Check out the picture at the top left. This guy is an independent who managed to get elected despite being opposed by both liberal and conservative media in the country. He is very much a product of the internet. He is a Howard Dean who made it. The traditional sources of power in South Korea are nailing this guys ass to the wall because he is an outsider. Of course, he is not without fault. He would have avoided impeachment if he had agreed to apologize over some technical elections issue. He refuse to do so, and so they booted him. Of course, its entirely possible that the call for an apology was literally an attempt to put him in a catch 22 situation where if he agreed to apologize he would be admitting wrongdoing and would be subsequently impeached anyway.

All in all, you can chalk this up next to Dean's implosion as a failure of the new media to challenge the present world order.

President of South Korea impeached

No, officers, we're computer scientists and engineers.

All the pictures are really neat. An autonomous vehicle of every shape and size. I think some of the video's audio overdubbing got mixed up in a few places. Maybe it was the stream. Nevermind, its not important.

Elite soldier units supplied by autonomous vehicles, "really smart" land bombs disguised as SUVs and cars, robot scouts, and many more products of science fiction are on the way, given the will to proceed by taking some very natural steps. The armies of the future are going to include much enlisted metal and many officers bread by video games. I either feel terrified or safe. I am not sure which.

What I truly fear is what will happen if we wind up with too significant a portion of our overall R&D capability as a country focused on building weapons. When we decide to lay new ground, we wind up creating things like the atomic bomb. WWII showed some amazing examples of how we could leverage our manufacturing capability and ingenuity at the time. We know our high tech creation engine is capable of performing similar amazing feats today. If we turn that on, we better be aware that once its on, its going to be pointed at something. Just based on the fact that humans don't seem to practice much restraint in the face of threats, we should assume we will wind up using whatever we create. Lets be careful about what we create.

In terms of robots, I see us at being able to either reach beyond ourselves, or reach out and crush someone. I would really rather be making Mars Rovers then Robot Warriors even though I see reason for both. As long as certain other people are also thinking in that same direction, this is a very good thing. The work of NASA may be the most peaceful way to exercise the power of the state. We have China to compete with now, and I think we can see eye-to-eye just enough to complete peacefully.

At any given time, I'm not sure if I should be in awe or scared shitless of DARPA. I do have the Internet here to sit and pontificate on, so I guess it can't be that bad. I hope our future robot masters are benevolent. :)

Robot Race Is Giant Step for Unmanned Kind

] We often pride ourselves as bloggers for how we break
] news, dig deep, gain sources, carry the story and
] highlight the details of fast moving events. However,
] with complex unfolding news, I find myself turning to
] different outlets for different reasons. We aren't the
] best at coverage, we just have a special blend.
]
] Turn to Press for the official record, Blog for social
] context and Wiki for the public record.

These are the three elements I hope we can bring together within a meme in this system. I want to track path and revision of a meme. It should be possible for information to be annotated, edited, and shared in a way which reflects the views of multiple groups.

] Take your sources, excercise judgment, mix and morph
] your own media. Up until now, its all been in your head.
] Now its anywho, anywhat, anywhen, anywhere, anywhy
] and sometimes how you want it.

Yep.

BTW.. Ross Mayfield's blog, Many-to-Many, and Zephoria's blog should all be considered mandatory reading for anyone in the online communication space.

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Press, Blog and Wiki Coverage

] Google has been testing a new look with a small percent
] of visitors. I wrote a bookmarklet that lets you make
] Google show you the new look:

Works for me.

] It works by changing the ID in your Google cookie to
] 102c51875a8839e9, the ID of one of the visitors Google
] randomly selected to test the new look. If your ID is
] already 102c51875a8839e9, it sets it 0000000000000000
] (anonymous), letting you switch between the old and new
] looks quickly. Since the bookmarklet only changes the ID
] part of the cookie, it preserves your settings, such as
] the number of results per page.

No opinion on the new look yet. I don't dislike it. Does this have any of the key controls Google was testing? I've always thought something "a"/"d" like hotkeys for paging through search results would be nice.

