a glimpse of the future, or, "what good is twitter?"

Have you read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson yet? How it discusses democratization of various aspects of our culture?

[2008.05.04 updated with current, non-political example]

Here is a sweet example: http://maps.google.com/maps/mpl?moduleurl=http://www.google.com/mapfiles/mapplets/elections/2008/primary/primaries.xml&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-google-mp&utm_term=decision2008

http://www.twittervision.com/ (check out the 3d view)

The ramifications are HUGE. Centralized media powers can be bypassed, and near-direct democracy can happen (boy that's a double-edged sword). Information can be gathered directly from the horse’s mouth, rather than filtered through a TV station with a (conscious or not) agenda and spin.

**How media manipulation works: An “expert” on TV who wants to subtly advocate his or her candidate will raise a question implying a candidate might be hurting or losing. This motivates voters to go out and support the candidate feared to lose. If an advocate were to broadcast that someone had an election "locked up" or already won can, this would negatively affect voter turnout.

Idiot Dance, defined

Performing the Idiot Dance.

Idiot Dance (n), the ritual of having a subnormally-qualified telephone support representative guide one through a troubleshooting script in order to confirm what one has already diagnosed. In American culture, Idiot Dances are commonly required by large technology companies in exchange for RMA numbers.

de-institutionalization

I thnk our new cat is adjusting amazingly well, after living in a cage, starved for affection for 3 months!



Heck she looks like she owns the place now- must have been a princess in a former life

One button for pee-pee, and another button for poo

I have a very cute niece named Tirza. On one of her first days in kindergarten, she raised her hand in class and proclaimed, "we have one button for pee-pee and one button for poo-poo." I salute Tirza for her pure, honest desire to share about cool stuff.

My sister, Rebecca, is a nationally-renowned and often cited, LEED certified green architect. This is an environmentally-friendly dual-flush toilet, one of the many very progressive neat things she built into her house.

Life Quality Enhancement #142870: Shared Online Grocery List with Mobile Browser/SMS/Email Accessibility, Speech Transcription

[depending on whether my consulting practice integrates this for clients, more detailed explanation may be coming]

1) Jott.com: Jott Links:



2: Name your Jott Link something easy for the speech recognition:





3) Configure the Jott Link to deliver to a particular list (or calendar, task group, etc.) you have setup in RememberTheMilk.com




4) Be sure to share your RememberTheMilk.com list with another member (my wife in this case):

secret web server in your TiVo DVR, or, "give your customers what they want or someone else will."

Open https:/// in your web browser and use 'tivo' as
the login with your Media Access Key as the password (media access key obtainable online from tivo.com) . If you don't know your
TiVo's IP address, you can find it under Settings -> Phone &
Network.

[from http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=b476a664cb61a17411a74564d34d461d&t=371710]

irSem?

To compensate for the federal government's (specifically the internal revenue service's) lack of search engine marketing skills, I offer you http://tinyurl.com/2mje9h.

My initial queries to pay certain tax forms (1040es, 540es) online returned private services that wanted one or two percent of the transaction amount in exchange for allowing me to pay online.

new house animal

please join me in welcoming Little Bit

new toy

I flippin' LOVE my new HP Officejet Pro L7780 color All-in-One Printer/Fax/Scanner/Copier/Time-and-Space-Transport device!

What you need to know in order to understand how an office machine could result in so much pleasure is that I've been flat-bed scanning/faxing for about 10 years now. Seeing an auto document feeder at work for me is like having my own assistant!

w00-h00!

are we becoming an overly mechanized society? from the onion

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?