Ashwin Bharambe - Comments

FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more »

niniane

Like this quote: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Gandhi

December 1 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Yeah, but it's probably not Ghandi's quote: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki... - Andrew C (✓)

Gandhi, never Ghandi - Ashwin Bharambe

Arvind Narayanan

Lance Fortnow is entitled to his mystic/religious beliefs, but trying to mix them with complexity theory is unfortunate http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2011...

April 1, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

april 1st? - Ashwin Bharambe

Kevin Fox

iPhone update 4.0.2 completely hosed my phone. Caught in the Recovery Mode loop. (And no, I never jailbroke it) There goes Monday!

August 23, 2010 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Josh Haley, Micah and Jeff (Team マクダジ ) liked this

Didn't this happen to you before, Kevin? - Stephen Mack from iPhone

4 more comments

happened to me as well. Phone was never jailbroken either. - David Thomas

http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009... - Ashwin Bharambe

I wasn't hot on jailbreaking until the EFF fought for the right to do so and won. So I run with 4.0.1+PDF Security FIx. - George S.

That solved the first problem. The second problem started when it restored my last backup, then tried to back up, filled my HD mid-backup, and left me without any backup and an iPhone without any of my photos or videos. Involuntary iPhone bankruptcy. - Kevin Fox

:( - Stephen Mack from iPhone

Amit Patel

From a Facebook recruiter: “Your PhD research on Obstacl is highly regarded at Facebook. Considering your background and interests in programming languages you would help us solve some of the harder technical challenges at Facebook.”

August 3, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Louis Gray, Suresh S, Vedrana Janković and 7 other people liked this

I'm really impressed that they dug through my web pages enough to find the name of a project I worked on. At the same time, I am highly skeptical that my PhD research has been read by anyone ;-) and I can't imagine it'd have any relevance at Facebook! - Amit Patel

Amit: To the extent that HPHP optimizations are concerned, programming language research experience is hugely valuable. The precise thesis work - you are probably right about that :) [I work at FB] - Ashwin Bharambe

Yeah, my project involved setting up equations and proving things about them on paper. Almost no implementation work, which I think would be valuable. :) - Amit Patel

Tudor Bosman

A short note on random load balancing : Bridging the gap - http://berezecki.com/?p=22

June 21, 2010 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Stephen Mack, Ashwin Bharambe, Roberto Bonini and 2 other people liked this

"Very frequently I see people picking a bin at random with a uniform probability distribution and dropping a ball there hoping that the resulting distribution would be uniform. The problem is that the distribution is far from uniform." - Tudor Bosman from Bookmarklet

"Is there anything that can be done that could help solve the problem? Yes, there is. Instead of picking a single bin to throw the ball into, pick two bins at random and throw the ball into the one that is least filled." - Tudor Bosman

Great post. I have found myself getting annoyed by the non-uniform distribution many times. Theoretically, max / min <= log(n); so if you consider each bin made of log(n) mini-bins, and throw uniformly into the mini-bins, the distribution evens out. However this algorithm is a LOT more practical and simpler. - Ashwin Bharambe

Tudor Bosman

605ac13117bae148bd010f610833baad - Google Search - http://www.google.com/search...

May 17, 2010 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Kishore Balakrishnan, Tracy, Keith Adams and 5 other people liked this

This is the MD5 hash of the string "microtime", likely caused by PHP programmers doing md5(microtime) when they mean md5(microtime()). PHP will convert a bareword identifier to a string by default. - Tudor Bosman from Bookmarklet

via http://www.reddit.com/r... - Tudor Bosman

wow! - Ashwin Bharambe

Casey Muller

www.jamglue.com 2006-2010, R.I.P. (commiserating: http://www.facebook.com/search... and http://search.twitter.com/search...)

May 5, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Michael Muller liked this

So sad :( - Bret Taylor

12 more comments

Thanks Bret :-( - Casey Muller

Dislike :( - Tudor Bosman

Sorry to see it go. :-( - Kevin Fox

:( - Private Sanjeev

Thanks guys - Casey Muller

When shall we see such a tool again? Alas. - Michael Muller

I shall wear my t-shirt tomorrow in memoriam. - sudonym

sad :( - Ashwin Bharambe

:( - Paul Buchheit

:( Still have some bumper-stickers left... - Sean O'Connor

What is [was] it? - Gabe

:( - Benjamin Golub

Gabe, it was Casey's old startup. - Paul Buchheit

Paul Buchheit

It's interesting that having my FriendFeed and Twitter set to public is completely unremarkable, but my using the same setting on Facebook seems like a big deal, e.g. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits...

May 5, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Dave Martin, Glenn Slaven, Zu from AOD and 89 other people liked this

The first sentence of that article should explain the difference to you. If it doesn't, then I think you need to lay off the Kool-Aid for a bit. It's clouding your mind. - Akiva

293 more comments

Were either Friendfeed, or Twitter, sold as a private place to interact with friends, to begin with? - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Akiva, putting those two sentences next to each other does not mean that they are logically connected. I chose to make my settings more public. Why is that an issue? - Paul Buchheit

Doesn't your Facebook profile have things like address and phone number? - Gabe

Yeah, as I mentioned, I don't make phone and email public because I don't want sales calls or whatever. - Paul Buchheit

"We made the site so that all of our members are a part of smaller networks like schools, companies or regions, so you can only see the profiles of people who are in your networks and your friends. We did this to make sure you could share information with the people you care about. This is the same reason we have built extensive privacy settings — to give you even more control over who you share your information with." - Mark Zuckerberg 9/8/06 - http://blog.facebook.com/blog... - Carter ♥ HTML5

That's not the issue, Paul. The issue is that the privacy settings in Facebook can cause people to 'unwittingly expose' information about themselves. My FriendFeed and Twitter accounts are also public but I don't have my home address or phone number or anything linked to those accounts. You, of course, are far more educated about Internet privacy and whatnot than, say, Grandma Indiana... more... - Akiva

The point being that Facebook level-set their users to expect privacy as the DEFAULT. Twitter and Friendfeed never did that. - Carter ♥ HTML5

Akiva, I'm pretty sure the default for home address and phone number is not "public". I only adjusted my defaults to make them more public, not less. - Paul Buchheit

I think the 'big deal' portion has everything to do with original intent and marketing - Twitter and FF haven't been marketed as private. Facebook very explicitly started that way. In migrating away from their original ideas, the FB team as not been a) open or b) responsive about privacy concerns. I really respect your work, but FB staff dismissing these concerns because they don't... more... - Jennifer Dittrich

A Twitter or FriendFeed profile doesn't list your address, phone number, schools you attended, employer, personal interests, family members, birthdate, etc. If you fill in the blanks on a Facebook profile, all of that is shown. - Rochelle

+1 Rochelle. - Jeff (Team マクダジ )

Paul, you might be right. When I signed up for Facebook, the first thing I did was lock down everything that I wanted locked down. But not everyone is going to understand that. And it doesn't help that you guys are consistently changing (you may say, refining) how privacy is controlled which just adds to everyone's confusion. Combine that with the fact that it seems like your boss is... more... - Akiva

Perhaps you're reading too much into what I said. All I said was that I made my stuff mostly public, and that I've gotten a lot of value out of that. - Paul Buchheit

I think we'll all look back on this transition from "privacy is essential" to "privacy is an obstacle" to be on the biggest bait-and-switches ever executed at scale (400+ million people). - Carter ♥ HTML5

I locked down everything... And then everytime some new "feature" rolls out, I need to go back and "re-lockdown" stuff... It's annoying - Jeff (Team マクダジ )

I probably have, Paul. I think I just saw your statement in contrast with the article and went with that. - Akiva

+1 Carter re: biggest bait-and-switches ever executed at scale. - Alex Schleber

I'm curious what everyone here is putting on their fb that is so secret? Maybe I'm doing it wrong. There are certainly things that I don't want out there (like my credit card numbers), but I'm not going to put that on my fb profile. - Paul Buchheit

I don't think it's so much the information as it is the principle of the matter. But maybe that's just me. - Derrick

Btw, I agree that there is a legitimate debate with respect to the way in which Facebook updates defaults, but that wasn't the topic we were discussing. - Paul Buchheit

Really Paul? Look, in all likelihood Facebook, Zuck, and you are succeeding at pulling one over on hundreds of millions of people. And you know exactly what you're doing. Fine, you win, but please spare us this "innocent from the country" routine. A certain class of people (read tech geeks) are not fooled for one second. - Alex Schleber

What Derrick said. - Rochelle

Humor me Alex. I'm genuinely curious what people are most fearful about. - Paul Buchheit

Example: I have friends on Capitol Hill in DC who are insanely paranoid about their public image, but still like sharing some fun photos or stories with close friends. That's one use case. There are MANY more. Please don't treat yourself as representative of 400 million people. - Carter ♥ HTML5

It's simple really: I use Facebook to communicate with my Family and Friends. Those communications are *not public* and they're damn well going to stay that way. FriendFeed/Twitter are not places where I talk to family and friends. - Otto

For example, why does one need to share a real name, or phone number at all? You don't have to do that with FriendFeed, or Twitter. Can you do that on Facebook at all? - Derrick

The problem I have with the Facebook deal is that it was a bait and switch. They got people to sign up with this understanding that your info was in a closed system and seemingly secure unless you didn't want it to be. Then, after they got everyone to input their info, they said, "Hey, we changed our mind; we're going to give it to advertisers anyway. Quit if you want." - rowlikeagirl

Paul: I get value out of having Twitter and FF completely public. Thats not the issue. The issue here is that FB was originally sold as a private service. Another thing. You and I may have seen value out of being completely public, but the only value to anyone about Grandma Indinana being completely public belongs to the knitting accessories advertisers. - Roberto Bonini

Paul, for me, it's not a matter of fear but a matter of ownership. I'm definitely on the more paranoid end of the scale as I'm only marginally comfortable for people to know even what city I live in. On the other end of that spectrum are guys like Robert and Louis who put their cell phone number on the web and welcome people to call. I don't want any of my information going out of my... more... - Akiva

It's simple, Paul. While I agree that I myself never put much of anything into Facebook I might live to regret, the same isn't true for everybody else. Several examples curated over here: http://alexschleber.amplify.com/2010... - Alex Schleber

This "value to advertisers" meme is interesting. It gets repeated a lot by bloggers, but nobody ever explains what any of this has to do with advertising. Ad targetting could be done regardless of privacy settings (just as Google does). - Paul Buchheit

I have no problem talking to the world about things going on in the world. But that is definitely *NOT* what I use Facebook for. I use Facebook to talk to people I know about things going in our daily lives. I use it to communicate with my BBQ team members. I use it to talk to my mom and dad. None of that is useful for anybody else to know. Nothing I post on Facebook is useful in a... more... - Otto

You have a BBQ team? Is that as awesome as it sounds? - Paul Buchheit

Yes. :) http://www.thequesbrothers.com - Otto

Re "value to advertisers": by making more of FB public/open/crawlable, you can increase the volume of traffic/pageviews and ultimately increase impressions/clicks. Money in the bank. - Carter ♥ HTML5

