Having seen the name of Obama’s chief economics adviser Austan Goolsbee appear on a few blogs recently, I’ve become curious about who else is on the teams of the two lead candidates. Here’s what I’ve found:

The Chicago Tribune wrote a nifty round-up of Obama’s team of advisers. In fact, it seems they wrote two.

Meanwhile, here’s a brief Telegraph piece on Team Hillary. Here’s a wonderful Washington Post write-up of the Clinton squad, “Hillaryland.” An additional WaPo rundown. The articles themselves give you such an interesting picture of the candidates’ leadership styles and expertise. And from these articles, here are some links on some of the big names (I’m likely to refine this list as I get time to look into it):

Team Hillary:

• Mark Penn: chief pollster and strategist
• Harold Wolfson: senior communications director (no Wikipedia link, using a NYTimes story)
• Patti Solis Doyle: campaign manager
• Mandy Grunwald: chief media consultant
• Leecia Eve: chief policy adviser
• Ann Lewis: senior adviser
• Terry McAuliffe: campaign chairman

Team Obama:

• Foreign policy/national security:
  • Anthony Lake
  • Susan Rice
  • Samantha Power
  • Gregory Craig
  • Richard Danzig
  • Scott Gration
  • Merrill McPeak
• Domestic policy:
  • Austan Goolsbee
  • Michael Froman
  • David Cutler
  • David Blumenthal (PBS interview, may be better)
  • Jeffrey Liebman
  • Dan Tarullo
  • Eric Holder
  • Cass Sunstein
  • Laurence Tribe
  • Cassandra Butts
• Staff:
  • Mark Alexander: former campaign policy director
  • Heather Higginbottom: campaign senior policy strategist (couldn’t find much on her, but was kind of amazed to find that this Snarkmarket post was already among the results!)
  • Karen Kornbluh: Senate policy director

Read more…

danah boyd writes a typically thought-provoking post on the prospect of exposing users’ “Social Graphs,” a meme that’s been heating up recently. Quick backstory in case you didn’t know: Google and a bunch of techy types want to make it so you can easily port your identity and contacts to any application on the Web. The advantages include easier sign-ups for different Web applications, no longer having to maintain the same information in a bunch of different places, quickly finding any contacts who are using an application you just signed up for, etc. Those of us with MySpace/Facebook/Friendster/LinkedIn/Flickr/vita.mn/etc. accounts are planning to be, for the most part, happy.

But danah makes the good point that those stumping for this move are all tech-savvy people who mostly have no idea of what the repercussions will be for some of the most vulnerable heavy users of the Web — teens. A typical argument in favor of more open data refers to what Tim O’Reilly calls “security by obscurity” — i.e. we have the illusion we’re secure just because all our data is usually tucked out of the way, but this is patently false, as any reporter could tell you. Exposing public data more commonly means fewer people will harbor this false sense of security, ostensibly making them more directly conscious of how they manage their personal data. But as danah points out, it could be an awfully risky way to make a point.

Things points to the fascinating idea of the “virtual cable” for driving directions in cars. There’s been a lot of recent buzz about projecting data on car windshields. The virtual cable is a three-dimensional line drawn onto the road ahead showing you exactly where you’re going. Trippy, probably distracting, but nonetheless fascinating.

By now, the A.R.G. has had a long and storied history stretching from The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield. The classical model of the A.R.G.: someone notices a name in a movie trailer, or a website on a television show; they look it up online, and they suddenly find themselves holding a piece in a narrative jigsaw puzzle. Others stumble into the puzzle, they form a community, and the game is afoot. Piece by piece, the players fit together a picture that helps them solve whatever mystery the game’s creators have spun.

One big drawback: if you stumble into one of these games late, catching up can be a chore. As far as I know, A.R.G.s haven’t exactly been a model of thematic coherence or narrative deftness; it’s not like catching up on a TV show or a comic book. The chase and the unfolding mystery are the fun. So unless you have worlds of time to devote to chasing obscure clues, the game might not hold much allure for you. These are the main reasons I haven’t been able to get into any A.R.G.s yet, despite my being an utter nerd.

But I find that idea — a fictional narrative kidnaps a piece of our reality and draws us into it — delicious. What I want is for a series to use the Internet in a way that fully blurs the edge between reality and the series.

Read more…

Adrian, Wilson and co. have launched Everyblock, a mashup of several information sources down to the block level for different cities (currently Chicago, New York and San Francisco). The site is very pretty, especially the maps, and as you would expect, there’s fun data hidden beneath every click. But it’s otherwise hard for me to evaluate how cool it is, since I don’t live in any of the included cities. How about it, residents?

Update: One surprise … no RSS feeds? (Except this one.)

Update 2: Rex reminds me … Poynter Online interview w/ Adrian (which is how I found out it launched).

Clive Thompson remains the single journalist most perfectly calibrated to my interests, and his latest essay for Wired is no exception. It’s about science fiction:

If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.

From where I sit, traditional “literary fiction” has dropped the ball. I studied literature in college, and throughout my twenties I voraciously read contemporary fiction. Then, eight or nine years ago, I found myself getting — well — bored.

I had a friend in college who, upon hearing a science-fiction book recommendation that cited plot, characters, setting, etc., would reply: “Yes, yes, but what about the ideas? The ideas?”

(P.S. So yes, it’s probably me who is actually calibrated to Clive Thompson’s interests, given the nature of media. That’s fine, too.)

I watched this ad three times. (NSFW, via Reddit.)

With ample and heartfelt apologies to Franklin Christenson Ware. (Bookslutty.)

There’s a giant eyeball monster in Super Paper Mario that tracks you in every direction as you move around a room and shoots laser beams at you. To defeat it, Mario has to flip into 3D mode and run around and around it until it tries to shoot, gets confused, and implodes.

Eyeball monster = media pundits. Mario = ’08 Presidential candidates. It’s fun to watch.

Oh, and btw: Speaking of life imitating Mario, Andy Towle’s right. The video for Janet Jackson’s new single “Feedback” is so Super Mario Galaxy.

Infocult points to a Texas bride who had her cake made in her own image.