Posted August 14th, 2008, in: Videos
What is ‘oozing out of our ground?’ Anyone?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8]
I should mention that I did have rainbows in my sprinkler spray more than twenty years ago. I guess this means that rural coastal Northern California well-water was hit first and then it spread to muni water supplies.
wtf.
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Posted August 10th, 2008, in: Art Etc| Videos
2 Videos from Jack Conte’s YouTube Channel
This is an interesting video. Reminds a little of the film, “The Science of Sleep.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzr32OqGlOA]
And this one is cool because it shows the recording process of the song.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M60Txqxtw4]
So who is Jack Conte? I have no idea. He’s awesome though.
Here’s his MySpace, his Last.FM Page, and where you can buy his EP “Nightmares and Daydreams” on CDBaby, and the same record via the iTunes Store.
I can’t afford to buy music, so maybe Jack will feel my pain and hook me up. Jack? Haha.
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Posted July 31st, 2008, in: Cultural Acceleration| Data Portability (DataPortability)| Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Intellectual Property| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| New Media| Semantic Web| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| The Semantic Web (Giant Global Graph)| The War on Free Culture| Videos| Web 2.0
Kevin Kelly gave this talk at TED in 2007. It’s worth watching.
He touches on a number of things ranging from history of the Internet and Moore’s Law to the future ubiquity of Cloud Computing and Kurzweil‘s “Sigularity.“
He covers concepts like the Semantic Web, and the give-and-take between privacy and participation with relatively light language that any lay person should be able to understand. This is an interesting and entertaining little presentation. Thought I’d share.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDYCf4ONh5M]
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Posted July 29th, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| New Media| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| Videos| Viral Marketing| Web 2.0
I just heard about this from the Inside Silicon Valley Podcast from The San Jose Mercury News (the site of which, sadly, has no RSS feed metadata in its html head. Get it together, people!)
Anyway, this guy apparently made a fortune as a Texas oil man. Now he’s decided to spearhead a movement toward “energy-independence.” In a nutshell, he wants to shift our use of Natural gas over to transportation and replace its 20% share of electricity production with wind power by building out the “Wind Belt” with turbines. The result, he claims, would mean consuming about 38% less foreign oil. It would also mean cleaner transportation and electricity production.
Pickens has launched a totally kick-ass, Web2-savvy campaign to recruit online “foot-soldiers,” for his movement. He has already met with the “president” and says he also plans to meet with both mainstream presidential candidates “at the same time.”
He claims that the site moved into the top-1000 most-viewed sites in under three weeks, with 2.5 million hits and about a one-tenth conversion rate (people signing up to get involved, subscribing to get updates etc)!!! (three exclamation points!!!) In addition, he’s touring around giving “town-hall” meetings all over, and spending his money on TV advertisements.
Techno-Activism? Go to PickensPlan.com and look around. What do you think? I like seeing rich-ass people putting their dollars into making positive changes in policy and public perception (if that’s what this is (I’m the first one to admit that I’m no expert on what the best route to sustainable energy is)).
Whatever you think about the plan, you have to admit that the campaign is being smartly executed. He must have a great team working for him.
This video is an overview of his “plan” (the second is one of the TV advertisements he did, which sufficiently pulls on left-wing heart strings since it has plenty of imagery of smoke pouring into the air)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQa-ibNOKM&NR]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bOug1d20c]
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Posted July 13th, 2008, in: Art Etc| Videos
Listen to that name… “Gorgoroth” …It’s so… Viking. So Dongeons and Dragons. The following are links to a 5-part documentary about the band, and all the controversy surrounding them, particularly their singer called “Gaahl.” You gotta love that name too. I guess he tortures people and drinks their blood and stuff like that.
The name “Gorgoroth” is derived from Tolken‘s Lord of the Rings books.
At their shows they have been known to feature goat heads on sticks and other charming bits of satanic stage decor. This is a fun documentary to watch. It also gives some interesting background on the whole Satanic Rock genre, particualy the “Norwegian Black Metal Scene.” Hmmm. Fun stuff. I’d love to go to one of their shows.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4U33U_UyzQ]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSUmKubFIUY&feature=related]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNN-ZnYg1Vo&feature=related]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRTHzR2Pxro&feature=related]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avnsgYvHPK8&feature=related]
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Posted June 20th, 2008, in: Semantic Web| Technology| Videos
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=658439829337469958&q=semantic+web&ei=LjZcSPa1I6TAqwPK4bn_DQ]
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Posted May 6th, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| New Media| Reviews & Thoughts About Products| SEO, SEM, SMO Etc| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| Videos| Viral Marketing
(Lately I’m realizing that good companies and orgs have watchlists so a post like this one serves as an open letter to the company, unless of course, they’re not listening, which of course is their problem, a big problem.)
