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Frederick Akalin › Likes
A practical scalable distributed B-tree - http://www.hpl.hp.com/techrep...
Nagender Parimi, binic, Dmitry 'radiant' Volkov and 76 other people liked this
"Moreover, our algorithm is conceptually simple: we use transactions to manipulate B-tree nodes so that clients need not use complicated concurrency and locking protocols used in prior work. To execute these transactions quickly, we rely on three techniques: (1) We use optimistic concurrency control, so that B-tree nodes are not locked during transaction execution, only during commit. This well-known technique works well because B-trees have little contention on update. (2) We replicate inner nodes at clients. These replicas are lazy, and hence lightweight, and they are very helpful to re- duce client-server communication while traversing the B-tree. (3) We replicate version numbers of inner nodes across servers, so that clients can validate their transactions efficiently, without creating bottlenecks at the root node and other upper levels in the tree."
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, I think many of us are going to trust your opinion on this white paper. All Greek to me.
- Jon-Paul Bussoli
All I understand is that it is in my best interests to cheer for the way you access B-tree nodes in order to continue to enjoy friendfeed reliably. Go friendfeed algorithm go!
- Jon-Paul Bussoli
What, no comparison to BigTable?
- ⓞnor
@nor It's really not the same thing, unless somehow you're using a distributed B-tree on hash collision, however, if you're getting that many collisions, then the hash algorithm is probably wrong or your key width is too small. Then again, I really don't know what I'm talking about.
- Eric Florenzano
Curious as to what problem Paul is looking at... My default data toolkit these days would probably include sqlite for in-memory data, sharded bdb's for btrees that are too big for memory, and hbase/hypertable for a distributed store. I wonder where this fits in...
- DeWitt Clinton
Ok this is a really *nerdy* post! :*)
- Susan Beebe
DeWitt, I just thought that it looked like an interesting paper. As for the several solutions you mention, I don't know that any of them have distributed transactions (maybe bdb, but that doesn't really work).
- Paul Buchheit
B-Trees and Prof. Bayer http://wwwbayer.informatik.tu-... - would be interesting to know what he'd say, unfortunately he's retired a few years ago. Used to be fairly approachable in all matters B-Tree.
- Mustafa K. Isik
@DeWitt - no room for a traditional SQL based database except as an in memory database?
- Nick Lothian
we had designed and implemented distributed tree control, but transactions were considered "too much" for near-real-time, and they were already in protocol... the rest you know as xGSN boxes in GPRS/3G/HSDPA - dynamic routing for mobile packet networks. I'd left team in 2003...
- A.T.
@paul - I'll readily admit to being out of my depth, but it depends on what the definition of "distribution transaction" is. With bdb a combination of local transactions and guaranteed consistent replication you can approximate a distributed transaction at the cost of speed. See http://www.oracle.com/technol... and http://www.oracle.com/technol.... But those won't work across bdb shards.
- DeWitt Clinton
@paul - A table-based distributed store can do this via a lock on entity groups, where entity groups are defined by relationship formed by instances of similar models that belong to the same parent-based ancestry chain. This is how App Engine transactions work -- see http://code.google.com/appengi... and http://code.google.com/appengi.... Ping ryan for some background there. Not sure if hbase or hypertable support this via their api.
- DeWitt Clinton
@nlothian - I dunno. Offline maybe?
- DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt: have you ever successfully used BDB with millions of newly written entries and transaction support turned on? We kept getting transaction logs with millions of entries that were never consumed, so restarts would take hours as it replayed the logs. Configuring BDB to work for large databases is insanely esoteric to say the least, and it may be impossible to get it to work acceptably in some cases.
- Bret Taylor
@bret -- no, definitely not with large databases. We used bdb's heavily at my last company, though. Aggressive sharding is the key if you want to support either transactions or replication, which matches intuition about how it is implemented.
- DeWitt Clinton
But your comment about millions of entries makes me wonder about which data is getting written to which place. I suspect a lot of problems like this end up with the bulk of the data being written transactionless + replicated to a table-based store (or a transactionless bdb), and only a small subset of the data gets transaction support. So multiple datastores. But you guys know this better than I do, so why am I rambling? : )
- DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt, you can also look into all the trouble that Gaia had with bdb - I simply wouldn't trust any fancy bdb functionality.
- Paul Buchheit
Also, AppEngine transactions are limited to a single "entity group", which I assume means a single BigTable tablet. Essentially, they solved distributed transactions by not having them -- all transactions must be local to a single tablet. From the docs: "Every entity belongs to an entity group, a set of one or more entities that can be manipulated in a single transaction. Entity group relationships tell App Engine to store several entities in the same part of the distributed network."
