What do you think?

Many Newsviners know that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake has struck the capital city of Haiti, devastating the city and killing or injuring thousands of residents there. Fewer Newsviners realize that they have earnings sitting in their accounts. Please consider using some or all of your earnings to donate to the American Red Cross carry out its mission, already underway, providing relief to the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti.

You may use the Newsvine earnings page to donate directly to the American Red Cross. All donations to the charity through the month of January will be earmarked specifically for Haiti disaster relief from the Newsvine Community.

If you don't yet have a Newsvine account or earnings to donate, you may donate directly to the American Red Cross Haiti disaster relief efforts by visiting this page.

Thank you.

Well? Do you?

Nature, the debut album from Columbus, Ohio group Flotation Walls, hasn't stopped playing for me since I got my hands on the disc last week.

The album has received lots of positive press already, but I won't let that stop me from throwing my hat into the ring. Listen: this is the best disc I've heard this year.

The Sound

Flotation Walls have cultivated a unique sound somewhere between the ambitious orchestration of Arcade Fire, the dramatic indulgence of Bowie at his Bowiest, the excitement of The Flaming Lips and the layered complexity of Blonde Redhead. That they do it all without missing a beat is a feat that has be experienced - on the one hand, the simplest song on the album has something like 80 audio tracks mixed into it; on the other hand, even the most complex and layered textures on the disc do nothing to sacrifice their hooks and drive.

This is an art album - they have interesting things to say about meaningful subjects, and thematically the album rewards repeat listenings. But this is an art album produced by a group of people with a keen appreciation for pop music. It's ambitious and it's complex - but it's unpretentious and accessible, and lots of fun even when it's breaking your heart.

The Subject

The album's title, Nature, is no accident - but don't come expecting songs about sunsets and flowers. The nature they seek to explore is human - the songs play out thematically over the course of a human life. Consider the way the conception celebrated in raucous opener "Sperm and Egg" fades into the newborn heartbeat of the drums that open "Worms," the following track; there is a flow here.

The fact that said heartbeat opens a song about the inevitability of death should tell you something about what's to come - we get a spiritual journey from the innocence of childhood (the gorgeous, heartbreaking "Kids, Look at the Waves") to the stockpiled experiences of old age (the raging, futile "The Sky Ejaculates"); from existential despair (simple, sad and infectious "Body") into sacred, life-affirming meaning (anthemic concession "Willis the Fireman"); from self-absorbed adolescence (disarmingly catchy "The Flickering Projection") to the capricious cruelty of Nature (the absurd interlude "Timmy Twofingers").

The Bottom Line

This disc will have you tapping your feet along to your own mortality - and that alone is worth the price of admission. Flotation Walls have produced a serious contender for 2009's indie album of the year with Nature, and you owe it to yourself to check them out!

Flotation Walls are currently touring in support of Nature and may well be coming to a city near you - you can find their tour dates posted here. They plan to chronicle their tour with videos on their Youtube Channel and updates to their Tumblr Blog. You can also find them on twitter as @flotationwalls.

If you've heard the disc, please leave a comment and let us know what you thought below!

This article has been a long time in coming - I apologize for the delay, and rather than spit out a list of reasons why I didn't have this published two months ago I'll just say that I dropped the ball, and beg your indulgence. I hope that the meager content I managed to produce is worth the wait, and so without further ado -

Exquisite Corpse - Let There Be Plot

Some of you who know me know that I'm a big fan of Narrative - I am terribly fascinated by the way stories work, the way we use the idea of "plot" to make sense of our reality. Life as lived is nothing more than one random event after another - it's our values, ideologies, emotions and beliefs that compel us to interpret these events as parts of some larger context; it's the fundamentally human drive to turn sequence into story that allows us to find any meaning in life at all.

So with that in mind, I present you with this contribution to The Book. I used my three panels to produce abstract verbal representations of the three stages of a story - beginning, middle, and end. I extrapolated on these concepts, I made some reasonable associations between concepts and followed various flights of fancy into a few real stretches.

The idea is simple: if every page that everyone contributes to this book is effectively some "random" element to be taken in conjunction with the "random" elements contributed by others, then I see an immediate analog to life. Each individual piece of paper in this book is a life experience, and by giving the reader the ability to interject "beginnings", "middles" and "ends" into the midst of these concepts I hope to allow readers to tell stories of their own with the finished product.

A note on Dialectic

By the way - I know I said beginning middle and end, but I suffer from an acute tendency towards abstraction. In order to cram more concepts into the framework I used, I decided to steal a bit from Hegel (with my apologies) and frame the entire narrative structure as a dialectic. The beginning is the thesis - the initial conditions, the way the story starts. The middle is actually the anti-thesis - it's a perceived conflict between two states which seem unable to coexist. Finally, the conclusion is the synthesis - it's the resolution of said conflict.

A Note on the Images

The images included with this article are incorrect. You'll note that they look terrible - my handwriting is offensive to human eyes, let alone the eyes of gods and children. I wrote it all up in spite of that, and when my lovely girlfriend Ryan took one look at it she demanded I tear out the pages I'd written and allow her to rewrite them.

Unfortunately, I do not have photographs of the final product. It was passed on before I realized I needed to retake the photos. So, I'm including these original images - but if anyone in the future would be so kind as to take a few shots of page two, I'll replace the images in this article.

The final part of this whole book project involves a Flash-powered flip-book and I am assuming that all contributions will be re-shot to be uniformly sized once the whole thing is done (Steve?) but yeah - there you have it. The real contribution is prettier.

While Barak Obama is likely the most powerful man in the world, there is one power greater. You and me. American public opinion. We even make the news; opinion polls. So, it would be wise for us to be informed, to understand what is happening in our country. How can you have an accurate opinion, if your information is bad? In the case of our current financial meltdown, the facts are amazingly easy to understand.

It starts in housing. For homeowners, the amount of money you owe on your mortgage, subtracted from the value, or potential sales price of your house; is your equity. Equity rises with housing values and can be borrowed against by the home owner. It increases the owners personal wealth, but is not liquid cash. It is the proceeds you would receive IF you sold your home. Owners are also able to borrow more money with their perceived equity. As housing prices rise, equity value rises. The company who owns the mortgage records increased housing values as company growth. So, the more housing prices rise, the more apparent growth, the better the bottom lines look. The better the bottom lines look, the more salary and bonuses those who are in charge receive.

Home ownership stagnated around 65% in the late 1990's. In hopes of allowing more Americans to own homes, and to add more buyers into the economy, subprime mortgages were introduced. From 2001 -2003, these accounted for less than 10% of all loans. Between 2004 - 2006 they accounted for 20% of total mortgages sold. Having more "qualified" buyers also helped drive up prices. Many buyers and low inventory increases value. Supply and demand. Adjustable rate mortgages made up 7% of all home loans. When the time came for rates to adjust, approximately March of 2008, owners began to default. As more owners defaulted, housing prices began to drop. Gas prices spiked. Growth stopped. Unemployment began to rise. Snowball.

Now, if that was all we had to contend with, we would be in much better shape. But, it's not that easy. To fuel even higher growth, new devices were invented - new ways to create growth from the original system. The main way this was done was by bundling investments together and selling them in groups. So, mortgages, and other instruments, were grouped together and sold in bundles. As housing prices rose, these saw growth (not liquid money, remember, this is equity). So, managers created a perception of growth by selling these back and forth.As housing prices rose, equity grew, their "value" grew. Integrated into the system, 20% of mortgages were subprime - risky and subject to default. In order to move risky investments, an "insurance" called a "swap" was invented and sold along with the investment to cover the risk. Similar to car insurance, if the car is devalued, the loss is paid back. But, they couldn't call it insurance because insurance is regulated. With insurance the insurer must have funds on hand to make good a claim. Here, there was no liquid capital to repay claims, so they called them swaps. Credit default swaps.

They sold so well, they wrote $60 trillion worth of them, more than the total of all the GDPs in the world! The GDP of the US is 14 trillion! This $60 trillion in swaps contracts are tied to bundles of investments that include subprime loans and are spread throughout world economy. Foreclosures rose 79% from 2006 to 2007. As that number rose, swaps came due. Major banks and investment companies found that with the devaluing of housing, they owed more money than they had liquid cash. Many institutions just went bankrupt. End of story. By September of 2008, the stock market took in these facts and adjusted itself accordingly.

