Hate Party
Douglas Rushkoff does it again. His assessment of the RNC08 fundamentalist red meat pig out is spot on - it's something I was trying to grasp just this morning - Democrats are rational and Republicans are - there I stopped. I had a hard time trying to put a word on what was happening in St. Paul. We obviously have a culture war here, but which cultures are at war? Rushkoff sums it up best in this post: "It’s about thought vs. violence" I'll leave it to you to figure out which party is which.

Watching The Revels Last Night
I absolutely love John Hodgman. And here - short and simple - is why: He is able to distill the complex and confusing spectacle of the Republican National Convention down to a few well chosen words. That is all.

The Palin Convention and the Culture War Option
Jay Rosen has an interesting theory about how the McCain campaign might try to spin the massive negatives that continue to mount against Sarah Palin. In short - confront with an aggressive, reality distorting culture war. After reading this scenario I must admit it is frightening yet all too possible that the McCain folks would - out of pure desperation - abandon their "change" mantra and re-engage the somewhat dormant culture war.

Neal Stephenson and the 10,000-Year Clock
Kevin Kelly, writing at the Long Now blog, gives us this post that celebrates both Neal Stephenson's soon to be released novel Anathem and long term thinking. Stephenson is one of those writers that I have been meaning to read for years and for one reason or another I just never have. That will most likely change as his new book touches on some rather interesting themes.

NewPage Announces Price Increases
If I've said this once I'll say it again a thousand times - print based media will not be killed by users switching to digital platforms - it will die because operations cost will eat them alive. The continuing rise in the price of paper and a host of other issues will undo them long before the readers go fully digital. Either way this all has the makings of a perfect storm - and, unfortunately, print media may be the Andrea Gail.

Can Engagement Really Become the New Standard?
Nick O'Neill of The Social Times isn't exactly digging real deep here, but he's asking all the right questions. To my way of thinking there are two opportunities in online advertising. The first and most widely known is capturing the user in "buy mode" - getting your product in front of users precisely at the moment they are looking to buy it. Google owns this space now and for the foreseeable future. The other is more elusive - it's how the user interacts with your brand when they're not buying. They could be doing research or review or just blowing hot air, but managing how your brand plays in that space - in the social space - is the key here. Engagement starts to address that - reputation - image - who's talking, when, and how often. Measure that reliably and you have something.

The Unbearable Lightness of Art Supplies
Khoi Vinh, Design Director for NYTimes.com, misses the touch, feel, smell, and maybe even taste of old school art supplies. Since he's now a twenty first century digital boy he doesn't have occasion to use the exacto anymore... and he seems sad. To be fair he's really more sad at what he perceives as a gap between where he is now and where he was in art school - a divide between print and digital design which he seems to think makes the two distinctly different professions. What he's not seeing though is the degree to which the design process, no matter where it may end, is becoming increasingly digital. In other words, that divide is closing. In a few short years we'll have an art department that is completely digital - a design group that thinks in bits and bytes and ink on paper will just be one of the many possible manifestations of that process. So don't worry Khoi - we'll all be shopping in the same store soon.

Don’t cry for journalists...
This short and sweet post from Scoble does a great job at pointing out the amazing amount of inefficiency that pervades the media world. For me it's not as much about the fact that some of these photographers could be used on other stories as it is about the fact that the media wastes an inordinate amount of capital on overblown infrastructure. In the end I would bet that somewhere behind that crowd of $10,000 lenses is a kid with a cell phone camera getting the most compelling picture in the arena.

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least)
I hadn't been familiar with Aaron Draplin or his work before I saw this video, but now - NOW - I am a fan. This short piece from a mini doc by Jess Gibson (posted at Vimeo) perfectly highlights how the American compulsion for easy money has eroded not only good design but also the respect for work and - ultimately - for the average human relationship.

Will The Semantic Web Have a Gender?
It is truly fascinating to watch as the zero sum world of computing tackles the imprecise, turbulent, fluctuating, philosophical world of knowledge, meaning, and truth. In this post at ReadWriteWeb Marshall Kirkpatrick profiles the work of Corinna Bath - research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society in Graz, Austria - as she tries to expose the hidden prism through which we view the world.