- Paul Buchheit
@paul - yup, that's the trade-off. Entity groups ensure locality, locality makes transactions fast(er). Same old lever problem -- speed of consistency vs. scope of the transactions.
- DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt, there's nothing wrong with having local transactions -- I'm just pointing out that they aren't distributed transactions.
- Paul Buchheit
Point taken. I got way off-topic regarding your original post anyway.
- DeWitt Clinton
The design seems reasonable. The only part that is under-specified is the way they switch from a master node to a slave. I'm curious why they don't use transactions to maintain replicas but instead rely on some unspecified master/slave replication scheme.
- Private Sanjeev
WTF is up with these mental defectives who post stock prices and market moves in their feeds? What are you, Bloomberg? You're not useful; you're lame. Exactly what value do you think is being added by such social media diarrhea?
bcultral, Frederick Akalin, Dave Roth and 4 other people liked this
No idea. I don't follow the markets that closely myself.
- Morton Fox
Fools rush in. I have read a dozen such posts over the past month or two, always declaring a bottom, or pumping a stock. People want to be thought of as prescient. I notice you are quick to opine and isn't that part of "liking" and "commenting," oh great arbitrator of cool and lame.
- Phil Boiarski
@Phil: perhaps you might consider actually reading what I wrote? My criticism is directed at people who post blow-by-blow prices and index levels as if they're some kind of tickertape.
- Anthony Citrano
Bacon cheese
Andy Szybalski, Darren Heydon, Frederick Akalin and 6 other people liked this
I accidentally posted this. I was trying to do a search for "bacon cheese", not post it. FF iphone interface needs a delete key and easier access to search!
- Jess Lee
Happy accident! But yes, that particular UI deficiency has been well noted. It does make for some funny accidents though. Thanks!
- Kevin Fox
bacon-flavored cheese >> cheese-flavored bacon
- Darren
Ahh, Starbuck...she ain't happy unless someone's dead.
(jeff)isageek, Bindu Reddy, Frederick Akalin and 6 other people liked this
The woman lives to kill.
- April Buchheit
I never had trouble avoiding spoilers before FriendFeed.
- Seth
The spoilers after the 4.5 season premiere motivated me to get up to speed on BSG. It's just too hard to know some of these things ahead of time.
- Clare Dibble
I still haven't started season 1 but based on various spoilers I've heard over the years I'm assuming that all the humans died out, the cylons felt bad for destroying their creators, and then the cylons became humans in an futile attempt to bring back the human race, so that they can bring back the show, “Single Female Lawyer”.
- Amit Patel
April!!! :) http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Tudor Bosman
How can this be a spoiler? It's just a remark on Starbuck's nature. Geez! I mean seriously, saying that Kara Thrace loves to kill is like saying, oh I don't know, Luke eventually gets better at wielding the lightsaber throughout Star Wars and is no indication of his relationship with Darth Vader...who is his father, by the way. There! In your faces!
- April Buchheit
That's why I don't like to go to Starbucks. I'm always worried one of the employees will try to kill me for being a cylon
- Robert Felty
Holy frak, Rob! You're a cylon?! Does Clare know?
- April Buchheit
YouTube - Lisa Lavie - All I Want For Christmas Is You - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Hendra Saputra and Frederick Akalin liked this
To send this video as a greeting card: http://www.youtube.com/greetin...
- Thai Tran
Jesus, her voice!
- Frederick Akalin
She's better than MC.
- skoskie
Now, if you login to Orkut (I know, why?), the "orkut team" will start chatting with you. I can imagine that it only happens once though.
Hisham Sadek هشام, Joe Dawson, Kyle Bunch and 12 other people liked this
Lol "(I know, why?)"
- EricaJoy
Coz most of my friends are in Orkut and not in facebook or myspace. People anytime than the medium :-)
- Karthick R
If you want to chat with the Orkut team, I would recommend learning Portuguese to be polite
- Joel Webber
Does the Orkut team pass the Turning Test?
- John Lam
My Orkut profile is borked, and Goog didn't help getting it right. They can keep it.
- David Orban
Nope, I've been messing around in there lately, to see differing views for Gadgets, and at least in the sandbox, you see that on each new visit. I say to myself, OK, OK, I'm having fun.
- Amyloo
Generation Faithful - In Booming Gulf, Some Arab Women Find Freedom in the Skies - Series - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
Frederick Akalin and Jess Lee liked this
"Flight attendants have become the public face of the new mobility for some young Arab women, just as they were the face of new freedoms for women in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s."
- Richard Chen
Leaks: Yahoo's secret layoff doublespeak revealed! - http://valleywag.com/5106184...
Frederick Akalin, Kolomeetz, Anne Bouey and 23 other people liked this
You have got to be kidding me!