So, there it is, at least a basic understanding, though many details are left out for brevity. The financial meltdown in four paragraphs. Simple enough to understand. So, why didn't someone in charge DO something? This story took at least 5 years to tell itself. As a real estate agent, I talked about the "bubble" nearly everyday. Greed and poor management only goes so far. Was no one in charge? Was no one watching the big picture? We knew the bubble was et to burst. We should have projected the effect and adjusted accordingly. Instead, reckless Americans participated in this obviously flawed system, to pad their pockets at the expense of America itself. Those in charge failed in their posts. World markets and entire countries have been devastated. Our reputation is marred. We do not yet completely understand the ramifications, even now. Unemployment is up to 8.1%. One third of the world's wealth is projected as loss.

For this reason, it seems irresponsible and ignorant to blame America's current crisis on an administration who was not in power when any of these events occurred. Within 6 weeks of election, Republicans began to claim the majority of the problems lie with Barak Obama. At the same time discrediting the idea of finding out where the system is actually broken and investigating George Bush, the CEO of America during this period. The out cry against investigating Bush has a name, "Bush Derangement Syndrome". The illness Americans have if they believe George Bush, and what happened under his watch, should be investigated. Check Wikipedia, it's there.

The rhetoric around this subject has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. It is the subject of multiple media shows on Fox TV among others, resulting in many Americans turning against the recovery which is inevitably needed in a global crisis. Outlay by the government to stimulate the economy, is unavoidable in the face of a $60 trillion mess. Failure of systems, often suggested by pundits, would result in loss of pensions, exponential job loss, more foreclosures. Republicans vote tax cuts. Of course.

I spoke with three friends today who had all lost their life savings and homes through this crisis. About a $200,000 average loss between the three. Each of them had savings, good jobs, they were responsible people. Their years of hard work gained them nothing. Instead, rich Americans got profoundly richer breaking a system we are all going to get much poorer fixing!

We hold the world currency. How do we look to other countries as misinformation permeates American voters? How does a cover up help us on the road to recovery? President Obama has to fend off acidic attacks and fix the nearly unfixable global financial meltdown at the same time. This corruption happened under Bush's watch, yet Obama is blamed AND has to get us out of this global mess at the same time. Hats off to him. I 'm sending him positive intentions. One thing we might all do.

A while back I wrote about revising Newsvine's "Vineacity" Branch to reflect a modernized application because the community evolves, and with it, the context and purpose of the original Vineacity lost some of the value. I that discussion, some of us agreed that the Vineacity was still important to communal growth, many said that they have stopped using or never did use Vineacity as a measure of other community users. A fellow Viner and friend, Mykola Bilokonsky brought up the idea of adopting a badge system like one might see on Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's XBOX Live.

The Vineacity has 6 branches. Even the RAV isn't something you hear people yearn for (except for maybe Noah Bradley). In the past, the 6th branch was something that some placed a level of importance on par with ending world hunger (like Noah Bradley). But recently, and maybe it is due to recent national and global events, the branch talk has simmered down (even for Noah Bradley). What we need is something that gives the community to strive for outside of "good content" and make them remember what it was to self moderate and help others; we need something, that Noah Bradley can yammer on about and beg for all over again. We need – a badge system.

As a basic idea I think this, as Myk said "has wheels". Not only does this allow an evolutionary approach to social media, but also sparks new interest in actually being productive members in what at times feels like a stagnant cesspool of political banter. The implementation of such a system might prove to be a little tricky. This however, requires smart implementation which provides something mutually beneficial to the users and to Newsvine.

What Newsvine would get is something other websites haven't' done and probably haven't given much thought to. What the users get is binary collectables and more of them. And, depending on the implementation methods and the extent that the developers wanted to take it, a greater say in how and what is gauged as a 'good user' both directly and indirectly. The developers also get to play with a slightly different UX and IA than one normally finds in social media, particularly citizen journalism.

The basic idea here, at least from my end is that first and foremost a tier system of badges should be in place. This would consist of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. A tier system would take the importance off of the RAV true enough, but only in a minor way. With the user base Newsvine has it is logical to assume that not every user who is 'in' to Newsvine has the time, resources, or even drive to actually attain one despite it being available to everyone. Therefore putting a tier system on the other 5 branches allows users to work towards and become recognized as having traits geared towards a specific area or all areas.

Figure 1 shown here is a display of how this system would break down.

We'll just call it "mutually equitable uniquity on the premise of purpose driven reciprocal exchange"
In the initial steps it benefits the user directly – they get a cool little badge, but like anything, you've got to pay to play (not literal money in this case). Once the user starts getting into the silver areas they have to put forth enough effort to show the community they're worth investing in, but not so much effort that if the user happens to feel 'not at home' they won't feel as though they've been used. Gold raises the bar and vets people for the road to platinum. At first glance platinum seems somewhat lofty and it may be (remember this is only an idea and crappy 5 min Photoshop graphic) but platinum leveled users would have been around long enough, and had enough Newsvine experience that they could be 'go to' people by anyone. Users can easily see who is best to give what advice or step in and resolve an issue (because users in a community tend to apply pressure to unruly types and mediate before the issues become a problem) by seeing in which areas a user excels, and the opposite is true – advanced users can see which users are worth the time and effort, who is new and in what way they are new or at most, least active. In total I think the tier system better serves the users and the community by better identifying who, what, and how of an individual with far less subjective branching.

How then do we represent this in a tidy icon like we can the existing Vineacity?

If were to implement say, a bar graph like in Figure 2, then this might solve the problem. My graphic doesn't best represent Newsvine visually, but I'm sure the graphic could be redesigned to have branches instead of the bars… maybe put the proposed lettering seen in Fig. 2 within the bulbous portion of the existing branch shapes and then color the branches accordingly (but a little bigger)

Lastly, and the part that might make most of the people happy, comes the custom badges.

These are badges the users create on their own and can hand out freely to whom they feel are worthy. The easier the badge is to attain or the more readily that a bade is designed to be given out, then the less valuable it is. Think of it like the US dollar; when you have a dollar just like 300 Million other people then that dollar might be worth, well, a dollar. If however, you have a dollar and only 300 Thousand other people have it, then you might have something worth 10 dollars. So the custom badges would have a numbered run limited only by how many the user who created them feels like handing out and for what.

This is not without potential problems, the first being subjectivity and the second opportunity. How then do we turn both into a goal?

Before I get into that, I should explain the "Connectedness" Badges:

BRONZE: Acquired 1 custom user badge AND given 5 custom user badges.

This means that the user has to either make a custom badge and give it to 5 people or make 5 custom badges and give them to 1 person each - or- be given a custom badge by someone.

The badges are not meant to be a free for all, make a badge for anything you want. They should be for positive reinforcement. We all know who @!$%#s are when we see them, and yes, something they're needed and funny to read, but realistically that what Drivl.com and like sites are for (or rather, were for). So when badges are made, they should be for things that are ordinary but characterize the recipient as someone who does them consistently. For example, someone who says poignant things on a constant basis which adds to or injects new direction in a positive light to a discussion would get a 'poignant' badge created by a user. If the Newsvine staff saw enough of these or saw it in the badge pool then they might add a green border signifying the site's approval for this badge as something 'worthwhile'.

Custom badges become less of an obstacle when it is used properly. At first I would imagine that many people would have the their own version of the same badge, which makes the Newsvine approved user badges something with a bit more weight. There might also be a need to deny users the 'rights' to a badge that has already been created - for example if Myk created a badge for 'leadership', in that process he'd have to create the image, and then when uploading it to NV give it a title with tags. If I then made a 'leadership' badge I'd be told "no" by the server because one, there is a badge already called leadership and two, we might have too many of the same tags under the same badge title. More to the original point, badges become less of an obstacle with time because the subjective use of them decreases once Newsvine picks it from the badge pool. A badge can be given out without being picked, but it will lack a green border and as such have less 'subjective' view (given that the tags and dispersion of it isn't based on things like "this person is my buddy" or this person is a good "Democrat / Republican" - it is to promote objectivity and urge users to look beyond subjective points. I guess the main question that should be asked when handing out a badge is "does the statement have value irrespective of how it makes me feel?". It is something we should be doing anyway, but everyone falls short from time to time - this is designed to help with that.

And I'm sure everyone is wondering (especially Noah Bradley) "What about the RAV"... well the RAV is and isn't in this idea. It's here but not in the current form of being a 6th branch. My idea of the RAV is a custom Newsvine Created Badge that visually represents the action taken to earn it. This badge will be green. My RAV might have been in the shape of a book, and Corey Springs and Top Jedi would've had theirs in the shape of a runner. Becuase each RAV is awarded for something unique, the badges will only be in green, not be on a tier and users cannot submit a badge to be used as the new RAV.

