a little known Instapaper feature worth noting!

I didn't get why I'd want to create a folder in Instapaper until I discovered the "Read later" bookmarklet at the bottom of each folder page.

I created a folder for:

• videos I want to watch later (vids)


• sites that require some kind of action on my part (act)
  
• photo sites I want to come back to (pics)

After dragging up the bookmarklets for these individual buckets, I now have the most amazing procrastination tool on the web (and it's the good kind of procrastination!).

Since I use the Kindle integration, this keeps multimedia content out of my main Read Later bucket, so it's only articles I want to read. (Now if only there was a Kindle-style device that supported streaming video and high res photo display, now we're talkin'! Perhaps the Apple tablet will fill this role).

Kudos to Marco for all his hard work on this service, it's a huge time saver.

in reference to: Instapaper (view on Google Sidewiki)

a few points about Gaga

-- A lot of people are saying she can't sing... let's see Britney or any other modern pop star pull off a performance like the one she did on Ellen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I05faOgq1UA

No lip syncing there! Who cares if it's not totally perfect... I'll take a real imperfect voice over an overdubbed/autotuned playback any day.

-- Is the song breaking new musical ground? No. Is she fun to watch and do I get a kick out of what she comes up with next? Absolutely.

-- Someone in the comments mentioned the visuals in the video being a knock-off of Barney's "Cremaster"... that might be, but name one other current pop-star that is trying to stretch the boundaries of what's acceptable in pop culture... I don't think that person exists. For this alone she is to be commended.

-- From what I've read about her, she does seem to be the main creative director and the one with the vision for her art (vs some other pop-star maker pulling the strings behind the scenes). Whether you like what she does or not, this is also respect worthy.

in reference to: Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' Video: Lingerie, Nudity, Vodka & Murder (WATCH) (view on Google Sidewiki)

great discussion in here

To channel the great Neil Postman, it's good to keep in mind that technology is always a Faustian bargain. As technology evolves, humans adapt to it and in turn, continue tweaking the technology to ensure that the "giveth" outweigh the "taketh."

I particularly like the invocation of Darwin here since that's how I view the progression of technology... new stuff comes along that smokes the old stuff, and the old stuff dies out.

I've felt this most recently after getting my first Kindle. As I hold the device, I can look across the room at my giant bookshelf and feel a physical tug of war taking place. What value do all those physical books hold as they sit there, collected dust on my shelf? The same goes for all my cds which I'm digitizing and organizing in iTunes.

Information no longer needs to take physical shape, unless there's a specific reason it should do so. There are interesting "music objects" like the Buddha Box... little computers that generate music where the value is in their physicality. Then there's the case for vinyl and it's successor, Serato Scratch which allows the DJ to have the tactile feel of vinyl, but access to every song in their collection.

As for the consumption of information or "infovorism"... new tools are emerging to help prioritize the information before it actually gets to us. We've had this for years in the form of human editors, but as mentioned in one of the responses in this piece, individualism is what trumps all. If the machine can help me tailor my consumption to only the things it predicts I'll get value from, the theory is that I can cut out the noise and only spend my time on signal.

The main gotcha I see here is ability for "small" or unpopular voices to make their way through the algorithms and filters. One can argue that if something is truly "good" that it will break through and make it's way to the audience that should see it. Because no machine can catch everything, we will have to rely on each other to bubble things up and we'll just have to accept that many things will fall through the cracks.

in reference to: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schirrmacher09/schirrmacher09_index.html (view on Google Sidewiki)