- Bindu Reddy
from Bookmarklet
There's not a thing wrong with these instructions. Beyond the cheesy "Right Management" HR program, there's no double speak. What's the problem here? Layoffs always suck, but at least Yahoo had the common sense to brief the poor bastards who have to fire the poor bastards being sent home.
- Chris Baskind
It is so impersonal and robotic. I am sure these instructions are designed very carefully, in order for Yahoo to avoid any serious legal consequences. However, it also shows how impersonal it is to work for a large corporation....
- Bindu Reddy
I agree with the impersonal part, and having spent years as a manger during the decline of Clear Channel, I've seen (and done) this sort of thing many times. Then it was my turn. Working in this sort of environment is a two-edged sword.
- Chris Baskind
This is better than a lot of companies where they have security escort you out as soon as they tell you.
- Gabe
There is no good way to deliver bad news.
- David Bisset (sn)
ooof. that's a rough day at the office.
- Alex Gawley
Feeling sad for everyone who is going to do this, both sides.
- susan mernit
What does it mean "impersonal and robotic"? Can you please tell me a much better way to lay off 1500 people? At least, from Yahoo's HR department tried to figure out some kind of policy, not to leave the dirty job on everyone's manager shoulders (experience, judgement)
- Todor
I'm with Todor. As much as this *sucks* for everyone involved, having a script like this is essential to getting through it at all without total chaos, and the chaos would be even worse. My heart goes out to everyone who hears it today. : (
- DeWitt Clinton
Meeting length 15 minutes maximum!
- Tobias Boonstoppel
If someone is managing staff and can't be trusted to handle this conversation without line-by-line coaching, that person is probably in the wrong job. That said. Getting laid-off sucks. So does laying people off.
- Reto Meier
from fftogo
I've met many of managers who needed this sort of guidance. A lot of managers have never had to layoff people before, and if they're any good, they wouldn't have to do too many layoffs in their life, so they wouldn't get a chance to practice. My only layoff in my career was handled quite badly, and the manager could have used this script.
- Piaw Na
I agree with Chris and the like. Firing people is not fun (though I have no personal experience with it). I'm sure that as managers get more experience, they drift away from the scripts, but it is nice to have something to start with.
- Robert Felty
Pretty much the standard template that I've seen since I was "downsizing" in 2001 ... Not fun, but the first time around it was handy to have a script. At the end of the of the E@H debacle there was more humor than seriousness.
- david koblas
I like how one of the tips is to avoid making comments like 'Who knows how long I'll be here."
- Jess Lee
There's just no good way to layoff people. It's a serious failure on behalf of the company. It's traumatic for the people who are let go, and there are no words which will make that better. Swiftness and respect are the only recourse. I'm betting a lot of the people doing the firing today have never been called upon to manage a layoff. They'll need these guidelines, and they won't sleep well tonight.
- Chris Baskind
You mean they are setting up meetings where they are going to be fired by a human? Wow! So much more personal than a form letter tucked in with your paycheck.
- April Russo (app103)
Thank you, Paul, for reading these comments. I have some information regarding our organization that I want to tell you in person.
- Jim Norris
BoA - Eat You Up MV (Cha Ver.) - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Frederick Akalin and AJ Batac liked this
BoA's English debut was so bad. Great dancing but terrible lyrics/music/video.
- Jess Lee
Awwww...I do love BoA though
- Shevonne
she rhymes 'understand' with 'explain'
- Frederick Akalin
she should have chosen a freeform (d&b + trance) producer :P r&b is too crowded
- Chris Hofmann
Linus Torvald's rant against C++ - http://www.reddit.com/r...
Anand Sharma, Kemal Hadimli, AJ Batac and 32 other people liked this
"Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C. In other words: the choice of C is the only sane choice. I know Miles Bader jokingly said "to piss you off", but it's actually true. I've come to the conclusion that any programmer that would prefer the project to be in C++ over C is likely a programmer that I really *would* prefer to piss off, so that he doesn't come and screw up any project I'm involved with."
- Paul Buchheit
Apparently, he hates OOP for the sole reason that "everyone sucks at it". Instead of Mr. Open Source trying to fix the problems with the C++ libraries and compilers, he instead rants about how it's all crap and everyone using it for low level code is an idiot. Nice.
- xero
That's what Richard would like everyone to think.
- Kenny Stoltz
from twhirl
The STL is a little too useful to give up templates entirely for. The other stuff, yeah, that's not worth much, but I don't want to write my own hash tables or use stupid void pointer casts and function pointers.
- ⓞnor
Linus often sounds like a real asshole, but on the other hand he is also a bit self-deprecating -- a really interesting mix.
- Robert Felty
Richard Stallman is Mr. Free Software, and is perfect in that role.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Write all that stuff in C, or C++?