How is the RAV signified if there is no branch system?

Green background. Non RAV get no background... See figure 3 for the user bar at the top of the Newsvine page as I think this might play out.

This is just a really rough sketch of an idea that has evolved from me and Mykola. I'm sure it sounds really complex and in many regards it is, but I also think it is a great way to revitalize interactivity and serves as a way to better help the community police after itself. You may have many questions regarding what some things may mean or how do I think other things would be effected, so I do need feedback on it. I'm not saying that this will happen mainly because I have no say in that, but I do still think it is something that is really needed on Newsvine.

People are talking about "fun work", but are those words even remotely compatible, or is the juxtaposition perverse by definition?

Is it possible to make the third of your life you invest in the industry enjoyable without fundamentally undermining your personality, or is it just hype to get people to produce more?

First, I should say that I am genetic anomaly: I actually enjoy almost any kind of work. In my time I have worked high above the ground and far below it, in -22 degrees Fahrenheit one day and 86 degrees sun the next, often for 12 to 18 hour stretches and in a variety of industries. I've laid bricks, taken care of the mentally ill and cleaned up big oily machines with lots of warning signs attached to them.

Except for one occasion I always enjoyed myself. I've only said no to a task once in my life, and that was after cleaning out this huge ghastly chicken farm, which had been closed down due to salmonella. We were a team of guys moving for 12 hours through corridors as black as endless space, surrounded by cages several storeys high and up to our knees in chicken @!$%# mixed with water mixed with feathers and carcasses. We were each equipped with high pressure water guns, which could easily take off your finger, and a work lamp.

After working at the factory once I realized the protection was insufficient, as I broke out in rashes. When the boss called me after six hours of sleep and asked me if I was ready to return, I told him "no." Why not, he wanted to know.

"I got a rash. The protection suit you gave us is leaky."

"What? You never said no to a job before."

"Well, I do now."

"Come on. You can't work because of a little rash? Only chicken get salmonella."

That conversation ended abruptly.

These days I do a lot of strange things at work. I am self-employed, and journalism is only about 25 % of what I do. Other than that I produce newsletters, speeches, business profiles and solve other copy writing challenges. It's a little creative, and it pays better than freelance journalism, which requires a lot of research and a lot of pitching for measly wages.

Also, I run information campaigns, plan strategies and manage implementation projects related to communication technology. It gets complicated. Most of what I do is very technical, very complicated, sometimes tied up to complex political issues and mixed with psychological and social and financial conflicts between sectors, classes of workers and various organizations and subcontractors.

Often people have ended up nervous wrecks doing what I do. Some have died suddenly, and I suspect stress was a huge factor.

Still, I smile every day. I can remember when I had a bad day at work, but it is fuzzy in my memory. It has taken me years to get here, and there was a time when I thought, like many workers, "What is the point?"

Fortunately, I am blessed with the ability to disregard such metaphysical questions in favor of enjoying the moment and introducing incremental improvements. You could call it selective indifference.

These days, if I had more fun working, I would be a sexual deviant. I really enjoy it. I often stop and say like the Joker in The Dark Knight:

"I like this job. I really do."

I don't figure I can make any really boring job exciting, introduce radical changes in the general work environment or even solve motivational problems of individual workers. All I can do is tell how I did it. I call it the 5M system:

M for Mythology

I mythologize my work. I know I may just be writing some article for a magazine, but in my mind I am contributing to increased performance and professionalism of a high quality outlet. When I started my own company I structured my business plan according to a strategy game. This makes it enjoyable for me to monitor all the parameters of success.

The best illustration of how mythology can influence your motivation is an advertisement I once saw.
A traveler once passed by a huge construction site and stopped to ask a worker what he was doing. The worker said:

"I am carving this stone."

The traveler went to another worker, who was performing the exact same task, and he asked:

"What are you doing?

"I am building a magnificent cathedral", the second worker replied.

One of the things that spoil the fun of working is if you get stuck in annoying details. A grand scope can help you feel better about what you.

M for Management

I began managing, when I was an assistant pastor for a small congregation. Those were my religious days. It taught me to run a campaign, to manage elaborate projects and to handle large groups of people. I had a routine in which I would pray for every single member, partner and contact, one hour a day. The practical benefit of it was that I would become increasingly aware of the psychological reality of every person involved in the organization.

Later I was the editor of a lifestyle magazine. I sort of translated the religious discipline into meditating about employees and business associates, taking into account their interests, challenges and aspirations.

I figure one of the things that really spoil the fun of working for a great many people is unreasonable, indifferent or incompetent managers. These tendencies often rub off on the entire organization, making work a constant frustration. When I realized this, I began managing my bosses.

How do you do that? Well, you got to be subtle. You don't want to give the appearance you are trying to undermine their authority. One thing I have done is to offer suggestions in a way that would allow them to take credit for improvements and achievements. I figured: Okay, I don't get the credit, but things are improved. If I wanted the credit, that might become an obstacle to change. So, I let bosses think they got the idea, or at least that they managed to cleverly steal it and present it as their own. It's a way of exercising influence, and it can be fun too, if you can keep your sense of humor about it.

These days I try to raise clients. What I mean by raising them is to offer them hints to how they can make their organization run smoother, just to save myself from annoying impracticalities. I do this by blogging and sometimes by offering hints in my bills, such as:

"Bundle your orders and make more of your money".

So, it is also a business philosophy. I offer some advantages or discounts, if people organize their efforts. It is much easier for me to perform, making a steady stream of successes more likely, and it saves me time and money and worries. I'll pay a bit for that.

M for Mastery

Work, like sports or games, is more fun if you win. To some "to win" is to advance their career, to some it is merely increasing their income, and to some winning has to do with accomplishment or recognition.
I basically run my company and my career as a game. Every three months I write a list of realistic short term goals, and as I check them I produce diagrams in Excel to visualize how well I do. This is a lot of help. Usually I have far more success than I expected, which is probably a side-effect of both improved focus and projecting will. It is also fun… to me.

I spend a significant amount of time figuring out how to make work more pleasant to me. It's an active project, where I try to shave off percentages of factors that reduce my work satisfaction. I've just completed a project to eradicate tedious repetitive tasks by way of macros, preconfigured tables and basic Excel. At this point it's interesting to me to raise the stakes of my operation without injuring the cash-flow. I want to get deeper into multi-media communication, so I set aside some time for research and some funds for software leases, and then I write the project description. I keep a log as I move along, and every new encoding option mastered is like a small victory, a new capacity I can offer clients and customers.

The important thing is to have a mythology, a grand narrative, which raises your investment above simply making more money for yourself or working for "the man". I think you call it a vision and a mission.

The basic point of vision and mission statements is to make your work about more than just keeping the wheels spinning and to have other criteria for success than merely financial data.

It is also about moving from "I give 8 hours to this place to make a living and have fun in the weekends and on vacations" to "I take 8 hours of fun adjusting cogs and moving abstract values in this corporate machine, and in return they pay me, so I can have more fun."

M for Motivation

It all boils down to Motivation. Motivation is what makes anything fun, not just work. The opposite of motivation is, in terms of behavioral science, depression. Depression is a product of inability to dominate the territory found in mammals, characterized by reduced activity, muscle tension and hormonal changes.

If you are not motivated, you are depressed, basically. Your genes are trying to wipe out your body, to put it brutally. Your immunity defense goes down. You get cortisone deficiency. You reek of gloom.

When depression is not caused by incarceration, starvation or other harsh circumstances, it is often a product of existential fear.

No amount of measures can make work enjoyable under such conditions. Humans, however, have the ability to drastically alter their circumstances. They can pick a lock, and they can produce nutrition from improbable sources… they can even change their own perspective on life and the perception of other human beings.
We have an amazing capacity to take control of our own fate.

Unfortunately, in a state of even relative depression, we tend to become blind to opportunities and focus on obstacles. Depression is self-perpetuating.

Reading the biological definition of depression really helped me get my motivation back at a time where I was profoundly depressed. I realized that my mood was only serving my "enemies", whether actual or abstract.
In strategy games you usually have three categories: Allies, neutrals and enemies. It is kind of the same in business. If people are not allies or neutral, they are competition, and sometimes competitors will act like true enemies and with surprising levels of hostility. They too have been run over by life, suffered loss and humiliation, experienced fear of obliteration or bit their lip, as they were passed over. They got things at stake. Nobody's going to rob them of opportunities.

If you can view the social competition with a grain of humor, you have an advantage.

