Nintendo is cracking down on emulators of its hardware and media depicting their use. First Yuzu was taken down with a lawsuit, and now departs Ryujinx, a similar project that had sought to avoid the legal landmines Yuzu stepped on. — Read the rest

The post Another emulation project disappears amid Nintendo crackdown appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you have ever thought, "I wish I could play as an 8-bit version of Janet Weiss or Brad Majors," you are in luck. You can "Jump to the left and dodge to the right" in the upcoming video game adaptation of everyone's favorite midnight movie. — Read the rest

The post The Rocky Horror Picture Show is now a video game appeared first on Boing Boing.

Last week President Obama held a press conference and took questions from a virtual audience in a video webcast.

According to an article written by Chris Lefkow on Yahoo, 67,000 watched the webcast live. The White House website was open for questions for 36 hours before the press conference. 3,607,837 votes were cast for 104,129 submitted questions.

The President answered seven of those questions. One of them was about the legalization of marijuana. Some groups banded together and used the opportunity of this process to submit a high number of questions about that topic, and the despite the fact that vetters tried to avoid that issue, President Obama weighed in with a firm no.

My point has nothing to do with the politics of marijuana.

If I can be so bold as to be self-referential, my first post on this blog was to equate the power of webcasting technology to that of the printing press. The printing press broke the monopoly of a relative few (for example, monks) who had the ability to publish the written word and decide which books were worthy of reproduction and distribution (most often, the bible). The printing press made publishing accessible to the masses.

Regardless of one's politics regarding the issue, I think everyone would agree that those who favor legalizing marijuana are not in the "main stream" or among the more influential interest groups in this country. Yet the President of the United States specifically addressed their question.

The Washington DC press corps is not going to ask that question - rightly or wrongly. But the webcast by-passed the traditional media filter and brought the concerns of this group of people to the attention of our country's chief executive.

How does that translate to the corporate world? Well, what is the value of getting real feedback from the rank and file? What corporation would not benefit from taking their executives out of the bubble on the 40th floor and exposing them to the concerns of the people at the sharp end of the spear?

What is the value of a corporate culture? Most companies do a poor job of communicating and maintaining a corporate culture from the top down. But the best companies leverage webcasting to enable communications from the bottom up and include that feedback in the corporate culture.

There are perhaps a few hundred journalists with access to the President. These journalists are the only way 300,000,000 Americans can hold their leadership accountable between elections. That is, until last Thursday when webcasting allowed the people to submit questions to their President and their President decided to answer them.

IVT released its latest upgrades to its MediaPlatform software.

Click to view the announcement.

Video is beginning to fulfill its promise as a transformational technology. Beyond merely cutting communications costs, video is starting to change the way companies do business, and is rapidly being accepted as a "need to have" rather than a "nice to have."

Cisco CEO John Chambers predicts video traffic on the internet will increase six fold by 2012. Here is a link to Cisco's August 5 earnings call where he makes that prediction.

A classic example of the power of video is that of electronics manufacturer NEC. They have a network of nearly 500 dealers across the United States that sell their products. They saved more than $250,000 annually in training costs by delivering product training with video webcasting rather than sending trainers to the dealers or bringing the dealers to the trainers.

They also dramatically reduced the time it takes to train the entire network on new products. Click here to watch a video case study.

A newer example shows how video can literally transform the way a company does business. A major sneaker company manufacturers its products in China. Each time they re-tooled to manufacture a new sneaker, executives would have to fly to China to ensure the tooling was correct and the sneakers were meeting specifications before they began mass production.

They began to use high definition cameras at the plant in China to webcast video of the sneakers to allow executives to make their inspection virtually. Sure, they save money on travel to China. But more importantly, there was a practical limit to the amount of people who could go to China to see the actual design come off the assembly line. The video process allows them to solicit input from a much broader segment of the company, and even get input from retailers while there is still time to respond to suggestions.

The end result is that they can bring their products to market faster than their competition, which creates a significant competitive advantage. Click here to see the video discussion.

I am particularly pleased to see clear evidence of unmistakable, game-changing ROI.

MediaPlatform WebCaster and Adobe's Flash Media Enterprise Server 4 with Hybrid Flash Multicasting bring a game changing solution to the challenge of delivering video to the enterprise without requiring a seven figure hardware investment for multicasting.

Up to now, solutions for managing streaming video bandwidth issues required networks of expensive hardware, ranging from Enterprise Content Delivery Networks to WAN Acceleration devices. And all of these solutions dictated Windows Media as your video format. Hybrid Flash Multicasting offers a better way; it works seamlessly with traditional IP multicast networks AND it also provides a Peer Assist multicast solution for the parts of your network that are not IP multicast enabled.

Hybrid Flash Multicasting is an outstanding solution because it:

1) allows corporations to continue leveraging the hardware investments they have made and utilize traditional IP Multicasting with Flash instead of Windows Media.

