01.30.10

Information Wants to Be Free

7:20 pm - Jason G. - Politics, Technology

Stewart Brand was the person who originally coined the phrase “information wants to be free”, but apparently, his original quote was actually about the paradox of the value of information…

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

As told in Chris Anderson’s book Free.

Comments

09.17.09

07.26.09

Once again, I am excluded from the latest government boondoggle because of I made reasonable decisions (e.g., buying a mildly fuel efficient car)… but you can find out if your car qualifies for the CARS rebate (a.k.a., cash for clunkers) here:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/CarsSearchIntro.shtml

Comments

07.04.09

Generational Waves

9:20 am - Jason G. - Politics

Here’s a prediction of culture changing that a few of us need to adjust to…

…if you’re the type of individual that tends to get steamed up by larger and more intrusive government programs, you may want to take a few deep breaths and resolve yourself to the fact that this phenomenon is likely to get far worse before we see a return to celebration of individual rights. (And the cycle shows that we will see such a return — about 40 to 50 years from now, when the next Second Turning comes around.)

From David Galland.

Comments

04.28.09

Colbert is Not Joking

7:43 pm - Jason G. - Politics

From the Huffington Post:

Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert’s political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

The title of the original research paper was “The Irony of Satire“. It would certainly be ironic if The Colbert Report actually made conservatives more entrenched in their opinions.

This might also explain how Colbert was able to perform at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner back in 2006 without any of the event organizers thinking it was a bad idea…

Comments

04.03.09

Halloween or G20?

12:54 pm - Jason G. - Politics

You tell me… is this a protest or a Halloween party?

More pictures here.

Comments

02.27.09

Honk

10:04 am - Jason G. - Humor, Politics

Source.

Comments

02.22.09

Life Size Cutouts

8:11 pm - Jason G. - Humor, Politics

Want to mess with your home decor? Amazon now sells life size cutouts.

Comments

01.21.09

Surrounded by Hope

2:06 pm - Jason G. - Politics, Technology

The Big Picture delivers again, this time with pics from the inauguration. I dub this one, Surrounded by Hope, where customers at a BestBuy stopped to watch the swearing in ceremony.