M for Mainstreaming

In my wardrobe I have a brand new overall and work jacket, right next to the suits. The blue collar outfit is there to remind me it's all just a game. It tells me where I came from, and where I may end up if I blow it, or if time and chance works against me. I can accept that. It's part of who I am.

On the other hand I usually have more ambitious goals than the next guy. I own pretty much the same gadgets to demonstrate my capacity to dominate the turf, and I will strut just to make a point now and then. I pay for stuff, knowingly and in a calculated manner, because it improves my position and the professional respect about my services.

To a lot of people that stuff is depressing. It feels like an invasion of privacy, a corporate demand to exchange your personality or ideology in favor of a mainstreaming. It feels like selling out.

To me it's just fun and games. It's not my identity. It's just something I do, because it is the game that presents itself to me. I take an assignment as seriously as any professional, and I take pride in my work. But I am not hung up about the prospect of defeat. Life is like that. Nobody can win every time, and if we look at history, at people around us and at the news, it all tells us one thing: There's a strong element of tragedy to any life, and fate has a blow hard enough to humble anyone.

There's no way of securing yourself against that.

When I put on the uniform and go to work I don't feel I am exchanging my values for revenue. It's just a requirement for the game.

I am not just talking about the suit and tie signaling reliability and servility. I am also talking about the temporary attitude.

A lot of people I know are really poised against mainstream. Mainstream is bad. Music is, per definition, bad, if it has been played on MTV. Hollywood movies are usually bad, except one or two independent productions licensed by one of the major production companies.

Some of these people – friends, really – tend to perceive me as warped. They tell me, affectionately but also with a lot of skepticism, I am good at compartmentalizing, or they hint that I have less quality of life or less political integrity than they do.

But the thing is: I am constantly involved in charitable projects. I blog every week about clean energy, human rights, anti-racism and social justice – even to the point of receiving death threats. I use my relative success to try to make a small difference.

At the same time a lot of people I know who are very morally outraged by a lot of things do nothing and barely ever speak out in public, and when they do, it is without taking any risks. Then, as they prepare to go to work Monday morning, they are miserable, because work… is just not any fun.

My defense: I get up every morning eager to get going. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, because ideas are rushing through my mind, but when I do sleep, I sleep like a baby.

And I am not particularly mainstreamed. My apartment looks really weird as in eclectic, which I believe is what you call it when you have no style to brag about. When I am off duty I dress very casually, making good citizens send me disapproving looks and bad girls… well, the opposite.

At home I am just an ordinary guy. But that gets boring too in the long run. So, I look forward to my next assignment or big project or whatever, particularly if it seems virtually impossible to accomplish. I like a challenge, and I appreciate being asked to do a job I only have a vague idea about how to round up.

It's like a really difficult strategy game.

Work can be fun.

Next up: How to find the Red Button and the Green Button - your own or for your employee

It's been awhile since we launched Newsvine Groups. As we ramp up toward launching newly-redesigned groups, I'd like to solicit feedback on the most desired features for Newsvine Groups V2.

A significant distinction between the new group architecture will be the concept of multiple states of membership. For example, having different permissions for owners, admins, contributors, moderators and patrons. Just thinking aloud, a possible scenario is:

• Patron - Can read group content, add group postings to watchlist.
• Moderator - (all of the above and,) can unclip content from the group, delete inappropriate comments.
• Contributor - (all of the above and,) can post content to the group (articles, seeds, clippings).
• Admin - (all of the above and,) can assign roles to other group members below this level, invite/approve/boot members, modify group layout, styling and description.
• Owner - (all of the above and,) can assign roles to other group members below this level, delete group, change group name and domain.

In addition to the concept of different levels of group members (and corresponding permissions), we'd also like to know if you all would like other improvements or alterations to how Groups currently function. A few examples:

• Add posts to Group Talk module to Conversation Tracker
• Ability to separate clippings from articles and seeds
• Auto-accept all group join requests (I really could use this one!)
• Ability to send email communications to all or some group members from a single interface within the group control panel, and the ability for group members to set communication preferences
• Ability to host a private group that has its content publicly available (well, I guess this would be a result of the permissions I outlined above, anyway)

Please feel free to give me additional suggestions about you'd like to see in Newsvine Groups V2, by posting a comment below. BEFORE you post your comment, see if someone else has already made that suggestion (or something similar to it). If they have, vote for that suggestion rather than posting your own as a new comment. If you have a slight modification to their suggestion, or want to add to it, do so by replying to that comment. All completely new suggestions should be posted as a "parent" comment (i.e., not a reply to another comment in this thread).

In a day or two I will go and review the suggestions. The ones with the most votes will be taken into consideration as the Community's most desired feature requests. So, do not sell your own request short by posting it as a duplicate of another member's previous submission, thereby splitting the vote tallies among them.

A suggestion with the highest tally does not necessarily ensure that the feature will be included in this release. In kind, we may also discover a suggestion with little or no votes, that we think would be very useful (or easy to include), and you may end up seeing it in V2 - so do not be bashful, post your suggestions and requests here.

PS - This is not a discussion thread for general feedback, requests and complaints - this is specifically intended to gather feedback from users about our upcoming release of Newsvine Groups V2. Any off topic posts will be deleted. Thank you!

It's been a while since I wrote. There are a lot of reasons why, but the best one is that I didn't feel I had anything new to say. I didn't just not write here, I didn't write. Some of you will understand what that's like. To not write felt like I had left a crucial piece of myself somewhere out on the highway to get run over, but I couldn't remember where I had gone. Recently something happened, though, and suddenly I found it, that there was in fact something that still needed to be said. And, like most stories, it can't be told well without a little retracing of steps to provide a frame, so bear with me for a moment...

Once upon a time, The Husband and I sat on a grassy hill in summer, looking out over miles of forest and fields, holding hands and talking about...politics. We were specifically discussing the American plans (at that time they were only plans) to build a big ol' fence to keep the Mexicans out. The concept, to both of us, was patently idiotic. Whatever your take on Hispanic immigrants in the 'States, it is easily apparent that building a chain link fence isn't going to do much but piss them off. So after a few moments' rant, we began discussing other walls throughout history. The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, Hadrian's Wall...and how they were all failed attempts at protection and, ultimately, separation of people who weren't really that different. We talked about all the many ways that people try to draw lines, create Others, and the animal instinct to seek security through being part of a pack. We talked about a lot of things, but somewhere in the discussion we came up with an Idea. The Husband is a photographer, and I have a certain fondness for writing. The Idea was that we could travel the world, visiting all these walls (both ancient and modern), researching their history and talking to the people who lived around them. The Husband could photograph these walls and these people, and I could write about their stories. At the end of it all, we would make a book, and who knows? Perhaps people would read the book and some of them would decide that walls weren't the solution. Perhaps some of them would even start to look for other ways to approach the difficulties we all face.

Unfortunately, we were broke (as we usually are), and so the idea got put on the shelf along with many other dreams that would be nice, some day...

The other part of the frame for my story takes place a couple of years later, just a few months ago. I was sitting in a coffee shop, chatting online with some dear friends in Australia. The topic was what you would really do, if you could live your life any way you want. And they weren't quite sure at the time, but I had some definite notions. I wanted to write and to travel. I wanted a lot of things, actually, but at the center of it all was that. And from that conversation came the idea that, if only we could all figure out what we really wanted, we could be allies in helping every one of us to get there.

And then, one day about a week ago, I came home to discover that while I was gone The Husband had signed up for a contest. It's a photography contest, wherein a $50,000 prize will be given to one person to go do the photography shoot of their dreams. And the idea he entered was...The Idea. The problem was that, to even get to the final round of judging, you had to be in the top 20 "popular" votes, meaning roughly that you had to have a hell of a lot of people show up on the site and vote your project up. And so I emailed a few people, and we went up a few points...and the other top contenders climbed higher and higher. And so I went through my address book again, adding a few more. And again we went up a few more votes, while others climbed steadily higher. Finally I just started emailing everyone I could think of, spammed my Facebook friend's list, started begging my Mom to send it on to all those people she sends forwards of cutesy animals with their heads in the toilet. And we're still barely hanging on to 20th place...but I started to realize something. These people, some of whom I hadn't even spoken to in a year, were turning out to do a little bit to help. Some of them were doing even more, sending our plea on to all their friends, writing articles, helping to film a promotional video for Youtube... and for about the millionth time in my life, I found myself thoroughly humbled.

