dietsch ::

Google to offer book search?

Days after Amazon launched a new full-text search of books in its system comes word that Google is considering a similar offering.

Blog comment spam

I got my first blog comment spam today, in the form of strings of URLs shotgunned at several of my blog entries. From what I've been able to figure out, here's what blog-comment spam is all about: Google uses a feature called PageRank to rate sites. The more links there are to a certain site, the higher up that site appears in Google's search results. Spammers are flooding the comments pages of blogs in an effort to raise up their sites' PageRank ratings. Four of my entries were hit, and I deleted all four spam comments. I'm going to have to keep more-careful watch on my comments, I guess. Luckily, I get an email message whenever a new comment is posted. Jay Allen has released the MT-blacklist plugin, which enables quick-delete of comment spam, and I'll have to look into installing that. More on spam comments: Blog Comment Spam on the Rise, Comment Spam, Blog Comment Spam. Also, since this has hit bloggers pretty hard, many more have commented. Do this Google search for more info: blog+comment+spam. Addition: Also see Bill Thompson's article on the BBC News site.

Search the full text of books at Amazon

Amazon has announced a new feature on its site: You can now search the full text of books in its database. This is pretty cool, as Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, points out in a letter to customers. And it's easy to use. All you do is enter your search term in the same search box you'd normally use to find an item at Amazon. What I really like is how the feature highlights your search term on a PDF copy of the book's page, as this example shows. By the way, I don't recall ever having made bread in a tin can. But I think the biggest surprise was this excerpt from . Surprise, because William Dietsch is my uncle, my father's brother, and I never knew (or I'd forgotten) that he'd been profiled in such a book.

Thirties

A new book about life in your thirties has a new associated weblog: Book of Ages: How Do You Stack Up? [via Gothamist]

Slew of books

My company's having a book sale this week, and everything's a quarter, so it's a chance to try out some stuff for which I'd never probably pay full price. (Six books for a buck fifty!) It amuses even me, however, what a hodgepodge of stuff I selected. Here's a list: , by , by , by , by , by The sixth book is a directory of art by Quebecois illustrators, with full-color reproductions of each piece. It's beautiful. UPDATE: Well, that's clearly not working correctly. I'll have to figure out the problem later and fix it. Eek! Fixed now.

Strummer's Redemption

Old pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit. But my hand was made strong By the 'and of the Almighty. We forward in this generation Triumphantly. Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom? - 'Cause all I ever have: Redemption songs; Redemption songs. The final album from Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros arrives in stores tomorrow. I downloaded an exclusive prerelease version from the iTunes Music Store, and damn is it good. Of special note is Strummer's solo acoustic recording of Bob Marley's Redemption Song, produced by Rick Rubin, who also produced a recording of the same song featuring Strummer and Johnny Cash.

FreshDirect comes to my nabe!

FreshDirect is now in my neighborhood--well, parts of my neighborhood, anyway. FreshDirect is an online grocery store that delivers to neighborhoods in New York City--rolling out first in select Manhattan neighborhoods and slowly expanding into the rest of Manhattan and the outer boroughs. Turbanhead describes the experience of shopping in NYC groceries. Sir Lunchalot describes the distribution center. BusinessWeek explains the model. When I order, I'll report back.

New pictures

Oops

New York Daily News - News & Views - World chumpions! "The Yankees couldn't get the job done at home; their season ended last night in the seventh game," wrote the New York Post in an editorial Friday morning. The Post blames the gaffe on a production error. The Daily News, of course, is having fun tweaking the Post for its error. See the editorial page reprinted at Smoking Gun. (If the Smoking Gun page disappears, Gothamist has another reprint here.)

Your life in photos

Matt Haughey, creator of MetaFilter and PVRblog, among other cool sites, has started Ten Years of My Life, a website documenting, in photos, Matt moving through his 30s. Intriguing idea. This is worth following.

Fortress of Solitude

Christopher Sebela interviews Brooklyn author Jonathan Lethem.

They're smoking cigars

Today is my birthday. 35. I can see 40 from up here and it looks a litttle scary.

True Porn release party

Tonight's the New York City release party for the new comics anthology True Porn. Toys in Babeland, 94 Rivington Street, 7pm - 9pm. I saw a preview of this at the MoCCA Art Festival over the summer, and it looked very nice, so I'm excited to see the finished product.

amNewYork

amNewYork, a free commuter paper aimed at young professionals, has people out this morning (10/7) handing out a free preview, and Christ is it sloppy. Poorly written, and typos everywhere. The paper launches Friday, October 10, and I hope they have a copy desk in place by then. But what really amuses me is the amNewYork manifesto. After running down the old saw--the WSJ is read by those who run the country, the Times by those who think they run the country, and the Washington Post by those who think they should run the country--amNewYork proclaims: "Well this newspaper, amNewYork, will be read by people who will be running the country by tonight's pm." Whee! amNewYork will enable the proletariat to seize the means of production and finally stick to those damn bourgie WSJ readers. [Links: Crain's Chicago Business; Gothamist]

License

I've added an explicit disclaimer to my Colophon today, which explains the rights to anything you might find on this website. Most of my weblog pages already have a Creative Commons license, but I hadn't yet applied that license to my longer writings or to my photographs. Today, however, I got an e-mail from someone in Brazil, saying they'd found a couple of my pictures in a Google search, and asking whether they could use one of those pictures in a photo montage. I granted permission so long as the person credits me for the work and doesn't sell the photo. I think it's so cool that someone in Brazil likes my photos enough to reuse one.

The Kicker

Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers blogs about New York for New York Magazine. So far, she's already picked a fight with Paper Magazine for its overexposure of indy-queen Chloe/Chlöe Sevigny.