• Picturing Protest, Artists Organize to Fight Camera Permit Proposal
  NYC considers charing people for photography in public under certain conditions (broadly defined ones)
  (tags: photography rights nyc legal)

Hundreds of blogs are being updated every half hour right now as part of Blogathon 2007. I recommend checking out these sites, their authors are working hard not only to bring you interesting content, but also to raise money for various important charities. There is a list of participating blogs here. The topics vary with some blogs focusing on a theme while others blogging in a more freestyle manner. There’s a blog looking at names from children’s literature and collecting donations for First Book, which disseminates books to children from underprivileged backgrounds. (Another participating blog collecting for this charity is Potterthon, perhaps of interest to some here.) This Book is For You is collecting donations for the American Library Association Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund and looking at related topics throughout the 24 hour period. A la cuisine is posting some very intriguing recipes (with pics) and collecting funds for the National Kidney Foundation in honor of the author’s good friend who just received a kidney transplant three days ago. Some people are running contests such as this man in Texas blogging from atop a forklift. His charity is Midland Fair Havens, which offers support to women with pre-teen children who are homeless or who are in danger of becoming homeless. The contests at hello, Yoshi! have readers/listeners guessing movie quotes (with the possibility of winning prizes). The choice of charity there is Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I could go on and on, there are lots of dedicated folks participating in this today.

I took part in Blogathon four years ago and it was a fun unique experience. If I wasn’t in the midst of moving and travelling right now I would have posted a note earlier about all this to encourage more people to participate. When I did it in 2003, I decided to do it in the grad student computer cluster in the Princeton Soc Dept so people could stop by easily and say hi. Over a dozen friends kept me company (and brought me food!) throughout the event. And I got to raise some money for Planned Parenthood from forty generous contributors.

It’s not that easy to stay up for 24 hours straight and blog in a coherent manner. Putting up a post every half hour means constant work. So show some of these folks some appreciation by reading their blogs and if inspired, consider donating to some of these very worthy charities.

• circaVie
  create timeline with photos
  (tags: photos tools)

• A Hole in the Head
  famous artists draw with their eyes closed
  (tags: comics drawing funny cartoons)
• Political Quiz – What Breed of Liberal Are You?
  interesting promotional page for a book
  (tags: books quiz politics)

• Class of ’57 gives researchers broad sociological snapshot
  article on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
  (tags: research wls aging)
• Duarte’s Tavern
  great place to eat in Pescadero, California
  (tags: california dining food restaurants)

Chris Uggen posted this video a few days ago:

I added a link to it on my daily links list where Liz Losh saw it and then included it in a blog post “Just Say Know” discussing all sorts of parody videos and sites related to drug use including the artist-created fictional drug Web site Havidol, and this video:

These are some great parodies. Work in the field of health communication looks at the effects of health campaigns, but tends to focus on serious ones. I wonder what type of work may be going on in the domain of parody viral videos online for similar purposes.

• Thriller dance choreography from prison inmates in the Philippines
  (tags: video philippines)

• Google SketchUp
  – free 3D software tool
  (tags: software design drawing freeware)
• BookTour
  – authors can create an account with information about their upcoming appearances
  (tags: books)
• The Open Library
  – Demo for Brewster Kahle’s newest project (he created the awesome Web Archive)
  (tags: library books reference resources)
• GetNetWise
  tips for a more informed online experience
  (tags: tips internet users tools webuse)
• Excellent parody ad (with serious message)
  “Incarcerex: It’s Time for a New Bottom Line”
  (tags: video politics humor)
• Real life Second Life
  funny!
  (tags: video)
• Invite Share
  receive and give invites to closed beta services
  (tags: sharing social web web20 tools)

Unclear why exactly:), Michael Froomkin asks the question:

What would be the most unattractive job in the regular economy? I’m not talking about the objectively least-well paid or statistically most dangerous, or most unpopular (car salesman?). I mean, what job would you least like to have. No fair saying subsistence farmer in Darfur either — I mean in the US (or other developed economy).

His response: toll booth attendant.

As I note in the comments to his post, I won’t answer, because I prefer to think about aspects of jobs I like. His post reminded me, however, of having heard once that toll booth operators have the highest suicide rate among various occupations. I decided it was time to check on this. There doesn’t seem to be much out there to support the claim. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of methodological challenges to studying the relationship between occupations and suicide rates. This piece does a good job of mentioning several of them from lack of occupational information on death certificates to numbers being too small by category for comparison. From what I’ve read after a quick search, it’s fair to say the rumors I have heard about the above relationship are pretty much unsubstantiated.

Long before becoming a card-carrying sociologist, I was interested in suicide rates.* This may have had to do with the fact that I grew up in a country with one of the highest rates of suicide. According to 2003 figures, Hungary is #6 on the list (interesting group – bottom right corner when you click through), but in the 1980s when I was growing up there, it may have been #1 judging from the figures for the other countries high on the list since some of their rates seem to have gone up while Hungary’s declined considerably [pdf] in the last couple of decades. I doubt there are many Hungarians who don’t know of people in their immediate circles who either committed or at least attempted suicide (I knew several before graduating from high school), but perhaps this is true elsewhere, too.

All of which is obviously not to say that worst job ever equals suicide. It’s just a connection I made after reading about Michael’s candidate for the distinction.

[*] Yeah, yeah, maybe I became a sociologist, because I find questios of this sort intriguing.