See, a few minutes to show up on a website and vote doesn't actually cost any one person a lot, but no one has to do it. And it's easy not to. There have been many, many times where I got some sort of "please take just a minute to..." email in my inbox, and dismissed it without even really reading it. I'm sitting here now, though, realizing that for whatever reason, a truly amazing number of people looked at my email and decided to lend a hand. It was ten minutes (I said in my email it would be five, but one respondent corrected me) to them...and each one left me feeling truly grateful, just a little closer to something I so desperately wanted. And I thought back to my conversation with my friends in Australia, and I realized this doesn't have to be a pact among just a few people. We can, each one of us, pick something we really, really want, and then all help each other try to get there.

Today I spoke with a friend online to whom I haven't really talked in a while. He was having a bad day. Not the end of the world, but with some real problems and no idea how to fix them. As we talked, I realized that there was something I could do, something that would get him a little closer to what he Really Wants To Do. So I just said I would. It's as simple as that. We can all do whatever is in front of us, whatever is in our power, every chance we get, and know that maybe we are all helping each other get somewhere. It doesn't have to be every man for himself. It doesn't have to be sink or swim. We can all of us give whatever we can in any moment to help everyone else we care about get just a little closer to the life they really want. We can all be allies, well before all those walls come down. All it takes is just a little more.

So what I really wanted to say is thanks. To every person who took five ten minutes and tried to help me get a little closer to what I Really Want To Do, thank you. Whether or not we win this contest, you, bit by bit, gave me something more. I hope that when you see your chance you will let me know how I can help. Because you reminded me about what is really important...and you somehow gave me something to write about.

This article is cross-posted at the Flex Cookbook. It's mildly technical in nature, and definitely aimed at a specific demographic - I'm writing to Flash Developers curious about Adobe Flex. I hope at least a few people find it to be helpful!

Introduction

You know who you are: you got started on a bootleg copy of Flash 8 in high school, poked around with the drawing tools and were about to put it away when you discovered something called ActionScript which changed the way you looked at making content for the web. Flash-forward to today and you're a successful Flash developer. You don't write timeline code. You have a personal class library that's half-ported from AS2 and only you know how it works. Graphic design?  You have people for that. But you still use the Flash Authoring Tool for all of your production, and lately you're getting the sense that you're missing something.

Lately you've been hearing more and more about this "Flex" thing, but it makes you nervous - even though you don't really use the stage, you like the cold comfort of a library of visual assets that you can link directly to your classes. You've heard about this MXML stuff but it just makes you feel kind of dirty - who wants to use XML-based shortcuts instead of bathing in pure AS3? And yet, one-by-one your developer friends stop posting to Flash fora as they start picking up Flex - and they seem to be making a lot more money, too.

So, are you ready to see what the fuss is about? In this writeup we're going to take a look at a few key concepts in Flex development and examine what it is that Flex has that Flash doesn't. I'll explain to you why MXML is worth your time, we'll look at how easy it is to make custom components and then I'll knock your socks off with the concept of Data-Binding. We'll talk a bit about styling, and end up with a look at when Flash may still be a better bet.  This won't be a detailed step-by-step tutorial, more of an overview of the relevant concepts to get you started.

Ready?

MXML: It Doesn't Suck

MXML is a set of proprietary XML tags that act as shortcuts to writing AS3 code - when you compile your .swf, all of the MXML gets turned into AS3 and then compiled just like any other project in the Flash Platform. There are a handful of reasons why MXML is very useful - but if you're anything like me you'll be very skeptical at this point. AS3 works, dammit - why would you want to learn a whole new approach to creating content when the one you have works so well? Furthermore, if MXML is just a wrapper for AS3 anyway, why would you even bother? Why not write the AS3 directly?

Well, the short answer is that you can - there's nothing stopping you from porting over your existing AS3 packages and classes and importing them into your Flex projects. There's nothing stopping you from creating an <mx:script></mx:script> tag and writing your code in there. You don't have to use MXML at all to use Flex, and maybe that's the best way in.

As you play around with it, though, you'll find that you start to use it more and more. Sure, you can instantiate a Panel component, size it and position it with AS3 and then integrate it into your application - but why write a class to do that when it's so much easier to just type something like the following:

<mx:Panel id="loginPanel" width="400" height="150" title="{user.name}"></mx:Panel>

Once you're familiar with the ideas there - "id" is the instance name, the {}'s denote data-binding (see below), etc - you'll even start using Design View to do your layouts. Strange concept, I know - but the fact is that MXML makes it quick and easy to implement components and configure them in a way that makes sense. It's faster than writing it in pure AS3 and various layout features (the design view is handy for spacing things out, aligning to edges, etc etc etc) make it really convenient to use. And don't even get me started about connecting to remote data providers - you can replace 20 lines of AS3 with a well-executed <mx:RemoteObject />.

Still skeptical? That's ok - go download a free trial of Flex and just use AS3 for a while. MXML won't be offended - that's how cool it is.

Custom Components - Err, shh, here comes Flash, pretend we're talking about something else...

Another perk of the MXML model is that it makes creation, customization and deployment of custom components much easier. Not only does Flex Builder ship with a slick library of components to help you manage everything from layout to UI to data visualization, but they're all instantly accessible and very, very easy to customize.

Flash gives you some components, sure. But in order to modify them you've got to mess with all of the visual assets on the stage (ever tried to customize the skin for FLVPlayback? It's not impossible, but it's hardly intuitive), you've got timeline code all over the place, and ultimately each component remains something of a black box. Flex is much easier - think of each component as a self-contained Flex Application. You can open it up, edit the AS3 and MXML, change the layout or style and then plop it right into your project. And the best part? All Flex Components are also Classes - so if you want to work in straight AS3 or do something dynamic, it's no problem to type var p:Panel = new Panel() and go from there. Like any other AS3 asset they can be extended programmatically, as well.

And thanks to the meta-data customizability provided by the Flex Framework, it's easy to define custom events for each component. Create your event, add the appropriate Meta tag, and then when you add the component to your main application's MXML you'll get code hinting right in the MXML letting you specify an event handler. Couldn't be easier, eh?

Code-Hinting, Project-level Browsing and You'll Never Go Back to Flash

Writing AS3 in Flash is easy, right? I mean, it lets you have multiple AS documents open, it gives you some code hinting if you're using existing Flash classes, it catches your errors when you preview...

Listen, ten minutes programming in Flex Builder and you will never write code in Flash again. Even if you don't switch to Flex Development, you'll write your AS3 in Flex and then use it in Flash. Why?

• Custom Code-hinting - every class you write will get code-hinting when you implement it. You'll see all of your methods, along with the arguments they take. You'll see all of your public variables (or, if you're using setters, you'll see those as public variables). This works in both AS3 and in your MXML - if you want to implement any of your classes as custom components, all of their properties become attributes in the MXML tag, and as I mentioned above you'll get any possible events listed along with your properties and methods. That's slick.
• Project View - Flex knows you're not going to be creating a single file and then publishing. You've got graphical assets, you've got custom classes, you've got external libraries, you've got XML configuration files - and with Flex, because it's built on the Eclipse engine, you have a mini file-manager in the upper left to help you keep track of all of that. It's a huge time-saved to not have to go to file->open every time you need to edit a different file.
• Wizards and Shortcuts - Got your file browser open? Right click on your "src" folder and create a new folder called "classes." In that folder, create a new folder called "CustomDisplayObjects." Right click on that folder and click "Create new AS3 Class" - a wizard comes up asking you for the name of the class, what class it extends and a handful of other parameters. Then it creates a class within a package that mirrors your folder structure - "package classes.CustomDisplayObjects { public class YourClassName extends Whatever { public function YourClassName{}}}" etc. Everything lines up, and if you want to change any of your folder or class names it'll automatically update all of that for you. Neat, eh?

Data-Binding - If You Weren't Already Impressed...

And that brings us to Data-Binding. This is something that's possible to do in Flash, but it doesn't happen naturally nor does it happen easily. Data-Binding allows you to declare certain variables or classes to be "Bindable." Let's say we write the following:

[Bindable] public var sample:String = "";

You can then create, say, an MXML Panel. You can bind the String to the panel's title property -

<mx:Panel id="testPanel" title="{sample}" />

Those braces in the "title" attribute field mean that the variable "sample" is bound to that field - in other words, every time "sample" changes - be it through user input, simple program progress, some sort of custom class behavior - testPanel will be automatically notified and its title will change to reflect the new value.

