the Times

Starting today, visitors to NYTimes.com have the option of seeing an enhanced version of our home page that we call Times Extra. This alternate view of the same editorial slate adds links to related coverage from third-party news sources and blogs — right there beneath our main news stories.

Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a a few clicks away. That's what Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling books Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital, believes. Tapscott, considered by many to be a leading commentator on our Internet age, believes the age of learning through the memorization of facts and figures is coming to an end.

Meant to blog this when it came out, but it's one of the funniest/creepiest things I've ever read in the Times: a really odd Q&A with Karl Rove.

Don't miss story in the Times today about the steps being taken to repair one of our major water tunnels:

For this, the city has enlisted six deep-sea divers who are living for more than a month in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing air that is 97.5 percent helium and 2.5 percent oxygen, so their high-pitched squeals are all but unintelligible.

Have you ever heard a song by a band and totally been turned on to that band, rushing out to buy their record, listening to it, and then excitedly telling your friend all about your "discovery", saying, "Hey, have you ever heard of this band called The Rolling Stones??? They ROCK!" only to have your heart crushed when your friend tells you that band's old news? (Tankboy has to do it to me all the time.) We hate to be "that friend," but...

What do you get when you move the head of digital media at one of the world's leading old-school press outfits into the CEO's office of an even hipper large music and news organization? We don't know, but we're excited to find out! Veteran media exec Vivian Schiller announced today that she's leaving her position as head of NewYorkTimes.com to become the new CEO of National Public Radio (NPR).

The proposal to create a British giga-database tracking every phone call, text-message, public transit usage, CCTV capture, purchase, educational experience, medical detail, plane or train ride, toll-usage, and other transactions continues to show its absurdity. The Times's David Leppard has noticed that the legislation will also require people who buy mobile phones in the UK to present a passport and have it registered with their number. Note that even in China, throwaway prepaid SIMs are the norm -- the UK proposal makes China look like a bastion of privacy and good government.

A front page story in the New York Times today begins:

Two reports tonight, one from the New York Times, and the other from Newsweek, contradict John McCain's statement this week that his campaign manager Rick Davis had no involvement with mortgage giant Freddie Mac for the last several years.