Ahh, Google Maps. So large. So pretty. So…confusing. Or at least that’s the impression you get from this Yahoo! News story (the title’s too cute by half), in which a search for “brothels” in three ZIP Codes turned up “the University of Oregon’s history department in Eugene, Ore.; the Happy Ending bar in Manhattan; and the Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D.”

Sound odd? If you know anything about the tech, it’s not too much of a surprise. See, where competitor Yahoo! (and others) has localized services built mainly from licensed yellow pages data, Google is trying to discern information directly from Web pages. You can see the difference when you do a search on Yahoo! Local for “pizza 60605“: the first 10 are obviously pizza joints. Do the same search on Google Local (which also powers Google Maps) and the #5 result is “Barry Personnel Resources Inc.” Why them? It’s not clear. (Google’s references don’t even contain the word “pizza.”)

But let’s get back to sex. See, the best part of the article was the reaction from one Leslee Unruh, abstinence maven:

Leslee Unruh, the president of Abstinence Clearinghouse, an organization that connects advocates of abstinence before marriage, was more than taken aback by the labeling of her office as a bawdyhouse. [jsp: a what?]

“This isn’t accidental,” she claimed. “I think this is deliberate. Abstinence is under fire, we’re under siege. Our opponents are trying to discredit the largest organization in the world that networks abstinence educators.”

Yes, the sex-crazed Googlites have targeted thriving Sioux Falls, S.D., for a takedown in their quest to get everyone laid — before marriage, natch. And worse, their campaign is getting noticed:

Unruh also said that while the “brothel” label was news to her, it explained some odd behavior she and others in her office have seen.

“We’ve been seeing some strange men stopping by the office,” she said. “They’re clearly looking for something. If they’re traveling and using Google, maybe they think we’re.” she said, but didn’t finish. “We’re right off the Interstate.”

Are all the best brothels off exit ramps? News to me. But I still think Leslee is being overly suspicious. After all, maybe these men “clearly looking for something” are just trying to score tickets for the Purity Ball!

I just finished watching the season finale of “Veronica Mars” — no mean feat considering we don’t get UPN (and it actually aired yesterday.) I was able to bypass what would once have been, ahh, show-stopping obstacles thanks to your and my favorite communication network, the Internet.

In fact thanks to the Internet (and season boxed sets), I’ve probably watched more TV this season than any other — yet only a tiny fraction of that was on the tube.

Looking back on my experience, I’ve spotted a few trends:

• I rely on recommendations. Word of mouth is huge for me, because I never, ever turn on the TV and just surf. My favorite show of the season is probably “Lost,” a show that would be completely off my radar were it not for B-don. B-don‘s responsible for a lot of what I watch. He also recommended “Alias”, “Arrested Development”, “Deadwood”, “The Wire”, and, if you can believe it, “Desperate Housewives”. Needless to say, I haven’t covered all those yet — he’s way ahead. (I heard about “Veronica Mars” from a Salon article.)
• I’m watching fewer movies. The number of films I’ve seen this year is pathetic — orders of magnitude lower than years past. I tend to double- and triple-up episodes of TV instead. That is, when I’m not having an attention-deficit day where sitting through even a 42 minute show seems long…
• I love the control. I don’t have TiVo, but BitTorrent is even better. I can watch shows any time I want on any of my computers, take them with me on a laptop or USB key, even transcode them to watch on my brother’s PSP (once he gets a big enough MemoryStick.) If the phone rings, or my e-mail dings, I can pause the action and pick up right where I left off.
• I get into it. I don’t know how you could watch a show like “Lost” with commercials. Just as you’re settling in to this moody, lush island landscape, your train of thought is interrupted by annoying girls stuffing tampons in their car’s leaky roof. Who needs it? Downloaded episodes let me pay more attention. I love having the option of jumping back to be sure I heard a line correctly, or even grabbing a still of bloopers/interesting activity such as boom mics, stunt men, and IP addresses. (Yes, I am a nerd, but I’m an observant nerd.) Also I can study the hotties…
• I watch more international programming. In addition to one-off shows, I’ve followed several complete series from the UK this year, including “Shameless” and “The Apprentice.” (And, OK, fine… also “Playing it Straight” UK. I never learn.) This sort of thing would be impossible without the Internet. Yes, there’s BBC America, but they’d have to edit; the UK “Apprentice” ran a full 60 minutes.
• I hate promos even more. I actually watched a show on ABC the other day, and they ran a breathless promo revealing a “Lost” plot twist. I would rather have been surprised. Also bad: shows with a “Coming up after the break” segment, which in the commercial-free downloadable version is really just a mini-spoiler. “Stay tuned” is meaningless for on-demand downloads.
• I can sample, then join at any time. When I first heard about “Veronica Mars,” the show was airing its 20th episode. “Lost” was 11 episodes in; “Arrested” was in a second season. I don’t like to jump in partway, so I would have had to wait for re-runs or DVDs. ABC tried to address this with specials a couple weeks ago, summarizing the major developments in both “Lost” and “Housewives” at roughly the 20 episode mark. (Kudos to them for also providing them on ABC.com.) Still, a 40-odd minute summary barely scratches the surface. With the Internet, I’m able to get caught up in a few days, at my leisure. On a related note: every show I watch begins with “Previously, on…” I just can’t be bothered with stupid sitcoms where everything is solved by the end of the show.