Yeah, that's right - you now have access to data objects that can notify listeners when their value changes. And it's not just strings - you can define an entire custom class as Bindable, and then whenever any property within that class changes anything that's bound to that property will update automatically. It's not magic, it's just a propertyChanged event handler embedded deep within the Flex framework - but it sure saves you a few hundred lines of event handler code in a larger application. Think about it - let's say you have a custom class called "User" which contains various user information and then an ArrayCollection containing all of a user's comments. You can change out the user dynamically, and your "Selected User's Comments" component will have its contents changed to match whoever you set to "selected user." Pretty swell, eh?

Doing it with Style

Let's wrap up our look at Flex's core concepts with a look at styling your app. In Flash, the image editor is heavily foregrounded - if you want your component to look a certain way, you just draw it that way and then link it to your class. Flex doesn't have that sort of functionality - the way you control the appearance of your Flex app is with a Flexified version of everyone's old friend CSS.

That's right - you use cascading style sheets. Now I know what you're thinking - you got into AS3 development specifically so you didn't have to troubleshoot buggy CSS rendering anymore, right? Well don't sweat it, because Flex renders the style itself - no more browser compatibility issues, no more IE6 hacks, no more uneven implementation of standards. Basically, all of the visual elements you use in Flex have visual properties - width, height, background color, etc etc etc. Additionally, you can import graphical assets that your design people give you and use them as skins for your components. All of this information can be stored in a stylesheet which then applies the information to your specifications. It'll take you a few minutes to get used to the selectors etc, but other than that it's like HTML in a perfect world.

So... when would you still use Flash?

Don't get me wrong, I love Flash - other than the AS3 editor, which is kinda bad. If you're working with something where you need specific control over the graphical assets, use Flash. If you're working with timeline animation, use Flash. If you want to be able to import video from AfterEffects and map it to your Tweens, use Flash. Flash is still Flashier.

But if you are working with a lot of information and if you prefer external ActionScript files to timeline code, why not take a day or two and poke around with Flex? If you want to give it a serious shake, take five days - apparently, you can learn Flex in a week with this handy set of video tutorials from Adobe. What are you waiting for? There are a million resources for you to consult - the Flex community is made up of developers who love to spread the word, and there's probably an Adobe User Group in your city filled with folks who will talk your ear off about MVC Frameworks and Design Patterns and all sorts of topics you never knew you were interested in until you asked. It's great.

So yeah, that's that - go download the free trial and give it a spin.

Just a quick note to direct your attention to a new Newsvine Group: Whitehouse Watch. WHW is the newsvine home of all seeds originating from the newly renovated Whitehouse Website.

Obama promises to be the most transparent, most tech-savvy and all-around coolest President in a very long time. A big part of that plan is the revamped White House website, which features not only a blog but special sections devoted to Executive Orders, Proclamations and even weekly video chats.

If Obama is going to go the extra mile to make all of this information available to the public, I'd like us to do our part to organize and discuss it here on Newsvine. So if you ever seed anything from whitehouse.gov, please join this group and make sure you publish it to this group as well as whereever else you'd like to publish it. This way we'll have a one-stop-shop for all of the various content coming from that site.

A Note on Tagging

I would also at this time like to propose a note on tagging content from Whitehouse.gov, as follows:

• All blog posts should be tagged with obama-blog.
• All proclamations should be tagged with obama-proclamation.
• All executive orders should be tagged with obama-executive-order.
• All weekly video addresses should be tagged with obama-video-address.
• Any other regular content will be assigned a tag as it is discovered

It's all pretty self-explanatory, standard stuff - but if we all make an effort to standardize it then I dare say we can (gasp) do our part to help facilitate the "radical transparency" that this administration is proposing. Who is with me?

Final Thoughts

So, go join the group if you feel so compelled. If you're reliable and want to help me administrate it, let me know in a comment below.

The only real ground rule for content is very very simple: the only thing that belongs in this group are seeds from whitehouse.gov. Not seeds from elsewhere, not original writing. Cool?

In a stunning turn of events, president elect Barack Obama came out today and acknowledged that his existence has been fabricated and he is not the man that the Democratic party has endorsed throughout this epic campaign.

OBAMA actually stands for Optimal Black Affable Male American and is actor Jamal Robinson created by a committee that works for the Democratic Party. Due to the re-election of Bush over the previous nominee John Kerry the party was not wiling to take any chances this time around. Representative Donald McCarty reveals all in his tell-all book "The Audacity of Hope (is well founded)" in which he explains that the average American voter could not be trusted to vote for a candidate who may not be completely perfect. "After Bush was re-elected we knew we couldn't stand behind any mere mortal and had to do something drastic. We feared the Republican party would convince the everyday voter that Bush was allowed to run for a third term and it was a chance we could not take."

McCarthy admits that not everything went according to plan. The idea to make give him the middle name of Hussein was probably a mistake, as well as his wife's absurd fashion sense. "We knew we were gambling with his heritage, but we never thought that having a woman with an average sensibility about what to wear would be so criticized." The operation was a considerable success overall however, as younger voters were encouraged to vote and the whole world was captivated by OBAMA's rhetorical skills.

"We don't really know what we're going to do now" added McCarthy. "We never thought things would escalate so far and should have really planned the end out better." The committee hopes that America will forgive their pretentious attitude and deception and really is sorry, and hopes everything sorts itself out soon.

I have a few unanswered emails in my Inbox which I really intended to answer weeks, months ago, but then as time slipped by I got too embarrassed or felt too much shame to answer. Among those who left messages are some of my very earliest and closest friends on Newsvine but also there are some who are fairly new. Some of these friends got married, some had babies, some moved to new locations, some may be gone forever and I am ashamed I didn't at least say "Goodbye". Maybe it is never too late to remember friends even if they don't know you are doing the remembering. So this story is dedicated to all my Newsvine friends and especially those who have come calling and I have not opened the door.

Things change in people's lives. It doesn't matter how old, how bold, how cold you are, you are subject to going through changes every day of your life. This past year I have gone through some tremendous changes but have remained pretty much the same guy while doing so. Some of my changes were brought on by time and some by circumstance. All of my recent changes have been beneficial even if they might not seem so to others. In order to let my friends know I am alive and well, healthy and wealthy, happy and content, I will now let them know about my past year.

One year ago I was in South Texas living for the Winter in my old motorhome. I went there every year for the coldest months of the year and a lady friend, of whom I will always have fond memories, was with me. At the time my health was steadily declining, my interest in writing and Newsvine was down, my expectations for the future were to sit back, clip coupons and expect my end to be just around the corner. I wasn't morbid but I did lack motivation, interest and the ability to continue concerted projects or maintain my personal friendships and was beginning to have serious differences with my companion that neither of us seemed to be able to understand or reconcile.

As the Winter holidays drifted away and we began the inexorable march toward Spring it became apparent that we were not a happy couple. It became apparent that neither of us was happy with our lives and that a solution might include separation and disbanding our household. We finally decided to return North early and to pursue a separate way of life. As luck would have it, it was during those final months in Texas that I ran into an old friend from the real world on Newsvine.

When I first saw her comments I noticed there was something familiar but I didn't quite know what it was. Later I began to realize it was a lady who had once been a reporter on my newspaper, the Coshocton Free Enterpriser. As time went by we became regular pen pals on Newsvine and through email. Eventually I got an email from my brother saying, "Isn't Anna from back here in Coshocton, and don't you know her?" Indeed, I knew Anna, or Anna-90776 on Newsvine.

Upon my return to Ohio in February I found myself needing some place to stay, a whole new life style, and someone to hold my hand and let me rest on their shoulder. Anna became that someone. Anna has become much more than that. She has shown me what it is like to be loved unconditionally and at the same time opened my heart and soul to being more aware of her and those around me in this world. Anna, has, indeed, become my life mate, my darling and the lady I expect to live with for the rest of my life.

Now, for those who might wonder; my health has improved considerably in the past year. My fortunes have improved substantially in many practical and real ways. I now am beginning to write again and have returned to many old hobbies and added a few. Would you believe the Old Fogey has become "little old wood carver, me"? I look forward to many more years of interaction with this old world and the people who inhabit it. In short, I feel "alive" again.

All of this does not mean I will suddenly become totally communicative again. It does mean I have become so busy at new and untried endeavors that I may not be as wordy or handy as I may have once been. This does not mean I will be seen daily on Newsvine but it does mean I will never forget the friends I have developed here and all those who have contributed so heavily to my success in life and on Newsvine in particular. Whatever the years ahead bring me, I hope Newsvine is around to share my life with.

