Even now, three weeks later, elites, and their mouthpieces in the press, continue to puzzle over what people like Ketchup want. Where is the list of demands? Why don’t they present us with specific goals? Why can’t they articulate an agenda?

The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION. These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back.

via Chris Hedges: Why the Elites Are in Trouble – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

                          

At a time of record corporate profits, a time when 14 million Americans are out of work, when millions have lost their homes and, according to the Census Bureau, the ranks of those living in poverty has grown to one in six—that Elizabeth Warren could be publicly kneecapped and an agency devoted to protecting American consumers could come under such intense attack is, ultimately, the story about who holds power in America today.

via The Woman Who Knew Too Much | Politics | Vanity Fair.

                          

A CEO must understand three issues to be effective. First, he or she needs to internalize the true meaning of creating shareholder value. This amounts to a collection of principles that guide strategic, financial, and organizational issues. Second, he or she needs to understand how capital markets work. Finally, he or she must communicate effectively to shareholders, as well as to other stakeholders.

via What Shareholder Value is Really About – Michael J. Mauboussin – Harvard Business Review.

                          

Americans spend just a fraction of online time with news compared to social media | Poynter..

The above link by my friend and sometimes editor Steve Myers at Poynter points out some great research by Nielsen about our online habits. We spend more time socializing online than we do with the news online.

That’s no surprise. We do this in our offline lives too. Even my great grandmother only watched the nightly news for 30-60 minutes a day or read the paper in the morning for less time than that. But she spent hours with me playing checkers and talking and doing things.

So now we do more things on the Interwebs, so why shouldn’t we spend more time with our friends and families near and far than we do with journalism. It doesn’t make us less aware. And the framing of these kinds of conversations tends to suggest _ even in the research level_ that there is some shallowness applied to spending our time socializing than reading important news.

But the big thing wrong about that inference is that the news of my loved ones’ lives is very, very important to me. Social media is all about sharing news and information that matters on scales small and large. We talk about events of the day at lunches and around the family dinner table and at happy hours and everywhere else people meet. We share our stories of what happened to us and what we’ve experienced. Online or on the phone or on a letter or in person, we are all people connecting to each other in different ways but doing the same things.

All of it is news to us. And it comes from the most trusted sources, our friends and family. This shouldn’t be news to news people.

                          

*DO* WORRY ABOUT US. AND, MORE TO THE POINT, U.S. As most of you know, I believe that the United States has gradually, subtly, invisibly to most of us, become a police state over the last 30 years. This morning’s events are roughly equivalent to the Reichstag fire that provided the social opportunity for the Nazi take-over of Germany. I am *not* suggesting that, like the Nazis, the authoritarian forces in America actually had a direct role in perpetrating this mind-blistering tragedy. (Though their indirect role deserves a much longer discussion.) Nevertheless, nothing could serve those who believe that American “safety” is more important than American liberty better than something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the rest of our lives. Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing to sacrifice a little – largely illusory – safety in order to maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to fight for those ideals just as vigorously. I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can – whether writing your public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF, taking to the streets, or living visibly free and fearless lives – to prevent the spasm of control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning. Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Fear nothing. Live free. And, please, let us try to forgive those who have committed these appalling crimes. If we hate them, we will become them. May God – or Whatever you want to call It – bless us all. We’ll need it. Barlow

via From John Perry Barlow’s mailing – Boing Boing.

                          

A fantastic Op-Ed by Krugman today:

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”

via Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com.

Let’s now turn to the last interview given by Dr. Carl Sagan, the man who popularized science for a generation:

In the Bible, the rainbow is a sign from God, a promise that he won’t send other disasters to the world. After a few thousand years, we know that the rainbow is caused by the refraction of light in moisture in the air, a prism effect. You can make one with a garden hose.

You can’t run a 21st century technology based nation and economy with belief systems from the 8th century B.C. This is completely unacceptable and patently irresponsible.

It is equally irresponsible that news editors and reporters do not mention this right up front in their reporting of these kinds of comments. It isn’t an opinion page thing, it is a fact checking thing. These are facts.

And no matter what these candidates believe in, the facts need to be spelled out in context with the quotes if journalism wants to be taken seriously. Hiding behind bias, objectivity and odd ethics is no way to go forward. It just creates more misinformation and hinders the progress of the craft and industry.

And in these cases, it actually threatens the lives of every living thing on the planet.

                          

MythBusters should be in and Jersey Shore, out.

At least that’s what students at Metro Early College High School say.

Students from the Northwest Side school discussed high-schoolers’ attitudes toward math and science education in a town-hall setting yesterday. They would choose the science-based show on the Discovery Channel over the MTV reality show about eight housemates spending their summers together.

“Among my friends dork is not used as a derogatory term,” said sophomore Madeleine Varner. “You have to be really smart to be successful in this global economy.”

via Science ‘dorks’ see need | The Columbus Dispatch.

                          

“It’s one of the most tweeted graphics we’ve ever had,” said Kevin Quealy, a Times graphics editor.

The game allows users to explore various options (spending cuts and tax increases) to close the U.S. budget gaps projected for 2015 and 2030.

In an interview with 10,000 Words, Quealy stressed the overall simplicity of the project.

While the graphs at the top of the page showing how much money a user saved were created in Flash, the rest of it was just basic HTML, Javascript and CSS, Quealy said. Even the graphs at the top of the page would have been created in HTML had there been more time.

“The technology behind it isn’t terribly advanced,” he said. “It works in IE6.”

via How they did it: The New York Times’ budget interactive :: 10,000 Words :: where journalism and technology meet.

                          

if you want to increase sales and conversions on your landing page or homepage, you need to concentrate on fixing following issues:

* Too-much text (without any apparent order and layout)

* Headline that doesn’t tell what your product or service does (or, in other words, tangential headline)

* Lack of a single prominent call-to-action (either there is none or there are too many)

* Lack of social proof or ROI proof (who uses the service and what are the benefits)

via Landing Page Optimization tips: analysis of 50+ sites to find out what increases sales and conversions « I love split testing – Visual Website Optimizer Blog.