2) allows corporations to reach bandwidth-challenged locations that are not on the multicast WAN or new locations whose networks are not multicast-enabled with a relatively low cost Peer Assist solution (because it does not require new routers and configuration of switches, etc.).

This solution solves the challenge of allowing video to reach 100% of your desktops without requiring a million dollar investment in a new eCDN. And unlike other peering solutions, there is no proprietary agent that has to be propagated to every desktop. All your employees' computers need is the latest Flash player.

Here is how MediaPlatform fits into the equation:

Our WebCaster software is the only streaming video solution that integrates the multicast-enabled Flash player, as well as leveraging Flash's ability to create a cross platform viewing experience, switch between multiple live and pre-recorded video sources, switch bit rates and codecs on the fly, support mobile devices, support H.264 and VP6 to create higher quality video at lower bandwidths, etc. With our software you can take advantage of Flash to upgrade your streaming communications to a more functional format that will work behind the firewall and to the public internet, will work on any browser and operating system, and can deliver content to mobile devices.

An article about Hybrid Flash Multicasting that features MediaPlatform's CTO, Greg Pulier, recently appeared in the Flex Developer's Journal.  Click here to link to the article

Here is the opening paragraph:

Hybrid Flash multicasting is the second and decisive wave of innovation that will enable enterprises to stream video without overtaxing their network infrastructures. It eliminates the usual tradeoffs between video consumption and network investment, regardless of increased video traffic in budget-constrained corporate networks. Hybrid Flash multicasting also solves the cost and complexity challenges of IP multicasting. By combining a new form of multicasting, known as application multicasting, which leverages a peer-assisted model of video sharing with an IP multicast network, a video stream can reach virtually everyone on the network using existing bandwidth and infrastructure. Hybrid multicasting finally unlocks the full potential for video within the enterprise by combining IP and application multicasting to deliver streaming media using the most efficient algorithms within a dynamic self-optimizing topology.

When the Baby Boomers retire they are going to be taking their substantial knowledge with them. The younger generation to whom that knowledge should be transferred likes to consume video.  This has some very interesting implications for organizations that want to capture that knowledge, organize it, and make it easy for employees to find it and benefit from it.

Here is a link to a webcast on June 1 where Dan Rasmus, a technology strategist and author of Listening to the Future , will discuss the potential for video to serve as an all important medium for knowledge transfer and organizational learning.

Topics to be Covered:
• Knowledge Acquisition via Video
• Video as a Tool for Knowledge Management
• Use of Video or Operational Efficiency
• Practical Applications of Video for Learning in the Enterprise

Click here to register for the webcast

Interactive Media Strategies released data on July 14 showing that 62% of corporations that purchased video communications technology made the decision at the President/CEO level when there was no prior investment in this kind of technology.  That number dropped to 58% when the prior year's spend was as much as $10,000.

The same data shows that when an enterprise already spends $100,000 or more annually on video, the decision-making authority is almost evenly distributed between IT (35%), functional department heads (31%), and the President/CEO level (34%).

I think the clear implication of this data is that when corporations are already committing resources to video communications and the value of video has already been established, and this kind of technology is no longer considered exotic, then decision-making authority becomes more broadly distributed to IT and the business units.

This data is interesting when paired with data released in 2010 that shows 15% of executives surveyed that do not spend money on video and are thus not using video communications believe video communications are "very effective."  58% of executives surveyed that spend $100,000 or more annual on video technology indicated they believe video communications are "very effective."

I am sure this great difference is due to several factors, including: executives who are predisposed to see value in video are those most likely to invest in it, and those that have already made a six figure investment in video will likely not be motivated to feel as if the investment was wasted.  Nonetheless, video obviously wears well because executives who are heavily invested in video believe much more in its value than executives who do not employ the technology.

Interactive Media Strategies released a quite timely study conducted in Q1 2011 that measured corporate executives' financial outlook and how their relative positivity or negativity affected their plans for spending on video.  As one might imagine, only 6% of those with a negative outlook projected increased spending on video against 64% projecting less money spent on video.

39% of executives surveyed who were expecting their finances to improve projected increased spend on video, versus 29% who projected a decrease.  Unfortunately, the study did not provide the percentage of respondents who were expecting finances to decline versus the percentage of respondents expecting finances to improve.

The above results not all that unexpected, but they lay the foundation for this very interesting data: the study measured different types of executives and how their positions within the company influenced their outlook about whether macro-economic factors would impact spend on video.

46% of those in Accounting and Finance, 43% of those in Training, and 42% of Top Executives responded that macro-economic factors had "No Impact" in their decision to purchase video technology.  Overall, 40% of non-IT personnel responded that the economic climate would have no impact.

However, only 29% of IT executives responded that the economy would have no impact.

