Wanted: dogsitter for a week-ish

Must love dogs. This dog here doesn't know he's a dog. He thinks he's a midget human.

see more Coco pix
Compensation: $100 (negotiable) for one week-ish (8/29 - 9/6) of puppy love.
Actual tasks: 3 walks a day, refill (dry) food and water as needed. Multiple hugs and snuggles required. He might want to play fetch sometimes or stalk squirrels. More often than not, though, the squirrels get the upper hand. But he's pretty happy napping in a sunny window too.

Current music: Aimee Allen - Calling the Maker

Chirp-stream Digest

Swine Flu Tweets:

• real time updates: http://healthmap.org/swineflu
• IL has a disproportionately high infection rate for its population. cause for concern? http://cdc.gov/h1n1flu/upda... #swineflu
• the green line is the U.S. -- something isn't right today: http://bit.ly/LB3tU #swineflu
• viral origins: H1N1-erine http://bit.ly/x1wAB
• http://twitpic.com/4fmg6 - at brk

Berkshire Tweets:

• It dawns on me that this is investment as a tool for intelligently planned production on the planet. #brk
• Try drinking every time charlie says "I've got nothing to add." #brk
• "that was slick, striking up a conversation with the guys we were cutting in front of..." -ar #brk
• Best seats possible. Sprinting ability is useful. Yeehaw!
• somalian cab driver named den. what's he doing in omaha?
• http://twitpic.com/4ctvs - meta-image
• http://twitpic.com/4crsf - Omaha old marketplace
• http://twitpic.com/4cqkt - seen in omaha -- friends don't let friends...
• http://twitpic.com/4c5gd - is this how you imagine Omaha?

Amusement, Cbae and TTL:

• [RT from @TimTL] My neighborhood is burning! This is my parent's house at minute 1:05: http://tinyurl.com/cnun52
• http://bit.ly/IGET6 organization. go veggie.
• video games that never made it to the usa http://img8.imageshack.us/i...
• this just in: our roomie @TimTL featured in one of China's biggest newspapers http://bit.ly/pZMc5
• [via @anthonyha] miss those days & fail to see what she finds morally objectionable?! http://bit.ly/VvQjG the kid *chose* to draw into cbae.
• [via @TimTL] takes guts to edit a vid, change the meaning, broadcast it & blame the victim for it being incomplete http://tinyurl.com/cyhuh2

Current music: Vienna Teng - Stray Italian Greyhound

correction/update. ahem.

So an observant reader pointed out something about the earlier post on compensation for musicians and the RIAA. Apparently there is much variation in how much artists are compensated, and when you're signed on with a major label, sales on iTunes compensate you the same in terms of royalties as with the sale of a CD.

Current music: Recoil - Red River Cargo

Speaking of business models with large revenue streams while making absolutely no real contributions to society...

When the RIAA strikes, the settlement funds do not get paid to artists, but instead fuels the system, accelerating the cycle of litigation.

Settlement payments can be made on a website, where the funds are used to sue more defendants. None of the money is paid to artists.

The quick settlements have left largely unexamined some basic legal questions, such as the legality of the RIAA's investigative tactics, and the question of what proof should be required to hold a defendant liable for peer-to-peer copyright infringement.
(Source: Wired)

Ummm... wait, why is this still an issue? Oh, right, this is why.

Here's a not-so-radical idea. Consider the model of the initial release of Radiohead's In Rainbows, where customers could pay whatever price they deemed appropriate for the music. Let there be a site where fans can pay artists directly an amount they deem appropriate, that is, knowing that the musician's cut is around 60 cents per song download (do correct me if other sources differ). That way, fans can retro-actively contribute to the lives and livelihoods of musicians whose work they like after being affected by their music.

And even if you're one of those people who only listen to music on Pandora (or primarily/exclusively to artists who release under creative commons), you could contribute to your favorite artists, a bit like giving them a proportional thumbs up in the scaled, quantitative democracy of capitalism.

Scarcity of replicable goods/services/media is simply not a property of the Information Age. Scarcity of eyeballs is. The wise have already realized the emergent characteristics of this paradigm shift.

Current music: Peter Gabriel - Down to Earth

An Immodest Proposal: how to pay for the bailout and help people at the same time

The bailout is going to cost taxpayers, both present and future, a huge amount of money, something for which we'll be scrambling to turn out our pockets for generations. So, here's an immodest proposal.

Issue a special-issue low-yield bailout savings bond, available in 500K or 1 million USD denominations, marketed at potential immigrants to the U.S. If you are a permanent resident (green card holder), and you purchase a 500K bond, you get expedited U.S. citizenship, and if you are a non-permanent resident, the purchase of a 500K bond will get you expedited permanent residence status. Or you could buy 1 million and go straight to citizenship. The usual residency requirements will still apply (which would have a large positive impact on the housing market).

The population of the United States is a little over 300 million. The increase in population would be a drop in the bucket. Moreover, this would be a self-selected population, evidenced not only by the willingness to pick up and leave their country of origin (thus entrepreneurial in spirit), but also in shelling out half or one million US dollars. The individual who can afford to shell out/lock in 500K or 1 million USD, given a residency requirement, will very likely be spending significantly in the U.S. economy, thereby speeding up the economic recovery even more.

Of course, you might ask, who is the target market here? There are wealthy parents in China who easily spend a couple million dollars for their child to go to school in the U.S. (housing costs, navigation of bureaucracy, etc.), some to escape the grueling examination system which still suffers from a low number of slots for the number of students, others because they wish to seek a long-term existence in the U.S. anyway. So, grant them citizenship. Make life easier for everyone. It'll be worth a couple million to them, and the economy needs it.

Current music: Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I And II)