of “security” is perhaps an intangible emotional construct much as a functional one. Paging BJ Fogg!

Appearing soon at the SF Indie Film Festival, Value-Added Cinema “a finely tuned montage of egregious product placement shots…insinuated into dialogue, thrown front and center like loss leaders, even engulfing entire features until they become little more than cross-promotions for toy manufacturers”

Technorati: product+placement, negativland, film, compilation

NYT article about spelling errors on eBay.

Jim Griffith, whose official title at eBay is dean of eBay education, teaches 40 to 50 seminars a year around the country. Although the auction house flags common misspellings online, Mr. Griffith said, the most common question he gets is, ‘When will eBay get a spell checker?’ His answer? ‘You go to a store called a bookstore, and you buy something called a dictionary.

Now that’s a customer-oriented attitude!

Urban Outfitters is guilty at least of rather poor taste if not outright racism.

I got the same blank stare from a friendly clerk when I hit the store on Monday. ‘Well, the Irish shirts have shamrocks. The Jewish shirts have dollar signs,’ she patiently explained, saying she figures they’re about the same.

It’s called cyber bullying. Already common in North America, it is about to become rampant, driven by the army of Internet-connected camera cellphones that preteens and teenagers received as gifts over the recent holiday season, experts warn.

I’ll be speaking at BayCHI on Tuesday, February 10. Free and open to the public.

Kawaii: Adventures in a Parallel Universe
When conducting user research, we always strive to get outside our own default expectations and perceptions, to better see the details of what we’re looking at. Some interesting things can happen when you get completely outside your own experiences, perhaps in another country where the language (and food, and everything else!) is beyond your own experiences. In this presentation Steve will use examples from fieldwork in Japan to illustrate some of the advantages of being a bewildered and naive outsider, and will suggest some tactics for best managing a foray into a strange land.

Computer-Human Interaction Forum 2004 lecture series program: “Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO) has announced its 2004 program series.

Wednesday, Oct. 6: “Whose Line is It Anyway: Innovation, Ethnography, and Improv.”
Researcher Steve Portigal examines how researchers can use improvisation to learn the difference between what respondents say and how they say it.

Internet-Toy is not simply a doll that repeats what you have recorded.
You can connect Internet-Toy to the Internet ot the computer and continuously download diverse contents. That is why kids will not get bored and it is a very efficient early education.
By connecting to the Internet or the computer, a convenient way to download data, Internet-Toy had become a good friend and teacher to your kid .

Ice Cube
Right now it’s all about action for the actor/director/rapper, who’s starring in the new motorcycle movie “Torque.'’ But in an interview with Associated Press Television News, Cube, 34, discussed his desire to do art-house movies. He also talked about his music career and his children, the oldest of whom is now 17 and attending the same high school he did.

This still from The Matrix Reloaded is quite surprising…

Visitors to Tokyo sex shops may soon find it difficult to buy schoolgirls’ used underwear

Phase 3 is profit!

Culture jamming here: this person designs beautiful posters etc. that they use to completely mask advertisements in phone booths, subways, etc. Good video of the process, and the results.

Little People for Hire
Salon 1941, an intellectual society based in San Francisco, is hosting a Valentine’s Day fundraiser sponsored by SOMA Magazine, Panjandrum Magazine (Paris), Cool-’Eh Magazine (New York), and Only Hearts Lingerie.

Hosts of the masquerede/lingerie ball are searching for Little People to work as waiters in Cupid costumes. Costumes will be provided. Waiters will be well compensated.

Applicants must be shorter than 4 feet 10 inches in height.

Wife sues company for death of husband from overwork
A widow has filed a lawsuit with the Okayama District Court claiming about 63 million yen in damages from her husband’s employer for making him work excessive hours of overtime and causing his death in April 2002. In the suit, the woman says her husband died at 57 after being forced to work 200 hours of overtime every month for 18 years. In December 2002, a labor ministry office in Kagawa Prefecture determined that the man died of overwork.
The number of cases of ‘karoshi’ or death from overwork has jumped to record highs in recent years.

Interesting restaurant review

Shortly after, the waitress came in with another large, shallow lacquerware bowl. She placed the bowl in the center of the table. The shrimp were on their sides paddling their legs furiously in the low water. “What the heck are we supposed to do with these?” I thought, looking around for a hibachi. Silly me. We were supposed to eat them — while they were still alive and kicking!

Without hesitation, one friend grabbed a shrimp, deftly pried off the head between his thumbs, pulled off the legs and tail with his other hand, and popped the body into his mouth. “Oishii!” he yelled, which prompted another person to do the same, although it took him a few tries to keep the wiggly thing in his hands while decapitating it.

Everyone looked at me. “Aren’t you going to try it?” I tentatively reached into the bowl and picked up a shrimp, but when it started squirming, I screamed and dropped it. “Um, I’ll pass,” I said, as another shrimp suddenly jumped out of the bowl, did a full mobius and landed on the tatami mat, sending everyone scrambling to retrieve it.