I attribute this disparity to senior executives and heavy video users (like training executives) being more focused on the ROI and cost reductions that video brings to the enterprise, while IT executives are more focused on the cost of maintaining video delivery infrastructure and the impact on their budgets.

I believe the path to bridging this gap is to leverage the cost savings of the cloud to free up IT resources and still deliver the benefits of video to the business users.

For example, MediaPlatform's PrimeTime application for video asset management leverages public or private clouds to host our application and store all of the video assets.  For example: for clients that have Riverbed, we use a cloud instance of the Riverbed Steelhead to reduce bandwidth usage between the cloud and the network by 80%.

The following article, GOP Rep. Luna Says ‘Criminal Prosecutions Necessary’ For Anti-Trump Lawfare Schemers In Government (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

As President Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the White House after his landslide victory in Tuesday’s election, a U.S. congresswoman says “criminal prosecutions” are “necessary” for the government officials who have been promoting the massive lawfare campaign against the president-elect. On “Sunday Morning Futures” on the Fox News Channel, host Maria Bartiromo asked U.S. Rep. …

Continue reading GOP Rep. Luna Says ‘Criminal Prosecutions Necessary’ For Anti-Trump Lawfare Schemers In Government (Video) ...

The following article, Biden’s Corrupt FEMA Told Workers Not to Help Hurricane Victims Who Had Trump Signs, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

Joe Biden’s corrupt Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has been caught telling its on-the-ground operatives not to help anyone with a Donald Trump campaign sign in their yard. The news broke late last week when a whistleblower revealed agency messages that told workers to refuse to help Trump supporters in the wake of Hurricane Milton …

Continue reading Biden’s Corrupt FEMA Told Workers Not to Help Hurricane Victims Who Had Trump Signs ...

The following article, Lunatic Democrat Murders Wife and Kids, Commits Suicide Over His Hate for Donald Trump, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

This is how mentally deranged liberals are… a Democrat in Minnesota was so filled with rage that Donald Trump won the election last week that he murdered his own wife and kids and then committed suicide to prevent them all from having to live during the next Trump presidency. Notice how you never heard any …

Continue reading Lunatic Democrat Murders Wife and Kids, Commits Suicide Over His Hate for Donald Trump ...

The following article, Major Ruling In CNN Defamation Fight With James O’Keefe (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

A federal appeals court has ruled against CNN in its attempt to have dismissed a defamation complaint from James O’Keefe and Project Veritas. O’Keefe launched Project Veritas and worked years with the organization, doing undercover interviews to uncover political scandals. He later left and now works with O’Keefe Media Group. But the dispute arose during …

Continue reading Major Ruling In CNN Defamation Fight With James O’Keefe (Video) ...

The following article, Steve Bannon Issues 90-Second WARNING To Deep State At Trump Victory Party (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

(Natural News) Steve Bannon, one of Donald Trump’s most fired-up supporters and allies all throughout the former president’s tumultuous political career, delivered a powerful speech after Trump’s victory warning the deep state that justice is coming. Fresh out of federal prison for his involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Bannon took the stage to deliver …

Continue reading Steve Bannon Issues 90-Second WARNING To Deep State At Trump Victory Party (Video) ...

The following article, Left Already Losing It As Trump Announces Starting Lineup (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

Trump learned some hard lessons from his first kick at the can. This time, he’s not making the same mistakes. Personnel IS policy. Last time around DJT was hamstrung right out of the gate when the Alabama Senator he tapped to be his AG was stuck in purgatory under bogus Russia allegations. The Deep State …

Continue reading Left Already Losing It As Trump Announces Starting Lineup (Video) ...

The following article, INTERNal Stupidity: Pentagon Interns Post Pic of Chinese Plane on Veteran’s Day, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

A knock-off Chinese plane similar to the US F-35 was inadvertently posted by the F-35 JPO (Joint Program Office) on Veteran’s Day. Somebody needs to help this administration figure out some basics …oh wait, a new administration is coming in January. Good. The JPO Strike Force account had no clue what they did until an …

Continue reading INTERNal Stupidity: Pentagon Interns Post Pic of Chinese Plane on Veteran’s Day ...

The following article, Forty-Seven Percent Of Harris Voters Believe Trump Will Not Be A Legitimate President; 54 Percent Want To Leave The Country, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

I really wish that everyone would just calm down.  Emotions always run high immediately after an election, but what we are witnessing this time around is truly frightening.  We live at a time when people feel free to express their deepest, darkest emotions on social media, and right now “freak out video” after “freak out …

Continue reading Forty-Seven Percent Of Harris Voters Believe Trump Will Not Be A Legitimate President; 54 Percent Want To Leave The Country ...

