links for 2009-02-13

As someone who once did training in the arcane art of the sub-editor I can see both sides of the argument here - but the comments drip with venom that doesn't elicit sympathy for the subs: "One dreads to think what the pre-pubescent trainee hack who spent three years studying media 'n' communication at some McUniversity in the sticks, who was hired largely because he knows one end of a video camera from another and isn't too embarrassed to stand in front of one reading out a playschool version of a news bulletin, would cope.", "The sooner this numpty of a "commentator" retires the better. Total f*ckwit!", "sack the reporters and get the well-educated dupes doing 'meejah' studies at the the local further education college to fill the papers with tripe for free" and so on and so on

Google Japan got busted paying for reviews, and got a PageRank penalty as a result. At least now you can feel that if you ever fall foul of the Big G, you are in good company...

"If you visit Google today, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, you will see a Google logo for Charles Darwin...I guess the easier solution would be to rotate between two logos, but Google didn’t go that route". Never under-estimate the desire for patriotism over science.

"We now support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that's accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version". Yahoo! and MSN are also supporting.

Perhaps people could follow the example of the BBC, who renamed their "New Media" department as "Future Media & Technology". After all, when you are no longer new, where else is there to go but the future?