Add to that one more: I really don’t care about networks. Do these shows come from ABC, BBC, NBC, UPN? Like I care. The sooner the production companies sell direct, the better. I won’t miss the local affiliates, either. I never watch local “news”, and if I miss out on my local car dealers’ great incentive programs, I’ll find a way to soldier on. After all, I’ll have a bunch of TV to catch up on…

Self, remember:

1. No matter how much you avoid political news, he’s still President.
2. It is not time to dye your hair blue again, even if you’d use a pro this time. Save it for your mini-crisis at hitting the big 3-0.
3. If at all possible, avoid checking out potential hot guys walking on the street when you’re supposed to be driving on said street. Keep your eyes on the road. (This counts for double at night.)
4. If a leash is involved every time you find yourself walking outside, you need to get out more.
5. Try to eat a vegetable now and then. It will probably turn out okay.

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been buying stuff online (in what we’ll soon see is an ironic twist, Amazon’s order history page isn’t working right now) but it’s been many, many years. I’ve watched as online retailers who get it, like Amazon, have innovated, making the shopping experience smooth and worry-free.

Sadly, too few sellers “get it.” Just within the last week, I’ve been required to jump through unnecessary hoops to give companies my money. Moments ago, for example, I did what I should have done ages ago and bought a UPS so I could keep the bajillions of Firefox tabs I always tend to lose when the power flickers (as it’s done twice this weekend.)

The vendor asked for my credit card number with “no dashes or spaces.” Let me tell you a little something: it takes one line of code to strip out non-numeric characters from a sequence, and it’s something sellers should be doing anyway for security purposes. So why make it more difficult for me to ensure I’ve entered the right characters?

This site also had another of my pet peeves: the foreboding “click only once” or you might get charged twice message (in red, no less.) Again, it’s trivial to do a quick duplicate check. After all, when does anyone ever intentionally make a duplicate order in the space of a few seconds? Bingo: never. (Amazon goes one step further: they’ll even warn you if an item you’re buying appears anywhere in your purchase history, so you don’t inadvertently buy the same CD twice.)

To add insult to injury, the order confirmation e-mail from this site includes this:

Please remember that the advertised price does not constitute an offer to sell. The order confirmation does not signify our acceptance of your order, nor does it constitute confirmation of our offer to sell.

That’s right, the order confirmation is not a confirmation of my order. Super!

Slightly less annoying is the “cram the e-mail with junk” approach, which another (major) vendor took last weekend. In a message sent from ‘USPREPAID‘, I was told that “If you have already paid for your purchase, please retain [the e-mail]…” but “[i]f you need to send payment…” be sure to reference the invoice number. Is it too much to ask that a system smart enough to send me a message from the pre-paid confirmation system doesn’t waste my time with details about where to send a check?

All this sort of thing reminds me of the fuel pump I used the other day. I rolled up, got out, and saw the pump had a massive sticker: PRE-PAY ONLY. So I removed my card and scanned the menu, which offered two buttons: pre-pay… or pay inside.

I admit it, I watch “The Apprentice.” (In fact, I also watch the UK version.) It’s not something I’m proud of, and often the show sure doesn’t make it easy. Take tonight’s episode, when Des Moines resident Tana made it to the final two.