And for the record I don't have a FB account. In the old days, snail mail mostly guaranteed privacy for your communications by virtue of the fact that your communiques were physically sealed by you. That essentially is the analogue version of FB pre privacy changes, albeit not at scale. In other words, privacy was implicit in the social convention of exchanging snail mails. With FB,... more... - Roberto Bonini

Can anyone show up to those competitions and eat the food, or do you have to be judge or something? I'd seriously consider making the trip. - Paul Buchheit

"Privacy is hard; let's have a BBQ!" :) - Benjamin Golub

Judging is a process that requires certification and a class, sort of thing. However, the WCBCC here in Memphis next week has a "People’s Choice" category. Basically you pay like $4 and get to judge 5 different samples from 5 different teams. Repeat as many times as you want: http://memphisinmay.org/peoples... And then, of course, if you know somebody on the teams, and can talk 'em into it, then it's all you can eat... :) - Otto

You cannot argue with a thread that gets derailed by BBQ. It's against the law. - Akiva

Carter, I doubt it. Fb has a completely ridiculous number of page views already. The bump from searching random status messages or whatever would not be significant. - Paul Buchheit

Speaking of profiles: Benjamin, you need to update yours to say "Facebooker", right? ;) - Carter ♥ HTML5

Wow, I'm definitely going to have to go to memphisinmay sometime. - Paul Buchheit

Paul, you can NEVER have too much traffic. Come on... anyway, this thread has made me hungry. And it's only 11am PST! :( - Carter ♥ HTML5

Carter: As far as I know people that work here don't call themselves Facebookers. But I have that exact question listed in my Twitter profile: http://twitter.com/bgolub - Benjamin Golub

Dang, now I want bbq. - Derrick

"I promise Facebook will or will not take over the world with Likes, targeted ads, and evil privacy violat... oh look, there's a shiny BBQ object over here..." :( - Alex Schleber

Paul, the issue is choice. Facebook users used to be more private by the nature of what Facebook was. It's great if some people want to be more public, but in the process of adding those features, Facebook has most definitely removed choices to keep many things private and essentially coerced more public settings, but yet still operates under a model where people's profiles are expected... more... - Tinfoil 2.0 from iPhone

I'm really glad Paul's talking about this - I wish more of the Facebook team would talk about intentions. I hear a lot through personal connections, but nothing makes a bigger difference than the internal team being willing to talk about this stuff with the public. - Jesse Stay

I have no problems with aspects of my profile being public, but IMO the problem is that Facebook tends to go with default opt-in often enough, and in general isn't consistent with how changes are implemented and doesn't necessarily make it easy for users to know exactly what they're doing. - Deepak Singh

+1 Jesse (as another FBer) - Ashwin Bharambe

Here's my opinion: Facebook is in a no-win situation. If they stay private, everyone criticizes them as a "walled garden", and they can't grow as fast either. If they go public (yet keep privacy controls in place), everyone will criticize them for revealing too much information. I think Facebook's making the right move in making things more public so that future new users know without a... more... - Jesse Stay

Jesse, it ultimately doesn't freaking matter what Paul thinks their intentions are (so far he is sounding a tad naive here), only the eventual *outcomes*. Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg? How about Microsoft or anyone else who may one day buy or control Facebook? - Alex Schleber

Then there's this: http://www.eff.org/deeplin... re: the new "connections" formerly known as Interests, etc. ... yeah, Paul, let's see your detailed response to what is said in that piece. Thanks in advance for not veering off into BBQ. - Alex Schleber

FB Privacy concerns now bore me. For anybody interested in continuing BBQ talk: http://friendfeed.com/otto42... :-) - Otto

Alex, ultimately you can't trust any company, can you? - Jesse Stay

Otto, amen - Jesse Stay

FWIW, Facebook does have a process for users to debate these terms - if enough users disagree Facebook will re-evaluate. I believe the last few times there weren't enough objections to change. - Jesse Stay

Also, FWIW, the only information available by default is here: http://www.facebook.com/help... - specifically, "name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages" - Jesse Stay

I don't think it's that big a deal they're sharing that, personally. Heck, I give away my phone number and e-mail address on my blog, both publicly and in a parseable manner in the source code. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, that "process" is totally rigged. The problem is that users are lazy and stick to defaults (even if those default change over time). Asking lazy people to log objections is very cynical. - Carter ♥ HTML5

Carter, and I don't think most users really care - Jesse Stay

Well, they don't care * incrementally*. It's like the frog in the water that never notices the water is getting hotter until its too late :) - Carter ♥ HTML5

Ye ye...keep telling yourself that, Jesse. I think TODAY's Facebook IM glitch proves that they still do care to some extent (if they are conscious of the issues at least). do you want all your instant messages to be public? How about your phone SMS and convos? What if the phone/cell co decides that all that really doesn't need to be private anymore, that your privacy is overrated anyway, and people should just get with the "new openness" program... - Alex Schleber

Alex, you guys are way too paranoid. Just don't put anything online you don't want public and you're fine. That goes for Facebook as well. Educate people on that rather than saying "the sky is falling" with Facebook. - Jesse Stay

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."--Google CEO Eric Schmidt - Ashish

Jesse - that is a fine thing to say if people are giving *warning* that what was default private has now become default public *before* it happens. With the changes recently made I now have people who are finding my best friends family members (both girls) because now my likes and wall posts are public. Now I have to stop communicating with them until I figure out all of the myriad ways to hide my FB data and even then the trust has been lost so I doubt I will continue. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Re: Eric Schmidt - search Google for "Eric Schmidt affair", good stuff! http://www.google.com/search... - Carter ♥ HTML5

i miss friendfeed. - Zee.

As anyone who's married knows, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. - Darren

Facebook did what they had to do to compete long term in the ever changing social landscape. - Darren

It was the right decision. - Darren

Darren, even if FB considered it the proper decision (which I really hope they do for all the grief they are getting) it could have been executed in a more tolerant/privacy friendly manner. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

bear, consider the actions of recent Facebook's warning. It's clear Facebook wants to be more public. - Jesse Stay

Darren.. I agree and they did it in a VERY impressive and powerful way. It even uses privacy rules in place since last Nov/Dec, so I don't understand *most* of the recent complaints. - Chris Myles

Chris, agreed - Jesse Stay

Jesse, Chris - that is great that they used existing framework as it did make it easier to check what changed. But what isn't great was the lack of info (and it could be because i'm just now a FB "power user") on the fact that my actions on other's posts/events now cause them to be more visible than *they* want. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Chris/Darren, just because "they did it in a VERY impressive and powerful way" doesn't mean we all have to like it. The same could be said e.g. for the Nazi's taking over Germany. - Alex Schleber

Yeah, what LogEx, Akiva, Roberto, etc all said: FB started off closed. People signed on with a certain set of expectations. FF and Twitter started out open, people signed on to those two with different expectations. It's like why no one (reasonably) complains the bus is public but would complain if their taxi started picking up a bunch of other passengers midway - the rules changed midstream, to the detriment of the existing users. - Andrew C (✓)

Oh wow - now Facebook is being compared to the Nazis? Really??? Except you don't have to be on Facebook. The Germans had no choice. I wish those with problems would just kill their accounts and stop complaining. This is getting ridiculous. - Jesse Stay

And Godwin's Law is now in effect. It's been a fun discussion, but it's over. - Geoff Schultz {TF}

BTW, I think most of the Facebook team would take serious offense to that Nazi comment - Jesse Stay

Here is another "everything you ever do with/on the Internet is pretty much public" counter-example: Online Dating. Do you want all of your "dating graph" (any profile you ever checked out, messaged, etc.) made public? Yes, there is no absolute expectation of privacy - e.g. vis-a-vis the state/law/etc., but I doubt too many people would have started using these services if the companies had said: BTW, we will eventually make all of this information public or semi-public. - Alex Schleber

Alex, personally, I don't have a problem with that, but I live a boring life. Again, don't use Facebook or a dating site if you have a problem with it. - Jesse Stay

FWIW, those things get exposed all the time - Jesse Stay

...and yes, I agree that one should think twice about posting/using anything on the Web, but that doesn't mean all privacy questions are a binary decision. Just because someone can get to certain information somehow, is NOT the same as a company shoveling it out the door with all hands on deck... as is now the case with FB "Open" Graph. - Alex Schleber

Jesse - will you please *stop* saying "or a dating site if you have a problem with it"! FB started as a private way to share personal information *by design* and then it changed how it works. If FB would let me delete my account and *my data* then I would have done that the first time they changed how things work. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Bear, why can't you delete your Facebook account? It's quite simple. Do it, so long as you stop complaining. - Jesse Stay

Wow. - Derrick

Alex, have you ever seen the information Google has on you? Google has much more than Facebook right now, and you probably don't even know it. - Jesse Stay

@jesse - i'm not complaining about anything except the pious holier than thou way you keep saying "hey, if you post in public you get what you get" while completely ignoring how the rules got changed under the FB users feet. PLUS you can't DELETE an account - it just gets "deactivated" and all of the data remains. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Bear, no rules were changed since December. Features added, yes, but nothing changed. BTW, I'm pretty sure you can delete your account entirely. If not, they can't do anything with the data after you cancel, at least per the terms (only thing they can do is keep it on your friends' news feeds, which I think makes for a much better experience). - Jesse Stay

@bear: True account deletion is possible: http://www.facebook.com/help... (Note: it takes 2 weeks of deactivation before they actually delete the account). - Otto

Evidently this is a holy war now - Jesse Stay

Expectations are fine but times change, facebook started three years before twitter and the only content they have required to be public is your name, profile photo, gender, list of friends and pages you are a fan of (like). They did it using a very public method that forced *everyone* to review and double check their settings and they told you they were migrating to the more public... more... - Chris Myles

Jesse, I was merely referring to Chris' use of "they did it in a VERY impressive and powerful way", to which you agreed. As in: that alone isn't a freaking criterion for anything. - Alex Schleber

I wonder if Paul regrets making this particular thought public? :P - Carter ♥ HTML5

Chris, amen - Jesse Stay

Bear, you can either delete or deactivate. Here's the link to delete: https://ssl.facebook.com/help... - Rochelle

Alex, I was giving kudos to Paul.. I'm impressed, it's powerful. I also don't feel my trust has been violated because I kept up with the privacy changes (http://www.eff.org/deeplin...). I'm looking for people who are ready to move forward (http://friendfeed.com/chrismy...).. I remember these exact arguments last year, I'm ready to move on!! - Chris Myles

Jesse: To some people, not using Facebook is like withdrawing from society. - Gabe