- ⓞnor
"C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it." That sounds like Java, too!
- Gabe
text so what is the true programming language of choice then?
- John Blanton
from IM
You already have, and Linus won. He wrote a popular operating system kernel, and they did not. Or were you thinking of some other, totally irrelevant coding contest?
- ⓞnor
The programming language used depends on what you need it to do, plain and simple. He's actually arguing that it sucks for writing Git, but gets sidetracked into why it sucks in general.
- xero
Yeah, he is talking about low-level stuff, I think he says it more than once. That seems to make sense. I wonder if this is why today's standard Linux desktop feels so extra heavy to me...
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
It would be handy if there were a semi standard "C+-" environment. It would have basic container classes (probably with templates, but not STL-crazy, and wrapping non-template helper methods to avoid code bloat), a sane I/O system, etc.. (Maybe C stdio is sane enough.) Then we wouldn't all have to write our own. We might all disagree on the tradeoffs and level of minimality to adopt, but... what's the opposite of boost?
- ⓞnor
Sadly, I don't even have to read it.
- Hayes Haugen
I definitely dislike C++, I like C because as someone once said, "It combines the power of assembly with the flexibility of assembly." I remember getting very annoyed at operator overloading and reference parameters.
- Piaw Na
Why did this remind me of the "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" speech? "Son, we live in a world where computer performance matters and that performance needs to be guarded by men with C and assembly."
- Matt Cutts
Agree with you Chris, it's how you use the language/tools. These kinds of arguments have been going on for a long time. Over the years I've had people tell me that you don't understand programming or won't do a good job of it until or unless you've coded for drum memory, used punch cards, implemented your own product in your own language, not used an IDE/Intelisense/etc for editing,...
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- Loren Heiny
i'm impressed at the lengths to which Linus goes to insult. i've seen this in several cases - it's his habit. in this example the second to last pull para (about 20 wrds) is a sufficient answer. but certainly not as abrasive as the rest of the post. i assume his years of dealing with all the 'alpha-dogs' in the OSS community led him into this pattern. but it might be the other way 'round.
- MikeAmundsen
I agree with some points, but Linus is still insulting. Insults are a great way to make people disregard his points.
- Mo Kargas
Being against C++ is like being against cancer. Champion a less well known disease next time.
- Todd Hoff
Mike, you're right about the lengths Linus goes to insult; I suspect its not just a simple habit but deeply ingrained in his approach to life. For "oldtimers" his debut on the public stage was perhaps capped by his great flame war .... Linus vs Tanenbaum (1992) http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraha... " Linus wrote: "Re 2: your job is being a professor and researcher:...
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- David HC Soul
I might think Linus is more of a jerk if I didn't think he was right.
- Gabe
@Gabe: unfortunately, being correct and a jerk are not mutually exclusive.
- MikeAmundsen
The rant from Linus was over a year ago. It was a reaction to someone bitching that git is written in C. I for one use the "Clean C" set that is common to C/C++ and I do confess that I do not use the STL. I use the safer libraries of C that now prevent buffer over-runs, and I use C++ in simple ways. It works for me at the level I am programming (middleware that has to run native beneath...
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- Dennis E. Hamilton
from twhirl
I don't think a C programmer using a modern optimizing compiler and running on a current processor has that firm a grasp on how things are behaving on the machine (unless he or she is a dual SE/EE major with a masters in compiler design). But there are plenty of other reasons not to like or use C++, all of which I can't fit in to a single comment :-).
- invariant - farewell FF
Chris White: right about whatever topic he's ranting about, like C vs. C++ or Linux vs. Minix, or why there shouldn't be special kernel interfaces for Reiserfs. He may not always be right, but I just haven't seen any rants where I didn't think he was.
- Gabe
after a rather heated argument (which i clearly one) between myself and a few other members of the team i had recently joined, a senior member took me aside and gave me a valuable piece of advice. he told me "it's important to remember that, in the real world, being right is not always sufficient or important."
- MikeAmundsen
@Jason: i agree completely with his choice of C over C++ for git.
- MikeAmundsen
+1 Loren. Read the comment and thought to myself - I'll subscribe just based on how and what you said.... but I can't b/c I see now: already subscribed.
- Micah Wittman
Linus' statement is just plain dumb.
- Emil Kirichev
Ooh you tasty little things...: Experiments in deliciousness: Bacon chocolate chip cookies with maple cinnamon glaze. - http://neverbashfulwithbutter....
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Phil G, Tyson Key, Slappy Line and 8 other people liked this
EW
- Kelly
what kelly said.
- Jessie
tiger however, likes the idea. freak.
- Kelly
cricket would like to kill them.