Video: Merlin Mann - "Time & Attention Talk (improvised)"

Audio (mp3): "Merlin Mann - 'Rutgers Time & Attention Talk'"

This is a talk I did at Rutgers earlier this month. I kinda like it, but for a weird reason. Something something, perfect storm of technology Ragnarok, and yadda yadda, I had to start the talk 20 minutes late with no slides. Nothing.

So, I riffed.

And, I ended up talking about a lot of the new stuff you can expect to see in the Inbox Zero book—work culture, managing expectations, the 3 deadly qualities of email, and one surprising reason email's not as much fun as Project Runway.

Some people liked it. I think. I liked it. I hope you do, too.

Here's the slides I would have shown. ;-)

Many thanks, again, to my great pal, Dr. Donald Schaffner, for bringing me in for this visit. I had a great time and met some fantastic, passionate people. Much appreciated.

update 2010-04-27_13-50-00

Apologies—my friends at Rutgers (inexplicably) have placed this video under lock and key. Fortunately, I have a lock-picker called Firefox. Samizdat video available soon...

update 2010-04-27_14-42-24

Yay, fixed! Many thanks to my hero, Jesse Schibilia.

A couple weeks ago, my pals at Twitter were kind enough to invite me in to visit with their (rapidly growing) team. The topic was meetings, so I used it as an opportunity to publicly premiere a talk I've been presenting to private clients over the past few months.

I hope you'll enjoy, Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them).

Slides:

Supplementary links and commentary forthcoming, but I wanted to go ahead and post the talk as quickly as the video was available. Special thanks to Michelle, Jeremy, and the crackerjack Twitter crew for a swell afternoon.

I really like this talk and sincerely hope you will find it useful in helping to un-break your own meetings.

[jump to video]

Long story (not very) short? One night in 2003--after killing it in front of audience of about 30 lucky people in Oakland--The Long Winters needed a place to crash, and my wife and I were happy to oblige. 

So, they drove their Big Stinky Blue Van over the bridge, slept on our floor, and by breakfast the next morning, it'd become clear to me that I'd provided lodging to a man who was not only very likely a member of my karass--he was also one of the smartest bullshit artists I'd ever met. 

Almost eight years later, although I don't see him nearly as much as I'd like, I still count the guy as one of my best pals ever.

That's John Roderick. And, I think you need to know about him.

John doesn't read this site--he's more of a Twitter person--so I don't risk feeding his astounding excess of dignity by saying he's one of the most gifted writers and bon vivants of our generation. He's just the best. In large part because he's congenitally incapable of suffering bullshit.

This was never more apparent than the Saturday morning in 2007 when we sat in my back yard and talked about a lot of stuff. Playing guitar, advertising on the web, the evil work of promoters, and why everyone is always trying to shortchange everyone on copper pipe. 

That talking became a four-part interview I ran on the late and occasionally lamented The Merlin Show, and, to this day, it's one of my favorite things I've been lucky enough to post to the web.

So, y'know how I'm definitely "not for everyone?" Well, John is really "not for everyone."

He's opinionated and arrogant and undiplomatic and unironically loves Judas Priest--meaning everyone will find at least one thing not to like about him. Despite being hairy and enjoying laying on your bed, John is not exactly a teddy bear. 

But, John's also right a lot. And, he never sands off the edges of his personality or opinions to make you theoretically "like" him. Which, it will come as no surprise to you, is a big reason I love the guy more than a free prime rib dinner. 

So, why the jizzfest about that awful jerk, John Roderick?

Because, as I noted the other day on the Twitter, in our first episode of Back to Work I misattributed a line that should have been credited to John. Which in itself is unimportant, except inasmuch as finding that link to correct the error got me watching our 50-some minutes of chatting again. I also received some at-responses and emails that reminded me how much people enjoyed our chat. 

But, really it made me realize how much that rambling morning in my back yard still resonates so much with stuff I care a lot about. Independence. Agency. Directness. And, never apologizing for wanting to get paid. Also, guitars and talkative hippies.

So, anyway. John. 

I edited all four parts of the video into one big (streamable/downloadable) movie that should make it way easier to watch at a sitting. Should that interest you. Which it may not. Which, as ever, is totally fine, and kind of the point.

But. If you like Dan and my new show (and, seriously—God bless you magnificent bastards who helped briefly make B2W the most popular podcast in the world [gulp]), I think you'll really like this interview a lot too. I hope so, anyway.

Thus, submitted for your disapproval, permit me to present my four-year-old visit with the acerbic, opinionated, and reportedly unlikeable bullshit artist whom I respect and adore more than just about anybody. 

Meet Hotrod.

• Vimeo Page
• Direct Download Link (589 mb, requires login)

Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone

The lede here is that my pal, Marco, has just released the stellar new 4.0 version of his Instapaper suite.

This is fantastic news, and–as if you needed one more of Marco’s beta testers to say so–I do sincerely hope you’ll mark the occasion (and support his hard work) by purchasing the Instapaper iOS app(s). I promise you’ll be treating yourself to a massive update to an already excellent product.

