] Clone High bravely tackles challenging teen issues, such
] as sleep deprivation, catching ADD from toilet seats, the
] evils of litter, and having the guy you like not like you
] back the same way you like him.

This is pretty whacky. Evil government scientists clone famous figures from world history. We find them as high school personality archtypes. Its strange and funny. Good break from predictable TV.

There is a robot that says "bling bling" and a number that lies. Thats really all you need to know.

[I definitly recommend this show as well. At first I was skeptical, but its pretty rad:) -Nano]

Clone High

Please read and rerecommend. I want this to get as much coverage on the site as possible, and I want feedback.

Currently the privacy policy says that your reputation tables are private. This reflects the fact that I think what you read ought to be your own business.

However, what you recommend is not exactly the same as what you read, and this is reflected in the reputation data. When you recommend something you are telling the site that you like it. Telling the site implies that you don't mind the site knowing. In fact, you want the site to know. If I do a little digging I can see who you got an article from, directly. This is a bit of an oversite. Something that can be "matured" out of the code. Thats one direction to go in from here. Keep the reputation data as private as possible.

However, if I monitor the site, and I see a certain person recommend an article, and then you rerecommend it, I'll know where you got it from. I do this often enough, in an automated fashion, for long enough, and I'll get a pretty good understanding of who you are reading. The site can't protect you from this. By recommending articles you are making them public. By making them public, you are giving up some of your privacy.

The only way to truely protect the fact that you are reading someone's recommendations is to never recommend their recommendations. They will still show up in the agent, but this information, I think, is private and ought to stay that way.

However, and as I've hopefully illustrated, the recommendations are public in a very real way. What I want to ask the site is if the recommendation DATA ought to be public too.

The reason I want to ask you this is because Rattle has assembled another visualization. This visualization is interactive. You can see a graph of the people who are highly connected to you, click on their names, and see a graph of the people who are highly connected to them, and so on.

Right now this data is amusing but not all that rich. There are about 15 people who regularily post to the site, and they hold all the reputation capital. Everyone's graphs look pretty similar, because we are all really recommending content from the same 15 people, even those of us who don't often recommend content and who aren't often read.

This is going to change.

As this site scales, clusters are going to form. I think the one that currently exists will always exist, but there will be others. People will begin to have different perspectives on the data, based on their interests. Thats what this site is designed to do.

And as those different communities of interest begin to form, the maps of the reputation data rattle is developing will become richer, and you will be able to surf through MemeStreams via the reputation system, hopping from person to person in search of interesting ideas.

I think this is a very compelling feature set, and I want to enable it. But, I've promised to keep your reputation data private. All of it. This promise may not have been very well thought out, but I did make it. So I can only break it with your permission, and that is what I am asking for.

I want to publish your recommendation related reputation data. Your clickthrough related reputation data will stay private. What is published is the number of times you have rerecommended articles from another person on the site, in the form of a graph.

Its similar to the graph on the "Visualizing Memestreams" page, but it is labelled, and interactive.

An important privacy question

] Even though roads were clear of snow, sleet and ice
] Friday, schools around Georgia closed because of brutal
] cold.

Southerners are WEAK!!!

Georgia schools closed because its too cold...

] People who hope cloning will resurrect a pet will be
] disappointed, said Duane Kraemer, one of A&M's animal
] cloning experts. Experts say environment is as important
] as genes in determining a cat's personality. And as far
] as appearance, having the same DNA as another calico cat
] doesn't always produce the same coat pattern.

People are paying thousands to have their pet's DNA frozen so they can clone it when the techniques are perfected... Pet Cemetery anyone?

I think that this mostly demonstrates that people still do not understand what cloning is. I don't think this is likely to be commonplace outside of pet breeding circles.

[Actually, Wired came out with an article in the past few years about people who freeze bits of skin from their loved ones in hopes that when cloning gets big, they can have their dead loved on back. Its really sketchy, not to mention, due to different environments, the person wouldn't be an exact replica of the original. -Nanochick]

CNN.com - Copied cat hardly resembles original - Jan. 22, 2003

] It is a freakish, doped-up, mutant clone which hasn't had
] sex for thousands of years - and the strain may be about
] to tell on the nation's fruitbowl favourite. Scientists
] based in France have warned that, without radical and
] swift action, in 10 years' time we really could have no
] bananas.

Bananas don't really reproduce and apparently have been maintained by human farmers for 10,000 years. They face destruction from fungus. Other stories in the news today indicate that a sequencing effort is underway.

The Guardian | Yes - in 10 years we may have no bananas

Marie, should we do this:::

As some of you know I coach a youth ice hockey team in Nashville. The
Pedators have agreed to graciously allow my team to play one game at the
Gaylord Entertainment Center. As you can imagine, the kids are really
exited. Imagine playing football at the Titans stadium or baseball at
Yankee Stadium. Well for them this is it ... Each player get's announced
on the ice, they play the national anthem, they announce the goals, etc. -
they get all the bells and whistles as the Preds game.

Yes there is a catch - the team has to sell 150 tickets to the Predators
game on March 1 at 1:00 pm. (Chicago Blackhawks). The tickets are in the
cheap seats and only cost $17.00 each. The kids are selling them as best
they can, but based on last nights inventory, it appears they would be well
short. They looked very dejected when I broke the news, until I told them I
would help out if I could.

That's where each of you step in. If each of you could buy just one ticket,
that would sell 30 tickets and I think we would close. If you bring your
spouse or a date and buy two tickets, that would sell 60 tickets and we
would be in for sure.

Please let me know ASAP if you would be interested. (I need to turn the
money in this weekend). Your help would be greatly appreciated by these fine
young men as well as myself.

Thanks,
Dan Bartholemew
DEBartholomew@bwsc.net

[We should all buy tickets to this game, even if we can't make it. $17.00 isn't asking alot...and its hockey for crying out loud. I am definitly in! - Nanochick]

Help a kid play hockey

] Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it's hard to figure
] out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there
] is a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to
] innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It's your basic
] end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science
] fiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are
] my stock-in-trade.

Is scenaria a word? Anyway, Cory Doctorow's new novel is available today, and for FREE on the Internet. Download here.

BTW: you should all read the interview posted on this site. It sounds exactly like Memestreams (you will know what I am talking about once you read it):)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Free Download

] So welcome, and special thanks to those of you who
] arrived early and started colonizing the place before it
] was even completed. That really cheered me up, a couple
] of weeks ago. I don’t have to feel I’m moving into an
] empty (and dishearteningly brand-new) structure. There
] is already some human space here, the start of that
] sense of duration and habitation, and soon there’ll be,
] I hope, more.

] In spite of (or perhaps because of) my reputation as a
] reclusive quasi-Pynchonian luddite shunning the net (or
] word-processors, depending on what you Google) I hope
] to be here on a more or less daily basis.

Its live now!

William Gibson's Blog

Some very interesting graphs of the social network on MemeStreams.

[/me stares in awe. So very rad looking. So interesting on many levels. -Nano]

Visualizing MemeStreams

] "There are far too many smart, educated, talented people
] operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the
] world, contributing far too little to the productive
] engine of modern civilization. There are far too many
] people who look like they have their act together but
] have yet to make an impact."

What Should I Do With My Life?