via BoingBoing

Haha.. featuring T-Pain!

Don’t miss the short film this is based on by Shane Acker!

via Film Roster

• I am not a registered Republican nor am I a registered Democrat.
• I have voted in every major election since I turned 18, our country is too important not to care.
• I believe in a liberal social policy, mostly around states rights and less federal government interference (regarding your sexual preference, recreational drug use, etc. move to a state with supporting laws. Also the war on drugs == broken).
• I believe in conservative fiscal policy mostly around paying less taxes. I work hard, so did my parents.
• I subscribe to the founding father’s policy of isolationism to a point (see: Hitler 1933, radical Islam/caliphate 2001)
• I believe in the separation of church and state and the textual interpretation of the Constitution
• I am totally OK with my tax dollars paying for both green fuel development and badass boondoggle military weapons
• The education of American kids and the future of entrepreneurship is more important than most everything else so we can kick more ass in the next 100 years

So obviously I don’t fit into either party. Unless there was a Hunter S. Thompson party, I would totally register with them.

I was up in the air about who to vote for until recently when I hit a mental wall at 300mph. I realized that of all the things I care about technology is truly important to me. I mean this blog’s tag-line is “Waiting for a technological singularity.” I have deep discussions with friends about how do we do ethics in the era of nanotechnology and are we human if we upload?

Now the U.S.A. is a true democracy where whoever is president doesn’t matter in the sense that in some crappy 3rd world country the president could have a life or death impact on the population. Our system is robust enough to suffer the occasional fool (re: George W. who I voted for). In the end it really is a values decision for the voter. The country won’t implode but what is the right direction? What is the extra awesomesauce we can apply to our nation?

The correct answer is: Barack Obama. Now before you say anything else I am not an Obama cheerleader. He has a positive and inclusive message but perhaps a bit naive in some areas. I disagree with many of his views on expensive government programs (my tax dollars want to be elsewhere). Regardless, this is the mental wall I hit:

McCain: Town Hall Meeting 12/29/07

Click here to view the embedded video.

Holy crap, McCain hates bloggers? He was probably referring to the liberal bloggers right? Cuz nobody who is not a liberal blogs right? I’m still getting a weird feeling, holdon…

John Mccain Admits He Cant Use a Computer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh God, at 0:33 the old bastard says he doesn’t know how to use a computer, he actually says it. My grandmother is older than McCain and she checks her email every week. If a bill were to be introduced on his desk as president regarding technology he would have NO FUCKING CLUE what it said. Like a nanotechnology restriction bill. Or a 4th amendment (amendment) to privacy of electronic data. As much as I hate swing issues I think I finally understand how important they are. Thus there is no way I can consider voting for McCain unless I see him demonstrate intelligently under debate conditions that he can hack it in the post-1960 technology space.

edit: John Scalzi (brilliant author) has some interesting posts 1 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

Apple is going to be hating the competition once everyone has these as an open platform… too bad they are 2 years ahead of everyone else

via Android community

Be a RAT.

There is a nice writeup on Gary doing a book signing in Austin over at hooversbiz.com. The post has a much better rundown of the RAT philosophy:

His deepest message, though, was about the necessity of being “RAT” — Real, Authentic, and Transparent — which he sees as an absolute necessity in the era of pervasive social media, when secrets are much harder to hide.

Before the event, someone on the Grape Vine Market staff had asked him if he would be disappointed with a thin turnout; he answered that he would have been grateful to have one person show up to talk to him. He calls his approach “Expectation Zero,” and said, “This Expectation Zero game is amazing — you’ll love it” because it removes the likelihood you’ll be disappointed.

That is the essence of social media and crowdsourcing today. People want the real story, from real people, and told in an honest fashion. Essentially this means you will not succeed unless you can operate in this space. The Diggnation video podcasts are a good example of this (Kevin Rose is also a friend of Gary’s) where the owner of Digg runs a show in a totally RAT manner and thus gains a dedicated following, digg.com customers, and a whole lot of social capital as well.

Follow Gary on Twitter: @garyvee

Click here to view the embedded video.

Work from 9 to 5 on a typical day
From 5 to 9 is when I start to play
Without hesitation, head to my station
Pull up my homepage, give into temptation
Crap loada invitations

BLAM

There’s a poop loada notifications
I got females across 50 states
Who I monitor frequently by their status updates

via Laughing Squid

We did this one day during work hours, while drinking. We are a company called Revision3 and were inspired by a company called Connected Ventures. And we kind of rock. Hard. BRING IT!!

I hate those guys. (OK, Jealous.)

via Valleywag

A comment on the video reminds us that this video necessitates the importance of building EMP grenades when we are overtaken by robot overlords. Luckily the internet has all the knowledge we need on explosively pumped flux compression generators.