- Jessie
that looks delicious. i'm going to try making them this weekend.
- Jess Lee
I do that sometimes. Veggie burgers can be quite tasty, and bacon is good with them. No reason to scoff at a BLT either, just because lettuce and tomato are vegetarian.
- ⓞnor
One downside of bacon cookies would be much reduced shelf life...
- ⓞnor
These sound disgusting! And I love chocolate chip cookies and bacon. But not together. I don't believe in combining fruit with chocolate either.
- Sheila Taylor
Hmm, I'd never noticed, how much shelf life do cookies normally have? Obviously at least 20 minutes.
- j1m
I just baked a batch of these bacon chocolate chip cookies, minus the glaze. they actually taste pretty good.
- Jess Lee
And you have them at your desk?
- j1m
yup. just stop by my office.
- Jess Lee
I just had one, and they were great until I hit some bacon, and then they were...weird.
- Evan Parker
Mmmmm, meat cookies. (*drool*)
- Slappy Line
I tried one. It was okay. I feel like the non-bacon part (she used the recipe in the article) was lacking. Or maybe something was different for some reason: they came out more like mounds than the flat cookies pictured above.
- ⓞnor
I'm eating one now. It's.. interesting, but I don't think I like how the bacon bits persist in my mouth longer than the rest of the cookie, so I go from eating a cookie with a hint of bacon to chewing on bacon with some sweetness.
- Kevin Fox
there's one left, nina. you are more than welcome to mainline it.
- Jess Lee
Sounds like I missed out.
- niniane
I thought Jess was in Japan? I guess she's back. Welcome back!
- niniane
gee-ross.
- Audrey
Two great tastes that really don't go together.
- Tyson Key
Korean boy's SINGING "TOUCH MY BODY", Mariah Carey's song - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Frederick Akalin and Chieze Okoye liked this
I can't get enough of this video
- Chieze Okoye
this is the best video
- Frederick Akalin
浜崎あゆみ -15 Year Old Interview (She Wears Specs!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Frederick Akalin, Richard Chen and Joe Xu liked this
Ayumi Hamasaki before she was famous
- Jess Lee
Hulu - Palin / Hillary Open: Saturday Night Live - http://www.hulu.com/watch...
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Lauren Wolfe, Karen Padham Taylor, j1m and 30 other people liked this
omg she's better than Palin, the mimickry is better than the original
- anna sauce
awesome!
- Susan Beebe
Hilarious!!
- Sheila Taylor
Saw this live last night. Poehler's Hillary was OK, but Tina Fey was *eerie* spot on and so funny! "I can see Alaska from my house!"
- Heidi Moon
Tablemate at benihana confided how he subscribes to Obama's mailing list and marks it all as spam to train Gmail. Urge to kill rising.
tim tate, Justin Mason, Frederick Akalin and 7 other people liked this
I honestly have to keep myself from marking them as spam, due to the sheer volume of mail I get from the obama campaign.
- EricaJoy
You know, I agree with that, Erica. I like Obama, I really do, but his email campaign is maybe a little too slick for me. And a little too focused on getting my money.
- Sia Stewart
But this guy was doing it specifically to train Gmail to put OTHER PEOPLE'S Obama mail into the spam folder.
- Kevin Fox
Okay, sorry to hijack your thread here, Kevin, but... Erica... Amen. I stopped giving out anything other than a disposable (e.g., spamgourmet) e-mail address on any "causes" web site. MoveOn -- which I now think is a pretty despicable organization for many reasons -- was particularly evil in this, obnoxiously flooding my inbox. Why are political and other organizations so clueless? If you send me 5-10 pleas for money or action EVERY DAMN WEEK, I'm going not going to support you with anything.
- Adam Lasnik
Obama my boy and everything like that, but I had to unsubscribe. I can follow him on FriendFeed or something. I told him calm that stuff down, but he just so passionate and all :)
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Maybe you won't, Adam, but someone else will. It's for the exact same reason that credit card companies send bulk mail advertising cards, or why the people at malls ask you to take surveys even though you always refuse. There is someone who will buy into it, and if they have to send all of that in the most annoying way possible to reach that buyer, they will.
- Michael Ryan
I don't get any of the emails you are talking about. Not a single one. :D
- Josh Haley
Just give in to the urge :)
- Alexander Kohlhofer
The guy is an idiot, because for every person that tries to train gmail one way there are people like me that click not spam to train gmail the other way.
- Vince
I agree with Vince. Trying to game the system doesn't work. Gmail most likely has a built-in mechanism to detect people like that.
- Voyagerfan5761
from twhirl
Gmail may not have such a system, or it may only kick in after trouble has already been caused. Anti-spam isn't _that_ smart!
