crankymessiah wrote:
] ] THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of
] ] peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with
] ] Iraq were not backed by international unity.

I think these articles are taking Bush Senior out of context. The text of his talk is linked here. Way I read it, he is actually saying that International differences that exist over this issue are likely to be easy to heal later on. Basically the opposite of the conclusion here. He is saying its ok to go forward without international unity.

However, I've been really busy and I didn't spend much time with it. Take a look and make up your own mind.

Text of Bush talk, RE: Bush Sr warning over unilateral action

I thought this was entertaining, if nothing else.

RaverPorn, for better or for worse, was one of the first links ever recommended on MemeStreams. This was well over a year ago, back when recommending links was pretty much all you could do with MemeStreams, and a few of us were playing around with it to see how well it worked.

About 6-7 months ago I posted an update to the site that provided a unique url for each entry on the site which could be indexed by search engines. Eventually, the crawlers found their way into the site, and, or course, found RaverPorn.

As the search results have came back, it turns out that "raver porn password" has consistently been one of the Google search terms that results in the most hits for MemeStreams. This is a combination of the popularity of this search, the fact that most of the sites on the net that talk about Raver Porn use a lot of search engine manipulation techniques, which ironically lower their rank on Google versus sites like this one, and the fact that people looking for raver porn are pretty indiscriminate in their search for it.

So, at the end of the year I posted the 2002 MemeStreams site usage statistics. These statistics include the popular search terms that result in hits on this site. One of those search terms is "raver porn password."

Of course, this page was indexed by Google, and now shows up in searches for "raver porn password." The Google cache of this page is now the top Google cache hit for this site. Also, interestingly, people seem to be 3 to 4 times more likely to hit the Google cache of this page then to hit the actual page itself. (People searching for Raver Porn Passwords know that they are much more likely to find them in Google's cache then on an actual website.)

I thought that this was an interesting observation. It might be possible to build other kinds of search engine feedback loops... A page, or better, a network of pages, that adapt their content based on the search results they get, trying to maximize their hit count. What purpose this would serve I have no idea. Art?

] Command-and-control organizations, Hock says, "were not
] only archaic and increasingly irrelevant. They were
] becoming a public menace, antithetical to the human
] spirit and destructive of the biosphere. I was convinced
] we were on the brink of an epidemic of institutional
] failure."

This is a starting point for some extremely rich and interesting ideas.

The founder of Visa on Corporations

digitalreporter wrote:
] ] As she wrote in an op-ed essay for the Atlanta Journal-
] ] Constitution: "I was frightened that my neighbors were
] ] going to hurt me because I dared to express my opinion.
] ] This could not be happening. Not in America, right?"
] ]
] ] But it is happening here.

This incredulty sounds false to me.

The reality is that politics are FAR more polarized right now then they usually are.

You either think that the U.S. attacked Afghanistan primarily because they wanted to build an oil pipeline or you think that we should turn Iraq into a parking lot. We live in an emotionally charged time and the radicals rule, on both ends of the spectrum. Woe be to one whose gut takes them to the wrong side of the spectrum, whether you are right in San Francisco, or left in Houston, or middle of the road anywhere. You will be attacked. You are being attacked.

Calling yourself out as a victim in the manner portrayed in this article is just self serving bullshit. Its a way of claiming the moral high ground. There is no moral high ground. You will be attacked if your beleifs conflict with your community, regardless of where your community is on the spectrum.

Its really affecting MemeStreams. We're all here and we're all posting and we know we all have different feelings about whats going on. We're NOT discussing. We can. The capability is there. The will is not. I sense that people are afraid to really engage this subject because they know that any engaged discourse is just going to devolve into bitter arguement.

Weblogging has taken over the past world of bulletin board systems BECAUSE weblogging is a way of broadcasting your views AS OPPOSED to conversing about them. Blogging is popular NOW because of the war, and the polarization.