Now, I don’t particularly mind Tana, though I think she didn’t do herself any favors when in one breath she implied that fate is controlling the situation, and in the next she’s thanking G-d for getting her this far. But whatever.

My beef is that following a battery of interviews, one of the CEOs reporting to The Donald had to trot out an old chestnut, saying that he didn’t think as a girl “from Iowa,” Tana would be able to cut it in a big city like “New York or Chicago.” I’m suprised he even recognized Chi-town, located as it is smack in the middle of the flyover states. (Perhaps he was aware it’s also home to the world’s busiest airport and the world’s tastiest pizza.)

It all reminds me of a similar incident back in 2001. It was March 25, and B and I were watching “Politically Incorrect”. If I recall correctly, the show was a special, live post-Oscars edition. The guests: Aisha Tyler, now sometimes CSI cast member, and several others who I don’t recall. The topic: the decline of movies.

Ms. Tyler lets fly with an observation that she didn’t think people in Iowa read the reviews. Then she said something very similar to: “I think they look in the paper and say, ‘Hey, Dude, Where’s My Car? I like dudes. I like cars. Let’s see that.'”

Needless to say, I was similarly unimpressed by Ms. Tyler’s lack of insight on this point. And I shared that with her, in an e-mail with the subject I'd rather be Middle American than you. (What can I say, I was a drama queen back in the day.)

To her credit, Aisha actually replied 12 hours later. She gave me a sort of half apology, saying compelling TV was about dramatic opinions. (I kept both e-mails, which is why my dates are so precise.)

Aisha would have been better served to engage on facts, and not stereotypes, but at least she clarified. I don’t expect to get even that much from the guy on tonight’s show. But I’m going to poke around for his e-mail address anyway…

Been a tad heavy lately, so now back to our regular programming.

Today is Junk Day, or Spring Cleaning Pick-Up, or whatever pleasant euphemism is currently en vogue. Basically, it’s the day when people pile all sorts of crap on their lawns and the city comes ’round in a truck with a skid steer and carts it all away.

I really have no idea how common this practice is — I would have no trouble believing either that it’s nationwide in some form, or it’s just a small-town Iowa thing (Pech, you’re from TinyTown USA, do you have a junk day?) — but it’s always interesting, mostly because the day before you have all sorts of colorful characters sorting through the piles, looking for treasure. Depending upon how dedicated they are, this practice can even continue through the night.

Last night, in fact, I had to remind myself it was “Junk Eve” after I heard cars slowly idling up the street. At 2am, you must appreciate, cars are something of a rarity. From about 10pm on, the only sounds I usually hear outside are the two papers getting delivered (typically 3:15 and 4:45) and, if I’m up too late, those infernal birds chirping merrily to greet the day. (Normally, I go to bed about 4:30 or 5.) So when suddenly you’re hearing clunkers creeping along outside in the dead of night, with people using flashlights and talking in low voices, your interest is certainly piqued.

Then you remember what day it is and you go back to watching whatever you’ve downloaded lately. After all, it’s just a more immediate form of recycling.

March 13, 1964. 3:30 AM. Twenty-eight year-old Catherine “Kitty” Genovese returns to her home in Queens after her shift as a bar manager. After parking the car at a train station, she starts to walk the hundred feet to her apartment building in darkness. Just as Kitty reaches the glow of a streetlight outside her building, a man attacks her, stabbing her once. Kitty cries out, and the man is frightened away. Minutes later, he returns, stabs her again, and again disappears. Kitty manages to crawl inside one of the doors, but the assailant returns once more, and stabs Kitty a final, fatal time. More than a half-hour has passed since the first attack, and 38 of Kitty’s neighbors on Austin Street watched some or all of the assault.

None called the police.

Genovese was not an isolated case, recent victims such as Breann Voth have suffered in similar circumstances. So how could otherwise good people allow such a thing to happen? Pyschologists have a name for the phenomenon: “diffusion of responsibility”, a condition where people in groups assume that others, more qualified than themselves, will take action. This effect, a component of “bystander apathy”, grows stronger as the group grows larger.