- Justin Mason
Yeah, in regard to the Obamail aspect of this thread, I have to vent that getting an Obamail yesterday that promised that, if I sign up, I can get notification of who he has chosen as his running mate FIRST, BEFORE ANYONE ELSE..... it made me wonder if he was a presidential candidate or an Apple product.
- Mark Novak
rumor: iphone 2.01 update to be released in the next 10 mins
Frederick Akalin, americanm, Adam and 8 other people liked this
it's already out - downloading now
- Peter Ghosh
wow, 250 Meg download - so I guess it will overwrite the existing firmware. It definitely doesn't look like a SP
- Peter Ghosh
I wonder if it 'fixes' (breaks) NetShare?
- Kevin Fox
And my day was going so well...
- Bob Blunk
Downloading as well. Quick, get it now before iTunes fails like it did on launch day :)
- Derick Valadao
from twhirl
First download attempt failed already.
- Cyrus Lendvay
I think I'll wait till I find out what they've fixed and broken before upgrading
- Adewale Oshineye
1st step is that installs a special recovery driver (XP), then goes through a normal install and verification process.
- Peter Ghosh
New feature in 2.0.1 - In settings, there is a new home button option to set what a double-click performs
- Peter Ghosh
peter that was in 1.1.x
- mjc
it seemed to be missing from 2.0
- Peter Ghosh
What does the new double-click option do?
- Derick Valadao
from twhirl
gives you the ability to set your preference - home,phone favorites, or ipod
- Peter Ghosh
Peter, I have 2.0 and it's there. I remember it in 1.1.4 too.
- Bryan
How to Wear Pearls - http://blog.polyvore.com/2008...
Frederick Akalin and Neha Narula liked this
"you make the world more beautiful just by living in it"
- Jim Norris
On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble - http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
Farhad Manjoo, joneilortiz, Frederick Akalin and 4 other people liked this
IMO, this is unusually harsh and unwarranted. Clearly the media likes being extreme...
- Bindu Reddy
I don't know the rationales behind the actions, but a friend of mine at Google was brought to tears battling these changes before it ever made it to Valleywag or the NYT. There are Google parents who are very, very upset about this, no matter how badly the NYT article was written.
- Kevin Fox
Comes with the territory. Greg Linden has a nice post on press cycles (http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008...)
- Deepak Singh
And for good reason, mostly self "inflicted", Google will always be held to a higher standard,
- Deepak Singh
IMHO, this is a case of a whole lot of wrongs. I'm not proud of the way this situation has been handled by EMG, I'm upset by the fact that some info was leaked from an internal meeting (TGIF) on Valleywag, and I've lost a bit more respect for the NY Times after reading that lopsidedly hysterical editorial. In the end, everybody's losing here, nothing to be happy about :-(.
- Adam Lasnik
+1 to Adam's point.
- Josh Wills
These stories about google as a company really bore me.
- Tobias Boonstoppel
"... that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” according to several people in the meeting ..." So if the NYT has several sources on this as they say, and a Google spokesman denies this, then someone's lying (either Google, or the reporter, or the people in the meeting). To better judge how well this piece was written it seems important to know who lied here.
- Philipp Lenssen
What we're seeing in the article is a paraphrased comment and exactly five quoted words. You could dispute whether he uttered the phrase "bottled water and M&Ms", or whether he said something that meant something like what the reporter is implying. If you want to argue about what a comment in a meeting means and whether that meaning is accurately reflected in a piece like this one, well, you can have quite an argument even if nobody is actually lying.
- ⓞnor
Based on the obvious bias of the article, and all the times that I saw this kind of thing from the inside of Google, I'm inclined to believe that the quotes are false or out of context.
- Paul Buchheit
I don't use Google day care, but I've heard about all the screw-ups secondhand at the lunch table. I found the article to be quite representative of what I have heard expressed by fellow Googlers.
- Jon McAlister
Whoa. Google is closing their Denver and Dallas offices. - http://Employees have to choose relocation or severance.
Susan Beebe, A.T., Frederick Akalin and 7 other people liked this
Employees have to choose relocation or severance.
- Ginger Makela Riker
Any reason given?
- Raoul Pop
Jeez, you got out just in time!
- Mark Trapp
Consolidation. Someone decided the ROI wasn't there. Bummer.
- Ginger Makela Riker
Ginger leaves, they figured why keep them open. :-)
- Hutch Carpenter
yeah, i was bummed. I love the folks in the denver office including ginger
- Dh'ennis Dömingö
lordy... move or leave... ouch.
- edythe
Capitalism-it takes no prisoners...
- Mark Forman
Still, those are better options than what one would get at most other companies.