Then came shrimp tempura. Kind of like a before and after episode. I ate the fried shrimp while the live ones continued doing acrobatics in the bowl in front of us. If someone had laid a chopstick over the bowl, it would have been like the high jump at the Crustacean Olympics.

Then came the octopus, live and waving its legs from the bowl. The legs were cut up into small pieces, about 5 cm long, but each had a life of its own. My two Japanese friends dived into the bowl of legs with their chopsticks, yelling “Oishii!”

Everyone looked at me again. “Aren’t you going to try it?” I looked at the octopus for a while. After all, it had no eyes, head or tail, and only one leg. I clenched a piece of leg as it writhed between my chopsticks. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and shoved it into my mouth, concentrating on only one thing: chewing it to death.

But what happened next, I was completely unprepared for: the leg adhered itself to the inside of my mouth! I tried to spit it out, but the octopus held on tightly to my cheek through the tiny suction cups on its legs. All I could do was chew. And chew. And chew. Down to the last suction cup. Finally, I was able to swallow the pulp.

If you are looking to resolve a problem in the Sims Online, you can hire the The Sim Mafia

SENDING A MESSAGE
$2.5K to $10K; Pay up front
Want to get your point across to someone or a group of people? Old fashion tactics not working? Try the Sim Mafia. We’re the masters of sending messages. We’lll make sure your point gets across whether it wants to or not

From the Chron letters section:
Missing yellow beacon
Editor — A few weeks ago, I went to my driveway and couldn’t find my Chronicle. There was an extra ‘throwaway’ paper that I recycled, then left for work depressed. This went on for a few days and my dark mood deepened. On the fourth day, I inspected this new junk paper and was shocked to see my beloved Chronicle wrapped in a clear plastic bag. My yellow beacon was gone! I was shocked and dismayed.
On Tuesday it turned to disgust. My supply of yellow bags, recycled to dog doodoo duty, expired. While walking my dog, Godiva, I had to use the new clear bag and the result was shocking. I felt dirty carrying her droppings as they stared back at me through the bag. Please tell me our morning sunshine will be returning soon!
GUS SINKS
San Bruno

Police have nabbed two Japanese men for siphoning off electricity in heists worth less than 1 cent each, an official said Sunday.
A 38-year-old man was caught red-handed by a patrolling police officer last September after unplugging a business’ neon sign and using the electricity to recharge his mobile phone.
The other culprit, a 22-year-old university student, was giving a street performance in November when he unplugged a vending machine in order to power his portable stereo. A police officer was alerted after local residents complained about the noise.
Police said they could not let the incidents slide, even though the men are believed to have stolen $0.0094 worth of electricity. Both men confessed and have gotten off with reprimands.

HUMMER SHOES: “People who cannot afford a Hummer can achieve the cachet of ownership by wearing a Hummer shoe. ”

McDonald’s Co. (Japan) said it will hand out 10 million hamburger coupons on Sunday
“‘We want people to recognize again that our hamburgers are tasty and can be eaten without anxiety” a company official said. McDonald’s hamburgers in Japan are made of Australian-produced beef. The mad cow case in the United States in December prompted Japan and dozens of other nations to ban imports of U.S. beef products.”

Who would have thought that Ice-T and not Ice Cube would become the beloved and familiar actor?

Yah

Boo

This report from CES considers how poorly electronics companies address their female customers, who make about as many purchases as men.

Only 1 percent of women surveyed said they thought manufacturers had them in mind when they created a gadget. And electronics companies don’t do a great job communicating a product’s bottom-line benefits. “It might very well be meeting my needs as a consumer, but I don’t know what you’re saying,” said Hallie Deakton, a publicist from New York, after listening to a day’s worth of industry announcements. “You could be rocking my world, and I wouldn’t know it.'’

From today’s NYT magazine: My So-Called Blog is a decent study of how teens specifically are using blogs and how blogging fits into their social structure and coping processes.

A result of all this self-chronicling is that the private experience of adolescence — a period traditionally marked by seizures of self-consciousness and personal confessions wrapped in layers and hidden in a sock drawer — has been made public. Peer into an online journal, and you find the operatic texture of teenage life with its fits of romantic misery, quick-change moods and sardonic inside jokes. Gossip spreads like poison. Diary writers compete for attention, then fret when they get it. And everything parents fear is true. (For one thing, their children view them as stupid and insane, with terrible musical taste.) But the linked journals also form a community, an intriguing, unchecked experiment in silent group therapy — a hive mind in which everyone commiserates about how it feels to be an outsider, in perfect choral unison.

William Safire addresses a question I raised in an earlier ChittahChattah posting…What the Hell is a Spider Hole
Though the term was used frequently in the Vietnam War, it apparently (now I’m careful) was first used in its current sense in the Pacific theater of World War II. ‘’The Japanese did it a lot at Okinawa and Iwo Jima,'’ observes Col. Charles Payne, professor of military history at Virginia Tech, adding that Special Operations forces today would call a hole dug in the ground a ‘’hide position.'’ The technique is hardly new — in the battle of Crecy in 1346, French archers popped out of their holes to ambush the English cavalry — but we are more interested in the origin of the phrase.

