Last July I posted a whim-of-the-moment collection of Action verbs, expressed by links to Yahoo News Photos. I remember at the time, wanting to do it with Flickr too, but there really were too many missing bits (not enough photos and not enough tags) to make it as interesting. Well, leap forward five months and it's even more interesting - the results on Flickr are less exact than Yahoo News - but more intriguing, and certainly more personal.
Of the 49 original linked words, only three (shout, raise, and clench) have no matching tags in Flickr. So, with that, here they are:

A person does many things in a day. These things are captured on film and transmitted via my (new) favorite source of photos, Flickr.com.

On any given day, a person:

Eats, drinks, bites, feeds, and (hopefully) cleans.

Speaks, addresses, shouts, yells, gestures, points, and, quite possibly listens.

Lifts, raises, flies, or clenches a fist, leaps, tackles, pushes, possibly shoves, throws, hurls, or tosses.

Frowns, cries, grimaces, weeps, or mourns (lots of this in the Middle East.)

Touches, scratches, and wipes. Holds, or clutches.

Sings, performs, and poses, or is captured in silhouette.

Smiles, consoles, laughs, celebrates, kisses, embraces, hugs, and dances.

Then of course, looks, yawns, and sleeps.

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MIT's Technology Review January issue has a great genreal-interest article (Amazon: Giving Away the Store) about Amazon.com's web services, how they're being used, risk factors and potential. Nice first-paragraph mention of Amazon Light 4, good quotes from Bezos, Paul Bausch, and the good folks on the AWS team in Seattle. Be sure to read the right-hand sidebar as well, interesting commentary from industry observers/competitors.

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Erik has come up with a fun Google Suggest Game/Diversion. Using the current top suggestions for each letter of the alphabet, you can create a substitution list for the NATO phonetic alphabet. In other words, my name (Alan), which would have previously been "Alpha Lima Alpha November" now becomes (perhaps too aptly) "Amazon Lyrics Amazon News".

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Amazon's doing the DVD Rental gig now, starting in the UK. Rental members get discounts on purchasing DVDs, everything else looks modeled on Netflix, no late fees, etc. Wonder how long before this migrates to the US?

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Just stumbled across Amabuddy, a VXML interface to Amazon.com, so you can use any phone to look up info by entering an ISBN or UPC number, and have Amazon info spoken in your ear (prices high and low , rating, related items, etc.) It's a pretty neat and simple interface. They even maintain an online history of your phone lookups, so by using your phone number as a key, you can recall your phone lookups from home later. Very nice.

The best part is how they bill the service: "This is for you to play with and enjoy hassle free". Their lookup is fast, the info is solid. Pretty fun. I'll keep the phone number on hand for the rare time I want more info about a book or CD but can't find a PC. Of course, they have a blog up for comments as well.

I don't often post things like this, but I have been so frustrated by the coverage (or lack of it) of events in Iraq, that this video story from the BBC's Paul Wood really came across as a breath of fresh air. Wood was embedded with a part of the US invasion force (Marines) as it entered Fallujah. While the video is not particularly graphic (in a gory sense), it does have candid images of injuries and bodies, as well as some choice language.

Link to the video piece here: (streaming media) in either Windows Media or RealAudio.

Supporting web page, with more coverage from Paul Wood of the BBC.

This sort of reportage is so tense, so real, so disturbing, it really makes anything I've seen in the US pale in comparison. And the military men - they are neither idiots nor saints, they are presented as real humans with a scary job to do - how they reconcile their actions and the larger conflict is a big part of the story. Too often we in the US are presented with images of cartoonish unthinking gung-ho support, sanitized US governmental propaganda or knee-jerk anti-war hatred - how moving it is to witness the human experience in an inhuman situation. This video really comes across as the definition of Gripping, Objective Observation. US Media, take note. (Why doesn't HBO spawn an uncensored news channel? A premium news service with no ad dollars to chase or FCC rules that make second-guessing become second nature.)

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