One thing I’ve learned being a parent is that everyone has subjects or behaviours that get a response. Kids are great at finding parents’ buttons and pushing them (can’t stand repetitive noises? let’s repeat “Dora D-D-D-D-Dora” for an hour until your nerves are smouldering ruins). Markets are just as good at revealing hot button topics—economists know that even if nothing has been made explicit, the outputs of a system will reflect the incentives built into it. For example, I often joke that the perfect Slashdot story is about a movie where Natalie Portman uses quantum computing to send Linux to Mars. I’m not the only one to realize this, as this list of Digg-headline words shows. These hot buttons give us our personality, our niche, and our audience. What do you think are the hot buttons of the O’Reilly Radar team? Leave your suggestions in the comments to this post. I’ve written up what I think are our hot buttons, and the post will go out on Friday. A free copy of your choice of Mind Hacks or Mind Performance Hacks to whoever gets closest to my answers.