A9/Amazon is sporting a new Yellow Pages feature, whose claim to fame is its use of photos...

Palo Alto-based A9 said it compiled the index by covering tens of thousands of miles in trucks equipped with digital cameras and global positioning system, or GPS, receivers.

Pretty amazing... if... okay, I know it is still in beta, but as far as I can tell not a single image I can recognize is right.

Bistro Elan is exactly the kind of business you would want photos for. They have no conspicuous sign, and are nearly hidden by vines. But a search on Palo Alto showed "Bistro Elan" as a listing, and when I clicked it I got this.

Can you imagine showing up at these people's house?

"Hi, reservation for six!"

The real Bistro Elan, shown here (I took pictures up and down California Avenue to kill time while Philippe made copies in Kinko's.) Have fun comparing the real photos with the ones Amazon is currently showing. I'm sure this is a temporary issue, but it's been temporarily wrong all weekend. And with the extensive news coverage, I'm sure I'm not the only one to spot issues. Is this really how they want to launch a ground-breaking feature that introduces their customers to a new body of competency? Hopefully no one is really using it yet.

As an aside, Bistro Elan is a terrific place to eat. One of the best in Palo Alto, IMO.

I'm spending the morning surfing. I haven't done that in ages. Flickr led me to an amazing blog, which led me to this: The Thought Project. A beautiful example of the power of proximity. Each photo/interview means nothing by itself. But at about the 10th one, suddenly your brain exands and you feel the nature of humanity.

Perhaps the Argentinian technicians should confer with Canadian geese-- they have got migratory procedures down.