Carter, I am glad he did, this needs to be discussed. I just hope he's been working on FB messaging platform, and therefore doesn't have full visibility to what Zuck has cooked up here. The true implications of this likely won't be apparent for another 1-3 years. I really do hope that Paul's/Jesse's et al. best-case-scenario, optimistic view actually comes to pass. But I'm not holding my breath either. - Alex Schleber

exactly Gabe, the "people can just leave" argument is getting pretty naive at this point. See here: http://alexschleber.amplify.com/2010... - Alex Schleber

Gabe, in that case, just be careful what you put online. If you're that paranoid, kill your account. Heck, kill your internet connection. There is no such thing as perfect privacy. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, please stop the "perfect privacy" straw man argument. There is no perfect anything, so does that mean we can't have an opinion? - Alex Schleber

Jesse: Also, I recall from a movie or TV show trailer a few days ago: "You're being paranoid. That's what someone says right before they betray you...". Frankly, it's also a not-so-thinly-veiled insult as well, since you are referring to us per a DSM-IV diagnosable mental disorder criterion. Just saying... - Alex Schleber

Alex, you may have an opinion, but your argument on Facebook doesn't make sense if you think your privacy can never be exposed. Same goes for Google, Gmail, Orkut, Private Twitter accounts, or any other service where privacy is expected. These things are exposed all the time, often without you knowing - that's a fact of life. Don't put it online if you don't want it exposed. All the complaining and opinions in the world won't stop that. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: That's a poor argument. Being exposed by accident or via a bug is different than being exposed by design. I'd prefer to live in a world where private information can be both online and shared and still well-protected by a proper set of controls. You don't need perfection to achieve this goal. However, you do need to stop moving the target around. - Otto

Alex, sorry but to think that nothing will EVER change is also naive.. I think we've all gone a little extreme to make our points. There is nothing wrong with strong opinions and even expectations but there HAS to be a balance. facebook has done a reasonable job considering they have a microscope us their a$$ and not everyone will be happy with their changes. - Chris Myles

CW, come on - so you're offended that your name, gender, city, network, and friends same info are exposed as you browse the web? Nothing else is exposed, unless you opted in. - Jesse Stay

Oh, and the fact that you "liked" it, but that too is opt-in - Jesse Stay

Google has a really good position paper on opt-in vs opt-out http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc.... (if anyone is interested). - Chris Myles

"dont put it online if you dont want it exposed" - that is both fair and unfair. True - the only 100% privacy is if you never share anything but that's hardly useful. I think people are entitled to feel that a breach of some covenant has happened when something that used to be under our control (who gets to see what) gets changed and taken out of our control, and automatically shared... more... - Iphigenie

Maybe it would help if Fb had a feature that showed the list of people who had access to what information and why. That way I could say "If I click 'Like' on this post, who will be able to tell", and decide right then if it was worth clicking. - Gabe

Jesse, that's simply not true. When I went to the settings page I have a screenshot of here: http://alexschleber.posterous.com/this-is... ALL of those options were CHECKED by default. And FB has hidden this most important "what my friends can propagate about me" setting 2 layers deep... - Alex Schleber

First, kudos for Paul & Facebook insiders who *dialog* publicly about the elephant in the room. BUT, bottom line: Privacy as normative bait & switch and opt-out settings. Apple gets lauded for 'Hardware-Software That Just Works'; if a modicum of evidence existed that FB has the ethos of 'Privacy That Just Works', there would be more support from the tech-competent and Facebook-history aware public (a small, but influential slice of the whole). - Micah

CW, they told you about the changes and even forced you to accept LAST NOV/DEC (see link above). Are you a fan of the site governance page (which announces future changes to get voted on)? If you don't feel comfortable what are you doing using the tool? - Chris Myles

Although I agree with Paul that it should not be that big a deal that he chose to make his profile fully public (with tiny exceptions) to people - that has never been the problem for me, and I found the flexibility of sharing to a list only to be mostly a matter of courtesy (dont bore school friend with technical shares, or the wrong language) rather than privacy (I always treated it as... more... - Iphigenie

Alex, Did you take a screen shot last Nov/Dec? both of those settings were available for your review then http://www.cynicsunlimited.com/2009.... - Chris Myles

And, provincial as it may be, I'm looking to Josh's dramatic reading of this thread. (**Special Mention**: GO TEAM BBQ!) #JoshHaley #DramaticReadingBOD - Micah

that's it, i'm off to chop peppers in farmville ;) - Iphigenie

OK so obviously there has been a HUGE uproar about this last year and again now.. I've had messages from friends on facebook warning of the dangers and facebook has publicly stated they are trending toward the public social norm.. I was in the middle of no where for 5.5 years and I knew what was going on with facebook. We can't second guess and protect everyone.. but messages were... more... - Chris Myles

I'm just going to let Chris fight this for me - he's doing a great job. I'm behind you all the way Chris! :-) (and I totally agree) - Jesse Stay

But yeah - even my Mom asked me about the changes last Nov/Dec - Jesse Stay

Sorry Jesse, I'm on my last legs here. Privacy, expectations, trust and comfort are all VERY personal and people have to make their own choice!! Don't like (trust,respect) it.. leave. Worried everything will become public someday.. don't share private things. Double check your settings, ask questions, read every future dialog/message and assume future features will default to public sharing.. that's what I'm doing (and have always done). Facebook and me.. we're good! - Chris Myles

Chris, I am too - none of this uproar makes sense to me, but I'm losing energy to fight it. As Otto said, the privacy uproar is getting boring. - Jesse Stay

and that is why I am so glad you are not on the Facebook team dealing with Privacy - the fact that you find something that others find important as boring and not worth discussing. The issue boils down to what a reasonable/non-guru user of FB can expect in regard to their privacy and the answer is that they can only expect FB to change things without notice and to continue to make things opt-in that used to be off by default. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Bear, it's not that I don't find it boring - I find the fact that we're repeating ourselves over and over again boring and the fact that people like you keep spreading false information like "you can't delete your account" boring. - Jesse Stay

I wasn't spreading false information, I was stating my opinion and it was corrected. At the time I last looked at my FB, which was the last time they changed privacy defaults, I could not fully delete it. Now I find you can - so for the folks who come to me for help with computer stuff I can point them to that page if they want. Me personally, I live in this bleeding-edge world and know how to deal with it. A lot of the points I raise are proxy items from the folks who look to me for help. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

I thought you got to choose what you enter into Facebook. Phone numbers and addresses and which school you went to etc... Most profiles I have set up for people have been set and forget. Either all closed, friends of friends or open. - Johnny from iPhone

Bear, also, since December, Facebook hasn't changed any previous privacy settings. They've added features since, but your privacy hasn't changed. - Jesse Stay from iPhone

Jesse - the impact of what was left as a default value changed. I say that as a casual user because people are finding me via FB that were not finding me previously via my network and city settings. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Bear, and you still have the option to opt out if you think it's a bigger impact. Everyone was notified 6 months ago exactly what was public and what was private. - Jesse Stay from iPhone

The minimal information exposed really isn't that big an impact though, I don't think. - Jesse Stay from iPhone

again, can you read what i'm saying ... I went into the settings 6 months ago and opted out of a lot of things and now I went back into it and items are now appearing with more options to select than were previously available. So the net change may be giving me more choice but some of the default values were tweaked to a more public view than I expected. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Facebook even sent out an email notifying people - Jesse Stay from iPhone

Jesse, do you think the fact that you are in a part a FB developer (through SocialToo, other?) may taint your point of view here a bit? Are all those people worried about aspects of this (Scoble, Om, various Google developers, etc. etc.), are we all "paranoid"? BTW, I haven't said one thing about account deletion. - Alex Schleber

Jesse I think often forgets that as a FB dev he often sees these changes long before others and has an fuller mental skeleton of what the interactions are than the "normal" user (IMO) - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Bear, I deal with the normal user more than I do developer. Most normal users don't care. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, BTW, the settings from 6 months ago (I for one overlooked the "What your friends can share about you through applications and websites" settings, and I am at least semi-savvy on this sort of thing) don't mean much, because ***THEN we didn't know that the entire thing was going to be shared with every possible site out there implementing "Open" Graph with a few copy&pastes.*** If the same stuff was already discoverable through Facebook Connect, then I missed that, ... - Alex Schleber

Jesse - then we inhabit totally different realms of "normal" - by far everyone who I deal with is hating on FB for these changes :) - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Alex, yes, you missed that - Jesse Stay

Bear, are those you deal with primarily in Silicon Valley? ;-) - Jesse Stay

Jesse - actually no - I live on the east coast and in a rurally conservative area. as far away from Silicon Valley as my job allows :) - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

... AND of course a lot fewer sites implemented FBConnect (because it was harder), showing up on a site required login with FBC there instead of it being automatic as it is now. Etc. - Alex Schleber

Alex, actually, name, location, gender, profile pic were all available without login via FB Connect before - Jesse Stay

Yes, but what about Interests, Religious orientation, etc. etc. ?!? - Alex Schleber

Alex, and tens of thousands of sites were implementing FB Connect as that information was available - Jesse Stay

Alex, that info isn't available as public by default right now - Jesse Stay

"right now" - that's the battle we're all fighting - for people that care about these things, we can't promise that it will remain any certain way - Christopher Galtenberg

And don't forget the raising of the 24-Hour limit on keeping data going away. That is a bit of a change, no? - Alex Schleber

FYI From Nov's update "Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without... more... - Chris Myles

The whole 24 hour limit thing is just recognition of the de-facto situation anyway. FB never had any real way to enforce that limit or how people treated the data that was received. - Otto

Christopher, Facebook hasn't made any moves to signify that will be changing any time soon. Not sure what you're getting at. - Jesse Stay

(Christopher G) - Jesse Stay

"any time soon" <- that - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, you can say the same about any other company that holds your data - still not sure what you're getting at - Jesse Stay

Yes you do - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, no I don't (???) - Jesse Stay

I really hope that Zuckerberg turns out to be a benign dictator... - Alex Schleber

Alex, :) me too! - Chris Myles

Wow - Jesse Stay

Re: benign http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reas... - sorry if I'm trolling, just my friend graph can't stop talking about this - Christopher Galtenberg

Look we can't even talk about what has happened, let alone what might. I trust they will give me notice of future changes and no I'm NOT naive. - Chris Myles

Chris, yeah - they haven't violated my trust, yet. - Jesse Stay

Oh great - now Louis Gray shared this on Twitter. Are we going to have to repeat this again? ;-) - Jesse Stay

Christopher, you should read some of the comments on the original post here http://www.rocket.ly/home.... Personally I have no tolerance for overly sensationalized blog posts, I like to make decisions based on facts!! - Chris Myles

Jesse, because you've essentially said you have no trust. (don't put anything online you don't want broadcast). Most FB users were led to believe they *could* trust FB with personal information. - Tinfoil 2.0 from iPhone

LogEx, I haven't said that either. I feel like I can trust Facebook. - Jesse Stay

I read the comments. I'm saying that my FB graph is abuzz about the article, and my friend count is dropping. The article matches the sentiment about FB perfectly. That's what matters, not that point #9 is invalid (it is). - Christopher Galtenberg

If FB allowed for a permanent "opt-out of public data until I say otherwise" that NEVER had to be revised whenever a new feature came along, some of the privacy complaints would be moot. However, this goes against FB's business interest of trying to have it be a more public system(as is alluded to in this thread). - George S.

