• Buzzword Bingo Card Generator
  (tags: games conferences)

I am heading to the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association this weekend. While I think playing buzzword bingo at a presentation is a bit rude, the idea of having a bingo card for the whole conference seems more reasonable. Kieran’s put together a really fun one [pdf], check it out, it can likely be tweaked quite easily for endless amusement at your own upcoming convention.

Possible additions/substitutions?

• Mac user surprised that cable won’t connect to projector
• Use of PowerPoint in Normal View instead of Slide Show
• Aimless lingerer at book exhibit
• Loitering at book exhibit in hopes of finding editor
• “But you didn’t write the paper I would have written” comment during Q&A
• Never-ending comment posing as question during Q&A

For those going to the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association meetings, the following may be of interest. My department (Communication Studies) in the School of Communication at Northwestern is likely to be hiring for several positions this Fall in the area of Media, Technology and Society. We have a great interdisciplinary program with lots of smart and interesting folks. If you’d like to hear more about it and will be at ASA, please send me a note so we can set up a time to chat.

• Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?
  (NYTimes)
  (tags: ToRead books internet reading)
• Kansan sticks it to election system
  (LATimes) article about Kansan Sean Tevis who ran the xkcd-type campaign and ended up with almost $100K in online donations
  (tags: politics internet article)

I keep referring to this cartoon in conversations and people keep telling me they have no idea what I’m talking about so I’m just going to put it here with the hope that it spreads to more and more folks.

It’s amazing how well it tells so much. It reminds me of specific experiences throughout my life from high school through graduate school (although the latter not in my department, to be fair). Plus one encounters this type of attitude online all the time.

Thanks to XKCD. I’d buy this one on a T-shirt, but it’s not in the store. The college-style XKCD is tempting.

• Remote sign out and info to help you protect your Gmail account
  excellent new GMail feature
  (tags: gmail email howto)
• The Online Legacy of Professor Pausch
  a roundup of links
  (tags: health education advice)

• Mortgage or Investments Calculator
  (tags: calculator finances)
• The Best Poverty-Fighting Bet
  (Slate) “The Google IPO event of the nonprofit world”
  (tags: article poverty philanthropy nonprofit)

• American inequality highlighted by 30-year gap in life expectancy
  (The Independent)
  (tags: ToRead article inequality usa healthcare)

• Tour de France – Live Tracker 2008
  very cool visualization using Google Maps Street View
  (tags: googlemaps maps sports)
• Housing Maps
  mashup of Craig’s List information and Google Maps
  (tags: googlemaps mashup)
• Free Documentaries
  full-length documentaries available for free
  (tags: video free movies)
• BBC – Science & Nature – Sex ID
  (tags: gender quiz)
• The Internet Literacy Handbook
  (tags: skill digital-literacy)

• How to create a web form to talk with Google Docs
  (tags: howto googledocs spreadsheet forms)
• Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars
  so geeky, so fun
  (tags: video starwars)

The folks who brought you Frozen Grand Central now bring you Human Mirror. These ideas are great and they do a good job with them. Fun stuff!

• What Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know About Door-to-Door Magazine Sales
  (Houston Press) That kid at your door with a magazine order form will tell you a story — part sad, part hopeful. The truth will be infinitely worse than you can imagine.
  (tags: article scam sales marketing business fraud)

• At Google Finance, Google’s profit miss not news
  (IR Web Report)
  (tags: news google gatekeeping)
• Unrepentant on Facebook? Expect jail time
  (AP) how prosecutors are using pictures from SNS such as Facebook and MySpace in court cases
  (tags: article crime facebook myspace sns law photos)

Huh? It’s a play about “a group of outsourced Japanese Ninjas hired by China to infiltrate the American Psyche by taking on roles in the Media, Pop Culture, and Politics”. Go see it at the Zipper Factory Theater in NYC on Saturday, July 26th at 10:30pm. It’s a fun, fast-paced, multi-media production that will appeal to the readers of this blog. (It’s also directed by one of my oldest and dearest friends.) I thought the actors were great, for example, they were superb with the various accents (from BBC anchor to ninja).

The play also has an improv segment with guests, two this time: Paul Rieckhoff (Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author of Chasing Ghosts, a personal account and critique of America’s war on terror) and Hunter Bell (a writer and performer of the new Broadway show [title of show]).

While you wait to be seated, you can enjoy a drink at the bar or simply engage in some people-watching from one of the comfy/funky seats in the waiting area. Also, the two guests will be around after the play so this is really a play-plus-party event, all for $20.

• Adeona
  just in case your laptop gets stolen
  (tags: software security privacy)

• GMail works with eBay and PayPal to fight against phishing messages
  unless a message is really from ebay.com or paypal.com, it shouldn’t show up in GMail inboxes (or even spam folders) at all
  (tags: email phishing security gmail ebay paypal)
• XKCD-style political fundraising cartoon
  excellent, if I was eligible to donate, I’d give him the $8.34 he’s asking for
  (tags: politics cartoon funny)

• Songza
  music search engine (e.g. plays songs from YouTube)
  (tags: music search-engines)

• Sugata Mitra
  researcher behind hole-in-the-wall PC experiments in India
  (tags: people research)
• BackNoise
  for backchannel conversations
  (tags: tools social backchannel)
• Infogami
  easy Web site editing
  (tags: tools web-design)

• Wundrbar
  “next generation search bar” – command line that accesses your various accounts
  (tags: search-engines search web20)
• Jooce
  Web-based desktop
  (tags: desktop files web20 tools storage)
• What I Wish Id Done Differently – Caring for Elderly Parents
  (NYTimes blog)
  (tags: aging health elderly care healthcare)

• Widgenie
  tool to add data graphs to a Web site (or simply distribute direct link to graph)
  (tags: widgets data visualization sharing)
• Identi.ca
  open-source “microblogging” tool, Twitter alternative
  (tags: twitter open-source microblogging)