I am so proud of this site and the people who make it what it is. From the Founders to the crowds who have become members through the corporate growth of joining MSNBC to all others who pass this way I say thank you. Thank you for being here. I am so glad we all passed this way.

It is my privilege and honor to announce the birth of Sagan, our first official Newsvine baby.

Sagan was born at 12:15 a.m. on January 12, 2009, weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces, 20 inches long to proud parents and Newsviners WaltD and RWarner.

The birth of any baby is joyous. Sagan's birth is a miracle in itself, for many reasons.

Walt and Robin met here on Newsvine, and their friendship flourished on these pages, in these comment threads, as did their friendships with many others, including myself. Their friendship grew into love, and Sagan is the beautiful and miraculous result of that love.

Welcome, Sagan. You've entered this world into the arms of a couple of wonderful people, at a time when our country has chosen to move toward hope, peace, and tolerance.

Congratulations Walt and Robin. I love you both.

Man, hackers suck. Some 12-year-old managed to get into the live feed that Macrumors.com had up from the Macworld Keynote this afternoon. Anyone reading the feed saw a bit of information about iPhoto and then suddenly "OMG STEVE JOBS JUST DIED!"

The next few posts seemed uneasy:

9:30 amOh, wait, sorry, Steve did die. Our condolences.
9:30 amPrecision editor, advanced drag & drop, maps (2D and 3D) in your movies.
9:30 amHTTP://M.ATTHEW.NET
9:30 amWhat's in iMovie '09?
9:29 amSEX ME
9:28 amiMovie '09
9:28 amThat's iPhoto '09.
9:28 amPlaces can show a map with all photos taken in the specific area.
9:27 amSteve did not die.
9:27 amRetraction on Steve Jobs comment...we don't know how that got in our feed.
9:26 amShowing a "pumpkin patch" event with no geotag. Starts typing name, and iPhoto assists using its database of locations.
9:25 amHovering over a pin at Aspen. Click an arrow and go straight to all Aspen photos, even across multiple events.

It just went downhill from there. The feed was closed, then macrumors.com went down but the feed reopened and iff you go to the feed right now then you'll find it overrun. That sucks.

For anyone whose news was just disrupted, Ars Technica is running their own live feed.

... oh yeah, and Apple iPhoto now has facial recognition. Also, for the record, Steve Jobs is still alive to the best of my knowledge.

Well, there you go. In January, Bush is out and Obama is in. The executive branch is about to undergo as radical an ideological shift as it's capable of sustaining - if the hype is to be believed. Ok, I'll play that game. Obama is going to get everyone health care, give everyone money for college, restore our reputation in the world and tone down the violence in our foreign policy. Here's hoping.

McCain's concession speech was eloquent and humble - almost enough to allow me to briefly forget that he ran the most divisive campaign I've ever witnessed. Then I remembered that he and Palin did everything in their power to convince half the country that Obama is a closet-muslim terrorist-loving marxist revolutionary. A lot of people ate it up, and that sucks. It's going to make it difficult for Obama to be the Liberal Messiah we all want him to be.

I'm cautiously optimistic. But that's not why I'm writing this article - I'm writing this because I would like to exhort you, personally, to maintain a degree of consistency in your approach to politics. Since we're about to enter into Topsy-Turvy world, it's important to learn something from our opposites. And so:

You don't like it when Bush issues signing statements, you don't like it when he escalates foreign military encounters, you don't like it when he expands the power of the executive branch, you don't like it when he circumvents FISA, you don't like it when he lacks tact and dignity in foreign relations - you have a million legitimate gripes about the current administration, and you know that you're right.

But there are a lot of people out there who accuse you of simply being partisan - they say that you just hate Bush, that you lack principle and conviction. They say that you are simply filled with blind ideological rage, and that your activism would cease the instant someone you liked committed the same acts.

So here's my request: prove them wrong. Obama seems like a good man - but he's going to do things as President that you won't like. Call him on it. He's going to issue signing statements - call him on it. He's going to pursue controversial military policy - call him on it. He's going to cave in to special interests on important topics - call him on it. Every time he compromises some part of his vision - every time "Yes We Can" becomes "Yes I Can" - just tell him: "No, You Can't."

You remember all of those high-minded quotes about how dissent is a civic duty? That doesn't stop now. That only gets harder, because your dissent is going to have to be a bit more nuanced. It's still up to us, and only us, to ensure that our government serves our interests.

Yeah, he has some good ideas. He is also against gay marriage and he's going to escalate our presence in Afghanistan. His health care plan is a good start, but it still leaves a lot of people helpless. In a million ways he's going to fall short of where we want him to be - our job is to leave him no choice but to go that extra mile. The fight is only just getting started.

I hate to be a downer in your moment of triumph, but you need to adjust your thinking now. Obama is the President - he doesn't need your rabid support anymore, he can't go any higher. Now you need to remember that you support the ideals behind the man and you need to work very hard to maintain that distinction and you need to start today. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your country and you owe it to your new President.

...Andy Min, after Jackie conceded in the middle of week 7. These two viners each wrote an article a day, five days a week. Just when we were all getting settled in for the long haul, Jackie graciously announced that the participation and the portfolio were reward enough for her - and that Andy could take the grand prize.

I want to thank everyone for their participation, and I hope you all had fun. Special thanks to the judges - Jack, Eric, Chasing and Scott, we couldn't have done it without you - and special thanks to our various Friday contributors.

If you'd like to read the various entries from this contest, you'll find them collected under the LVS2 tag. If you want to make sure you catch the next one, you should add the LVS3 tag to your watchlist today!

So, now that that's over I want to put together some additional contests going into the holidays. As anyone who tracks such things knows, this is the single best time of the year for Ad Revenue - so let's celebrate by being productive, writing a lot and figuring out how to maximize our pageviews. I've got a few ideas for contests revolving around "pop writing", which is a valuable skill to have if you want to make more than 5 bucks a month in earnings.

Who's interested? If you are, ad the nvpop tag to your watchlist and when I start the next contest you'll be right there with me.

Thanks everyone, and finally a big thanks to Calvin for making the LVS2 possible. Until next time!

And both Andy and JLP Coos have made it through the 6 weeks required to earn the iPhone. Now, whoever is the Last Viner Standing will win the grand prize! Congrats to you both!

Week 7 links in this thread please, folks!

This is it, Andy and JLP Coos - if you can make it through this week, one of you gets an iphone. You've both done a tremendous job so far, and I wish you both the best of luck!

And then there were two.

Good luck, kids - gotta make it through 10 more articles to be eligible for the iPhone. Please, in the name of all that is holy: neither of you quit early!

Post links below!

Anyone familiar with my political views knows I lean a bit to the left. Ok, really far to the left. I'm frequently accused of strong anti-american values because I have these crazy ideas like "The government should pay for health care and education for every citizen that needs it" and "Hugo Chavez taught one million of his people to read by investing government funds in a concentrated education campaign, and I like that."

These ridiculous ideas - that the government can and should spend tax dollars to increase the quality of life for all of its citizens - are enough to get me railroaded out of many "serious" political discussions. I'm called a communist, a socialist, some kind of monster - not, I think, because the ideas are intrinsically bad but because here in America we've all been brainwashed to think that Socialized Health Care is two steps shy of a Stalinesque genocide. Everyone says "Let the market sort it out!" and goes back to praying to their Ronald Reagan idols.

But suddenly, now that the "free market" has failed us so catastrophically, the most fervent anti-socialists are singing a very interesting song.

(Incidentally, and this is what one might call a "parenthetical aside" - as denoted by the parentheses - we haven't been living in a "free market" since at least the depression. The highways you drive on are the result of socialist programs, and the tax incentives and loopholes that riddle our tax code are examples of government meddling. To say nothing of our lobbyist culture, which allows Corporate America to function as a sort of fifth estate and play a direct role in our legal process. Somehow, though, the Cult of Reagan overlooks this - it's the "good" kind of socialism, so it gets a pass?)

"Get behind the bailout," we're being told. "Agree to spend 700 billion US dollars to prevent the economy from collapsing. The widows and orphans banks and corporations that sustain us are in dire need of publicly funded health care and education financial backing with no oversight. Help them, you heartless bastards!"

Now, you may be surprised to hear this but I'm not intrinsically opposed to the bailout. I think that it's necessary, due to the unsustainable business practices that led to it and the utter lack of accountability that defines financial sector culture. (Note: 3 months ago, to point out either of those problems was grounds to be railroaded out of the conversation as a dirty socialist. See above.)

