Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits A multilingual blogger produces news roundups of European news in English. Cool.

Poynter Online - Wednesday Edition: Kids' Home Internet UseInteresting research results that kinds who use Internet at home outperform those who don't in school. The Web for all its glamour is essentially text-based, and it turns out that kids who spend more time reading (even if it is online) become better readers. There appear to be no negative social impacts, either. As my kid heads off on his first "roadtrip" as an adult (he is now 18) to cyberathlete professional league summer 2003 championships in Dallas, TX. He will be one of the 1000 folks who "BYOC" or bring their own computer. He is an avid reader, a good writer, he got into college , has dates and a social life, but I wish he would spend more time outdoors.

Advice to avoid copyright litigation / Experts sharing tips to help defend against file-sharing lawsuits Boy, it sounds like a challenge for consumers to boycott all kinds of "legal" music, MTV, CDs, etc. that come from labels that are represented by the RIAA. If the RIAA wants to go after money, I'd sure think that a consumer boycott would be a logical response. I am only surprised I haven't heard of such an effort yet. College students, teenagers, parents of techno-geeks, college IT people, could you go without buying music or watching Televsion programs that are made by corporations that have affiliates represented by the RIAA for 2 weeks to show a sense of solidarity and clout?

Poynter Online - Writing with Your Nose Being an olfactory person, I like this "how to" article from Poynter. I remember riding my moped from the suburbs to the city, and being slammed by the shifting odors. I always imagined it would be a good exercise to write about the trip as if I were riding on the back of the moped with my eyes closed just describing the passing neighborhoods and zones based on smell. Here are a few I recall:

• Pulling away from my house the damp grass smell of a lawn that is dew-sprinkled and clean
• Passing the little woods in Evanston, cooler by degrees, and with the smell of air that hasn't sat behind idling engines for hours
• the sudden turn onto McCormick with its earthy sewage smell redolent of still water, muck, and dead fish
• accelerating past the dumpster of lard grease behind the Mexican restaurant, replaced by the sweeter but still cloying odor of the Greek's dumpster

Sit back, take a whiff, scratch and sniff. add some "sense" to your writing. Smell-O-Vision

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage This update about Jayson Blair's next writing assignment sounds like something out of a Thomas Pynchon novel, but unless Reuters got scammed, it is true. Having a fabricator review the movie about a fabricator? So "pomo" it drips irony like honey off baklava.