Lawrence Lessig has spotted an interesting new feature on President-Elect Obama’s Weekly Address on YouTube: an option to download the video to your computer. Under the streaming video sits a “click to download” link, which saves the video in mp4 format.

It’s not clear whether or not YouTube plans to expand download options beyond political videos, though Lessig writes that he’s “told it will be offered more generally.” Such an option would have huge potential, making YouTube videos portable to mobile devices and accessible without an Internet connection. However, there are likely a lot of hurdles to overcome before that becomes a reality, such as copyright issues and how to serve and track ads within downloaded videos.

Of course, there are already tons of unofficial ways to download YouTube videos, many of [+]

In this post Jack Gamble from Babeled sheds some light on a handy service - Gravatars which is a tool that many people are adding to their blogs (I’ve got it operating in the comments section of both TwiTip and Digital Photography School at present).

An important thing to remember as you develop your blog is to build an identity that distinguishes you and your site from the rest of the blogosphere. One tool that can help to accomplish this is the use of Gravatars.

Gravatar is the abbreviation of the phrase “Globally Recognized Avatar.” In short, it is a small image, normally a head shot, of the author or commenter. The Gravatar you chose will be tied to your email address; therefore any enabled site will automatically feature your image next to your comment.

The sense of sight is relied on more [+]

Today on Offworld we saw an elaborate scientific study on gravity's weight in Super Mario's Mushroom Kingdom, looked at vintage game ads that brazenly promoted their (actually non-existent) gratuitous violence, and saw one developer doing recruitment ads very right. We also read how the head of Harmonix wants to revive their original cult music-game Amplitude and move onto the iPhone, played Oregon Trail and other Apple II classics in our browsers, read more vintage tales on the making of Doom, and wondered whether the recession was the perfect time to create an indie game. Finally, we saw a new designer art-pack coming to LittleBigPlanet, prepared for the Adult Swim debut of Offworld favorite brit-com Look Around You with its best games related clip, and, most wonderfully and [+]

Today is the first day of National Thrift Week. It’s also the 303rd anniversary of the birth of America’s first — and best — personal-finance writer. Benjamin Franklin was born on this day in 1706.

Franklin was an amazing man, a polymath, and a great advocate of industry and frugality. “Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich,” he wrote in 1768, more elegantly expressing my own notion that to gain wealth you must spend less than you earn.

For 25 years, Franklin published the annual Poor Richard’s Almanack under the pseudonym “Richard Saunders”. It’s from this almanac that many of Franklin’s most famous sayings are drawn. In the final edition, [+]

Steve Jobs, AdButler, Jim’s beloved iPhone, and a couple moments of Jack ranting about digital rights management and other social media stuff!

Click play to listen below, and then check out previous episodes of The Friday Traffic Report Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio!

Go to Source [+]

Book Review by Zinta AistarsPaperback: 72 pagesPublisher: BOA Editions Ltd. (October 1, 2008)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1934414158ISBN-13: 978-1934414156 What do poets know of money? What do poets know of capital? Katy Lederer asks and answers such questions in “A Nietzschean Revival” and throughout her new collection of poetry, The Heaven-Sent Leaf. And why not the poet, perhaps the best stockbroker of all in tendering the crumpled and transparent leaves of the spirit, exhibited here as expert in capital. Life is, after all, all about transaction, barter, the give and take between human beings, or between oneself and oneself—the hardest bargain of all.Katy Lederer, poet and author, is also….BrainworkerTo learn to keep distance.To learn to keep drear managerial impulse away from the animal mind.Along the [+]

No, seriously -- can you not envision that heinous object above suddenly conjuring up enough energy to transform into a real live, breathing, hungry alien? Brando's USB Aircraft Mouse is simply too frightening to recommend for children under the age of 25, but those hardened enough to control it can select one in five different hues (including camouflage, so you'll never even know when it arrives). We also get the idea that this thing is perfect for implementing carpal tunnel syndrome into your own life, which -- in our humble opinion -- is worth the $17 admission charge alone.[Via OhGizmo]

Filed under: Peripherals

Brando's USB Aircraft Mouse was likely used somewhere in AvP originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients.Singapore surgeon declares: "I like to see accountants on myoperating table, because when you open them up, everything insideis numbered". Johannesburg surgeon replies: "Yeah, but youshould try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded."Frankfurt surgeon observes: "I think librarians are the best,everything inside them is in alphabetical order." Dubai surgeon points out: I like construction workers. They always understandwhen you have a few parts left over."London surgeon shuts them all up by claiming: "Politicians are theeasiest to operate on. There is no guts, no heart, no brains and nospine, and the head and the derriere are interchangeable."With thanks to Naomi Saunders of dTax for permission to copy her from newsletter Go to Source [+]

Lately, one of the biggest questions that is asked to me is "How do you get your sites to a PR3 ranking so quick?" Well, for the first time, we at R & D Art have decided to start sharing some of these web secrets that will help one achieve a higher PR ranking and a lower Alexa ranking quickly. Effective February 2nd, we will begin teaching webinar classes. You can see a list of all available Go to Source [+]

Can an executive manager make a business decision based on his guts? According to Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartzs last statements on issue of the selling of Yahoo! Searches to Microsoft (MicroHoo), this could happen.

Image from: http://flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/3196736177/

As we read on the Wall Street Journal:

Ms. Bartz said in a company-wide Yahoo meeting Wednesday that she plans to spend a lot of time investigating whether to sell Yahoo's search business but that her "gut" was not to do that, according to people familiar with the meeting.

We don't know how this story will end, but something is sure: Bartz got in her position with a very different style than Jerry Yang, the previous Yahoo!'s CEO. Yang was very strong in his knowledge on tech, but lacked of traditional CEO role, which Bartz seems to have.

She looks to [+]