• Virtual Reality ‘Avatars’ Are Now Real Enough To Be Sued
  (tags: legal secondlife article)
• Revenge of the Frosh-Seeking Robots
  a program sponsored by Microsoft Research to help attract students to computer science (vs popular fields like economics)
  (tags: article students learning)
• French Wine and the U.S. Boycott of 2003: Does Politics Really Affect Commerce?
  (NBER) – interesting paper, it turns out the supposed boycott didn’t have much effect on French wine sales back in 2003
  (tags: research politics france usa)
• WorldCat
  – find books in nearby libraries
  (tags: books libraries)
• BookMooch
  “exchange books and trade them, like a book swap or book barter”
  (tags: books reading social)

• Local governments try to balance security, privacy
  (Miami Herald) – “South Florida governments that supply wireless Internet are wrestling with the balance between privacy and oversight.”
  (tags: news article wifi legal privacy)
• Summary of my talk at Wiki Wednesday last week
  – this was a great experience, small, but extremely engaged crowd with really good comments and questions
  (tags: talks “eszter hargittai” hargittai skill users research)

The edited volume on research methods that I mentioned earlier is shaping up nicely and I’ll be shipping it off soon. However, I’m still not sure about the title and subtitle, and was hoping for some input from anyone who’s willing to give it some thought. This is what I’m working with now:

However, having “research” in there twice doesn’t seem right. Any thoughts on either the first or the second part?

As a reminder, the chapters in this book provide helpful behind-the-scenes accounts of doing empirical social science research for a wide range of methods such as use of secondary large-scale data sets, interviews, observations, experiments and historical documents. The unique contribution of this collection is that it provides readers with a realistic idea of what to expect when embarking on empirical investigations by offering richly detailed descriptions of the logistics of individual research projects. The volume draws on the experiences of recent successful dissertation writers and young scholars doing cutting edge research in their respective social scientific fields.

If someone comes up with a title I end up using, I’ll happily send the person a copy of the book and will think of some additional gesture of gratitude. (Time to create some E-Blog stuff? Maybe I can think of something more useful.:) Thanks!

• News Groper
  a bunch of parody blogs of famous people (politics, tech, entertainment, etc.)
  (tags: blogs funny)
• Inaugural STD/HIV Prevention Conference focusing on Youth and Technology
  January 22 – 23, 2008 Hosted at SFSU’s Institute for Next Generation Internet, San Francisco, CA
  (tags: conferences health technology youth)

• A Reprieve for Net Radio
  “The music industry won’t impose higher royalty rates on Webcasters—yet. Stay tuned, though”
  (tags: article news music business)
• Give Net Neutrality a Chance
  “The FTC’s do-nothing stance on broadband competition puts the onus on Congress to bar ISPs from discriminating against small Web sites” – I wish this incredibly important topic would get more attention
  (tags: news article netneutrality legal policy internet)
• U.S. Net access not all that speedy
  (USA Today) – based on a report commissioned by the Communication Workers of America so not a neutral observer
  (tags: article technology internet usa comparison states stats)
• Speed Matters
  test your download and upload speed and compare to others
  (tags: internet broadband tools)
• The Wealthiest Americans Ever
  (NYTimes) – in historical perspective
  (tags: history money nytimes people reference top10)
• Virtual marketers have second thoughts about Second Life
  (LATimes) – businesses are closing their Second Life presence
  (tags: secondlife business)

Sometimes I get a kick out of reading classifieds and so have been clicking through to some of the Marketplace ads on Facebook. I just read one where the advertiser is looking for a catsitter and ends the ad with the following:

“I’ll pay for the service, as well as litter and food on return.”

I may be reading this incorrectly, but it seems to suggest that the owner of the pet is asking the catsitter to pay for litter and food out of pocket (for three weeks) before being reimbursed, not to mention the burden of acquiring those materials. Is that reasonable? Doesn’t seem right to me. I’d leave the anticipated amount of litter and food before I left.

• Do they really believe that abortion is murder?
  (Alas, a blog)
  (tags: abortion rights women politics)
• Soldier shoots himself to avoid Iraq
  (MSNBC/AP)
  (tags: war news article)

• health08.org
  The Kaiser Family Foundation’s new Web site on health care and the 2008 US presidential elections
  (tags: health politics election08)
• Coolibar
  “Sun Protective Clothing, UV Protection Swimwear, Hats and More”
  (tags: products-services travel health)

• Internet World Stats Surfing and Site Guide
  (tags: reports stats internet users)
• World Internet Usage
  by population, projected vs with intervention
  (tags: stats graphs internet users)
• Blogger kicked out of baseball game for live-blogging the event
  (tags: blogging article legal sports)
• Lawmakers seek to stop anti-war T-shirts from naming dead soldiers
  (Arizona Daily Star)
  (tags: article politics censorship legal products-services war)

For those in the Bay Area, I thought I’d mention that I’ll be giving a talk at Wiki Wednesday this evening at 6pm. The topic is digital media use by youth. Feel free to come by. Also, feel free to join the group at other times in the future, these meetings are held every month.

• Verizon’s Copper Cutoff Traps Customers
  (Forbes) – this is not good
  (tags: telecom competition verizon)
• The mystery of the “short” cappuccino
  (Slate) – “Here’s a little secret that Starbucks doesn’t want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it.”
  (tags: business economics starbucks coffee food mystery shopping tips deals)