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Originally uploaded by david.

Life's Letters

E-Scrabble is the best Scrabble variation that's ever been on the internet, although it's still not ideal. I wish the dictionary was better, the notification robot breaks broke down less, and that it had stricter challenge rules, but those are niggling complaints.

Right now, I have AAAEEOO in one of my racks.

Hot Rockin!

The Band To Band Linker (first noted back in July) is back and better than ever.

Deadline: The Hearings in Albany

Deadline Blog: The Hearings in Albany.

Some testimony highlights included David Kaczynski, who spent a great deal of time telling his very moving and unusual story. He described how in the mid-nineties he and his wife began to wonder with dread if it was possible that the Unabomber could be his brother, Ted. He had to choose between endangering his brother's life, by alerting the FBI to his concerns, knowing that should be his brother be convicted he might well face the death penalty, or possibly endangering other innocent people who might be the victims of future bombings should he not intervene. He eventually did call the FBI, Ted was captured and convicted, and David and his family were relieved that a plea bargain spared him the death penalty, giving him a sentence of life without parole. David testified that if he and his family had had to see Ted executed, he's not sure his family would have emotionally survived the ordeal of Ted's conviction. He also added that law enforcement officers violated the confidentiality they had promised David and his family, causing the media to expose a number of details that David and his mother had shared with the FBI.

"Many people in the audience were interested in what was going on in New York State and wanted to get more involved. David [Kacynski] let them know that many of the Assemblymen are very unsure what New Yorkers want and that it would be a good use of their time to let their legislators know their thoughts."

David Kacynski and Deadline director Katy Chevigny hosted a discussion about the New York State death penalty Tuesday night in the Albany Public Library. "The great thing about some public libraries, like this one, is the link the library sets up between the community, the library staff and the resources of the building and its contents," Chevigny writes.

The accelerating momentum towards overturning the Death Penalty should be a huge story, but it's barely been covered in the New York City press. Luckily for us, the authors of the Deadline Blog are documenting the story. Like the hearing room in the Albany Public Library, the weblog is a public space where people from far and wide have gathered to discuss this issue that is often backgrounded by politicians and press on both sides of the debate.

Wall Street's Hidden Treasure: It's Food

Insider's Downtown: Tips for Lunch Near City Hall:

Chinatown has its charms, but to me, it is best enjoyed like Lindsay Lohan updates: weekly and no more. So options that don't involve Chinatown or fast food are few for the working crew of Room 9 - City Hall's famous press room - and any other New Yorker who is toiling on jury duty, in the neighborhood for a wedding license or simply lost around Chambers Street. But options do exist, they can be delightful, and they almost all offer takeout.

I disagree about the Lindsay Lohan updates, but I agree about everything else - I've long maintained that the Wall Street / City Hall area had the best affordable lunch menu of any neighborhood in Manhattan, much to the chagrin on my "foody" friends. The most overrated neighborhood for lunch: Union Square, by far. Second most underrated (downtown being #1) might be Inwood.

My downtown list would be very different than Ms. Steinhauer's, but the when the former City Hall bureau chief for The Times speaks, I listen.

Brooklyn Katamari

Brooklyn Katamari
Originally uploaded by david.

Robin sent out a request for New Year's Nose shots, and this weekend Adriana and I acquiesced. Get your nose here and tag your photo katamarinose!

Users, File Sharing, and the Semantic Web

Over at the Amazon Web Services Blog, they're republishing notes and slides from the Amazon Developer's conference.

BitTorrent, is real video on demand, it scares everyone except the users. NetFlix scares the hell out of Blockbuster. Most independent video stores (and the personalized recommendations) are now gone. In the face of too much choice, you watch the ball. Cricket.

Watch what the customers do, team up with them.

So here's Rael Dornfest, at an Amazon sponsored conference, talking up Amazon's own competition. How likely is it this would happen at an Apple conference? My friends who steal music still buy songs off of iTunes too, because it's often the easiest and fastest way to get the music. The only reason the cable industry hasn't collapsed is a) sports and b) stealing The Daily Show every night is simply not practical except for the über hackers, and it's not going to be anytime soon. So while Apple and Sony are presumably working on the iMovie store, all they have shown us is a bizarre giggle fest last week at MacWorld. Meanwhile, Amazon is bringing passionate users together and brainstorming new features.

And while we're on the topic of "users," I'm shocked at the amount of whining I've read on developers lists about the "nofollow" tag. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo collaborated to bring web publishers big and small a trivial way to opt out of having certain links of their sites crawled. It's a simple, elegant solution to a wide array of problems.

The next step is letting users give their own rankings to links, a kind of clue for pagerank. For instance, I would rank links that appear within my posts higher ranking than in my relatively static typelists. Shouldn't I be allowed to give the googlebot some hints? What other kind of value can I communicate with links? It's the Semantic Web, and you're soaking in it.

Why Hot, WASPy Chicks Love Jews

Why Hot, WASPy Chicks Love Jews, by Joel Stein:

The stereotype in Jewsploitation isn't the neurotic, nervous Jews of Woody Allen films, which you guys never seemed to like much. The Jews in "The Fockers" are loud, inappropriate, obsessed with sex and bodily functions, overly affectionate, liberal, earthy and smothering.

These traits seem to amuse people who don't get two helpings of it a day from parents who can't seem to understand that this is precisely why we moved 3,000 miles away to Los Angeles.

When I first read this I thought Andrea had written it herself, and I was really impressed. I didn't know Andrea could write like that! But at least she posted it, that's almost as good.

Jennifer Steinhauer on Food

In Today's New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer puts a human face on the problem of rising food prices in New York:

The figures showed that New Yorkers spent more money last year whipping together salads and slicing bananas into their cereal than the rest of the United States, as local prices for food showed the largest annual increase in 14 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food prices, especially for products bought in grocery stores, rose more in the New York region than anywhere else in the country.

...

"As we all know, the cost factors of doing business in New York are much higher," said John Catsimatidis, chief executive of the Gristedes supermarket chain, which has about 50 stores in the city.

"If you look at Northeast supermarkets, nobody is getting rich. I would be better off getting rid of all of my stores based on the value of the real estate alone."

Jennifer Steinhauer is easily the best writer at The Times. She's left the city desk for presumably greener pastrures. Over the past few years, her coverage of Bloomberg was always sympathetic without compromising. I've often thought that she would be a good politician, but maybe that's a common mistake readers make with their favored writers.

abandon all hope, ye who enter

Oliver Wang on American Idol: "abandon all hope, ye who enter"

For a national culture that force-feeds its brand of hopefulness down the world's throat, AI pulls the curtain back to reveal that depths of delusion that optimism can foster. Seriously, the sheer level of desperation exhibited on the show numbs the mind. I'd say it'd almost be endearing to know that someone pawned their wedding ring in order to finance their audition but mostly, it's just sad in a small, despairing kind of way. If and when that particular contestant gets booted off the show (and it's going to happen, no doubt about it), you just wonder how far she'll drop before smacking bottom.

There's more at Pop Life. I like what Oliver says but I think the show's producers are a little more self conscious than that. I think people tune in not to live vicariously through the discovery of new hopes and dreams, rather to laugh at people with very little talent.