It's easy to rant and rave about badly designed Web sites. When something is bad, you know almost instantly. But articulating why something is bad and -- gasp! -- constructively suggesting improvements is something else. Regardless of whether you're in the Web biz or not, this Web critique site provides an articulate review of many different and popular sites. The praise and criticism seem to be in equal amounts. This one's well worth bookmark space, if only for the intelligent posts from readers.

Data mining

www.Google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Top search engine Google offers a year-end spyglass into the collective consciousness of you and me. There's a real "of the people" smell to the data, which warms my left-leaning heart. Rather than some magazine deciding who's Person of the Year, the people's fingers have chosen Nostradamus and Britney Spears. How can you not love this stuff?

Cool kitsch

www.McPhee.com

I've been visiting this site for a while and it's amazing to see the range of mostly useless goodies on sale. For instance, you can instantly transform yourself into an Elvis look-alike with a handy wig. The What's New page is the one to watch, though. The latest visit turned up an exceedingly icky bar of Fly Soap and a must-have bamboo curtain for the discerning home tiki bar owner.

How they think

www.SecurityFocus.com/infocus/1527

Anybody who runs any business ought to make this article mandatory reading for all employees. It's an outline of some of the social engineering tricks used by would-be data thieves. There's a popular misconception that most computer compromises are the result of wiley system crackers and TV-like wizardry used to bang on systems until they buckle. This couldn't be further from the truth. If it's not an inside job, social engineering is almost certainly how we, the poor users, were tricked into giving away the keys to the kingdom.

My dog has no nose

www.Nature.com/nsu/011227/011227-1.html

Why is it that the British seem to do all the zany yet cool research? It seems that whenever a study on some useless particle of information is announced, there's some Limey having all the fun. And you just know they're taking long lunches and leaving early to boot. Here's a short article from the scientific journal Nature that reveals the funniest jokes on the planet. One is slightly puerile, so those without a sense of humor had better stick to reading tax preparation documents or whatever keeps them amused.

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