Ad placement in Web sites, especially large ones, is done by computer. It might be random, it might be based on what the site knows about the visitor, or it might be based on the content of the page. Let’s hope the latter isn’t the case with the Charles Schwab ad that appeared with this ABC News story.

(The image below is a composite to save space. Click it to see a screenshot of the actual page.)

I would like one of these.

It’s a lipstick-sized 128MB USB storage device that includes a 320×480 digital camera along with a voice recorder.

How cool is that?

No joke.

I appreciate Viagra’s new slogan — “See what all the excitement’s about.”

If you like to track the latest Presidential polls (and we all know how accurate they are), check out Real Clear Politics which tracks a whole lotta polling companies’ results to give you a better picture than you’d get from a single company.

Let me preface this by saying I hate spam. Hate it, deeply and passionately. I think spammers should be forced to drive an alternative-fuel convertible with a big American flag on it through the streets of Saudi Arabia with the horn blasting “Dixie.”

That said, let me offer another perspective.

Imagine if, 20 years ago, someone said this to you:

“You can have a machine that lets you send messages to anyone in the world in a matter of seconds. It will cost nothing no matter how long the message. You can send text, but also photos, cards, sounds, and movies, all virtually free. BUT every day you’ll get dozens of junk messages promoting porn, medical quackery, and every type of scam and scum imaginable. You can delete these with the click of a button, but you can’t stop them. Are you interested?”

Can you imagine anyone saying no? Can you imagine anyone saying “It’s too high a price to pay”? Not me.

And yet, like most people, I’m bitching about spam.

Perspective: Use it or lose it.

The following paragraph was the opening of a discussion thread at FutureProducers.com, a site for musicians. Is this English?

Here’s a pickle, and I cannot see what im probably being a muppet! I am new to Logic, having upgraded from Cubase 5.

Yikes.

I’m reminded of Lisa Simpson’s comment upon seeing a billboard in Australia for the “Yahoo Serious Festival.” She said, “I know what all those words mean, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

Here in Columbus, a woman with two kids was pregnant with a third. Nine months pregnant, in fact, and on bed rest.

She was in the shower when a faulty electrical system started a fire. She was barely able to get out with her life and her children’s lives. She lost everything else.

She had the baby a few days later — a five-pound boy. But she’s staying with relatives since she lost her home.

Karen had a lot of Sam’s old baby stuff. He’s outgrown it, but he was a very small baby. So she contacted the Dispatch, got the woman’s address, and wrote to her asking if she’d be able to use any of Sam’s stuff.

The woman called back and said Yes.

So Karen took her some stuff.

The woman was probably expecting a few baby clothes. But Karen surprised her: She brought a whole car full (literally) — boxes and boxes and bags and bags of clothes and toys, all washed and in great shape.

And that’s why my wife is better than yours. :)

The appreciation continues. My MR2 sold for $1700, which is a little more than what I would have asked for it in a “normal” sale, but without the hassle of haggling with people. Our water bed, which we were just going to toss out, brought us $76. A laptop bag netted $26, and a camera flash I didn’t use went for $117.

What I really like is how eBay is a beautiful microcosm of capitalism — a nearly perfect example of how laissez-faire should work.

Things sell for what the traffic will bear. Buyers compete with other buyers; sellers have to deal with competition. I you have something that a zillion other people have, well, you won’t get as much. If you have something rare you’ll get a lot more.

And the system is non only self policing, but self policing in a textbook-perfect way. What I mean is, if you’re a bad buyer or seller, eBay has a feedback system: the people you screw will give you black marks you can’t escape. Fear of negative feedback — and the possibility it will harm your business — keeps most folks in line.

It’s like a restaurant: If enough people complain about the food, word of mouth will kill your business. In this case, eBay has set up a system that makes it hard to escape your negative feedback. If you change user names, the system indicates it. Your reputation always proceeds you.

Thus when I put my car up, I took great pains to list everything that was wrong with it. Brutal honesty is my best defense against complaints. And if I go to bid on something, I obviously check the seller’s profile. Too many negatives and I walk.

So that’s my diatribe on the wonders of eBay. A capitalist proving ground that proves.

I’ve seen the previews for the upcoming film “I, Robot,” which director Alex Proyas has the nerve to say is based on the “Robot” books by Isaac Asimov.

“When I was a kid, ‘I, Robot’ was one of the select science-fiction books that I always thought would be really cool to make a movie of,” he says in the featurette. “It’s been a tough one to translate to the screen,” he admits.

Bullshit. It wasn’t tough to translate to the screen. Not when you dump the entire story line, change the characters, and make up a new plot. The only thing the movie apparently keeps is the title; even the main character’s name has changed.

Why not just say, “I liked the idea of a story about robots having three laws they had to obey, and what would happen if they didn’t obey them”? (That isn’t the plot of I, Robot the book, by the way.)

To even suggest that this movie has anything to do with Asimov’s classic means Proyas is either deluding himself … or just an idiot.

I guess that’s old news — everyone I know who’s used eBay sings its praises. Lately, though, it’s been very very good to me.

We’re trying to rid ourselves of all sorts of stuff that we’ve collected over the years — things like our rototiller, our kayaks, and lots of other stuff.

Well, eBay has been the Best Thing Ever. We got $375 for the rototiller that I figured to get a couple of hundred for, tops, at a yard sale. The kayaks that I thought we might get $50 apiece sold for $250 and $300, respectively.

So I’m very pleased, and so are the folks buying this stuff. Everybody wins.

I just put my 1988 MR2 up on eBay Motors, and already have one bid and 12 “watchers” after only about six hours.

The coolest thing is that, about a year ago, I bought eBay stock with my IRA. Turns out to have been a great move — it’s done disturbingly well.

That’s it: Just a shameless plug of sorts.

It’s not just electronic voting machines that have problems. Check out this story from the wonderful Roanoke Times on how a mechanical machine jammed — and lost votes.

Click on each for a larger pic.

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“Spammer Sent To Prison For 7 Years”

Get this: During the Battle of Britain, to prevent a German plane from destroying Buckingham Palace, pilot Ray Holmes, who was out of ammo, few his plane into the German’s, cut off the bomber’s tail, and bailed out before both planes crashed.

Holmes’s plane was unearthed today.

Beat that.

I’m not going into the proper use of em dashes (you can find that on Wikipedia and other places. But I did learn something new.

You’re not supposed to put spaces on either side of an em dash. E.g., “I called my friend John—he was always good for a laugh—and told him what happened.”

But a lot of Web sites do, including USA Today where my column appears. I asked my editor (who’s almost as picky as I am about these things) and she said it was just their style even though it’s technically incorrect.

But wait! I found the real reason you do put spaces around em dashes on the Web. It’s because most browsers don’t break lines properly, and will keep long phrases together instead of breaking before or after a dash. By putting spaces around them, you allow them to display properly if they appear at the end of a line.

Of course!