Now, it’s fortunate and appropriate that you’ll be hearing this advice at length from a lot of people this week. Because, if it’s not already obvious, Marco’s little app (and its associated services) enjoys a rabid fanbase of sundry paragraph cultists who are as eager as I am to spread the word; and, yes, we do want you to join the Reading Nerd cult.

But, I also want to mark the occasion by adding a few thoughts on exactly what Instapaper has done, and continues to do, for me. (As you may already know, I’m a big Marco fan.)

Thing is, I want to tell you how Marco has made a magical machine for people who have decided to read.

Long-Time Fan

For years, Instapaper has been one of the best made, most used, and most beloved apps in my iOS ecosystem. It’s always lived on my iPhone’s home page, and, as you can surmise, that’s because I use Instapaper a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Specifically, I use Instapaper a lot because it helps me do four things extremely well. Four things that work together to make my life a little better.

In that typically annoying mixed order I can’t seem to stop doing, here goes.

2. Deciding WHEN to read

Second, and most obviously, I use Instapaper maybe five to ten times a day to catch up on my reading. Which is great. This is what Instapaper is actually for, right? You read stuff.

Long articles, smaller features, short books, big piles of documentation, and really just anything that I would like to read…later. More saliently, these are things that I have decided to read. This decision part’s important, but more on that in a couple minutes.

But, how does all this “stuff” I’ve decided to read get in to Instapaper?

1. Deciding WHAT to read

See, this is the really important first part. Because as much as I use Instapaper for all manner of reading, its use as an ephemeral destination for mostly ephemeral content wouldn’t be nearly so useful if I didn’t have so many ways to collect all that stuff. So, that flexibility in collecting material is where I end up using some form of Instapaper dozens of times each day.

Examples?

I have a bookmarklet for adding items to Instapaper in 4 browsers on 7 devices. I have (and use the hell out of) the “Send to Instapaper” services that are built in to everything from Google Reader to Reeder to Flipboard to Instacast to Tweetbot to Zite to you name it. I can automate in or out of Instapaper with If This Then That, I can email items directly to Instapaper–hell, I can even just copy a URL from iOS Safari, and paste it directly into the motherscratching Instapaper app.

Suffice it to say, there are many ways to get “stuff” into Instapaper. E.g.:

But, that banner dump only tells part of the story.

Yes, a big part of this is about ubiquity and ease-of-use. But, the practical result is that all those little entrees to Instapaper are available to me everywhere I might need them, and they each represent a single little click that silently adds an item of “stuff” to my Instapaper pile.

Each button is one more simple opportunity for me to decide to read.

3. Deciding WHERE to read

Now, the third part of this magic is less immediately obvious, not least because the reading experience of the Instapaper iOS apps is, for my own purposes, perfect. But, there’s more.

Because, all that support for getting stuff into Instapaper is mirrored by an endless number of ways to get stuff back out. To, in fact, read. That thing I decided to read is now everywhere.

However I ended up deciding to read something, seconds after that *click*, the real magic starts happening, and–through whatever inscrutable black art and transmogrification is happening inside the fearsome celestial engine Marco has made–that decision to read is expressed in the most elegant of results and in a startlingly broad variety of convenient places.

It’s readable on a website; it’s readable on an iPhone, and 2 iPads; it’s readable on a Kindle 3; it’s readable on the crazy number of apps and services that display Instapaper items. And, it’s even preserved for posterity in my private Pinboard archive.

So, for practical purposes, this stuff that I’ve decided to read can now go whooshing through a network of customized tubes, and gently land practically anywhere that well-formed bits may reside.

4. Just…Deciding to Read

I know most of you know these things. I know you’re familiar with the many “Features and Benefits” of Instapaper. And, I even know that most of you reading this are probably already using Instapaper–perhaps even to read this very article.

So, the point here is not simply that Instapaper is flexible, idiot-proof, and sanity-savingly redundant. Although it is all those things and many more.

The point is that my life always gets better when I decide to read things–and then actually read those things I decided to read. This is not a trivial point.

We’re all busy, and we’re all bombarded with 10,000 potential calls on our attention every day. Some days, we handle that better than others. Some days, we don’t handle it all.

All I know, is that, throughout my life, deciding to read has made that life better.

It made my life better at 7 with Henry Huggins. It made my life better at 16 with Slaughterhouse-Five. It made my life better at 20 with Absalom, Absalom!. And, it made my life way better at 25 with A Confederacy of Dunces (cf.).

And, now, for the past few years–following over a decade during which I read way more href tags than actual prose paragraphs–my life has gotten better, in part, due to Instapaper. I’ve finally gotten my hands around this “too much stuff” issue, at least insofar as it relates to words of theoretical interest. Now, I know where it goes. It goes into Instapaper.

Because, now? Yeah. Twenty-some years after a college career sucking down over 1,000 pages a week, I am finally returning to reading a lot more. Because, I am deciding to read a lot more. Instapaper means there’s no excuse for not reading a lot more. Period.

How about you?

What Are YOU Deciding?

When you’re in line at the ATM or the professional sporting event, what do you do?

If you’re like a lot of people, you hit your mobile device like a pigeon on a goddamned pellet. Then, you decide what happens.

You can decide to throw birds at pigs. You can decide to check in on which strangers are pretending to like you today. You may even decide to see what you would look like if you were really fat.

Thing is, you could also decide to read. Just for a couple minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. Who knows. It’s your decision.

A Nudge Towards “Better”

But, if you have followed the circuitous skeins of yarn comprising this little sweater you’ve been reading, it comes down to this:

If you’ve decided that you want to read, Marco’s app will really help you. He’s removed any phony barriers you’ve built about “not having time” or “not having it with you” or “not knowing where to put it.” There are no excuses, apart from the superficial animated ones you’ve constructed out of cartoon birds.

As for me? In the last week alone, I decided to read a lot of things in Instapaper. A small sampling:

I decided to read about an American family’s educational experiment in Russia.

I decided to read about what Heidegger means by Being-in-the-World.

I decided to read about why toasters are so bad.

I decided to read about responsive web design.

I decided to read about why Charlie Kaufman wrote Being John Malkovich.

I decided to read about how Open Data could make San Francisco Public Transportation better.

I decided to read about how John Siracusa remembers Steve Jobs.

I decided, and then I read. I read, and I read.

So, thanks, Marco. You’ve made my life better by making it easier to decide to read. Then, you made it way easier to do the actual reading.

And, to you–the kind readers-of-prose-paragraphs who were inexplicably patient enough to decide to read this long article–please consider supporting Marco’s work.

Please get an account at Instapaper and, if you have an iOS dingus, please do buy the Instapaper app.

In addition to having exquisite taste in app icons and a lovely speaking voice, Marco’s just a very good human. And, good humans more than deserve our support.

Buy Instapaper 4.0 by Marco Arment.

Have you heard of Locorotondo, Italy? Locorotondo is one of Southern Italy’s most beautiful villages, in my opinion, but it isn’t yet overwhelmed with tourist crowds. A true hidden gem, Locorotondo is just a 12-minute drive from busy Alberobello in the Puglia region, but feels like a world away. Planning your trip to Locorotondo last […]

The post Visiting Locorotondo, Italy – A Guide to the Trulli Town appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

Cavtat, Croatia, might be the biggest surprise of your trip! This peaceful seaside town in the far south of Croatia is so close to Dubrovnik, and yet a world away. If you want to visit Dubrovnik but would rather stay somewhere with a quiet, more relaxing atmosphere — oh, and cheaper, too! — Cavtat (pronounced […]

The post Cavtat, Croatia Guide: A Quiet Alternative to Dubrovnik appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

Cinque Terre is one of the most picturesque regions in Italy. These steep, colorful fishing villages perched on seaside cliffs of the Italian Riviera will take your breath away! There are 5 towns of Cinque Terre: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. Here you’ll find my recommendations for all five towns, plus the […]

The post Guide to the 5 Towns of Cinque Terre, Italy appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

She likes Kamala's polices enough to put a lawn sign up on her property, but when one toll with a postcard personalizes those policies... she loses it.

The post Harris Supporter Outraged By Postcard Trolling… Did They Go Too Far? appeared first on Clash Daily.

It was supposed to be a push to help her over the finish line. It ended up giving Trump a free shot with their audience instead.

The post OOPS: SNL Tried To Help Kamala… But Boosted TRUMP Instead (VIDEO) appeared first on Clash Daily.

When he first showed up, he was echoing the Jan-6-threat-to-democracy talking point. By the time he left, he had other considerations to chew over.

The post WATCH: Vivek Puts On A Clinic… Flips Bro From Kamala To MAGA In Just A Few Questions (VIDEO) appeared first on Clash Daily.

There is a reason Joe Rogan became the world's largest podcaster. He doesn't take his audience -- or his guests -- for granted. He wants MEANINGFUL conversations.

The post Joe Rogan Officially Backs A Candidate… Could Be The Biggest Endorsement Yet appeared first on Clash Daily.

At the State of the Union, Joe Biden Joe Biden made a 'bold' announcement that America would be building a pier to deliver aid to Gaza. Four months later, he admitted it was a failure.

The post Soldier Succumbs To Injuries Sustained In Biden’s Doomed Gaza Pier Mission appeared first on Clash Daily.

If killjoy leftists can wear their self-parodying and ridiculous 'Handmaid's Tale' outfits, then they can't complain when a MAGA voter plays the same game... only better.