I think of Kitty Genovese and the concept of diffusion of responsibility quite often, and not just in the morbid way of watching a violent crime and doing nothing about it. I also think about it in terms of voter apathy, media bias, corporate excess, government corruption, and any other situation where we’re all tempted to say “there’s nothing I can do about it, someone else will take care of the problem.”

Politicians are supposed to be public servants, acting solely in our interest. Yet lobbyists seem astonishingly successful. Corporate officers are supposed to bow to the shareholders. But unless that shareholder is Carl Icahn, CEO deals for tens of millions in annual compensation will often go unchallenged. The press is supposed to act as a watchdog. Yet no one is held accountable for a bogus war with a constantly shifting rationale.

I certainly don’t claim to have the answer for any of these problems, but I strive not to ignore them and trust that someone else will do all the work. If there comes a time when I can speak up and make things better, in whatever small way, I will try to be there to do it, as I hope others will.

We all deserve nothing less.

This is a postcard from PostSecret, a site that encourages people to mail their secrets to be posted on the site. They range from funny to stunning, such as the one above.

Assuming this card is true, imagine the consequences: someone left everyone (s)he knew behind. How selfish. How liberating. How daring. I couldn’t do it, but then I certainly wouldn’t want to. I love my family and friends very much, and I know they love me. I’d never want to abandon them. I’d lose far more than I gained.

Yet in a tiny way, I can see how the idea of being able to completely re-invent yourself is an attractive one. Even on this site, when I sometimes think about my “editorial mission”, though I’d never call it that. Back in ’02, when I started the site’s current incarnation (those who remember the Summer (School) Stories know I actually began “blogging” circa ’99) I thought I might do some personal, “thinking out loud” sort of stuff, with the goal of being truly open, consequences be damned.

That never really got off the ground, in part because my thinking out loud turned out to annoy me, as it seemed weak and indecisive. (And, worse, poorly written!) The controversial stuff was also tempered by my awareness that my relatives were checking in frequently. So I began to fall back into my more “family-friendly” persona: a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on the stuff that made people uncomfortable (such as being queer, atheist, etc.) It’s just so much simpler to rail against misguided intellectual property policy than to say I wish I had a boyfriend.

After all, you can only tell certain people, certain things. Except, writing that, I don’t know if I believe it. Privacy is important, but shouldn’t we tell each other more, not less? Shouldn’t we allow people the opportunity to try out new versions of themselves? Easier said than done, of course, as people will automatically try to reconcile every action with the likeness of you that lives in their minds.

I don’t know. I don’t have a snappy ending here. Since this is one of my more incoherent posts, maybe that’s appropriate…

Great interview with Richard Dawkins, on Salon:

How would we be better off without religion?

We’d all be freed to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We’d be free to exult in the privilege — the remarkable good fortune — that each one of us enjoys through having been being born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion’s morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.

Highly recommended.

Alright, so imagine you’ve got a hankering for a little fried chicken. (It happens.) You walk into the area’s most famously authentic chicken joint, you sidle up to the counter, and you scan the mounted menu to see what’s on offer.

Being as you’re the thorough sort, your scan also takes in the various paraphernalia posted on the walls, and your eye alights upon a photocopied certificate declaring the establishment “in substantial compliance” with the state Health Code.

You pause.

You wonder: does that make me feel better (“compliance”) or worse (“substantial”)?

No longer content with merely ejecting citizens from public events, the Bush administration now wants a political litmus test for things as seemingly innocous as, well, international telecommunications standards:

At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the [Inter-American Telecommunication Commission] meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry’s 2004 campaign. …

The White House admits as much: “We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and–call us nutty–it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that,” says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Representing the Administration? Here I thought it was to represent American users and their businesses, who are best served by selecting the most skilled engineers we can find, regardless of their partisan leanings.

Only the Bushies, who have a breathtaking contempt for dissent (and by extension, democratic process) would seriously require those in the science and engineering professions to first signal their loyalty to Our Great Leader before being permitted to join technical working groups.

And we’re all the worse off for it.

When a woman claimed to find a finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili, the company went into full-on crisis mode, hiring investigators, examining staff and suppliers, and offering a $100,000 reward.