No, I understand that without the injection of money our economy may very well collapse. I'm a good progressive, but I have no desire to live through another Great Depression (a point in US History that we only survived due to the socialist policies of FDR. Oh, and WWII). I say give them the bailout - but do it in a way that 1) enforces accountability, 2) gives us tax dollars some sort of return on our investment (yeah, some of us dirty hippies know those concepts) and 3) opens the discourse to the idea that government money can and should be used to fill in the gaps of the "free market" economy. I kinda like this guy's plan, but if you say his name you get railroaded out of the discussion because he's another one of those crazy radicals. *eyeroll*

So, desperate corporate thugocracy that controls our government - we'll bail you out. But next time we want socialized health care and you shoot it down, at least be honest and tell us that you're doing that because you're greedy, not because "the government shouldn't be giving out handouts." And then let us discuss the merits of that.

Because as much as I don't want to live in the dark ages, I feel that the health care crisis is in many ways worse. For once, George Bush and I agree - there are situations in our political landscape that require a dose of socialist policy to address.

So let's just make sure we remember that lesson when our economy is healed and our working classes still can't afford to go to the doctor - or to become doctors, for that matter.

Ok?

Usually I only write one of these after a huge flame war, or when I'm trying to gauge the pulse of the community for some wacky new endeavor. Right now, though, I feel like there's enough going on to warrant a Special Edition.

Welcome to Tyler

The first thing I want to mention is that we have a new sheriff in town. Everyone say hello to Tyler, who will be replacing Emily and doing the thankless work of banning spammers and pretending to care about the bruised feelings of grown adults who act like children in online fora. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it - and really, I think Calvin deserves the help.

I like Tyler already - he's got personality, intelligence and a willingness to engage with us on our own terms. As it stands, I'm waiting for that "Good golly, I sure do like my new job and my new co-workers and this community and everybody and everything!" sheen to wear off so that we can get a sense of the man underneath it all - but hey, I can wait. Shouldn't take more than another week. In the meantime, it looks like everyone is willing to work with him and he's gotten off on the right foot. So that's good.

There are a few pointers I would offer him, though:

• Many members in this community can smell bull@!$%# a mile away. If you thing someone or something is full of crap, don't sugar-coat it. Be honest with us, treat the community with the respect it deserves, and I promise you you'll earn our loyalty right away. Tell me to go to hell if I'm being a dick and I'll respect you for it, and I think that probably goes for most people here. Leave the diplomacy for Calvin and Mike, it's their job.
• Engage with us sincerely. Write articles about the things you're interested in, take off your moderator hat and join in the discussions from time to time and be a community member. Don't be our "friend" the way high school teachers try to be "friends" with their students or step-parents try to be "friends" with their step-kids - just be yourself, and in those cases where you have to choose between being Tyler and being The Moderator just make it clear that you have to put your work hat on - we'll understand.
• If you build it, they will come. That's the one lesson I've learned around here. If you have the time and the inclination, put together some community events. Organize writing contests, issue reporting requests and do your best to challenge us. Then, reward those who rise to the challenge - not necessarily with some sort of physical prize, but with recognition and publicity. You're in a good position to do that, and I know you're going to be pretty busy but every once in a while throw something like that out there - it's a lot of fun for everyone involved.

That should do it. Also, next time someone puts together a Vinemeet you should hop on a plane with Calvin and come join us, yeah?

Anyway, since we have a new sheriff in town I want to say a few words about the old sheriff's deputies. I'm in the CoH Militia group and I understand and sympathize with their purpose. But there are some pretty obvious flaws with the implementation and since we've got a new Moderator starting up this week I figure this is a good time to discuss them.

Disband the CoH Militia

Recently there's been some drama with Newsvine's own crew of home-grown vigilantes. Scott Butki wrote an article to discuss some of the issues arising from this drama, and initially they talked about things like clarifying the mission statement and possibly changing the group's name to something less, oh, militant.

Steve Mock, though, came out and said that the group should be dissolved - and I agree. Here's why: Newsvine groups are good and useful, they provide a place for like-minded users to produce content under a specific brand. They facilitate communication between friends, logistics for group projects and and a sense of cohesion among members.

But when the purpose of a group shifts from producing certain content to speaking for all of Newsvine then new dimensions appear. All it takes is a single instance of members exploiting the group for personal ends - censoring political opponents, ganging up on unpopular viewpoints, failing to enforce their standards with consistency - for the entire group to lose its legitimacy. And that's happened, and it will happen again.

In the end, if we didn't like it when other groups in Newsvine's history used block-voting to collapse the comments of political opponents then how can we justify arming a militia to essentially do the same thing - even if their mission statement is more clearly defined and a little bit more public?

I don't deny that the group has done some good, but I think in the long-run it can only cause harm. This opinion, it seems, is shared even by the group's founder. Dave McGirr, here, says:

If I'm honest, the group was born of anger, and I don't know if we can continue to use it if we try to reel it in with rules and protocals. One of the main reasons for starting the group was to try and cut out a lot of the red tape admins face by reading the threads, reporting the worst of the worst en-masse, and thus getting things done quicker.

I'm starting to think that all I've really done is added an extra layer of red tape.

My only problem with closing down the group is that all of our detractors will jump up and down shouting justice, writing about a dozen meta articles rubbishing us all, and saying they were right all along. Borderline CoH violations in their own right.

So, I think everyone is more or less in agreement that the group should go - it was a good idea and a noble effort, but it fails when put into the context of "Oh yeah, everyone is human." I'd like to extend a formal request to everyone out there who "told us so" - you were right, so enjoy that but don't rub it in, k? By and large the members of this group set out to make Newsvine a better place for everyone, and if the experiment failed the sentiment was still pure, so please respect that even if you were opposed to the endeavor.

But if there's no CoH militia, what do we do?

New Sheriff, New Rules

My proposal is simple. We maintain the neighborhood watch idea, but instead of implementing by means of a group (which is by definition exclusive) implement it as a community-wide effort (by definition inclusive). Anyone who wants to help can, and they can help as much or as little as they want. They don't need to join a group, they don't need to associate and collaborate with people they don't like, they don't even need to make their participation public.

How does this work? Two steps.

1) Tyler writes a comprehensive set of guidelines. "X is wrong. Y is wrong. Z is ok, unless A, in which case it's wrong." These can be fairly informal, since the judgments will always be subjective - the important thing is that they're clear. Think of this as an expanded and well-commented Code of Honor, to clear up issues currently suffering from ambiguity. I suggest Tyler get help from the community as he drafts this.

2) Anyone who wants to help can do so by reporting content that violates the stated standards. Yes, this means using the [!] button with reckless abandon.

If the staff wants to facilitate this, they'll expand the options available - right now we've got "No Value," "Inflammatory" and "Advertising." I suggest replacing that with "Intentionally Inflammatory", "Demonstrably False", "Spam", "Worthless" and "Stupid but fundamentally harmless." You can tweak those.

Then, when a user clicks the ! next to a comment, each of those options has a little number next to it indicating how many people have reported it in each category. This makes the "censorship" mechanism more transparent, allows new users who maybe aren't used to newsvine's standards to understand why their comment was collapsed and ultimately provides visual, tangible feedback that the system works. Right now it's binary - either something gets enough negative attention that it gets collapsed, or it doesn't. I feel that it would be helpful for that binary system to become a bit more analog - let us see each increment.

Conclusion

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Tyler, welcome. McGirr, a valiant effort with your group but thanks for being honest enough to acknowledge problems when you see them - not many in your shoes would. Everyone, try to see the good in each others' intentions and forgive the bad.

Cool?

I look forward to your thoughts, below.

And we're down to four viners.

Good luck, everyone!

So, I'm out of the contest ladies and gents and that means today I am going to be the special guest judge.

What? No, it's not because nobody else got back to me about the role...honest...

Anyway, this week you get to get a little meta. The challenge is this:

If you were to organize and implement a newsvine writing contest (like, for instance, LVS or Newsvine Survivor), what would you do? You are to outline the rules and regulations, the mechanisms by which you'd enforce the rules, etc etc etc.

Please try to be original - don't just riff of of LVS. Remember that you can get people to do anything if you provide the right structure for it. How would you promote it? How would you select participants? Would there be prizes?

Extra points go to creativity, and if it's something totally unique then...well, there may even be a special surprise.

I look forward to your entries, and I'm sorry I didn't get this up until 8am. As a result, all entries for this topic are due at 8am Saturday Morning, EST - that's only a 5 hour increase on the deadline and I hope you won't need it, but it's there.

Thanks and I look forward to your submissions!