Looks like it's me, Jesse and Paul :) - Chris Myles

Regardless, a great deal of data is also shared by various FB apps (e.g. when the user gets the dialog requesting that data is shared). This is a backdoor into their "private" data, so to be truly private you'd have to opt-out of many FB apps as well (unless they changed their policies). - George S.

BandCentral, a Basecamp for Bands, Launches Today http://goo.gl/fb/AHqJv ReadWriteWeb.com #startupreviews - Jean-Marie Gall™ from twhirl

*sigh* - this is going in a loop - Jesse Stay

Jesse, you said "Don't put it online if you don't want it exposed" in this thread and similar statements in other forums. It's fine if you personally trust FB with your info, particularly since you don't seem to acknowledge that there are valid reasons for people to want and need privacy in their online interactions. But millions of other users don't feel that way, and have been and... more... - Tinfoil 2.0

The fact that there is so much controversy in this thread (and many others like it) are: (1) people want things from Facebook that Facebook no longer delivers; (2) it's difficult to know (particularly for laypeople who don't follow every little move like we all do) what exactly happens with your data and what may happen in the future. - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx. Can you totally lock down your account. Is it possible? - Johnny from iPhone

LogEx, that was in response to people paranoid about the existing Facebook privacy preferences. If you have a problem with your name, city, profile picture, and network being exposed, best not to put anything online. Nothing has changed from Facebook. - Jesse Stay

Johnny, NO, it is no longer possible. It used to be. - Tinfoil 2.0

Johnny, your name, city, profile picture, network, and friends will always be visible. Everything else (assuming you don't like anything) can be locked down. - Jesse Stay

LogEx, that's only part of the story - you seem to have an agenda - share what I shared if you want to share the whole story. - Jesse Stay

Before November, the only thing required to be public were your Name and Networks. Friend List, Pages, and "Connections" can be very sensitive. People were brought up in Facebook believing that they had a private place if they wished to interact with friends and family. - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, that is correct, and they sent you an e-mail notifying you that was changing. That is the only thing that has changed in years. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, my agenda is, and always has been simple: maximize choice for users so that they can be AS public or AS private as they wish. - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, Facebook is *all about* choice. Lock 'er down. The only info exposed is what I listed above. Do you really have a problem with that? - Jesse Stay

Try getting as granular as you can with Facebook on Google or Twitter - you can't. - Jesse Stay

Also note that even Twitter private profiles expose more information than what Facebook does by default. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, part of this issue is trust. FB has a reputation problem, which the "only thing that his changed in years" has a lot to do with. It's a very significant change. Additionally, that "granularity" is both a blessing and a curse. Is there a "One Button" privacy feature? Because some people don't WANT granular. - George S.

Google knows remarkably little about me, due to the way their services are architected and due to the tools they provide. And, yes, I do have a problem with Facebook steadily removing privacy choices in Nov/Dec and again in April. People are now forced to share more. You can no longer "lock 'er down". - Tinfoil 2.0

George, one privacy change in 3 years is a pretty good reputation. - Jesse Stay

LogEx, I think you're naive in thinking that Google knows little about you - Jesse Stay

I don't think that logic is meaningful, because it's a pretty fundamental policy change - George S.

George, everyone has had the opportunity to delete their Facebook account if they choose. It's not a whole lot of information they exposed. Also, the entire Facebook population was given the opportunity to debate the change, as Facebook allows for any policy change. A very insignificant amount of people did. - Jesse Stay

FWIW, even before the change there was info, such as your profile pic and name that were exposed to the public - that has always been the case. - Jesse Stay

I'm not being at all naive Jesse. I use multiple Google accounts and have never populated any Google profiles with real world information about myself. I won't bore you with other details about how I manage my relationship with Google. - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, you are definitely not the normal user then - Jesse Stay

Also, "It's not a whole lot of information they exposed" - shouldn't that really be for each user to decide? Not all half billion users are privileged white males who don't have to worry about nuances of what might get exposed about their interactions with friends and family (and around the web). - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, you're on the web, on a social network that gets indexed by search engines - delete your account if you don't like that. I think it's a rather paranoid move if you're really bothered by that, though. Google and Twitter expose default information about you as well. - Jesse Stay

pain = (user-count * new-feature-impact ^ trust-involved). Everyone for or against any certain social network or policy knows that. Another axiom: The fans of the network in question will always act blinkered; the antagonists will still use the network within 60 minutes. - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, you are exactly correct - Jesse Stay

I think this argument isn't really about "default" information. Any service where you identify as a "real" person requires you to share this information. Though it is worth noting that Facebook expects you use your real name, while other services (i.e. Twitter) allow for more anonymity if you so choose. - George S.

George, what is this argument about then? I've lost track. - Jesse Stay

Yes, George S. makes an excellent point. Google and Twitter absolutely do not require your real world identity. Facebook collected hoardes of private real world identity info, THEN declared that much of that was being forced public (or coerced through UI). - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, you're sidetracking the fact that your name has been public for quite some time now - Jesse Stay

(goes to look up the default information listed in I'm on Facebook--Now What??? back in 2007) - Jesse Stay

This betrayal of trust shows two things: 1) FB is afraid of losing the real-time search content to Twitter and 2) Zuckerberg has learned *nothing* from the Beacon disaster. - Dave Hodson

Dave, what betrayal of trust? - Jesse Stay

Feels like he's repeating himself --> - Jesse Stay

Jesse: betrayal of trust -- users expect their data to be private. Pulling a fast one on them with new "default" settings that remove privacy setting is a betrayal. - Dave Hodson

Understands why Paul has given up on this conversation --> - Jesse Stay

Because you are not listening to the valid concerns of others. - Tinfoil 2.0

Dave, nothing fast has been pulled - read my comments above - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I have a teenage relative. I went through this person's profile and was shocked what the "suggested" defaults now expose to the world. - Dave Hodson

2 of the key privacy concerns on FB are more about 1) change from default-private to default-public, 2) How your other information is used by 3rd parties (e.g. Apps, etc., like when the app asks to share your info). In #2, most people just blindly "Allow". But they don't really know what they might be sharing, or to whom. - George S.

LogEx, I've heard it all - none of it is making sense. No privacy settings were removed this time around. - Jesse Stay

George, there has *always* been information available as public - Jesse Stay

They absolutely were changed in April via Connections. - Tinfoil 2.0

Jesse, I don't think you're grasping what I'm saying. - George S.

In 2007 they made all profiles on Facebook indexable by Google, to the extent of your name and some other small information (I'll look it up when I get home) - Jesse Stay

From another FF conversation: "The best privacy setting of all is yourself." Only give FB what you want to show up on CNN.com. Which for me is pretty much nothing now. - Christopher Galtenberg

LogEx what was changed? - Jesse Stay

Christopher, I agree with that - Jesse Stay

Jesse - perhaps you don't agree with my thoughts, but at least agree that there is negative sentiment out there about this and FB hasn't done a good job of clarifying changes. - Dave Hodson

Dave, your thoughts are 100% incorrect - it's not that I don't agree. It's that they're completely false. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, see: http://www.eff.org/deeplin... & http://www.eff.org/deeplin... & http://www.eff.org/deeplin... - Tinfoil 2.0

Jesse - wow, that is really funny. I don't know that I've ever been 100% incorrect before. Glad you have an open mind on this topic. - Dave Hodson

LogEx, you were given the opportunity to opt out of connections. If you don't like it, kill it. - Jesse Stay

Right, delete large sections of profile because FB no longer allows you to share them privately. That sounds like a great feature. - Tinfoil 2.0

Dave, you're not listening to me - your information has pretty much always been available as public. When did you first create your Facebook account? - Jesse Stay

Name and Networks have historically been the only things public. - Tinfoil 2.0

LogEx, then delete your Facebook profile if you don't like that. You have plenty of choice. Nothing is being taken away from you. - Jesse Stay

LogEx, you are correct. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, that's what you don't get. The point is that FB has been steadily removing choices. - Tinfoil 2.0

Jesse - I'm listening, I'm just 100% incorrect - Dave Hodson

Dave, exactly - Jesse Stay

Delete your profile = choice? - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, yup, that's still choice if you're offended by that little information being shared about you. Are you really *that* reliant on Facebook? - Jesse Stay

FB has become so so insistent at removing choices at the privacy end of the spectrum while boosting choices at the publicity end. To deny that people have at least as much need of privacy as they do of publicity is naive and dangerous. - Tinfoil 2.0

These things are tools - if they're not useful any more, don't use them. - Jesse Stay

LogEx, "*so* insistent" - 2 times in the last 3 years? - Jesse Stay

Sorry, my cut-and-paste typo. - Tinfoil 2.0

We know what you're saying, Jesse. Thanks for representing. And actually, am about to find out how dependent I am/was -- interested to see. - Christopher Galtenberg

Everyone knows the CIA has been behind FB from day one, zuck is just the faceman. - Geoff Schultz {TF}

The more you apologize for what everyone is trying to tell you is wrong, the more guilty you look. Stop apologizing for Facebook, Jesse. People shared who their real friends were, using their real names, and even tagged pictures of their kids, because they were told it would be safe and private. Now that hundreds of millions of people are locked in, Facebook is forcing its "privacy doesn't exist" model on them. It's fucked up and you know it. - Mr. Gunn

I don't have a problem with the changes in privacy settings (and I'm a lot more paranoid about privacy then Paul is). I DO care about the "pre-approved data sharing" though. I don't want CNN to be able to link the stories I read with my real name because I'm concerned about the potential to link me-as-a-real-person to a profile based on news stories I read. - Nick Lothian

One might be quite happy to walk down the beach with a wife or daughter, knowing that a handful of people might be looking at them lasciviously. Having someone collect pictures of them and a lot of private data under the false pretence of privacy and trust and then start sharing them around is a different thing entirely. The word pimp springs to mind. IMHO of course. - Jan Simmonds

+1 Mr. Gunn. Wow, quite the conversation while I was gone. I agree with @Zee much further up: I miss the old Friendfeed conversation days...FF was never the same after the buy-out shock. "Damn you Zuckerberg for siphoning off the FF team to slave away in the FB salt mines"... - Alex Schleber

See also: Facebook’s Paul Buchheit ***justifies*** increasing openness, less privacy http://social.venturebeat.com/2010... - Alex Schleber

Paul, For starters - both FriendFeed and Twitter have not changed their privacy policy as frequently and as ominously as Facebook has. :( And, I DON'T WANT ALL OF MY FRIENDS TO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING ON THE WEB - GOD DAMN IT. :) - Space Cowboy