The post MUST-WATCH: MAGA Voter Finds Hilarious Way To Sidestep Election Clothing Rules appeared first on Clash Daily.

The usual talking heads in the media are freaking out and making all kinds of wild claims. Those are the rage-y emotional reactions. What's a more sensible take on all of this?

The post Why Did Trump Win And What Happens Now? appeared first on Clash Daily.

Did you know that the Marines just celebrated their 249th birthday? This is one helluva tribute.

The post VETERAN’S DAY: You’re Gonna Love What One Patriotic Coffee Company Did For The Marines! appeared first on Clash Daily.

We all know that *one* guy who acts like he's doing the world a favor just by showing up.

The post Demonic & Damned to Ridiculously Redeemed! (Eph.2:1-10) appeared first on Clash Daily.

He learned some hard lessons from his first kick at the can. This time, he's not making the same mistakes. Personnel IS policy.

The post Left Already Losing It As Trump Announces His Starting Lineup (VIDEO) appeared first on Clash Daily.

Bob Moesta is a dear friend, mentor, and all around original thinker. He’s helped me see around corners, shine lights on things I didn’t know were there, and approach product development from unusual angles. Every time we talk, I come away inspired and full of optimism. So when he asked me to help him with… keep reading

Spend enough time talking with entrepreneurs, product people, designers, and anyone charged with proving something, and you’ll bump into questions about validation. “How do you validate if it’s going to work?”“How do you know if people will buy it to not?”“How do you validate product market fit?”“How do you validate if a feature is worth… keep reading

There appeared to be a definite frost between first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris during a Veterans Day event at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. A close-up […]

The post Footage of Jill Biden and Kamala Harris Sitting Side-by-Side at Veterans Day Event Goes Viral appeared first on The Western Journal.

It was one of the high points in the early days of the Kamala Harris campaign, the honeymoon period where the vice president — newly minted as the Democratic nominee […]

The post Watch: Oprah Pressed Over Claims That Kamala Harris' Campaign Paid Her $1M for Political Endorsement appeared first on The Western Journal.

Melania Trump will not be traveling with her husband to Washington on Wednesday when President-elect Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have a formal transition meeting, according to multiple reports. […]

The post Melania Trump to Give Jill Biden the Cold Shoulder This Week: Report appeared first on The Western Journal.

Shortly after President-elect Donald Trump appointed Tom Homan as “border czar,” the immigration hardliner’s hilarious 2019 smackdown of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York went viral on social media. […]

The post Flashback: Video of Tom Homan Taking Down AOC Resurfaces, Showing Why Trump Picked Him appeared first on The Western Journal.

Legendary Christian writer C.S. Lewis gave us an analogy to help explain otherwise inexplicable moments such as this. Tolerance, Lewis once wrote, “parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.” In a […]

The post Biden Asked If He'll Get a Hostage Deal by the End of His Term, and His Response Is Telling appeared first on The Western Journal.

Jannik Sinner hit the accelerator at the end of each set as he cruised past Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday to close in on a semi-final spot at the ATP Finals in Turin.

The race to succeed Bill Beaumont as chairman of World Rugby comes to a conclusion in a vote in Dublin at the governing body's headquarters on Thursday.

Evidence Makgopa wore a sheepish smile when Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos showered him with praise before literally patting the forward on the back, making him blush at Dobsonville Stadium.

Originally published in Gatestone Institute on Nov. 25, 2022 By Cynthia Farahat Bahgat Saber, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, operates from his New York apartment and often streams live videos from Times Square. During his multi-hour videos, Saber routinely incites terrorism, assassinations, kidnapping and torture in an extremely graphic manner. The calls for violence […]

Total media ad spend in Russia to drop nearly 50%   March 30, 2022 (New York, NY) – Insider Intelligence expects the ongoing war in Ukraine to have a significant […]

A guide to the Chinese Communist Party's National Congress The World Today rescobales.drupal 21 September 2022

In the first of a three-part series examining the global importance of the CCP’s 20th National Congress, Yu Jie explains how it makes its big decisions.

Why does the CCP National Congress matter?

The world’s most populous country and its smallest state have little in common with one exception: how they select their leader. Like the Vatican, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shrouds its leadership selection process in secrecy.

Every five years, a week-long conclave – the Party Congress – is held and at its end a new cohort of leaders is presented that will steer the world’s second largest economy for the next five years.

The congress is the most important date in China’s political calendar. It not only selects China’s leadership team but acts as a signpost indicating the direction the country will be heading in the near future, with implications for decades to come. It also reveals the breadth and depth of power held by Xi Jinping, the party’s general-secretary.

The 20th CCP National Congress, opening on October 16 and expected to last a week, is taking place during unsettling times. While Xi Jinping is expected to embark on his third term as general-secretary of the party after the removal of a two-term limit in February 2018, it is hardly a crowning glory. Xi’s China is battling an economic maelstrom at home while juggling fraught foreign relations abroad.

