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is it kosher to say “happy easter”? i should know with a divinity degree, i guess. makes me feel sorta uneasy saying “happy easter” since what we’re observing here was a rather revolutionary event.

maybe we should say “take easter seriously this year, dammit” instead of “happy easter”?

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During night 2008.03.18/19 the “Pi of the Sky” apparatus located at Las Campanas Observatory was observing the Swift satellite field of view with 10s exposures from 5:49 UT. At 6:12 UT we observed exceptionally bright optical flash reaching 5.8 magnitudo. It was automatically detected by the flash recognition algorithm.

GRB080319B by Pi-of-the-Sky

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“It was from that planet [Nibiru], the Sumerian texts repeatedly and persistently stated, that the Anunnaki came to Earth. The term literally means ‘Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came.’ They are spoken of in the Bible as the Anakim, and in Chapter 6 of Genesis are also call Nefilim, which in Hebrew means the same thing: Those Who Have Come Down, from the Heavens to Earth.”

– Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited

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“Throughout Mesopotamia, from the earliest times of Sumer and Akkad, all lands were owned by gods and men were their slaves. Of this, the cuneiform texts leave no doubt whatever. Each city-state had its own principal god, and the king was described in the very earliest written documents that we have as ‘the tenant farmer of the god’.”

– Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Sons of God

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n the night of 2008-03-20 (UT) we observed the optical afterglow of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427, Racusin et al.) with Gemini-South + GMOS in g, r, i, and z filters (4x180s in each filter). The source is well-detected in all bands. Magnitudes, calibrated to SDSS DR6, are: UTstart UTend t(hr) filt mag err 06:52:17 07:10:19 24.808 g 20.95 0.09 07:11:19 07:26:11 25.099 r 20.55 0.03 07:27..

GRBlog: GRB080319B

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sometimes i hate blogging. scoble nailed it this morning (scobleizer.com).

thinking about rolling it all up into one crispy paper ball and throwing it into the fire.

whatever it is… i guess i’m referring to the blogging aesthetic. so completely fucked up and unncessary.

didn’t we invent this blog shit to counter the stogedy crap that was flowing from the pro’s?

what happened to punk blogging?

we sold out.

for shame.

fix it?

Affiliate Panel at Web2.0 Expo

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the upcoming Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Lisa Picarille (Revenue Magazine), Stephanie Agresta (Affiliate Karma), Marc Levin (formerly of Yahoo) and Cam Blazer of DoubleClick Performics and I will be discussing responsible affiliate marketing strategies in a web2.0 world…

The Changing Landscape of Affiliate Marketing: Bloggers, Social Media and Online Merchants : Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 — Co-produced by CMP Technology & O’Reilly Conferences, 04/22/2008 – 04/25/2008, San Francisco, CA: “Affiliate marketing is a proven way to monetize online content, and emerging publishers know it’s important to maximize relationships with merchants. Merchants also derive value from the growth of the blogosphere and social media. Experts in affiliate marketing (representing the publisher, merchant and affiliate network perspectives) will explore how these new publishing paradigms use existing affiliate models, and further enhance strategies for monetization of blog and social media content.”

Should be a blast and will be the first time I’ll have spoken at Web2.0 Expo. Let me know if you’ll be there.

BTW, where is everyone staying? I need to “get a room.”

CostPerNews FTW

If you’re here for affiliate or online marketing posts, you might also want to check out the revived CostPerNews site that I love so much and get to keep…

Cost Per News: “As part of my settlement after leaving ReveNews, I get to retain the ownership of CostPerNews.”

It’s going to be a blast dusting off the cobwebs and getting that place back in order. Join me?

Calacanis on GeekCast: Mahalo Affiliate Workshop

Shawn, Jim, Lisa and I did a special GeekCast (our weekly geek marketing podcast) today with weblebrity Jason Calacanis of Mahalo.

I think this is our best show yet and offered a ton of practical affiliate marketing advice along with the customary humor and irreverence.

GeekCast 9: Jason’s First Time : GeekCast.fm: “Lisa Picarille, Jim Kukral (Kurkal), Shawn Collins and Sam Harrelson were joined by Jason Calacanis for a 45 min long conversation about how Mahalo should incorporate affiliate and performance marketing monetization techniques. The conversation became a workshop applicable to any business looking to monetize content through the affiliate channel and has a high amount of practical value (as well as the normal ratholes and humor).”

Go have a listen on the GeekCast page or download the podcast mp3:

Yahoo Just Got Cool Again

Yahoo is embracing semantic web standards / microformats…

Yahoo Embraces The Semantic Web – Expect The Internet To Organize Itself In A Hurry: “What does all this mean? It means we can expect the web to get itself organized, in a hurry. At stake is a significant amount of traffic from Yahoo search, and anyone else that may choose to build applications on top of this data.”

In other words, all those random social networks and places of content creation that you have joined or participated in (MySpace, LinkedIn, blogger.com, etc) are going to be more easily incorporated into Yahoo search because the data will be properly structured on the backend.

This is huge and has been a coming avalanche one snowflake at a time.

Hats off to Yahoo and all the open standards evangelists like Chris Messina that have made this happen.

Updated: Marshall Kirkpatrick has a great piece about what this all means on RWW

Amazon, Affiliates and Facebook

TechCrunch is reporting on a new set of Facebook Apps from Amazon.com. First, let me say that I absolutely love Amazon.com and it has changed how I buy everything from toilet paper to music (the DRM-free mp3 store kicks iTunes’ butt) to toys to electronic gear.

In no small way, that game changing is due to the feedback and product reviews from actual purchasers and users. They still make a big difference if I’m torn between two competing products. Even if I’m at a physical store like Best Buy, I’ll often browse to Amazon on my mobile and do some quick research on the fly before a purchase.

So, it would be killer if Amazon could or would integrate its associate program with this new Facebook app…

Amazon’s Latest Product Launch is a Couple of Facebook Apps: “Amazon has now officially joined the Facebook craze. It has launched two of its own Facebook applications: Amazon Giver and Amazon Grapevine.

Amazon Giver shows your Amazon wishlist on your Facebook page. Of course, there are more than a dozen apps on Facebook that already let you do that, but only Amazon Giver lets your friends actually buy those gifts for you without leaving Facebook. Ah, distributed commerce. Your friends can also click on a recommendations tab that creates Amazon product recommendations based on interests reflected in your Facebook profile. So if you are ‘fan’ of The Killers, it might recommend one of the band’s CDs. If you are a ‘fan’ of a soccer page, it might recommend a soccer ball. It also provides recommendations for your friends, conveniently listed by closest birthday.”

Think it’ll happen? I’m not so sure, but this would be a very steady revenue stream for Amazon and influencers who use Amazon and Facebook.

I’m chalking this one up to a possible “affiliate marketing future” paradigm, even if it is the old skool Amazon program.