This video is 20 minutes of win. It does have some mildly NSFW language but nothing too bad.

During last week’s comment war regarding money, I noticed some limitations with blogging that I would like to discuss.  Does anybody feel that the current model for commenting on blog posts is limited?  Let me try to spell out what’s in my imagination, and maybe we can see where that gets us.

Ok so I wrote that super long comment, and maybe some people read it (hopefully), but because it was so long, it made it difficult to comment on.  What would be nice would be to have a way to open up discussion on one small point, that could expand and contract at the particular point in the article.  That way, comments on particular points are localized to that point in the article.

Then, it would be nice to expand that kind of functionality in a global sense.  How many times have we said, “This has already been discussed elsewhere on the web.” ?  It would be cool to have a metablogging platform, where each post on all the individual blogs on the internet are tagged for content, and then some kind of software would encompass the totality of blogs out there.  It is important to remember that each individual blog contributes something unique.  So combining these ideas we get some kind of system that organizes blogs by topics (not just a list) and then when particular blogs post about particular topics, they are placed into that topic.  In this way, a blog like McCrappy could review the discussion that already happened “elsewhere on the web,” and then our unique additions to the topic could be placed into that one larger context.

So you could have a topic like “The History of Money”, and then you get a list of all blogs that discussed that topic.  The blog with the most hits on that particular topic would be listed first.  Then you could expand discussions that particular blogs added to that topic.  So, under the “The History of Money,” there would be, say, a plus sign with the word “McCrappy” next to it, and in that way, people could see what McCrappy had to say on this subject, as well as other active blogs.

It would be really cool to have a way to visually explore the blogosphere.  So again you could type in “money” and then see a couple of “hotspots” in a 3D space where recent activity on that topic would be highlighted.  You can then go to the hotspot and see a list of active blogs discussing it, and you can see the posts.  Kind of a way to visually navigate similar discussions all over the web.  As long as each discussion was tagged for content, this would be achievable by searching the tagspace.

Additionally, you could view the branching in the 3D space, so you could see similar discussion topics occurring (i.e., the “financial breakdown” would be close to “history of money” in that space).  Or let’s say comments on a particular post lead to a divergent thought, well at that point you would see a branching away from the main line of thought.  And that divergent line would converge to another topic.  In this way, you could visually navigate discussions from multiple blogs as they converged and diverged, similarly to how wikipedia allows you to surf topic after topic.

I don’t think anybody is doing anything like this…

So I watched the debate last night.  Aside from McCain appearing to be the bumbling fool, he did make one good point which I will bring up now.

Obama and McCain were going back and forth about tax cuts, with Obama calling for tax cuts for people making less than $200,000 per year, and McCain wanting to give big businesses tax cuts.  On the surface, one would wonder why a company like ExxonMobil would need a tax cut ever, with something like $14B made in the last three quarters.  But then McCain made a wonderful point.  He said the US has the “second highest business tax rate in the world” at something like 35%.  He quoted that Ireland’s business tax rate is like 11%!

McCain went on to say that by reducing the bis business tax rate, it will generally allow for more business to stay in the US instead of going overseas to find a cheaper tax rate, and that this will produce more jobs and put more money in people’s pockets.

I have to say, he makes a good point here!  It is striking how different these guy’s plans are… comments?

Or Hustler does anyway.

To commemorate the significance of the upcoming election, the wheelchaired man of free speech commissioned a Sarah Palin inspired porno:

I hate linking to gossip sites but this was too damn funny:

http://thesuperficial.com/2008/10/sarah_paylin_makes_a_porno.php

Do it…

This is an interesting video about how the various campaigns have been run up to this point, from the primaries to the present. It includes many of the people that ran the primary teams for various candidates, so sort of a cool inside view on how these things operate.

The top video is the passionate closing statements from Donna Brazile about race and the political race.

The bottom one is the whole panel discussion.

I would suggest at least watching the top one since it is short, and the bottom one is much longer but very interesting as well.

Political Panel Discussion

This is a pretty interesting video that Rusty sent to me about the monetary system.

Money as Debt

Just caught wind of this today, but it’s been out for a little bit.  I don’t know if all of you have been to the B-Side in cambridge but it serves probably the best cocktails around and they’re not rediculously overpriced to boot.  Anyways they were bought out at some point and will be closing.

But on there’s a pretty big silver lining.  The guy that bought it owns two western MA bars, The Dirty Truth and The Moan and Dove.  I’ve been to the Dirty Truth in NoHo and it’s probably my favorite beer bar I’ve been to.  And I’ve nothing but great things for the Moan and Dove.  So it should be interesting to see what opens up.

Not sure of the closing date but I’m definitely planning on getting a drink or two there at some point before the final day.

Howdy y’all. I am looking into purchasing a new digital camera and to be completely honest, do not have the time/interest in extensively researching the best model for my needs. So I figured I’d post here in the hopes that one of you knows alot on the subject and can offer a quick and easy recommendation!

I just want it for general use (landscape, portraits, etc.), would like some zoom (nothing crazy, maybe x3) and short video capability. I am thinking in the $125-$200 range, any suggestions?

Thanks- Greg

i can’t say that i’ve ever watched an hour long youtube video before, but this presentation by an anthropology professor about youtube and it’s implications for our society, communication, etc., was fascinating / humorous / touching (yup). mainly because he uses tons of great youtube moments to emphasize his points. yes, i really am recommending that you watch a youtube video about youtube.

Apparently creativity and mental health issues might be linked.

Not really a total shock, but interesting that they are trying to test the linkage and relations:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/10/07/creativity.depression/index.html