Two-Way Radios Reviewed is an article from the New York Times that is posted here for my own future reference (because even if the link is locked behind a paywall someday, I can get at it because I know how to use library databases!) However, I did want to highlight what I found to be the most interesting fact in the article, a requirement of which I was completely unaware:

"Over the years, the government has created standards for two kinds of consumer radios. First came the Family Radio Service, or F.R.S., a low-power (half-watt) mode for very short distances. The higher-powered General Mobile Radio Service (G.M.R.S.) provides better range but uses up the battery faster. The Cobra, Audiovox, Midland and Motorola are all dual-class radios, offering both F.R.S. and G.M.R.S. channels.

You're supposed to obtain an F.C.C. license before you use a G.M.R.S. radio, which involves completing a form available at www.fcc.gov/formpage.html and paying a $75 fee. The radio makers acknowledge, however, that this requirement may be the most universally ignored regulation since the invention of jaywalking."  [New York Times: Technology]

Which makes me wonder when Bush will get around to tapping two-way radios for Homeland Security purposes....

Oh damn - Jon Stewart just dissed librarians on The Daily Show. He said he considers anyone older than 15-years old in a library suspicious and that you don't want to mess with librarians because they'll "shush your @ss..." maybe. Yeah, it's a joke, but <sigh>.

Jim Hightower gets it right, even if there isn't anything funny about it. [via LISNews.com]

Direct Journalism

"It's good to see Salam Pax back online. His account of the war from inside Iraq is astonishing for its varied feelings. As a participant in events, his account is the most involving reading about the war." [RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing]

Intersecting Search and Blogs

"It's not difficult for bloggers to locate news content. There are excellent news search engines. How can journalists find blog content? How can the general public search this valuable information?

There are blog-style search engines. I found all could be slow or unstable. Blog content is often not search-engine friendly, making it difficult for search engines to rank blogs.

A few small changes on the part of bloggers could alter this dramatically. Remember, blogs are ordinary Web pages. When a search engine indexes pages in a blog, they aren't viewed as "blog-like" or treated differently than "ordinary" Web pages. Because of this, blog pages face the same ranking requirements as any other Web page. In "on-the-page" ranking factors, some blogs are very anti-search engine....

Bloggers (anyone, really) should explore whether their publishing tool lets them make simple changes to be more search-engine friendly. The goal isn't to change the unique way in which blogs are constructed. They're popular because they're easy to construct. Slight search-engine friendliness changes may well be possible....

How about it? Will Google or another search engine acquire Daypop? Will Google create a blog or an RSS search engine?" [ClickZ]

Search retrieval is one of the biggest hurdles blogging will have to overcome in order to truly become a practical service for organizations. Heck, even personal blogs desperately need better search functionality.

In this article, Danny Sullivan provides some tips for bloggers to help out Google, but Google and other search engines (especially those embedded in content management systems and web site tools) need to re-tool to help bloggers out. As Danny says, RSS search engines are useful, but they're not going to solve this particular problem.

I was trying to find a blog devoted to moblogging that I'd seen mentioned somewhere, so I typed in moblogging blog in Google to try to find it. Google asked if I meant "mudlogging blog." Is this a new form of blogging and I'm behind the curve?? Maybe it's an outdoor sport that I've just never heard of.

So how and when does Google decide that "moblogging" is a valid term? Is there a committee that adds it to the index or something? If so, please consider this an official request to add this term!

David Weinman asks if there is a LibraryLookup bookmarklet for Carl systems. My guess is that there isn't since it doesn't appear to use ISBNs in the URLs, but perhaps it exists and I just don't know about it.