To TED
I love that you’re providing all of these stimulating and informative videos. Thank you for that.
But why did I just spend five minutes clicking around on ted.com, looking for a “Podcast” or “RSS” link?
I was thinking “C’mon! You MUST have a feed here somewhere!!”
Finally I decided to search the iTunes Music Store for TED… There it is! WTF? Why are you hiding your feed?
I’m so glad I found it. But you need to put a link somewhere on your site so people don’t waste their time looking for what’s not there.
Please?
-Andrew
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Posted April 30th, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Videos
Someone should let this kid try out drag racing, not punish him for his ingenuity. It’s our job to empower children, not restrict them. I’m proud of this little G for being so self-empowered. With guidance, and people around him who are wise, he’ll go far in life.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKN64o-vHyU]
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Posted April 21st, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| SEO, SEM, SMO Etc| Spam and Scams| Videos
Web Pyramid Schemes, “Gifting Programs,” “Phil In New Mexico”
If you’re reading this, and you found this page via a google search, I think it may be prudent for you to go read this wikipedia entry on Pyramid Schemes.
WATCH VIDEO!!
ANOTHER AWESOME VID!The other day I glanced at the gigs section of the local CraigsList, and saw an ad titled
“Internet Marketing, One Person is All I’m Looking For”
the copy of the ad was like this:
This is a gifting program. If you would like proof from me, I can show you proof of the program’s longevity and seriousness, and, if you like, its legality.
For your marketing efforts, for every visitor who signs up I will pay you 20% of the relevant price point. Price points start at $500, to $10,000 max.
Thanks very much for your interest.
2informew@earthlink.netReferences or proof of work required, please.
I wrote to 2informew@earthlink.net which was included in the craigslist post and asked what it was they are looking for help with, since I’m pretty hip to Web Marketing.
Phil Blumberg aka “Phil in New Mexico” responded:
Hello Andrew–
I need to drive as much traffic as possible to the gifting site.
You can go to the splash page (without signing up) the URL is www.overnightcashexplosion.com/3/PB59736
You can go directly to the main site the URL is www.overnightcashexplosion.com/PB59736/tour.asp/
It would be great if you get a chance to read the text or most of the text on the 2nd site.
Each visitor who joins decides what level to come in on: $500, $1000, $2500, $5000, or $10,000. Whatever the newly signed-up’s level, you would get 20% of that amount.
So check it out. I really look forward to your responses.Sincerely,
Phil in New Mexico
2informew@earthlink.net
philinnewmexico@earthlink.net
ME: So… Where does the other 80% go? And what do people get for signing up? I mean what is their incentive?
PHIL: The websites are mine because I’ve already joined the program. The 80% is mine for the same reason, and because I’m choosing to spend money to market the site. The people I bring in pay me directly; those people will bring in people of their own who pay them directly. When you can, check out the main site. Thanks–Phil
I googled the email address and found some really ugly websites and other craigslist ads, all seeming to be for the sake of promoting this “system” for generating money. Notably, SimpleGiftCash.com and FreeLunchRoom.com. Go take a look! They’re fun!
To me this looked like a Pyramid scheme. But rather than ask Phil if he realizes that pyramid schemes are illegal, I thought I’d try to get some more information:
ME: Has it worked for you? How much have you made from the program so far?
So far, he hasn’t written back.
This got me thinking. If I can take advantage of people who are naive, and I can get them to send me $500, in the hope of getting rich themselves, should I do it?
I think not. I generally have problems putting value on knowledge. I generally have problems operating in a capitalist scenario, where scarcity is so important. I generally really want to help people and it’s impossible to put a monetary value on empathy. I certainly don’t want to take advantage of people. I hate this kind of thing. It makes me sick.
On a lighter note, here’s some really fun images:
Want that watch? I bet you do.
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