See Stew. See Stew link. Link, Stew, link!
It's somehow reassuring that after a year it looks like Amtrak's made even less progress on their scheduling algorithms than I have in blogging (where last year's post about this is still on the front page):
That's right: the default selection it's now offering is a worse schedule that costs more than the train I actually want (714).
I'll make you a deal, Amtrak: if you fix this in 2009, I won't blog at all. ;-p
Between eBay buying Shopping.com and Scripps buying Shopzilla, comparison shopping engines are apparently the hot commodity this week. Obviously some site needs to add a "comparison shopping site" category while there's anything left to compare.
Yesterday, A9 launched OpenSearch, which I'm incredibly excited about. DeWitt already summed up the possibilities this has for exposing "the long tail of search," and I couldn't agree more.
What does this mean for you as a search consumer? Well, if you use A9.com (or any other future OpenSearch aggregator), you can now simultaneously query 56 search services (and counting) with one search.
Standard Issue Disclaimer: I work for A9. Speaking of which, we're hiring.
Jon Udell: Annotating the planet
This article has a lot of really neat ideas. It'll be interesting to see what happens in this space in the next few years.
This is a pretty brilliant article. I can't think of anyone who works with the internet who shouldn't read it.
Selling It (Commentary on a NexTag mortage ad)
I had to make a new category just for this entry: WTF!?
This is a neat project that entertained me for 15 minutes, but it's not problem free. [via Kevin]
How the hell d... Oh, actually, those are all good questions, but what I really wanted to know is "how the hell does this thing work?"
This is an old essay I read years ago, but I just reread it this weekend and I found it both very inspiring and very depressing (especially with regard to my current job).
Fascinating. This is very close to being able to integrate your web searches and your desktop searches in one place.
Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals?
If this happened (and I really don't think it will), based on what Microsoft did to Hotmail, it would pretty much be the worst thing ever.
Saving the Net / Who Owns What?
Admittedly, this link has been all over today, but it was a really good editorial, and it even referenced Lakoff / Moral Politics. Actually, some of what was in this article reminded me of what my Lakoff term paper was supposed to be about, but this article had a much better execution than my term paper. And the brief mention of Howard Dean at the end of the article finally got me to go check him out, which I'm really glad I did.