Gaia - The Future of Politics

Reblogged from: http://biasadjustment.blogspot.com/2009/03/gaia-future-of-politics.html

A journey through time charting the information power shift caused by the Internet and the ensuing development of a new global politics.
Gaia, a New World Order, is born today, the 14 August 2054.
Racial conflicts, ideological conflicts, religious conflicts, territorial conflicts belong to the past.
Every man is a world citizen, subject to the same law.
The Internet has driven the change, spreading communication, knowledge and organization at a planetary level.

Via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing

Video Explaining the Subprime Mortgage Time-Bomb

http://biasadjustment.blogspot.com/2009/02/video-explaining-subprime-mortgage...


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

A short animation explaining the system of borrowing and lending that led to the current financial meltdown:
The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.
Created by Jonathan Jarvis.
Narration by John Levoff.

Update: Useful links for the global economic meltdown.

 A Great Recession Guide - a mini-guide to the lighter side of the current, prolonged recession.

Google Tip Jar - a collection of money saving tips submitted and ranked by the web community.

Embedr - Create Video Playlists and Widgets


Embedr let’s you take your favorite videos from all over the web and make them into a playlist. It’s compatible with most of the top video sites like YouTube, MySpace, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and Blip.Tv. (Full list)

The site is clean and simple to use, giving you two ways to build a playlist; Standard Playlist or Smart Playlist. You can add up to 100 videos to a standard playlist and 50 to a smart playlist.

To build a Standard Playlist, videos are added one at a time, simply enter the URL or Embed code from the video’s location, for example a YouTube page.

You can build a Smart Playlist (YouTube only) by searching for keywords or by YouTube Username. The content in smart playlists changes dynamically as new videos are found. Select the number of videos you want to show in the playlist, and sort by Relevance, Published Date, View Count or Rating.

Embedr lets you create multiple playlists. You can easily change the order of videos by dragging them into position. You can also edit various parameters before and after you create a playlist. This is ideal for building a pool of content associated with your user profile.

Once you’ve created a playlist you have a ready made widget that you can customize and embed on webpages. The width of the widget determines it’s height proportionately. It’s simple and very effective, making it a breeze to create and distribute video content in an attractive and functional format.

I built the Guitar Players Spotlight above using a standard playlist from hand-picked sources on YouTube. Here’s my Embedr Profile

How the Record Industry Crashed

A new book by author Steve Knopper (Rolling Stone, Wired, Esquire) chronicles the record industry’s relentless rise to riches during the CD era to its dramatic demise in the post Napster digital age - Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age.

There’s a review at the New York Times - When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won that begins - “You can’t roll a joint on an iPod,” the singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne told The New York Times Magazine early last year…

…No, but you can snort cocaine. No doubt the excesses of the music industry played some small part in its downfall and yes, the times they are a-changin’.

Regarding the Music Industry, I refer you to the Einstein quote in the post prior to this one.

(P.S.I like vinyl too Shelby!)

Copyright Crunch Leads to Pirates Prisons Project

Reblogged from: http://biasadjustment.blogspot.com/2009/01/copyright-crunch-leads-to-pirates....

A radical new project designed to punish and reform illegal downloaders of copyrighted music could prove to be a huge money spinner for tech savvy investors. The Pirates Prisons Project aims to capitalize on the current copyright crunch by building 100s of 1000s of new prisons to house the unlimited supply of illegal internet users. If proposed legislation to criminalise billions of music fans goes ahead, the high probability of re-offending represents a once-in-a-lifetime investment  opportunity to secure real financial gains for PPP shareholders.

The ingenious shares scheme relies on the music industry's desire for economic dominance. However critics of doom and bust policies believe the music industry's strategy of using a failed business model is enevitably doomed to failure (See links below). Only (prison) time will tell.

Prison/Copyright Reform Related

Two articles I wrote in 2006 warning of the impending copyright crunch: