Like many bloggers, I try to keep track on what others are saying about my blog, so I subscribe to a couple of RSS feeds from Technorati.com that track references to my name and my URL. Usually the RSS feeds send me links to various blogs related to the digital divide, video blogging, education technology, citizen journalism and the like, but yesterday, I received a notification that caught me off-guard.

One of my musical heroes had mentioned me on their blog.

To be more specific, Pete Townshend of The Who. Along with being the creative force behind one of the greatest bands of all time, Townshend is an avid writer, experimenting with online creative writing on his blog, The Boy Who Heard Music. Over the last six months, Townshend published a novella, one chapter at a time. When one of the chapters was posted, bloggers from all over the Internet would post comments and critiques of the work, which Townshend would review and take into account as he posted future chapters. The result is a 23-chapter story that evolved due to direct interaction between Townshend and the blogosphere.

So why did Pete Townshend mention me on his blog? In the book's epilogue, he offers up a homeric list of all the bloggers who submitted input at one point or another. That list includes me - and around 500 other bloggers. So it's not like Townshend dedicated the work to me personally or anything like that. Instead, he's paying tribute to all the bloggers who offered their support to the telling of the story. Townshend also notes in a "provocation" he posted that these bloggers will all be invited to participate in his next online project - an interactive music composition tool called The METHOD. A partnership between Townshend, programmer Dave Snowdon and composer Lawrence Ball, The METHOD will perform musical works generated by a computer based on interactions with a real person, referred to by Townshend as a "sitter." Initially the website will feature works generated by The METHOD through interactions with Lawrence Ball and others, but Townshend plans to invite bloggers to "sit" with The METHOD and generate music of their own. At least that's the way I understand it from his description on his blog. From what I've heard of Lawrence Ball's work, his music is reminsicent of Erik Satie and Arvo Part. Adding Pete Townshend to the mix, along with a community of 500 bloggers, will hopefully lead to some exciting, unusual results.

Personally, I can't wait for The METHOD to go public. Nearly 15 years ago, I got to interview French composer Pierre Boulez, who was one of the early experimentalists in computer composition. I've been fascinated with the concept ever since, and am very excited just pondering the opportunity of getting to try it myself some day.... -andy

John Oates of The Register reports that Yahoo! will no longer block people from creating user IDs with the word Allah in it. The debate began last year when a man named Ed Callahan was blocked by Verizon from registering an email address for his mother because their surname, Callahan, contained the word "Allah" in the middle of it. Verizon was using Yahoo! for its mail system, apparently, and any variation of the word Allah was blocked automatically when you tried to register it, even if Allah was just a row of letters in the middle of a surname.

As noted by Haitham Sabbah last week, versions of the word Allah were banned in Yahoo! email accounts, while words such as god, jesus, buddha and yahweh were acceptable. Apparently, complaints by the Callahans and Muslim bloggers were effective, because Yahoo! has changed their policy:

We continuously evaluate abuse patterns in registration usernames to help prevent spam, fraud and other inappropriate behavior. A small number of people registered for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate, and then used those IDs to post content that was harmful or threatening to others, thus violating Yahoo!'s Terms of Service.

'Allah' was one word being used for these purposes, with instances tied to defamatory language. We took steps to help protect our users by prohibiting use of the term in Yahoo! usernames. We recently re-evaluated the term 'Allah' and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse. We regularly evaluate this type of activity and will continue to make adjustments to our registration process to help foster a positive customer experience.

So Mr. Callahan's mom can now have her Yahoo! email address, as can anyone else who'd like to express themselves with the word Allah in their user name. I'm sorry to report, though, that any login name containing the word "Osama" still cannot be registered on Yahoo!. Perhaps there was a concern that Mr. Bin Laden would try to register as himself so he could keep up with colleagues, like Ayman Zawahiri and Abu Zarqawi. (Ironically, if you're name is Zarqawi or Zawahiri, you're more than welcome to register; I just tried registering ZarqawiStud and ZawahiriBaby, and Yahoo! congratulated me that both names were available.)

As a test, I tried registering some Osama variants, including osamalamamama63, 4osamarama874d and bigosamashazbot. None of them was available, and I cannot imagine the names were actually taken already. Osama, of course, is simply the Arabic version of the name Samuel, so all the innocent, law abiding citizens of the world who just happen to be named Osama are out of luck when it comes to selecting a personalized Yahoo! email address. What's puzzling, though, is that my friend Osama Manzar uses a Yahoo! address with his name in it. He must have been grandfathered in by Yahoo! when their anti-Osama policy was created.... -andy

On the plus side of getting laid off recently is the opportunity to immerse myself in jobs-related RSS feeds. Hitting employment websites on a daily basis can be a downright depressing task, particularly when you're not finding many job descriptions with the term "digital divide" anywhere in its text. Thankfully, I can turn to a variety of websites that generate RSS feeds for particular job searches. Since RSS feeds get updated automatically when a website adds a relevant job listing to its database, your RSS aggregator gets notified promptly. I use Thunderbird for both my email and RSS needs, so a variety of potential job openings arrive in my in-box in a most expeditious fashion.

Sometimes, the job announcements sent to me are quite useful. I particularly like the listings available through the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Sometimes, though, the job postings I get are, well, a little off the mark. For example, this morning I discovered that the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers - AGEHR - is searching for a new executive director.

Established in 1954, the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (AGEHR) is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with members in all fifty states and several countries. AGEHR is dedicated to advancing the art of handbell/handchime ringing through education, community and communication. AGEHR strives for musical excellence through events, publications, the exchange of ideas related to techniques and composing, and conducting. National AGEHR events bring together ringers and directors from all over the world as a primary source for new ideas, thereby "uniting people through a musical art."

They're searching for a new leader with a strong background in nonprofit management, not to mention someone interested in "Igniting a passion for handbells and handchimes." They'll pay $80,000 a year plus benefits - and you don't even have to know how to play handbells!

Maybe I'll apply. Then again, it doesn't exactly match my resume. Hmm. The search may just have to continue a little while longer.... -andy

Anne Margulies, director of the MIT Open Courseware initiative, just finished her speech here in Missouri. Here's a podcast of her speech, recorded with her permission. It's 45 minutes long, around 11 megabytes. -andy