This was on Reddit a couple of days ago and people pointed this out. This is about the hundredth time I've seen a link get tossed around, and then a blog post that regurgitates things already remarked upon from various discussions...<p>Someone might as well start a blog that just does exactly that... browser for URLs and read comments from Reddit, then create blog posts reposting the URL and rewording the most popular comments. Probably would get a lot of traffic, especially if done quickly before the link gets tossed from Reddit to Digg et al... then the blog could submit itself to Digg et al, and get traffic because the link has already proven itself to be valuable (and comments presumably add more value to the URL).<p>I've often thought about taking advantage of this "popular URL" arbitrage: links get popular within days of each other across Reddit, Digg, et al... why not automate this for one's benefit? Aggregate links from Reddit, Digg, et al and figure out where the link has been "underrated." If the link has tons of upmods on Reddit and has not yet been submitted to Digg, for example, you have yourself a winner. Just create a blog post about that URL, rephrase some popular Reddit comments, submit to Digg, and profit from the traffic.
Mostly offtopic, but I thought I'd share the "NASA Water on Mars" picture for those who hadn't seen it:<p><a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/WaterOnMars2_gcc_big.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/WaterOnMars2_gcc_big.jp...</a>
I took a quick look at this yesterday. I was not aware that this was supposed to be real, it looks like a rendering to me. If it is real... ummm shouldn't someone be driving the boat?
You know, they could have shot it using High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques as well.<p>Of course, there would be other tell-tale signs then, like flaring or clumping. But at least it wouldn't be a composite.