Stumbled over an interesting article in the LA times about what decision scientists call the sunk-cost-fallacy:

A place to make graphs and charts online:

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

From a Wired article:

Andrea Mosic is a tool that will turn any image you have into a mosaic made out of a bunch of images you have. Very cool. (link)

From Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than half of all U.S. residential Internet users reached the Web via fast broadband connections in July, outpacing use of slower, dial-up connections for the first time, market researcher Nielsen//NetRatings said on Wednesday.

Sixty-three million Web users connected to the Internet via home broadband links, which include high-speed connections over cable television networks or upgraded phone lines using technologies like ISDN or DSL, it said.

That amounts to 51 percent of U.S. residential users, up from 49 percent in June and from 38 percent just a year earlier. Sixty-one million, or 49 percent of residential users, us narrowband hookups, down from 62 percent last July, Nielsen//NetRatings said.

Here's a website that offers what appear to be fairly detailed historical timelines. (link)

From the motly fool

Dictionary. com has a tool that will translate English into many different languages. Just type in your text and hit enter and it will give you a facsimilie in the target language. I don't know any foreign language sufficiently to know if the translations are good, but they seem serviceable.

http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html

An interesting piece about the self as a construct. (link)

This is quoted verbatim from BoingBoing.net

LA county says tech vendors can't use BDSM slang for equipment
Mike from SOCALWUG shares an actual email from the Los Angeles County Purchasing and Contract Services Director, asking technology vendors to refrain from using the terms "master" or "slave" to refer to interrelating parts -- for example, a "master" hard drive controlling a "slave" client device. Perhaps Dom/Sub/Switch would be more apropos. Talk SCSI to me, baby: who's your (hard drive's) daddy? Snip:

The County of Los Angeles actively promotes and is committed to ensure a work environment that is free from any discriminatory influence be it actual or perceived. As such, it is the County's expectation that our manufacturers, suppliers and contractors make a concentrated effort to ensure that any equipment, supplies or services that are provided to County departments do not possess or portray an image that may be construed as offensive or defamatory in nature.

One such recent example included the manufacturer's labeling of equipment where the words ''Master/Slave'' appeared to identify the primary and secondary sources. Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label. We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment or components thereof that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature before such equipment is sold or otherwise provided to any County department.

According to a news.com article personalizing your web site for specific users is a costly and ineffective method. One should instead concentrate on making a site more navigable. So maybe Hot-Text is wrong on this point.

Howard Rheingold published The Virtual Community back in 1994 in which he serveyed the various experiences of people whom he referred to as "homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, people useing The Well, engaging in cybernetic conversations via BBS systems, and generally living a large portion of thier social lives online. In the last chapter, chapter 10, he has what I think is a very very apt dystopical warning about the negative effects wired communications may have on society. He discusses what he calls the views of super realists, those who in the tradition of Plato (my observeration not his) warn that business and government meidated communication creates a similacrum of reality crafted to manufacture desires and beliefs that sustain the instituions that manufacture the desires. I.E., you think you know what you think, but you think what they want you to think. And they are watching you, all the time. Rheingold does this much better than I just did, and a different kind of conviction.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, Habermas has written a tract endorsed by Derrida in which it is argued that Europe needs to develop a stronger sense of patriotism.

Habermas and Derrida holding hands? And in the name of patriotism? Wholey crap.