Alex, you have an incredible talent for spinning context and slicing and dicing a conversation to *amplify* your point of view. Did you read the post you linked to? It says the exact same thing as the one Paul linked to above.. and there was no justification, just Paul's reasons for opening up his settings. I'm sure he's quite comfortable given his friendfeed history, it doesn't mean you or anyone else has to be!! - Chris Myles

I watch "best of day" emails from FriendFeed every day and this is the first one that got me excited about coming into FriendFeed for more than the past month. Is FriendFeed coming back? This thread shows it has the potential to. - Robert Scoble

Robert, While you're here.. what are your thoughts? - Chris Myles

People realizing that FB is basically a public network now should actually consider the best open public sharing network: this one. - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, there is *nothing* better than friendfeed (for me). - Chris Myles

Agreed - feels like a secret that people are yet to wake up to - almost everything good you want to do on the web you can do here (share, save, learn, filter, search, group, like, nudge, chat, dialogue) - Christopher Galtenberg

I even use private groups with *great* success! - Chris Myles

The real issue here, is that it's only us geeks that know there's a real facebook privacy issue OR give a shit. Most "normal" people have no idea their "private" info is wide open or that Zuck's constantly changing the rules of the game. That said, no one's forced to use FB. BTW: I'm 99.9% certain Zuck's gonna get away with this bait & switch bullshit. - Jim Connolly

Oh - and Friendfeed is MASSIVELY better than Facebook. - Jim Connolly

Been on-line since 1989, for someone who wants your information, there is no such thing as private information in a community environment. - Justin Hitt

1UP Jim. - Derrick

Chris, 1) of course I read the post I linked to, and apparently VentureBeat came away with a similar impression, that Paul's forays on this stuff have a tinge of "justifying." Look, it's OK, in the end FB can & will do whatever it wants, it's just that this strange "what privacy issues?" sermonizing is giving me the willies. Too much FB kool-aid already. And there seem to be a lot of other people on this thread who have similar feelings. - Alex Schleber

Justin, there's no such thing as an unstealable car either, but that doesn't invalidate the purpose of door locks. - Micah

... 2) I whole-heartedly agree that FF still rules, even though there has been no development in nearly a year, which is shocking if you think about it. I really wish FB hadn't bought these guys out, they could have done much better work here FASTER. Hey, money is money. After the buy-out, things went all emo on here though...so it hadn't been particularly useful for tech discussions. Nothing wrong with how the remaining folks use it, but that had never been my use case. - Alex Schleber

3) I am very happy to see that despite out differences, we can all still agree on Friendfeed being a superior solution. It's a shame that Google hasn't done a better job with Buzz (why is frankly beyond me), they could have done a FF++ and things would have been gravy... - Alex Schleber

4) BTW Scoble seems to be of two minds about it, he knows what FB is up to (and has argued that pretty much nothing can be done about it anymore), but also likes spying on other people's musical tastes on Pandora, etc. :) He gets "great value from that"... - Alex Schleber

Robert Scoble: FriendFeed is growing slowly. It's not a big-audience site like you're looking for, but it's still a place for great discussions. - Bruce Lewis

Bruce, that may be true but Robert's stated time and time again that he prefers tech-oriented discussions over anything else. Once he couldn't successfully get tech people to commit to FriendFeed, he wandered back to Twitter... or was it Buzz? Maybe it was Facebook. I can't remember. - Akiva

Don't you mean: FF is slowly returning to what it used to be. - Roberto Bonini

And honestly, I'm mostly with him on that. I miss the early days of FriendFeed when it was 80% tech and 20% LOLcats. Now it's 80% drama and 20% LOLcats. - Akiva

The only thing I dislike about Facebook's changes is that they made Friends and Pages public information. When they did that, I had to go and remove about 30% of my Friends and almost all of my Pages. It was quite annoying and I found that I used Facebook much less afterwards, since it was no longer a safe place to communicate with people. But if that's what Zuck wants, so be it. I'll just not use it as much. - Otto

Akiva: And 72% statistics that are made up on the spot (18.15573% of which are unnecessarily precise). - Stephen Mack from iPhone

LOLs @Stephen. In this debate, statistics mean very little. - Roberto Bonini

At the moment, I really only use FB to a) share web links and things with friends, b) promote my own stuff via Pages and subscribers, and c) party/event tracking. I've blocked all the crappy game things long ago, so those don't bother me so much. Realistically, Facebook is only really useful to me as a venue for people to follow my own feeds (via the Like Pages mechanism). I have 400 odd followers that way. Facebook has become a feed-reader. - Otto

Akiva, if you're seeing too much drama, you're too hesitant to click Hide. - Bruce Lewis

Some REAL good points being made here! - Jim Connolly

Bruce, to know which threads need hiding, I have to see them first. - Akiva

There aren't enough drama posts to make anyone's feed 80% drama by virtue of seeing them once. The only way to have an 80% drama experience here is to let them keep popping back up. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Oh. You took my percentages seriously. Probably not a good idea. - Akiva

Joking is fine. I just want to make sure people reading this thread understand that you can get whatever flavor of conversation you want out of FriendFeed, percentage-wise. Absolute quantities are limited, but that can be a good thing. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Bruce, you're being Apple to Akiva's DeGeneres. :) - Micah

Micah, that's cool! Tomorrow Akiva is going to get on his show, apologize, and talk at length about what a fan he is of me and things I make. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Then you both win. - Micah

Can I high-five Akiva now, or do I have to act mad until after the apology? - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Robert, I haven't had to mute a thread in a long time - maybe you're right ;-) - Jesse Stay

I have no clue what you people are talking about any longer. - Akiva

me neither Akiva - i just came to post that "i saved a ton of money by switch my car insurance to Geico" ;) (not really, they stink) - Jeff (Team マクダジ )

Akiva, Micah was saying that I took your joke too seriously the way Apple took a DeGeneres joke too seriously. It was a nice way to ask me to lighten up. I complied by jokingly taking his analogy too far. Of course, explaining all this makes the joke 80% less effective. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Ah. But it makes me 20% less clueless now. - Akiva

Pay attention. We are talking about BBQ. OMGWTFBBQ. - Laura Norvig

You took his what seriously on the *internet*? - Christopher Galtenberg

For all of you self righteous privacy advocates out there, nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use Facebook! In case you all are not aware, you can choose what info to include in your profile, nobody is forcing you to enter your phone #, etc... You can even use a fake name if you'd like. You can choose what people can see what info, the tools are there to setup your account pretty much any way they want to - Brian from FFHound!

"self righteous privacy advocates" - you couldn't be more illuminating, Brian - Christopher Galtenberg

disrepute and shifty ethics: the FF/FB model of selling out & "professionalism"; this can surely be just more lip service "From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn... - sofarsoShawn <right here>

Paul Buchheit

Tilapia (delicious), lamb meat balls, chicken - http://100meals.posterous.com/tilapia...

March 1, 2010 from 100 meals - Comment - Like - Share

Nathan Snyder, April Buchheit and Ian May liked this

Tilapia's great. We probably eat more tilapia than we do all other fish combined. Salmon excluded, of course. - Akiva

Yeah, it really was surprisingly good. Here's the full menu: http://www.facebook.com/Faceboo... - Paul Buchheit

That Tilapia was out of the charts good; a bit salty. - Ashwin Bharambe

Joe Hewitt

Consider me skeptical about the experience of using Adobe Air-built magazines on an iPad http://www.wired.com/epicent...

February 16, 2010 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Cliff Gerrish liked this

Curious to know why... - Ashwin Bharambe

Yeah, me too. The demo looked pretty damn slick. - aldenoneil

Why? Because Adobe Air apps are so terrible on Mac OS X. Adobe platforms have always completely ignored native OS conventions, so I would expect them to blow off the iPad conventions as well. - Joe Hewitt

bob

nice

January 27, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

April Buchheit, Jérôme, Stephen Mack and 18 other people liked this

Yeah, it's an incredibly beautiful place. - Amit Patel

4 more comments

Sure is.. Am I the only one who wants to know where that was taken? I'd guess Canada or Alaska. - Chris Myles

For a moment, I thought that was a painting. :) - Space Cowboy

Looks like the Canadian rockies... - Eric Borisch

Yah, Lake Louise? - Ashwin Bharambe

For sure, Lake Louise. - jeff hammond

Paul Buchheit

It's kind of awesome to see a big company make such a confrontational statement. It seems like a big risk -- I wonder if there's something I'm missing? http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010...

January 12, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

chaz2b, Paul Papadimitriou, Tardid and 100 other people liked this

That was one of my thought exactly (the first part). - Micah

49 more comments

Paul, did you propose the "Don't be evil" motto in Google? - @zaps

I think maybe if they're popular enough they can get China to change some policy. Of course, it's probably going to end up like Tianamen Square, where the whole world thinks it's great but nobody in China is ever allowed to hear about it and nothing changes. - Gabe

I suspect Google have been waiting for this expected 'opportunity' to arise so that they have a legitimate (political) reason to drop the search result filtering. - zeroinfluencer

Sadly, I agree with Gabe - I think they'll go down in a blaze of glory. I hope I'm wrong. - Nick Lothian

The loss is more future potential than current. Baidu has something like 77% marketshare, but handing them a virtual monopoly at this point will be even more difficult to unseat in the future. Lotsa cost, worry over security/IP issues, and little benefit at the current time. I feel sad that Google might have to abandon China, but they're not making headway in marketshare, have... more... - Ray Cromwell

What if this was the plan all along? Increase market share as much as possible then stop censoring results? Getting shut out of China achieves nothing if the Chinese people don't know you exist, but getting shut out when you have 200 million users increases the likelihood of affecting change. - Kevin Fox

Awesome to see the inventor of "do no evil" say that, too :-) - Jesse Stay

Nope but this rocks - my love hate relationship with google swapped over to love today. - Dan owns Comicsforge.com

Google's at 17% or so in China - that's a lot of share to give away (although apparently Yahoo disagrees, but anyway). I suspect a lot of Chinese students who leave China to study won't be using Gmail as their default email address anymore (given that they won't have access when they go home) - Nick Lothian

17% market share in China represents more people than 100% market share in Germany, France and Spain combined. - Kevin Fox

I think there's a lot we're missing. Stop swooning and start thinking. The justification starts with a review of a cyber attack. Presume that is *maybe* the starting point. Possibly Google has infrastructure built in cooperation with the Chinese government that exposes Google to too much risk. Possibly Google _can't_ run the search service they've promised the Chinese government (either... more... - Christopher Galtenberg

Rather than discuss motives, let's discuss/predict the government response. One thing's for sure, they won't just let Google get its away. If the government is afraid of individuals defying it, and religious organizations, how do you think they're going to feel about a foreign company essentially saying <Eric Cartman voice> "I do what a want!". In fact, I fear for the employees of the... more... - Ray Cromwell

Good point Ray. I wonder if Google also cut off their China office from the internal network in order to prevent that? - Paul Buchheit

I'd be more worried about the soldiers showing up at the door of the Google China office with AK-47s. - Gabe