- Tsega Dinka
(FYI - I think the link is broken)
- Jennie Lin
Never heard of any Dallas office, but isn't Denver just a tiny handful of people sitting half an hour's drive from the much much bigger Boulder and Thornton offices? I mean, closing that sounds more like a standard office move than a relocation...
- ௸ (k2g)
Are you sad you didn't hang around for the severance or happy you don't have to go through an office closing?
- Clare Dibble
Or is there a distinction between the Denver and Boulder office?
- Clare Dibble
Why not telecommute?
- Gabe
Dang. I applied for a job in the Dallas data center earlier this year. Never heard a word. I guess I know why now.
- ha3rvey (big appetite)
ƃuɐʞ, right. It is a handful of people. But they're pulling sales positions entirely out of CO and Dallas, so people only have the option of moving to Chicago, NY or SF, where there are ad sales jobs. Not catastrophizing here. It's just curious to me that the company spends so much money building amazing offices, then mere months later, decides to shut them down. Clare, I'm happy with my timing :-)
- Ginger Makela Riker
Clare, yeah, Boulder is a separate office. It's folks from the Sketch-Up acquisition and I think other mapping projects.
- Ginger Makela Riker
These were strictly sales offices, right? No eng?
- ⓞnor
No eng.
- Ginger Makela Riker
Oh, I see... eek. Glad you got out, Ginger. :(
- ௸ (k2g)
Can I have the Wii from the office?
- Todd Nemet
from Alert Thingy
so there is no sacred cow in Google either... our modern corp slang for downsizing is "open sourcing" - wonder how they will translate it on sales/marketing ppl, since all previous head-slashing was majorly in engineering :)
- A.T.
1-800-MAGIC: Back to Microsoft - http://1-800-magic.blogspot.com/2008...
Alexander Williams, Adriano Gonçalves, Dimitri Glazkov and 5 other people liked this
Everything you need to know about the 'Leaving Google for Microsoft' meme can be summarized by the following quote: "I need to know that the code is useful for others, and the only way to measure the usefulness is by the amount of money that the people are willing to part with to have access to my work." Sigh.
- Kevin Fox
from Bookmarklet
Sigh indeed. I am happiest developing things that are simply used. Cost doesn't matter to me as long as it's useful to someone. I can safely say I'd be happy developing on any of the Google products. This is my real reason for creating RSSmeme and fftogo as I don't really get that from my day job.
- Benjamin Golub
from fftogo
+1 Kevin
- EricaJoy
+1 Benjamin. Kevin, what about the hurds working on Linux and opensource products in general? Money is not the only value of things, is it?
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
directeur: You're preaching to the choir. I was quoting that part of the article because I disagreed with it.
- Kevin Fox
Kevin: Sorry, I was talking to the "quote" actually :) I'm sure you know better then I do these kind of things
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
I think that his career development comments are pretty common of people (not just Eng) that leave Google for elsewhere.
- Jennie Lin
Serafini's Codex - http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi...
Jennifer, Devin Anderson, saku7up and 13 other people liked this
"The Codex Seraphinianus was written and illustrated by Italian graphic designer and architect, Luigi Serafini during the late 1970's. The Codex is a lavishly produced book that purports to be an encyclopedia for an imaginary world in a parallel universe, with copious comments in an incomprehensible language. It is written in a florid script, entirely invented and completely illegible, and illustrated with watercolor paintings."
- Jason Wehmhoener
from Bookmarklet
How Borgesian
- j1m
It is, and it's really very pretty in paper. Rare and costly: $400 from Amazon.
- ⓞnor
Do I file this under "fabulous" or "belonging to the emperor"?
- Jim Norris
I actually own one of these. Bought it on ebay a long time ago.
- joshua schachter
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - The GOOG->MSFT Exodus: Working at Google vs. Working at Microsoft - http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog...
Frederick Akalin liked this
"Based on my observations, I have theory that Google’s big problem is that the company hasn’t realized that it isn’t a startup anymore. This disconnect between the company’s status and it’s perception of itself manifests itself in a number of ways"
- Adewale Oshineye
If that's a trend, it's a 1% backwash from the trend going the other way. Of course the ex-MS Googlers tend to be grumpy about MS, and the ex-Google Microsofties tend to be grumpy about Google, by selection bias. There are a lot of fair complaints to make about Google, but the ones selected in this article seem kind of bizarre.
- ⓞnor
I agree that the data don't support Dare's position however I found Sergey Solyanik's blog to be highly educational on a variety of software engineering topics.
- Adewale Oshineye
This article that he links to, in particular, ( http://tinyurl.com/63jhzd ) isn't exactly the most insightful, especially given that the paragraph he dedicates to writing about the Google process (about 1/10th of his post) consists entirely of unsubstantiated "MS is better than Google at X" statements.
