Echoing Mr. Google Search Sucks, I have to note that Google is not only a hindrance to moving beyond web 2.0, but actually creates a kind of subsidized level of textual websites (and people writing way too much text) that limits the cool aspects of widgets interlaced nicely around the web:

An example of this phenomenon is the interactive music video by Arcade Fire. This is one of the most creative things I have seen in some time. It is engaging and I ended up watching the video about 5 times and every time there was something new to uncover. Watch the video, click around the screen, and you will understand.

Too bad this will never come up in search engines since there is no text on this page. What a shame. So here is what I propose. Lets Google Bomb the crap out of this video. I suggest the keyword Click Around . If you do not know what a google bomb is, type in “miserable failure” into Google and you will find out. Another example is “click here” which takes you to Adobe.

Now, miserable failure does not show the White House anymore as it used to, but that fix was manual, as “click here” still works.

Another thing to note along these lines is with duplicate content from rss feeds. I’m constantly now getting Chinalyst knocking out positions on subjects that I specifically write about because their site is getting picked by Google for content that I allow to be automatically placed onto their site (known there as a node), definitely not being able to tell which site is the original content versus the copy. It’s a give or take as maybe I will get reads through Chinalyst that I wouldn’t through search, but then again, maybe I would get more otherwise.

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I will let this passage explain perfectly my thoughts on MSM’s failures:

Fairness and balance are appropriate goals for journalists. But being fair to sources and providing balance among them should not outweigh the need to be fair to the readers, and to the facts. And balance should not be reduced to giving various points of view equal time or space in a story. It ought to mean that truth gets treated like truth and lies get treated like lies. If you’re going to lose audience anyway, why not take a stand for something on the way down? Maybe that’ll inspire some more readers to stick around, too. Or even to take a fresh look at their local paper again.

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What??? The Smithsonian Magazine has a fascinating article about a team of diggers in Australia finding dinosaurs that would have had fared the cold winters back when Australia and Antarctica were joined near the South Pole.

Think “dinosaurs” and you probably conjure up behemoths trudging through sweltering swamps or torrid tropical forests. But Rich and other scientists working in Australia, Alaska and even atop a mountain in Antarctica have unearthed remains of dinosaurs that prospered in environments that were cold for at least part of the year. Polar dinosaurs, as they are known, also had to endure prolonged darkness—up to six months each winter. “The moon would be out more than the sun, and it would be tough making a living,” says paleontologist David Weishampel of Johns Hopkins University

(more…)

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Mission San Jose comes in at number 49 for top US high schools across the United States (from the San Jose Mercury News). Not very surprising in of itself, and probably would rank higher if a lot of the kids from the Warm Springs District did not get moved to Irvington, but still, noteworthy to show anyway:

Rank 49	School Name and Location Mission San Jose High Alameda County, Fremont, California	College Readiness 71.1	Quality-adjusted Exams per Test Taker 3.5

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Back in 2004 when I was at a Model United Nations conference up in Montreal (McGill Model UN) I was on a committee acting out as the Chinese Politburo during the closed-door secret conference choosing who would be a successor to Hu Jintao. Now, I don’t know why they allowed us delegates to have a chance of technically “running” the committee by allowing the President to be a delegate rather than the administrator, but nonetheless I got to take over as President and had to deal with a war with the United States and a lackluster Japan. (more…)

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The fun really just doesn’t stop over at the Time Magazine with Joe Klein. It is finally nice to put the corruption of the Beltway Media into one great example. And it is not just Joe Klein, but sadly the Time Magazine and its editors for him, just read the following “correction” below that will appear tomorrow (found through Glenn Greenwald):

Editor & Publisher has obtained an advance copy of Klein’s correction, which will appear in Time’s print edition tomorrow:

Correction: I was wrong to write last week that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would require a court approval of individual foreign surveillance targets. The bill does not explicitly say that. Republicans believe it can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don’t. To read the disputed section of the bill, go to time.com/fisa.

Read the correction twice and then out loud just so you can see how strange that sounds. Joe Klein was so factually wrong that his whole article was absolutely pointless. Joe Klein and the editors involved need to be put on leave and monitored for a long time for Time to really restore its credibility in journalism.

Here’s another way to look at it, if Joe Klein is the supposed “liberal” columnist, then I’m a radical.

And I’m very much the independent moderate.

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Gotta love a variety of cat pictures, and this one is no exception with cats flying!

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I wanted to follow-up on my previous post with a good night’s rest behind me (had a great dream of having superpowers). I want to make sure everyone knows I am not trashing his reputation or think badly of him, on the contrary for the most part I am/was filled with jealousy which very rarely feel or show.

Firstly, I think its great that he posted up some clips and is very smart to have done so on the Chinese Youtube, Youku, which caters specifically to the Chinese audience (I have seen previous singers on Youtube, but obviously that caters more to the English speaking audience).

Others will surely trash him and consider what his ulterior motives are behind him posting up on Youku (heck, it could have been a simple bet from a co-worker at HSBC to put up his vids there or something).

Still, I’ve never understood why people like him or my friend Adam who enjoyed singing the Communist National Anthem (which ironically is actually illegal to do in China on TV as my friend Adam found out), but then again I’m not exactly big on any kind of nationalism either so my bias clouds that judgment beyond the obvious marketing ability on catching eyes.

Now, singing 周杰伦 (Jay Chow) I can understand fully and have enjoyed many of hours singing the song, raving to 黎明 (Leon Lai) (wish I had a video of that instead of pictures), lip-syncing to girly 郑秀文 (Sammy Cheng) (guilty pleasure on that one), and even running a college CASA at GWU (yes, that old fable about some white guy on the East Coast running a Chinese club was me).

If that doesn’t help give an understanding of who I am, know that many people I knew back in high school and my friends still today call me a white Asian guy (hence the nickname: whiteaznguy) for my knowledge and interest over Asian topics. Heck, in my group of friends that I often hang out with, there is only one white guy (you know the token white guy?) and it isn’t me as they say I’m really Asian than I am white.

So truly in the end this guy has my respect, my interest in getting to know a fellow cultural 中国通, and a bow to his courage, but not my Shanghainese wife.

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I’m frickin’ pissed over this:

I’ve always thought about doing this with a Jay Chow song (done some karaoke as well, my friends can back me up on this to their annoyance probably, lol) along with doing a duet with my wife for Love’s Angel by Jolie（我的天使）.Then again, I’m not sure which I’m more pissed at…

1. Him actually doing this and beating me to it (laziness on my end).
2. The seeming fakery over his huge “pro-China” sentiments (unless satirical).
3. My doing a video now would seem like I’m the copycat.
4. My wife saying his Chinese is better than mine and doesn’t like hearing me sing.

Sighs, wonder if I could convince my wife now to do the duet?? Guess my ‘uniqueness’ died out with QQ…

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Search Engine Optimization, though around for about a decade or so now since its inception, is still a relatively new field of work. New enough that I would still qualify SEO as a soft science as there are no publicly detailed statistical studies using regression analysis and other econometrics work on what factors really help sites rank on the top of search engines (This is not to say that there are not any statistical analyses out there, just none using proper regression analyses outside of Excel).

Try searching the following phrases in Google:

• Econometrics and SEO
• SEO regression analysis
• SEO regressions

the lack of any papers on these topics? I’m not surprised as I doubt even 5% of the people I chat with randomly at parties know what SEO or a Search Strategist is—and I live in the heart of Silicon Valley with a large number of computer nerd friends. (more…)

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