A country of well over a billion people is not something you want to mess with. Especially in the stance of Google. Googles search business relies solely on numbers. Cutting those people off is a huge gamble. But Google has some crazy stones to do it. - Hunter Clarke

Wow. I hope Google stands firm! - Jay

@Ray - yes, I'd be worried about Chinese Google employees. If you followed the China/Rio Tinto story at all (http://www.nytimes.com/2009...) then you can see a precedent. - Nick Lothian

I predict the government will launch a character assassination campaign and drum up nationalist fervor in the media. The government has already been unduly helping Baidu (probably People's Liberation Army owns shares), and I have a feeling we'll see stories like "Google uses human rights excuse to quit China because pure Chinese company Baidu is beating them badly" or some such. This... more... - Ray Cromwell

I think what matters today is not speculation about the Chinese gov't response, but how this should be responsibly reported. I hate how we collectively get lost in ooh-aah stuff. - Christopher Galtenberg

I remember reading an Op-ed in a German newspaper over the holidays that argued it was high time to show some backbone vis-a-vis China. On all levels. Not saber-rattling, but backbone. As in: We don't care if it costs us some money. The opposite of what short-term profit motivation has done over the last 15 or so years: Hand them the keys to everything, nearly uncontested...I applaud Google showing some backbone. Maybe this can become a trend. - Alex Schleber

Christopher, at this point, there's not much to report except quote Google's blog post, which is what most outfits are doing. Until someone interviews Google and representatives of the Chinese government, we're in an information vacuum. - Ray Cromwell

Christopher: Fair and Balanced, huh? - Ashwin Bharambe

@Christopher - only approved media outlets are allowed to speculate on the Chinese gov't response or something? The people in this thread know as much (or more) than the media do, so I prefer to hear their opinions. - Nick Lothian

Since we are speculating - I wonder what kind of attack gets access to the subject line of emails but not the contents? - Nick Lothian

Gee guys, overreact away. And I think we should be the ones thinking and writing/reporting, if you read... never mind. - Christopher Galtenberg

I'm not sure worrying about a government crack down is overreacting. I think it's legitimate and prudent to speculate that's going to happen. For some people, this might even have practical fallout: friends or family members working in Google China offices. - Ray Cromwell

Most Chinese repression is happening under the radar, and that's by design. They act like a secretive mega-corporation... they won't do something if it lands them on the front page of the NYT (hurting their bottom line). So consider what they could do that wouldn't really attract attention (because we wouldn't normally focus on it). Most certainly they won't do anything until this story slips out of our attention (36 hours, 30 days, 6 months from now -- it's up to us). - Christopher Galtenberg

Some are reporting that Google sites in China are now blocked. I generally believe they are getting more sophisticated at this, but recall that they cracked down hard on Tibet during the Olympics which was still covered by the media. - Ray Cromwell

Ironic Google recommends everyone putting antivirus products on their computers to defend against these attacks. Not sure about McAfee, but Symantec develops most of its products in China now... Hard pressed to find a bigger security risk than developing security software offshore in a sometimes hostile country. - Ed Millard

MSE FTW :) - LANjackal from IM

Pretty sure Microsoft also has a large development operation in China now, though not sure which products. - Ed Millard

http://www.infowar-monitor.net/2009... is a fairly detailed report on "Targeted Malware Attack on Foreign Correspondents based in China" by Nart Villeneuve (who was linked to in Google's blog post). In that case the malware was only detected by 3/41 tested anti-virus products. - Nick Lothian

"Moreover, the attacker(s)' IP addresses.. trace back.. to Hainan Island, home of the Lingshui signals intelligence facility and the Third Technical Department of the People's Liberation Army", pg 48, http://www.scribd.com/doc... - Nick Lothian

think some information is better than none to the chinese. I am concerned with China getting away with limiting information to its people, now that Google wont be able to offer not even filtered data. Really, communist regimes feed off isolating the population from world information. Information is a weapon, and they know it. In Cuba for instance, the government has succeed limiting the... more... - Adelein Ro

+1 Nick, interesting article and interesting website. - Ed Millard

I think Google is truly pissed off at some things the Chinese government did. - Mike Cassidy

I applaude Google's move. However, while I do not like conspiracy theories, I'm suggesting one now. I do not think Google could have made such a bold move without at least consulting US government. What if a hidden agenda of this move is to provoke Chinese government retaliation and is a pretext for a full blown trade war? - ✔ ǝuǝƃnǝ

But why would the government want a trade war? Most of Obama's economics believe that resorting to protectionism/beggar-thy-neighbor policies will just repeat the mistakes of the Great Depression. If anything, given the world economy, most countries want to prevent a tit-for-tat trade war. - Ray Cromwell

It is rarely disputed that protectionism prolonged the Great Depression and yes, apparently Obama's economic team supports this view. But some view it as survivalism, not protectionism. For instance, tariff on tires from China was imposed in September 2009. With 7M jobs lost and no clear way to bring them back, "not made in China" is quite easy populistic approach. With that said, I do not want to steer this thread into the realm of politics and economics. - ✔ ǝuǝƃnǝ

The US can't afford a trade war with China (neither can China, but that's not the point). But I do think the US government wouldn't mind too much if China got the message that their hacking activities are going too far and are too widespread to be accepted any longer. - Nick Lothian

I suspect that if Google were to embargo China it will be as useful as the US embargo of Cuba. - Gabe

wonder how many _more_ Russian hackers will be necessary to include Russia to same list? - Отборнейший бред

outside Google China HQ: http://ss9.sinaimg.cn/bmiddle... - quote on the label: "Google, real man!" - Ray(http://sangu.me)

. - ★ Soner Gönül

ǝuǝƃnǝ: I think you're really onto something there. I'm more of a mind to think that the US government was very involved in this decision, and may have provided intel to Google. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

in response to Ray Cromwell, I almost agreed with you but then you do realize that 33 percent of a $12 trillion economy is kind of a legitimate reason to stay in business there, and reason to drwarf any other considerations from a business standpoint. The pr they will get will do nothing to diminish the profits lost from this decision. None the less, google has costs to spare... more... - Rajesh

Rob: I'm more of a mind to think that Google has provided intel to the US government :) - Tudor Bosman

Good point Tudor. I'm sure since the initial discovery it's gone both ways. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

China just passed a huge tort reform law. Might have something to do with it. - Donald C. Lindsay

I am not surprised tough, this is the road to which Yahoo, Flickr, and Youtube has been already down - Tardid

Arvind Narayanan

Arvind is glad Facebook lets you filter out Twitter! Now he doesn't have to use the hide button on everyone who spams Facebook with their tweets.

January 12, 2010 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Ah good, I need to do that too. I hate the friggin' @ and RT nonsense - Ashwin Bharambe

Neha Narula

RT @bradfordcross: Attacking Jeff & Sanjay = unwise: "MapReduce: A Flexible Data Processing Tool" http://cacm.acm.org/magazin... (via @matt_massie)

December 28, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Deepak Singh, Daniel Dulitz, Vishy and 5 other people liked this

I kind of wondered about that at the time -- there were some pretty silly assumptions in the original paper that violated the "assume the designers of the system you're attacking wouldn't do incredibly stupid things" principle. - Joel Webber

10 more comments

Well, the authors of the original paper were mostly looking at commercial database systems, so that principle might not apply. - Jim Norris

Fair point, Jim :) Although one of the authors is apparently involved in a company *making* a commercial database, so I guess that implies that he assumes himself to be unreasonable? - Joel Webber

what original paper are you guys talking about? the original map reduce paper? - Neha Narula

I thought this was it - but now i get a 404. http://databasecolumn.vertica.com/2008... - kartik vaithyanathan

http://databasecolumn.vertica.com/databas... - kartik vaithyanathan

oh, the blog post. stonebraker is very entertaining :) i think that whole back-and-forth was a confusion over what the goals of map reduce are, and how they differ from the goals and uses of RDBMSs. - Neha Narula

I think there's just some confusion over how much RDBMSs suck when you want to do something innovative. They want to control everything, and so of course you can say that that black box "could" be better than MapReduce in some theoretical way, but MapReduce scales from both a data and an engineering standpoint in ways that cause the more intricate and complex foundations of RDBMSs to collapse and beg for mercy. - Jim Norris

that's because traditional RDBMSs do waaay more. Like joins. and most of SQL. I think old-school db researchers get annoyed because they thought map-reduce like things way back in the 80s, but didn't build them out, and forged ahead to make what you describe as these black boxes instead. - Neha Narula

Neha, that's fair. What's not is attacking new systems (with pseudo ad-hominems to boot) without putting enough of an effort to understand why they might be useful - perhaps in under different environments than what the old systems were suitable for. - Ashwin Bharambe

What seems strange to me is that, given how hard you have to squint to make an analysis tool like MR look like a database, that they would bother to attack it at all. Unless they truly believe that data should only ever be analyzed in an RDBMS, which is a pretty absurd stance to take. - Joel Webber from BuddyFeed

That's why I say the conflict is really confusion over goals. I definitely have heard people talk about Hadoop replacing RDBMSs, and I'm not even sure what that means. They are two very different tools. I think the authors of the blog post were starting from the premise that people thought that map reduce could *replace* a traditional RDBMS, and they were pointing out why it couldn't.... more... - Neha Narula

Rich Skrenta

can't believe how naive the comments are to @cdixon on http://cdixon.org/2009... - chris totally nailed it IMO

December 22, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Louis Gray and Michael R. Bernstein liked this

I think the Hacker News comments are quite good: http://news.ycombinator.com/item... Agree/disagree? - Matt Cutts

12 more comments

@Matt, its time for google to open source their Ranking Algo's or maybe get bit more transparency - Peter Dawson

I doubt that open sourcing the algorithms would help spammers as much as people think. It would mainly help Microsoft, which is why Google won't ever do it. I don't see anything wrong with that though -- companies don't have to open source everything. Opening up your competitor's value is a great competitive dynamic though :). Maybe Yahoo can open source all of their search stuff. - Paul Buchheit

open sourcing PageRank would only help anyone with a copy of the internet + 1000s of MapReduce boxes - Kevin Marks

I think there would be some academic interest in it Kevin. - Paul Buchheit

Kevin, why assume that the ranking algorithm is only useful for whole-web ranking? That's like assuming that various NOSQL DBs are only useful if you are running the largest web services. - Michael R. Bernstein

Funny how some people are using "PageRank" as a shorthand for Google's ranking algorithms. Here's the PageRank paper http://scholar.google.com/scholar... and here's Michael Nielsen's blogpost about using MapReduce to compute PageRank http://michaelnielsen.org/blog... PageRank has inspired much academic research, including e.g. Rada Mihalcea's TextRank http://lit.csci.unt.edu/index... among many others. - Ruchira S. Datta

What I'd truly like Google to open-source is their *implementation* of GFS / BigTable / Chubby and such :P All of that distributed systems stack is one of GOOG's major competitive advantages. - Ashwin Bharambe

