http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DenialismBlog/~3/343959819/the_end_of_ignorance.php

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/07/the_end_of_ignorance.php

The folks at bloggingheads.tv whoring for some link love sent me an interesting link. They had a talking heads session ("diavlog"---damn, that's hard to say) between John Horgan and some other guy (sorry, "Some Other Guy"). Horgan is the guy who brought us The End of Science, a book which was more widely criticized than read. I haven't read it either, but after watching him, I think I need to do a little reading. He's a bright guy, and interesting to listen to, but as live chats often go, there were some errors that deserve parsing, not just because they are errors of fact, but because they reveal a certain disappointing line of thought.

cloudscudding

9,892 / 80,000 (12.4%)

"Sir, you're new here," a confident tenor voice said next to Leander's ear. "What do you want? I can help you. I know everyone, I know what they've got. Did you just board the ship? You need to relax? You want to gamble? Drink? Puff? You like girls? My cousin is beautiful and very friendly. See?"

penthius

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Jul23.html

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Jul23.html

Mitt Romney has decided to convert the $45 million loan he gave his campaign into a gift. As a shrewd businessman, he knows the chance of getting donors to give money to a multimillionaire former governor who is not running for office is pretty darn close to zero, so why try? His attempt to buy the presidency didn't work. However, by formally abandoning any attempt to recoup his money, he is signaling John McCain that he is willing to focus all his fundraising efforts on helping McCain. If McCain would be willing to name him as Vice President. Romney would no doubt humbly accept. Is the presidency a steal at a mere $45 million? Probably. Is the Vice Presidency worth $45 million? John Nance Garner famously didn't think so.

Real Clear Politics has an article about changes in party registration since the 2004 election. The Democrats have gained 700,000 people and the Republicans have lost 1 million in the 29 states that register voters by party. Here are the numbers im some important states (rounded to the nearest thousand).

Two states stand out: Iowa and Nevada. In Iowa, Bush won by 10,000 votes and the Democrats have netted 95,000 new voters. In Nevada, Bush won by 22,000 votes and the Democrats have picked up 60,000 new voters. These numbers alone suggest that the Democrats have a good shot at picking up Iowa (7 electoral votes) and Nevada (5 electoral votes). If Obama gets these plus the Kerry states, he has 264 electoral votes, 6 shy of the 270 he needs. If McCain holds all the Bush states except Iowa and Nevada, he wins, but he can't afford to lose another swing state. If he loses New Mexico, too, the electoral college will be tied at 269-269 and the new House picks the President, with each state having one vote.

http://xkcd.com/453/

tivolovers [zonereyrie]

[	Tags	|	amazon, epicenter, mediabytes, press release, product purchase, tivocommunity, wired, zatz not funny	]
[	Current Location	|	Foster City, CA	]
[	mood	|	hungry	]
[	music	|	quiet	]

It's not an exclusive arrangement, though, and it's fair to expect both Amazon.com and TiVo will hop in bed with other players. "We're always looking at ways to expand shopping options for customers," says Heather Huntoon, a spokeswoman from Amazon.com.

TiVo's [Evan Young, Director of Broadband Services] says the company may introduce other commerce partners, but at the moment the focus is on Amazon. "We're looking to create some initial success with Amazon. They're already a partner of ours, and they have excellent customer service."

And although TiVo hasn't tested the shopping service yet, Young is already hopeful that the initiative can be expanded to include in-program product placements and other ad arrangements.

"We're interested in talking to programmers as well as advertisers to enable more impulse buys when it make sense," says Young.

With that out of the way, here's what you'll see with the new feature launching today.

* For Burn Notice, Oprah's Book Club, and a few other shows, at the conclusion of the show you'll see a message in the delete dialog box allowing you to purchase related products. (These are similar to existing messages in the delete dialog box.) More shows will come in the future.
* In the future, we'll create a showcase for upcoming talk shows allowing you to purchase related products.
* In the future, we'll create a showcase about newly released books, DVDs and CDs.

The second and third items you'll see next week, and if they're well received we'll evaluating continuing with them.

I'm very excited about this new feature -- it's long been high on my wishlist of things that I want when I watch TV, and I'm glad we've released this new feature for our customers.

One other point: Think of this an add-on to the existing advertising delivery methods that we've had for a while. Product purchase further enhances things like Showcases, program placement (that's what we call the related menu items in the delete dialog box), and the Thumbs Up tags on advertisements.

This will be no more invasive than the existing advertising products that you've seen already. We don't intend to put this new feature in any new locations.