Forget the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon now we have a game that puts te internets graetest resource to work: Six Degrees of Wikipedia.

All you have to do is choose two topics that you want to calculate the degrees of separation of links between the topics on Wikipedia and the algorithm does the rest.

We’ve chosen to compare Australia’s royalty.

King Wally Lewis VS Queen Elizabeth II

(found via backscratchings)

Photo Credit: RoboBoogie

Apple fans who have been patiently waiting since February last year yesterday got a glimpse of their future second home when this giant banner went up on Apple’s flagship Sydney store at 77 King Street which according to SMH is expected to open at 6pm on Thursday, June 19 and is rumoured to be attended by none other than  God  Steve Jobs.

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Thought we should do an update to our original post as there has been more discussion on blogs about the Bill Henson story.

Bill Henson controversy, This is not an argument: thinking about the Bill Henson debacle, Bill Henson : Crikey! says Clive, More On Bill Henson…, In response to the Bill Henson controversy, Henson a Victim of Abuse of Process, What is Wrong With This Picture?, ethics – when freedom & responsibility clash, Sex change for a 12 year old “adult”, Has everyone gone completely MAD?, Is that it’s Art enough?, Sydney Censorship?, Giving the homeless a voice, The Art of Hysteria, Don’t Give it Power, art vs hysteria: the showdown, Be afraid, be VERY afraid, A Great Day for Science, and a pretty Crap day for Art, From the horse’s mouth, Artists turn on Rudd, Scandalous mischief.

(Note: We only track Australian blogs so there may be more blog reactions internationally but they don’t show up on our radar.)

The super brainiacs at MIT have created a catalog of all the videos that have been removed from The Youtube for alleged copyright violations. YouTomb lists recently removed videos, who requested their removal, when they were taken down, and how long they were up beforehand.

While you can’t actually watch the removed videos it is always nice to know who is censoring content on the web and what they censoring. Even if it just an illegally uploaded clip of kittens playing table tennis stolen from Australia’s Funniest Home Videos.

(found via CNET News)

Predictably, people with blogs have weighed in on the Bill Henson story. ‘Twas the #2 topic on local blogs this week. A long way behind posts about the State of Origin but still a active response.

There is a lot of discussion taking differing views so happy blog reading trying to get through it all…The Bill Henson controversy, Behind the News, Art or Exploitation?, This is not art?, OUTRAGE: Bill Henson’s Exhibition. Child porn?, Art and censorship – not a good mix, About bloody time, I can’t hardly believe it, Bill Henson exhibition under investigation, Bill Henson Shut Down, Art Or Pornography?, Bill Henson controversy, Bill Henson, Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery: Bill Henson – Police close exhibition, Bill Henson, our local rag, In days of future past, Bill Henson show closed until further notice, More Art Censorship, Bill Henson photography exhibit – a tangent, P.S., When nudity equals sex and art equals pornography, In the name of Art, Another uproar in the art world, But is it art?, Censorship, My 2c on the Bill Henson drama, Art or Porn?, knee-jerk?, Art or crime?, Paedophilia or Art?, Not safe for work/home/life itself!, In defence of Bill Henson , The obscenity of adolescence, continued, the art world, Kevin Rudd as art critic, What’s Art? What’s Porn? What The F–k?, OUTRAGE: Bill Henson’s Exhibition. Child porn?, Hetty Johnson, serves up stormy tea, The Bill Henson Debacle, Budding Maidens and Art, Art? Pig’s bum it is!, Art is what you can get away with, Banished art, Is Keven Rudd a stupid jerk?, Censoring our disturbing feelings, Every Philistine critic gets to be an instant artist for a day!, Child abuse campaigners lose the plot, Art obscenity charges, Censorship in Australia, the row, an interesting week, Projection onto Adolescent Forms, But is it art? — 2, our man in berlin, bill henson is innocent, In defence of Bill Henson, Bill Henson, Eli Langer, Bill Henson, We live in a sick world…, Art and the sexualising of children, The Bill Henson ‘kiddy porn’ fiasco, Bill Henson, art and child porn.

(Note: We only track Australian blogs so there may be more blog reactions internationally but they don’t show up on our radar.)

After the devastation caused by the natural disasters this past couple of weeks here are a couple of internet stats sources to see what people are writing about and searching for online.

Blog Attention

via Data Mining

Increase in Australian Seach Requests (week ending 10/05/2008)
‘myanmar’ (620%)
‘burma’ (3675%)
via HitWise

Using the internet to allow fans to help fund a musician’s album making process so they can avoid having a record label is easy with sites like Slicethepie and Sellaband.

But Australian singer Clint Crighton is providing more incentive for people to invest in his music project.

One of the one thousand people who put $100 towards the album will win a ten day trip to Los Angeles to see Crighton recording the album. As well as this, all the people who contribute will get free entrance into Crighton’s live shows for the rest of their natural lives. Sweet!

(found via Wired)

Ben Shepherd is quoting the latest Nielsen Netview (April 2008) which states that in April Facebook has beaten Myspace in the battle for users here in Australia for the first time ever.

April 2008
Facebook (2.646 million users) defeats Myspace (2.623 million users)

Poor Rupert. Your youth fly trap is still cool, I guess.

Let the social networking wars continue!

After the over analysis on blogs of the corporates’ social networking “wars” from last week. ‘Tis time to focus on the users, which is why I really love this Current TV video of what would happen in real life if a user was confronted by the online social networks for not logging in enough.

“…you helped me stalk ex-girlfriends and waste massive amounts of time at work but now I have to move on. I’m sorry, but it’s time for me to get a real life in the real world.”

(found via Freedom to Differ)

Didn’t pay attention during Grade 3 Italian? Thought Grade 7 Japanese was waste of time and Grade 8 German wasn’t worth the effort?

Thankfully, now we’re older we can see the benefits of having another language under the belt and there are a wide variety of ways rectify your lack of being bilingual by learning languages online, for free.

Read Write Web has found some links to help you take lessons and practice speaking a new language. Bonne étude!