At some time in the distant future we will seek warmer and more engaged forms of conversation. Today we do not because the tension between all of us is as thick as mud, and we dare not cut it for fear that we will rip our society apart.

RE: Pseudo patriotism vs. American values

Thrynn wrote:
] ] "It's a phenomenon that's not on the mainstream radar
] ] quite yet, but it will be in six months."
]
] And read the bit about "targeted advertising".

This is more evolution then revolution.

Consider Tom's Hardware. He sets up a site where he reviews hardware. People find it. He built a reputation for knowing his shit. Now every vendor sends him stuff to review.

A blog is really not different.

Advertisers will be interested in influencing thought leaders in the blogosphere. They will pay for INLINE ads. Paul Harvey talking about arthritis medication in the middle of the news.

Taking things a step further:

Gibson's new novel has a charater who is paid to hang out in upscale bars and chitchat about hip new products with patrons. Totally subtle... In the context of flirting.... Imagine if the girls who go around to different bars giving out Camel cigarettes wore plain clothes, and hung out smoking the stuff, hitting on guys who smoke the stuff, and occaisonally, subtly mentioning their brand preference, particularily with relation to who they would date....

I've heard lots of squaking that this is really what google wants to explore with blogger. The interests of advertisers won't change just because the thought leaders change. Yesterday it was Paul Harvey. Tommorow it might be Cory Doctorow. Either way, Pepsi will be there.

The only way to escape this is to create a culture where advertising, no matter how subtle, is frowned upon (really easy) AND consumers PAY for the media they consumer (really hard).

RE: Blogging goes mainstream - Mar. 10, 2003

] The retired politicians have agreed to revive the
] "Point-Counterpoint" segment on "60 Minutes,"
] television's most popular newsmagazine.
]
] In the two-minute debate, the two will face off on a
] subject of their own choosing. Sunday's segment was the
] first, and Clinton chose to talk about his successor's
] proposed tax cut; Dole gets to choose the next segment.

Clinton VS. Dole: The Final Battle

] The subjects viewed alternating pictures of cars and
] faces, and asked them to compare each car to the previous
] car they saw and each face to the previous face.
]
] They found that the car fans used just one part of the
] brain to recognise the cars and the faces, taking just a
] fifth of a second to identify the cars.

This is interesting. If you care about something you develop highly efficient ways of identifying it which other people don't have.

BBC NEWS | Health | Car lovers 'see faces' in vehicles

] Burgess Falls State Natural Area, located in Middle
] Tennessee, lies on the eastern edge of Tennessee's
] Highland Rim adjacent to the Cumberland Plateau. This is
] characterized by sheer bluffs, narrow ridges, rolling
] water, and abundant mixed forest. The Falling Water
] River runs through the area, providing breathtaking
] scenery and numerous waterfalls.

Tennessee has good country. I'm not talking about music.

Tennessee State Parks: Burgess Falls State Natural Area

Jeremy wrote:
] (Why didn't I see it earlier?)

Eh, its been covered before... Old memeage. I think its good that we are talking about this, but I'm looking for new revelations.

Like I've said, we have three choices.

1. Everyone has strong anonymnity systems.
2. People become more tolerant of other's opinions.
3. People become afraid to express their opinions.

At least we're in the process of realizing that we have to make this choice. I hope we choose well. Most people seem to be so cynical about it that they literally laugh outloud when I mention door number 2.

RE: A Nation of Voyeurs

] This section involves two tools, one for Windows, and one
] for OSX, which allow you to select text in any
] application, hit a hot key, and receive search results
] for that text. Both tools perform Google searches, and
] both have been adapted to perform MemeStreams searches as
] well.
]
] The power of these tools is that they extend searching
] such that it becomes a kind of augmented knowledge
] system. When you are reading or writing something, and
] you come upon a subject that you want more information
] about, you can get access to more information at the
] touch of a mouse.

MemeStreams makes you smarter!