Now it seems that the woman who reported the find has a history of trying to extort money. Following her arrest, Wendy’s was quite eager to, ahem, point the finger — but preferably without using the word “finger” at all. From their press release titled simply “Update on San Jose“:

In response to the announcement today by the San Jose Police Department that the criminal charges have been filed in the case involving a foreign object in a bowl of chili on March 22, 2005…

“Foreign object” sounds almost clinical, doesn’t it? It’s always interesting to see how language can be used to shape perceptions of a thing. Sometimes it’s dramatic, as when the Repubs use the phrase “death tax”, or the Dems mention the “nuclear option.” Other times, as here, it’s an effort to drain emotion, to neuter, as when I read that the Pentagon has edged away from the use of “body bags” in favor of the far more innocuous “transfer tubes.”

I hear George Carlin covers euphemisms like these in his latest book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? I wonder if it’s any good…

My family recently added a new Weber grill to our stable of cooking instruments. I found the manual lying on the counter the other day, and was surprised to discover its back cover taken up by a mammoth “product registration” card.

“This card registers your product and helps us get to know our customers,” it read. “However, failure to complete and return this card does not diminish your warranty rights.” Good, because though the first 10 questions entail whether I’d owned a grill before, if I enjoy grilling, if I’d like to receive Grill Out® Times, etc., (that would be no, no, and no) the ways Weber wants to “get to know” me turn swiftly more intrusive, including:

• My gender
• My marital status
• Date of my birth
• Including myself, how many people live in my household
• Date of birth of children in my household 18 years of age and younger
• Whether I own or rent
• My highest level of educational attainment
• My household income, as it falls in 16 ranges from “Under $15,000” to “$300,000+”
• What I/we buy through the mail, over the Internet, or from television among 15 groups from “Books/Magazines” to “Other”
• Which credit cards I/we have
• Which of 40 activities, from “Astrology” to “Worship/Bible”, at least one person in my home enjoys

So, after buying something to make hot dogs, the company would like one to specify what you’ve studied, what you make, what you buy, what you enjoy, and whether you’ve married. They’ll then respond by sharing this information with anyone they can get to pay for it, while your compensation is the continuation of warranty rights you’d have even if you don’t send in the card.

All of which leads me to ask: does anybody ever fill these out? Why?

My father brought a photocopy to dinner. He glanced at it, then said “Who was Maurice Hilleman?” I didn’t know, nor did my mother. “It’s a shame,” he said. “When you think of all the famous names you know, and the silly reasons they’re famous.” Then he showed the photocopy. It was Time‘s “Milestones” page, and read:

DIED. MAURICE HILLEMAN, 85, low-profile microbiologist credited with developing some 40 vaccines–a record–and saving more lives than any other 20th century scientist; in Philadelphia. Persuaded to go to college by his brother, who thought he should aim higher than his job as a clerk at a local J.C. Penney, the Montana farm boy eventually took what turned out to be a three-decade-long job at pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. He developed eight of the 14 vaccines currently recommend to protect children against measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B, and chickenpox.

Isn’t it time to celebrate smart people again?

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to acknowledge it: the rubber wristband trend has jumped the shark.

A bit of background for my international readers: Lance Armstong’s foundation, in concert with Nike, recently introduced a yellow rubber wristband inscribed “LIVESTRONG.” All the proceeds from the $1 wristband went to providing “information and support to young cancer survivors and their families.”

More than 40 million have been sold, and not coincidentally several others worked to latch onto the trend, diluting both the message (a company called AwarenessDepot sells more than 100 varieties, for causes ranging from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to GERD) and the value (7-Eleven sells $3 camouflage bands, and donates just $1.)

From a simple idea that spread quickly and effectively, it’s now possible to be utterly confused by seeing someone wearing 4 different bands and have no idea what they were all supposed to mean. There’s surely an interesting essay about diffusion of innovation in here somewhere. (This is not that essay, but Timothy Noah takes a stab at it, with some Tragedy of the Commons framing.)

I don’t need that level of analysis. I’ve seen the end in a far more reliable source: commercials. You see, what started as a bracelet to help cancer survivors has now, finally, trickled down to become something much less noble: a cheap promotional tool for CD compiliations. Yes, if you buy “NOW 18,” they’ll throw in a complimentary wristband.

Where the yellow band marks you as a cancer survivor supporter, the green “Now That’s What I Call Music!” band shows your daring ability to twist a good idea to become just another corporate shill.

Aww, well. It was nice while it lasted.