Salon's Laura Miller writes about the downside of spam blocking: false positives. It's a tough issue. What if someone important (family, your boss, a client) is unfortunate enough to use the same ISP as a spammer?

(Salon Premium link. If you're not a subscriber, they'll ask you to watch an ad to read it.)

Know thy enemy. Technology Review has a good overview of spam blocking technologies, with some discussion of the tactics junk emailers use to get around them.

(Link by way of the Shifted Librarian.)

I missed it the first time around, but apparently Google celebrated M.C. Escher's birthday earlier this week. Thanks to Keri for the heads-up.

Nick Corcodillos is a headhunter: he's made a career out of matching candidates with jobs. That makes job boards his competition, at least theoretically. I don't think he's too worried, though. As he explains, job boards account for a large fraction of recruitment advertising, but a tiny fraction of actual hiring.

Jakob Nielsen debunks the idea that a few large sites dominate the Web. It's possible to have enormous total traffic while still trailing in most topical areas. Conversely, a site that's too tiny to notice on a global scale can still lead the specific niche it serves.

(Link by way of Tomalak's Realm.)

News.com writes about a phenomenally stupid resolution making its way through the Council of Europe. The resolution would guarantee a right of reply to those criticized by web sites, even tiny privately run sites like this one. The chilling effect of such a regulation should be obvious. In the US such rules run smack into the idea, enshrined in the First Amendment, that it's not possible to have too much speech.

(Link by way of Tomalak's Realm.)

So I wrapped up a project Friday and was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with time to get some writing done. If you want to make the gods laugh, tell them your plans. The weekend was anything but quiet (see the Photolog for details), and I have only 2700 words since my last update. That's 127,580 since January 1. My goal of 30,000 words for the month is starting to look a bit ambitious. Sigh...

On June 17, 1972, the Watergate scandal began with a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee.

(Link by way of The Jurist.)

Alice on the Corporate Campus, or, why I have no desire to return to a corporate position.