I have migrated all of the Flickr content off of that service and on to SmugMug. I think this is going to make us all much happier. (Summary: SmugMug is a photo hosting site with some collaboration and Web 2.0 services grafted on to it. Flickr is a Web 2.0 site with some photo hosting grafted on to it. This isn’t really a fair comparison, but it’ll have to do until I have a chance to quantify what, exactly, it is that I like so much about SmugMug.)

The complaints of the major broadcasting and media companies regarding the long-term viability of local television would be a lot more believable — and easier to support — if CanWest Global hadn’t just recently tried to kill off a local TV station (which now has its own logo on the campaign page).

I am agnostic on this issue, since I can find plenty of people to dislike on the other side. It would be easy to say that, given the CRTC’s historical position on fee-for-carriage (oppose) that if you’re satisfied with the status quo you might find yourself on the same side as the cable companies — but then you look at what you pay for cable service, and how much you’re getting in return, and realize that maybe you’re just going to stop paying attention altogether.

This might be the first time I’ve seen people get this worked up over a proposed CRTC decision since the blank media levy was introduced in 1997…

• Whatever you do, don’t panic: The drama of a call to the emergency services. Transcripts and audio recordings of calls to 999 in the United Kingdom. Interesting for lay readers because most people never actually hear what these sound like; interesting for my colleagues because the PDI is basically the same and, modulo the accents, the calls themselves are basically the same, too.
• Principles of the American cargo cult: “I wrote these principles after reflecting on the content of contemporary newspapers and broadcast media and why that content disquieted me. I saw that I was not disturbed so much by what was written or said as I was by what is not. The tacit assumptions underlying most popular content reflect a worldview that is orthogonal to reality in many ways. By reflecting this skewed weltanschauung, the media reinforces and propagates it. I call this worldview the American Cargo Cult, after the real New Guinea cargo cults that arose after the second world war. There are four main points, each of which has several elaborating assumptions. I really do think that most Americans believe these things at a deep level, and that these misbeliefs constantly underlie bad arguments in public debate.”
• LaCie imaKey USB flash drive: WANT.
• The Toaster Project: “I’m Thomas Thwaites and I’m trying to build a toaster, from scratch – beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that Argos sells for only £3.99. A toaster.” Take that, localvores!
• Shawn Colvin: Born to be telling her story. Strikingly interesting interview with one of my favorite artists about one of my very favorite albums.
• Because it’s on TV tonight, and because this is one of my favorite pieces of fan-created SF tie-ins: The Endor Holocaust. Knowing this totally changes the way you watch Return of the Jedi. See also these guys for more ways to kill beloved childhood popular culture memories.