Agreed (and many of the HN comments aren't much better). Lots of people seem to be reading the post as "Google should make everything open", when what it says is (roughly) "People at Google shouldn't brag about being open when they're not" and "Google's open when it suits them as business strategy, and closed when it's not". Obviously, those are very different things. I'm guessing the... more... - Michael Nielsen

I call BS. So any company that works hard to support open systems, contribute (a *lot*) wherever feasible, to keep user data from being trapped, to be transparent in its use of personal data, but fails to open source a couple of core technologies... is being hypocritical and should never talk about the things it *does* do to support openness? That's just absurd on its face. - Joel Webber

And I just have to add that the "security through obscurity" analogy is complete garbage. I keep seeing it popping up with respect to this subject by wannabe security dorks who obviously don't understand what it means. Google's ranking algorithms are simply not analogous to the kinds of security problems that phrase is meant to address. - Joel Webber

My vote is for opening Seti :) - Paul Buchheit

Security through obscurity is often over applied. It makes sense in protocol designs, or getting eyeballs on code, but spam filters and ranking algorithms are not security protocols, and knowledge of them influences public behavior. Like tests for school children, complete foreknowledge of the test itself can distort the behavior of people by making them optimize their knowledge for the... more... - Ray Cromwell

Paul, that would be way cool. :) - Ruchira S. Datta

Jim Norris

frak you Comcast^H^H^H^H^H^H^HNetGear

Screen shot 2009-12-03 at 11.31.02 PM.png

December 4, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

imabonehead, Otto, roberto and 9 other people liked this

Works for me (also on Comcast in Mountain View), although I wouldn't put it beneath them to block port-53 traffic to 8.8.8.8. - Tudor Bosman

27 more comments

Is the font Inconsolata? - Tudor Bosman

Yup. - Jim Norris

DISLIKE - Ashwin Bharambe

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 55.358/60.330/66.758/4.711 ms - Ozgur Demir

I'd go with a temporary blip before accusing them of blocking traffic. - Tudor Bosman

Well, if this wasn't happening every night I would too. - Jim Norris

Tudor, is there any way you could tell if it's really reaching 8.8.8.8? - Jim Norris

I thought 8.8.8.8 only launched today; had you been using it for a while? - Tudor Bosman

"nslookup google.com 8.8.8.8" on Windows says that the response comes from "Server: any-in-0808.1e100.net / Address: 8.8.8.8" - Tudor Bosman

Are you behind a hardware firewall / router? Can you access other DNS servers directly? Is your current DNS server Comcast's, or the IP address of your router? - Tudor Bosman

I've been trying it previously with opendns and 4.2.2.1. Current DNS is 8.8.8.8. - Jim Norris

Comcast in Sunnyvale: 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=243 time=54.768 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=243 time=57.743 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=243 time=58.661 ms (round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 54.507/56.512/58.760/1.701 ms ) - Louis Gray

If you can't access any other DNS servers, I suspect that the problem is at your end (your router / cable modem blocking port 53 access). I bought my own cable modem; are you renting one from Comcast? - Tudor Bosman

Most cable modems have a configuration page at http://192.168.100.1/ - Tudor Bosman

Yeah, it could be my stupid router. - Jim Norris

WHOA. - Jim Norris

Tudor, I've never seen that before. Nice. - Louis Gray

Do you know of a decent non-crappy wireless router? Anyone? - Jim Norris

WRT600N (Edit: now called WRT610N. http://www.amazon.com/Linksys...) I have the WRT600N and I'm happy with it. - Tudor Bosman

I hope you posted a link to your amazon affiliate Tudor =) - Jim Norris

Nope, I never bothered to set up an affiliate account =) - Tudor Bosman

(Side note: I had the comp open and Matthew clicked share on this item, added the letter H and posted it to my feed. Nice to have the F-bomb on FriendFeed, Twitter and FB with one click.) Delete/Delete/Delete - Louis Gray

Louis, I was just about to chide you about the reshare :) Not because of the F-bomb, but because I thought you reshared the "Comcast blocks 8.8.8.8" story before waiting to see whether it's true or not. Now I only have to chide Mona :) - Tudor Bosman

I was wondering about that Louis! - Jim Norris

It was bound to happen. Might as well be after midnight with you guys! :) - Louis Gray

So, what's the verdict? bad router? - Tudor Bosman

Might be flaky router, might be flaky connection, definitely flaky user. - Jim Norris

Thanks for reccomending that router Tudor. I'm ordering a new router today. My current one is riddiculously flaky. Needs a reboot about once a day. - Roberto Bonini

Kevin Fox

Don't berate someone in 140 chars unless you're willing to write 14,000 more later on to back it up.

November 12, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Vezquex, Kol Tregaskes, Vinay | विनय and 11 other people liked this

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'll have more to say on this later. - Jim Norris

2 more comments

we have a comedian here with us. :) - Jim the Blatant

+100 Jim - Ashwin Bharambe

What an awful excuse for a joke, Jim Norris. If I had a nickel for every time Candleja-- - Vezquex

Bret Taylor

Google Chart API can generate LaTeX equations - http://moultano.blogspot.com/2009...

November 9, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Aditya Sengupta, Adriano, katherin Muñoz gonzabay and 50 other people liked this

love! - Ashwin Bharambe

6 more comments

Quite useful for some. :) - Daniel Schildt

Yay! - Simon

Am I the only person who absolutely despises Knuth's "Computer Modern" font? I don't know what it is about it, but it just looks awful to me. And I'm one of those people who used TeX for everything including drawing finite automata and analytic tableaux back in college. - Jim Norris

I'm with you, Jim. That's why, following the book _TeX Unbound_, I used other fonts in my LaTeXed thesis. From the colophon: "I used mathinst to make a mathematical font family of Monotype Bembo Semibold (from Agfa-Monotype), MathTime (from Y&Y), Chantilly (from Softmaker, similar to Gill Sans), Typewriter (from the Electronic Font Foundry), and a few others, with which I typeset this dissertation." - Ruchira S. Datta

I always had \usepackage{times} in my LaTeX documents. - Tudor Bosman

Times is almost as bad though. At one point I figured out how to use Adobe Garamond, but it was kind of flaky. - Jim Norris

I didn't like Computer Modern or Times. I used Century Schoolbook for my stuff, I think (\usepackage{newcent}). - Amit Patel

Paul Buchheit

Almost nobody understood my earlier webapp idea, so I'll try again. Imagine you were looking at a website such as FriendFeed and you wanted to create a near pixel-perfect copy but in a way that you could move things around, adjust shadows, etc. I want a tool that makes that easy.

September 5, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Meryn Stol, Charles Ying, Morton Fox and 26 other people liked this

And without taking screenshots or copying the html, since the point is that it should have the power to quickly create something that looks just like our current ui. Also, it should be web based, because then fonts, etc will be right, and also I hate installing things. My previous attempt at explaining this: http://friendfeed.com/e... (Balsamiq is not what I want). It does not need to produce html though, so it can cheat anyway it likes. - Paul Buchheit

29 more comments

So you wanna something like "html to png/psd"? Editable graphical interface with layers and stuff? - Selim Yoruk

No, not at all. My point is that you could look at the the FriendFeed ui (with your eyes) and then create something that looked just like it. - Paul Buchheit

Fireworks is pixel perfect, correct font sizes and previews image in browser. Yes/No? - Toby Graham

Are you looking for something like what is mentioned in this article - http://www.labnol.org/interne... - Atul Arora

Are you want something like web-based rich page editor which works with objects in manner the human see them and want change them? - казахская девочка

I guess it's difficult to explain something that doesn't exist :( - Paul Buchheit

thats piracy!!! - Arjun

Paul, I like the idea, it's got merit. There's plenty of tools that do half the job, that is, snip the page. The second part, i'm not overly familiar with the tools out there. The manipulation. I guess you could snip the page, and embed into your tool a js library, like scriptaculous, and attach special event significance to the controls/tags, for moving, dropping, dragging. - Stu Andrews

I think I get what you mean now and I agree. That's not very helpful but hey. In the mean time you could edit the page live using firebug maybe? - Toby Graham

It seems to me like you want the Visual Studio Win Forms designer for web apps hosted and served to designers as a web app. Drag and drop elements onto the page and adjust their properties in a property grid. Then send a link to others so you can share your concept. - Eric Schoonover

For this, I use simple vector graphics editing app, like Xara or InkScape - I just make screenshots and use them as raw building blocks - usually I cut out from them small elements like controls/text-blocks/images/etc... In vector graphics enironment managing such kind of blocks is much more easier than in photoshop. - Phil Smirnov

remembers that this idea has been described by David Siegel in 1997 in his book : Creating Killer Web Sites (http://tinyurl.com/5skw63) - Oaksun

Paul, i think the edit-page command on ubiquity with the ability to: visually edit css and publish the changes is close to what you are describing. - Ian

Eric pretty much nailed the description of the dream tool that I think Paul was asking for. In my dream the web app is truly collaborative and has an active GUI. So you can adjust those properties using a mouse or tablet and anyone else on your design team can watch as you do it so they can make suggestions and modifications as you work. - David Muir

Let's say you want to make a mockup of FriendFeed called "FriendFood". You want it to generally have the same layout, only the top blue bar will actually have a background made of lasagna and a font that is made of French fries, and what shows on the page is everything people write about food on the regular FF, like "pasta OR bean OR potato OR steak". But you'd like someone to be able to do that from the web and without messing into much coding. Is that it? - Rodrigo Jaroszewski

http://blogoscoped.com/video... - Philipp Lenssen

I use OmniGraffle for this purpose. - Jason Wehmhoener

Could you achieve it by using Firebug and tweaking the CSS? - Shakeel Mahate

So something with the usability of say, omnigraffle, but that only used webkit for its rendering. With text controlled and positioned by actual css so that line spacing etc were correct, although again with a simpler UI than CSS has. - Robin Barooah

Paul - I _just_ came across a site that did exactly that. Unfortunately, Safari's browser history is failing me and I can't find it anymore. Doh! - Patrick Lightbody

Paul, not sure if you're still reading, but are you looking for interaction design changes as well, or just appearance? - Mark Trapp

Did you try "PENCIL" an add-on for Firefox http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/ - Francois Lamotte

I had never heard of Pencil, but it sure looks a lot like what I think Paul is describing. - Jason Wehmhoener

I use ScrapBook Firefox extension to capture the page as is, and then edit that using Firebug. - Jughead

Thanks @Francois. Pencil looks quite promising... - Ashwin Bharambe

Firefox Webchunks? Does only the snipping part though. Perhaps an add-on to webchunks that will let us use all those chunks together. - Vamsee

it'd be kind of like pushing edit on a wiki, right. like, firefox would have an edit button then you could visually redo the page - Coleman Foley

There's also Axure RP, something I found a while ago. http://www.google.com/search... - jho

Dosen't ASP.Net do that already??? - Roberto Bonini

One quick tip in Photoshop is to turn off anti-aliasing and use your various web fonts (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, etc.) and use your preferred font size in pixels/points... This will provide you with screen accurate font appearances and sizes. The biggest problem with a "pixel-perfect" browser rendering is that it will never be consistent from browser to browser. They all render ever... more... - Nathan Chase

April Buchheit

Russell - http://imgur.com/LogId

October 30, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

rowlikeagirl, Kol Tregaskes, j1m and 10 other people liked this

Is that Facebook? I think I saw him in the cafe. - Paul Buchheit

2 more comments

He has the github cat/octopus on a badge! - Benjamin Golub

Super awesome - niniane

paul: yep, that's frank cho from facebook - Ashwin Bharambe

Joe Hewitt

Embarrassed and ashamed to be an iPhone developer after reading about the Eucalyptus rejection. Feels like I work for the government.