They have a version of Google with shortcut keys linked from the Google Labs page, but I did not really like how it worked. I want to navigate through Google like a FPS. :)

Jesse Ruderman: Experience Google's new look

] extend, personalise, break, poke, peek, learn. hacking
] hacking hacking. ever had that desire to pop open your
] tivo, your xbox, cell phone, or your car? ever wanted to
] know what the hardware and software hackers are up to?
] this is what mehack is all about.
]
] we all know the frustration in discovering that there
] isn't something out there that does exactly what you want
] it to do. we've all fantasized about doing it ourselves,
] or taking something off the shelf and modding it. we're
] going to be tracking people, projects that are doing both
] -- we're interested in those that take the "hell with it,
] i'll just build it" attitude, and we're interested in
] those that buy those things off the shelf and pop them
] open to coerce them into doing what they want. and we're
] interested in the tools they use too.
]
] our agenda is simple -- we want to learn from others.
] we're not interested in doing anything destructive. and
] we're not interested in piracy. we just want things that
] we can hack on. and most of all, we want to make it
] simple for people like you to start building.

mehack

Yesterday was a very sad day for music in America. Today, I felt that sadness as I heard about the suicide of Dave Blood, the bassist for the Dead Milkmen. Yesterday, I was at a showcase (networking party) with a bunch of music industry folks in NYC. I'm glad I did not hear of this until now, otherwise it would not have been such a good night for me. This fully qualifies as a mood destroyer.

Everyone has at least one band that has broken up, which they hold hopes of having a future reunion. If you had asked me a year or so ago what my big two were, I would have listed The Pixies and The Dead Milkmen. In regard to the Pixies, it appears I will get my wish. I can't help but wonder if some karmatic penalty just got handed out.

On my recent drive across the country, as I entered the tri-state area, I decided to take a path that passed directly between Philadelphia and Trenton. The entire time, I was blasting The Dead Milkmen. It was my ode to Philly, youth, a general celebration of sarcasm, and one of many reflection points on a very long journey. It felt so fitting at the time.

Suicide seems to be the great plague of the creative world. It hurts every time I hear we have lost another person who has touched my life. While I never met Dave, or any of the other Milkmen for that matter, I consider them among some of my best friends. Music is that powerful.

My condolences go out to Dave’s family and friends, the other Milkmen. I hope they can find peace and acceptance in the face of this tragedy, in a way Dave was unable to find in himself. All your fans are mourning with you. This evening, my friends and I will certainly raise a few glasses in your direction.

Everyone else out there, do something to help one of your local tortured artists. If you consider yourself a tortured artist, please remember: Introspection holds the potential to be fatal, don’t go to far with it.

Dave Blood, Rest in Peace

Our competitors know the secret of our sauce. But do we?

The Secret of Our Sauce

] If I tell someone that I am heading in "dead zone"... you
] know, what I hear.. In best case- "are you nuts?"

I'd like to see this place for so many reasons. I grew up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. An area I just spoke a volume of love for is threatened by the same fate. Just by virtue of being there..

In terms of risk mechanics, this type of thing is something I see every reason to seek understanding of. These cities were frozen in time at the fall of the USSR planned economy. These cities are poisoned in a most fearsome way, that I fear enemies desire to unleash.

In terms of culture, I fear the reactions I would have exposing myself to this. I can't see being able too view anything and not be reminded of death, pain, fear, and despair.

In search of trade craft, I'd jump in with two feet, a radiation counter, logging gear, and whatever else required. The idea of exploring something like that is exactly the type of thing that completely terrifies me in all the right ways.

As this proves, both hatred and accidents can unleash such fates. Terrorists, entropy, and irresponsibility are all attack vectors. There are a number of episodes of history, that have always invoked really strong reactions from me. This is one of them.

Photoblogging Chernobyl

In one form or another, governments have been fighting these five wars for centuries. And losing them. Indeed, thanks to the changes spurred by globalization over the last decade, their losing streak has become even more pronounced. To be sure, nation-states have benefited from the information revolution, stronger political and economic linkages, and the shrinking importance of geographic distance. Unfortunately, criminal networks have benefited even more.

The Five Wars of Globalization

] When they plotted the links and topics shared by various
] sites, they discovered that topics would often appear on
] a few relatively unknown blogs days before they appeared
] on more popular sites.
]
] "What we're finding is that the important people on the
] Web are not necessarily the people with the most explicit
] links (back to their sites), but the people who cause
] epidemics in blog networks," said researcher Eytan Adar.
]
] These infectious people can be hard to find because they
] do not always receive attribution for being the first to
] point to an interesting idea or news item.

Different people are good at different things. Not everyone who has good ideas wants direct attention. This is one of the many elements of group think that systems like MemeStreams can be used to tap into.

There are ways present to drastically increase intellectual production capability by using Information Technology to route and filter information between individuals.

Its not nearly as simple as some people being particularly good filters or explorers. Without context, its all crap.

HP tracking the spread of memes through the blogosphere