What does the National Congress do?

Quite simply, the CCP National Congress is the gathering that defines China’s political leadership and sets the tone for its relationship with the rest of the world.

It serves to fulfil three primary functions:

First, it sets the party’s principal agenda across all policy sectors, from macroeconomics to the price of food. During the week, it draws up a consensus-based evaluation of the party’s work over the past five years, which includes a detailed examination of the party’s current situation.

Second, it introduces any revisions to the party constitution deemed necessary, for instance on changes to the criteria for leadership recruitment or amendments to the party’s ‘guiding ideology’.

Third, it selects the leadership team that will steer China for the next five years, a function that attracts the most international attention but is not the sole purpose of the congress.

How is the party leadership team chosen?

The congress comprises 2,300 delegates representing all levels of the party hierarchy across 34 provinces and regions – from the governors of towns and cities, to Olympic champions, astronauts, and even the odd stand-up comedian to mark the ‘inclusiveness’ of the party.

The votes that decide the next cohort of party leaders come from three committees only: the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, with 205 members and 171 alternate members (alternate members are simply substitutes to replace a member if they die, retire or are dismissed); the Central Committee, with 204 members; and the Politburo, with 25 members, only one of whom is a woman.

Unlike multiparty elections in liberal democracies, neither the full 25 members of the Politburo nor the seven members of its Standing Committee are nominated by or directly voted for by constituents.

A procedure known as ‘democratic recommendation’ is essentially a straw poll that includes all congress participants. They are then given a ballot listing the names of around 200 Politburo candidates in stroke order – the Chinese equivalent to alphabetical order. This short-listing process is completed in the run-up to the congress. Some pundits asserted that this process was put on hold after 2017, yet this has not been formally confirmed within the party constitution.

A few senior delegates may express their preferences to their colleagues anonymously during this process. All the shortlisted candidates must meet the criteria for Politburo membership, which means serving at either a ministerial rank or above or in the People’s Liberation Army at military region level or above and being younger than 62.

Based on the result of this straw poll, and more importantly on the preferences of current Politburo members, the incumbent Politburo and its Standing Committee will approve the nominees, conclude the Seventh Plenum of the 19th Party Congress and call for the 20th Congress. The delegates at the Party Congress then ceremonially cast their votes for the Politburo at the Party Congress although the result is pre-agreed, a procedure somewhat similar to the US Electoral College.

What are the rules for choosing Politburo members?

The Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) consists of between five and nine members, with seven selected at the 19th Congress. It is the supreme decision-making body of the Communist Party as well as the People’s Republic of China.

If the 20th Congress follows convention, there are three de-facto rules to be followed:

First, Politburo and Standing Committee members must retire at 68. This age limit is known as ‘Eight down, Seven up’.

Second, new appointments to the PSC are drawn exclusively from regular Politburo members. The only exceptions to this rule have been Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, who were appointed at the 17th Party Congress in 2007.

This exception follows the third convention, under which PSC appointees are among the youngest senior party leaders eligible. Potentially three vacancies could arise in 2022, as Xi himself is 69 but it is highly unlikely that he would step down. That would be a radical departure from past precedents.

The extent to which past procedure is applied could act as a signal as to whether Xi Jinping is consolidating his power, while the size of the standing committee will be scrutinized to assess how much power Xi wields.

If the procedure for leadership appointments at the 20th Congress deviates from these conventions, it could indicate two things. First, the CCP faces a new set of challenges and requires the introduction of new rules to shape the top leadership. Or, second, Xi has gained substantial personal power that allows him to bypass the collective leadership system endorsed by Deng Xiaoping and choose appointees to suit his own taste. There has thus far been little evidence from the official media to reflect on any changes.

Changes in party institutional constraints, however, raise the danger of undermining governance at home and China’s relations abroad.

Read the two further articles in this series: the second discusses the key domestic policy themes that Xi Jinping is expected to outline at this year’s congress; the third analyses the foreign policy issues likely to be discussed at the congress.   

Book preview: Guide to Chinese Climate Policy 2022 20 October 2022 — 10:00AM TO 11:15AM Anonymous (not verified) 28 September 2022 Chatham House and Online

Join authors David Sandalow and Michal Meidan to discuss their upcoming book.

China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and a key player in tackling the global climate crisis. Its stated climate policies, namely its high-level targets to peak emissions by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, are significant.

But while national-level ministries, local governments and businesses are setting climate roadmaps, implementation is challenging at times. In the current context of the global energy market and geopolitical turmoil, China’s need to maintain energy security can seem at odds with its climate pledges.

The authors will present the book, which examines Chinese emissions, the impacts of climate change in China, as well as China’s domestic and international climate change policies and the main implementation challenges these policies face.