May 21, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Toby Graham, Josh Bancroft and Christoph Studer liked this

What's eucalyptus? - Ashwin Bharambe

4 more comments

http://lmgtfy.com/... :) - Karl Rosaen

haha, i swear i tried. but i just did not try those keywords. on hindsight, that was just dumb of me. thanks, karl! - Ashwin Bharambe

yeah, hope that wasn't too snarky, I was recently lmgtfy'd and can't resist doing it to others now :) - Karl Rosaen

KARL I LOVE YOU, first time i've seen that! - Toby Graham

And Joe is right thats - Toby Graham

Ashwin Bharambe

the { buckblogs :here }: Coming home to Vim - http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008...

May 13, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Textmate style file directory navigation for vim. - Ashwin Bharambe from Bookmarklet

Matthew Maroon

Twitter Quitters Post Roadblock to Long-Term Growth | Nielsen Wire - http://mattmaroon.com/2009...

April 28, 2009 from MattMaroon.com - Comment - Like - Share

How did Nielsen measure this, though? Did they take into account the fact that many users rarely come back to the main Twitter website once they are hooked to the desktop / mobile clients? - Ashwin Bharambe

Benjy Weinberger

Frickin' GNU Emacs. Its explanation for why it doesn't have a horizontal scrollbar is "you don't really want that". This attitude is why GNU/Linux has no traction with consumers.

April 25, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Chris Charabaruk, Akiva, mjc and 6 other people liked this

If someone really wanted it bad enough, there would've been a patch already :) - Victor Ganata

22 more comments

don't be ridiculous -- emacs-type classic unix apps haven't been the face of linux (gnu/ or otherwise) for years now. for example, if you double-click a text file in gnome, you get gedit, which definitely has horizontal scrollbars and looks and feels nothing like emacs (it does sort of resemble notepad or textpad through). emacs is for people who want emacs. - ⓞnor

I remember when that assertion was originally being made. 20 years ago. When the last meaningful emacs product development was being done. The reason why consumers don't like emacs is because emacs' entire history predates consumer computers. - j1m

I would like a horizontal scrollbar in emacs, but not bad enough to write a patch myself. - Bruce Lewis

FWIW, Apple / Steve Jobs has the same exact attitude and yet... - Ashwin Bharambe

If you're missing a feature in proprietary software, all you can really do is whine and hope the vendors listen to you. If you're missing a feature in open source software, you can always code the functionality yourself or hire someone to do it for you. - Victor Ganata

Yes. To continue the analogy, the pieces of software that comes on a modern mac or windows machine are like cars of various sorts -- useful, but hard to modify. Emacs is like a 16th century carriage. Sure, it's deficient in way after way after way after way, but it's open source, so if you're so inclined you can attach different kinds of horses to it, or manufacture your own wheels or axles. - j1m

"you don't really want that" is true, but you have to understand how Emacs works in order to see *WHY*... simply put though, wrapping > scrolling two ways - mjc

You can scroll horizontally in emacs, it's just not with a scroll bar. But what can you really expect from a program that pre-dates the invention of the GUI? - Victor Ganata

Ashwin: Yeah, Jobs and friends have the same attitude, but at the same time they look at things from the user's perspective, not the developer's. That's why their tools suck ass, but mundanes love their crap. - Chris Charabaruk

It's things like this GNU bullcrap that makes me more willing to deal with Apple (despite my undying, extreme hate) than deal with FSF. They're all assholes, but at least Apple isn't so priggish about it. - Chris Charabaruk

But at least with the FSF you could (theoretically) do something about it. With Apple, you're SOL if they don't have a feature you need. - Victor Ganata

Yeah, you can make a fork and try to excise all their horrible decisions made in the name of "purity" from the code. If you have enough time and patience, or enough people to help you out. - Chris Charabaruk

That you can simply take the code and do what you want with it is a myth for all but those who have the resources to actually pull off a fork and maintain it. Otherwise, you might as well be using a Microsoft or Apple product, for all the good the source does you. - Chris Charabaruk

Obviously it requires you to be able to code (or afford to hire someone who can code), but if you have the ability, you don't actually have to fork it. You could always submit your changes and try to get it integrated into the trunk so that you don't have to do any maintenance. - Victor Ganata

But most of the open source software I've used don't even require you to be able to hack the actual source. Most of them are far more customizable than anything proprietary I've ever used, although the customizations are usually more involved than just clicking through some menus. - Victor Ganata

"if you double-click a text file in gnome, you get gedit" - I don't reckon that Linux gets a prize for having features that were available in Windows 15 years ago, particularly not when so many parts of it are still poorly documented and/or provide poor UX and/or smugly require you to adapt to it instead of the other way around. - Benjy Weinberger

mjc: "you don't really want this" is *not* true. It may be that I can get by without horizontal scrollbars, but why should I have to change the habits of 15 years? I don't want wrapping, because it breaks the visual alignment of the file. I want lines to extend beyond the visual boundary and to be able to scroll across them. It seems perfectly reasonable. - Benjy Weinberger

"you can always code the functionality yourself or hire someone to do it for you"... Erm, this, again, is why there is no consumer adoption of this stuff. 99.9% of potential users do not have the capacity to hire someone to program for them, let alone do it themselves. This is a preposterous suggestion. If GNU want to create software to be used only by cognoscenti, fine. But they should stop spouting conspiracy theories about why commercial software dominates. It's pretty clear why... - Benjy Weinberger

benjy, I'm not saying gedit should win any prizes, I'm saying that arguing about the usability of emacs means that you're about 20 years out of touch with where gnu/linux/free desktop software is at. yes, linux on the desktop still faces a lot of challenges, but the usability of emacs is not one of them, because nobody except old school hacker types even runs emacs in the first place. it's seriously like you're stuck in the mid '90s or something. - ⓞnor

seriously, there are a lot of people working hard on desktop usability for linux. they're miles and miles away from the written-by-hackers-for-hackers type of command-line software like emacs and vi and the shell and so on. if you're going to argue about the usability of free software, you should critique what you actually get when you run a modern ubuntu, not what happens when you muck around with archaic editors. what will you do next, criticize windows vista based on running edlin? - ⓞnor

It's true that I am stuck in the mid 90s in many ways, but emacs was merely an example of a mindset that still all-to-often says "If I give you a free box full of parts from which you can build an awesome car, that's superior to selling you a decent car". And if my last Ubuntu experience is anything to go by, you can keep it... - Benjy Weinberger

True, "code it yourself or hire someone to do it" is only realistic for the enterprise, not for individual end-users. But the enterprise seems to be who benefits the most from open source software anyway. That's how IBM, Red Hat, Novell, et al make money from open source: deploying and maintaining open source solutions for the enterprise. Sure, Linux as a consumer-grade has a ways to go, but the end-user is not really who uses it the most. - Victor Ganata

And I don't see how I can get Microsoft or Apple to adapt to my own usage habits. Do you have any tips? - Victor Ganata

Keith Coleman

Official Gmail Blog: Updates to attachments: multi-select and progress bars - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009...

February 26, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Todd Jackson, 老佛徒㊣™ and 40 other people liked this

Attach multiple files at once, and see how fast they're uploading. - Keith Coleman from Bookmarklet

6 more comments

'Bout time!!! (also, awesome!) - Paul Buchheit

yes! finally! yihu! - Eren Emre Kanal

I've already been making heavy use of this as I'm working on a paper and my co-authors and I have been sending lots of files back and forth. It's super-awesome! - Ruchira S. Datta

yeah, this is pretty bad ass. i'm glad we finally shipped this thing. - Dustin

Love it. - Caleb Elston

wait, are linux users not supposed to use this? - Ashwin Bharambe

pretty good news - qian

Ashwin Bharambe

I still think the new default GMail theme is ugly as hell (the BORDER!!) as compared to Classic

February 5, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Buchheit liked this

user testing be damned, somebody has to dictate taste every once in a while! - Ashwin Bharambe

Ashwin Bharambe

Tv's cobweb: Git for Computer Scientists - http://eagain.net/article...

February 1, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Mahesh CR, Robert Felty, Iphigenie and 4 other people liked this

Useful visualizations for git - Ashwin Bharambe from Bookmarklet

April Buchheit

Congratulations, Paul & Jessica!! Welcome to the world, George!

January 24, 2009 from Gmail/Google Talk - Comment - Like - Share

Ethan Herdrick, J.D. Zamfirescu, Robby Walker and 26 other people liked this

Born at 04:44 on Saturday, 1/24. 8lbs. 10oz. - April Buchheit

9 more comments

That's a big baby! - Paul Buchheit

Yeah! That's almost twice Thomas's birth weight and 7lbs. more than Camilla's. - April Buchheit

Congrats! - Daniel Ha

Congratulations, Jessica and Paul! Its a great, fun ride :) - Toby DiPasquale

Yay! Congrats! - Akshay Dodeja

Congratulations! - Gabor Cselle

Congrats!! - Ashwin Bharambe

Congrats!! - Danish Khan

Congratulations! - Paul Bohm

Congrats! - Robby Walker

Ashwin Bharambe

EnigmaCurry » 256 colors on the Linux terminal - http://www.enigmacurry.com/2009...

January 21, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

On your linux desktop, open up your favorite terminal emulator. Enter this command: tput colors What number do you see? 8? 8 stinking colors. That's what my terminal is capable of displaying. It's 2009 folks, and my terminal can only display 8 stinking colors. - Ashwin Bharambe from Bookmarklet

Keith Coleman

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Send & Archive - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009...

January 14, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Adam Kazwell, Igor Poltavskiy, Matt Cutts and 10 other people liked this

Written by our eng manager in Zurich! - Keith Coleman from Bookmarklet

5 more comments

Go Pal! - Arvind Sundararajan

" I'm planning to add undo support" would be awesome (undo the send part, that is :-)) - John Mueller

Next: archive + next :-) - Bay Chang

So cool! - Ashwin Bharambe

Bay, they already added that as [ and ]. I like to see my email after sending it though (don't see the mistakes until after I hit send), so I don't plan to use this new feature :) - Paul Buchheit

Is it called snarkive? - Jim Norris

Ashwin Bharambe › Comments