I have an online account. Around the time I moved, I changed the email address they have on file. For several months, they continue to send my monthly statements to my old (and soon to be going away) email address. Yet, when I log in, I can see that they have my correct email address in their system. So, there’s no way *I* can change it, because I already did.

Does this sound familiar? You go through whatever steps to change the information they have for you, but that information is actually stored in other places that you can’t access, and you need to get “support” to get the information changed you wanted changed.

What a freakin’ nightmare!

And here’s their unhelpful (and ultimately unsuccessful) suggestions:

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 04:51:25 -0500
To: Steve Portigal
Subject: Re: Service - Comcast Cable Television
From: Comcast Ecare - Bay Area
Reply-To: Comcast Ecare - Bay Area
X-Mailer: KANA Response 7.0.1.116
X-Text-Classification: inbox
X-POPFile-Link: http://127.0.0.1:8080/jump_to_message?view=popfile220135=11.msg

Dear Steve,

Thank you for contacting Comcast Cable.

I understand that we are still sending you billing notifications to your
old e-mail address, even though you have updated this information
online. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this issue has
caused you.

I would recommend changing the e-mail address that’s specified under
your Online Bill Pay account, then change it back to the correct
address. This may reset the information for your account; similar to
rebooting your computer when you experience problems.

If the above mentioned steps do not resolve your issue, it may be
necessary to recreate your profile.

To recreate your profile:

1. Click on the Create User Profile link https://www.comcast.com/membership/Create_Member.asp

2. Complete appropriate fields

3. Ensure that you use a different e-mail address when creating your
profile than the one listed on your original account. Write down this
e-mail address because it now will be your User Name.

4. Click the Submit button

5. Your account access should now be restored

Exceptions: Don�t have another e-mail address to use or want to keep the
same one?

1. Click on the Create User Profile link https://www.comcast.com/membership/Create_Member.asp

2. Complete appropriate fields

3. In the Valid E-mail Address field type in an old e-mail address or a
bogus e-mail address. Be sure to write down this information because it
now will be your User Name.

4. Click the Submit button

5. When account is created, hit the Log Out button

6. Immediately log into your account using the new User Name you just
created

7. Click on the Update Profile section

8. Under the E-mail Address field you can now successfully change back
to the original e-mail address you had and it will overwrite your other
profile.

We are committed to delivering the high standards of service and quality
you’ve come to expect from Comcast. Thank you for your continued
support.

full story

Kirin Brewery Co. has re-created as accurately as possible the beer of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt by employing an experimental archaeological technique at its brewery in Amagi, Fukuoka Prefecture.
The work was done by interpreting wall paintings illustrating the beer-making process in the New Kingdom (1570-1070 B.C.)

Unpleasant story
The researchers recommend that farmed salmon bought in Toronto supermarkets (as well as those in San Francisco, Boston, London, Oslo London, Paris, Edinburgh and Frankfurt) not be consumed in quantities of more than one half to one meal a month. Eight ounces of uncooked fish constitutes one meal.
Farmed salmon bought in Vancouver supermarkets (along with those in London, Washington D.C., Seattle, Chicago and New York) should not be eaten in more than two meals per month.
People who can consume more than the recommended amounts, which are based on strict guidelines established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, could slightly increase their risk of developing cancer later in life. The same guidelines allow wild salmon to be consumed in quantities of up to eight meals per month.

The Ross-Simons people need to understand that spacing makes all the difference.

RED FAUX SNAKE
SKIN MAG CADDY

What is that in there, a magazine about naked wallabees? Yeesh!

Today’s twisted pleasure is listening to the spanish version of David Lee Roth’s “Eat ‘em and Smile.” I had heard one of the tracks once on Rockline back in 1987 or so, but the whole album is cool and hysterical. The english version is one of my fave albums, anyway, and listening along to the spanish version (of which I understand nothing) is weird, and awesome.

If you were my good friend Tom Mulhern is this how you’d want to be Googled?

Tom Mulhern
Project Manager
Doeblin Group

Affiliations change and Tom is no longer with the “Doeblin Group” - but that does sound so much more exotic than “Doblin” - you can picture the project manager at the Doeblin Group riding around in a Citroen, discussing the oeuvre of Gustav Mahler, and burnin’ up Gauloises like there’s no Tamara.

And yet that exotic mis-fire comes far below this gem,

Hitting The Nail On The Head Is Our Only Business
No, we�re not carpenters. We�re Tom Mulhern & Associates, and we provide the services you need to communicate with customers and potential customers. Whether you need marketing materials, web design, content for web or print, or something unique that propels your products, we�re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work for you.

We are a top-flight group of web designers, writers, editors, marketing specialists, and artists who have worked for some of the top companies in the publishing, music products, and computer/online industries. Check out our site and contact us if you would like to discuss a project.

The real scoopage on the real tom is all right here.

Update: Well, coming back to this post much later, I find that the link above isn’t accurate any longer.

Technorati: Tom+Mulhern