- Frederick Akalin
Hundreds of Same-Sex Couples Wed in California - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
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Clay Newton, atalmatal, Adam Lasnik and 73 other people liked this
"This year, however, proponents of same-sex marriage have found encouragement in both the California Supreme Court decision and in a subsequent order by Gov. David A. Paterson of New York, instructing agencies in his state to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally elsewhere. The California court has also rebuffed several challenges to its May 15 decision, made by two conservative legal groups and by Republican attorneys general who fear that the California marriages will lead to legal challenges brought in their own states."
- Bret Taylor
The current UK administration defused the issue of same sex unions by the introduction of Civil Partnerships in 2005 linked to an across the board change of relevant laws to provide parity with married couples - with the exception of those with religiious objections (who should really know better) this has gone smoothly and been introduced across the UK. Its not called a marriage but has all the advantages (and responsibilities!) of the mixed sex varaint.
- Jican
The opposition should be pleased. Now that they're married, they'll be having less sex.
- Phil Wolff
from Alert Thingy
our friends Bob and Michael get married in SF on August 20th.
- Todd Mundt
Is that Bruce Willis in the second picture? j/k
- Nesta Campbell
@Phil: Ha! Comment of the day :)
- Bret Taylor
I love my native state!
- Zach Landes
Phil: Brilliant Comment!
- Parth Awasthi
from twhirl
It makes me very happy to see gay folks entering the light in California. I'm also very amused at how frustrating it must be to the Right. Well, I guess in a few years one of us will be proven right. Either a small percentage of the population of California will be happily married and gay or the country will lay in smouldering ruins and people will be having sex with box turtles.
- Tad
Tad: I feel a box turtle urge coming on! Hah.
- Robert Scoble
@Tad - I had box turtles as pets when I was kid. Never considered that activity with them though...
- Hutch Carpenter
"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." - Rick Santorum (Idiot) ex-Senator from Virginia
- Tad
Dude in the pic with "Bruce Willis" is freakin HYOOOGE! I wonder how many opponents of gay marriage have been pwned by his hand...LOL
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Really? BTW...Santorum => Pennsylvania
- Hutch Carpenter
Whoa, don't push Santorum on us Virginians! hehe
- jcunwired
Oh crap - sorry to pollute Virginia with Santorum! Oops. I wouldn't wish that on anyone...
- Tad
I hope it "sticks". My boyfriend and I are waiting until after November. To have the rug pulled from under us after enjoying a few months of wedded bliss would be too much for the heart to bear.
- Jason Menayan
Congrats to all the new couples, with wishes for many happy years.
- Chris Baskind
bravo,
- pestwave
All You Need Is Love!
- Chris Nixon
In my home town in Austria, we had a case of a black man and a white woman wanting to marry, they ended up being refused by the marriage registrar. Of course, we also haven't got gay marriage legalized here. The US have problems, but in some cases, law is way more progressive than in Europe.
- sebmos
YAY!
- dave mcclure
Yay!
- Yuvi
@Phil: LOL! This has certainly been a momentous (and good) development. But it would be nice to see these kinds of decisions made through the legislative process. The fact that this decided in the courts will make the outcome more contentious than it would have been had the population been forced to have a legitimate conversation about the issue. The more bigoted corners of our society now have a victim card to play - and play it they shall...
- Forrest Cox
@Forrest: The genius of our system of government lies in its checks and balances. In particular, an unfettered democracy would be subject to the problem of the "tyranny of the majority". Fortunately this is offset by our Constitution and our courts, whose job is to ensure that individual rights are not trampled on, no matter how unpopular that individual may be, for whatever reason. Any bigots playing the victim card are ignorant of basic civics.
- Ruchira S. Datta
@Ruchira I agree. The Cali court is playing exactly its Constitutional role, and it's essentially a conservative and Federalist approach to reconciling changing societal mores and the demands of a minority. As I've commented elsewhere, we are winning this argument, and we're doing it state by state, rather than through a Federal fiat, which simply is not feasible at this time. All good things...
- Rick Powell
Stewart Butterfield's bizarre resignation letter to Yahoo [Exits] - http://feeds.gawker.com/~r...
Chuck Kahn, Louis Gray, j1m and 33 other people liked this
Hilarious.
- m13a
Yahoo only paid $35 million for Flickr? That seems like a real bargain. How much did Google pay for YouTube again?
- Robert Felty
Finally, a resignation letter that's not full of cliches.
- niniane
The Tin Man is off to see the wizard. :)
- Morton Fox
I love it- glad there's some humor left in the world.
- anna sauce
Today I met Gates McFadden in the bathroom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
Frederick Akalin, Rob Schonberger, Adewale Oshineye and Jess Lee liked this
where?
- Paul Buchheit
in the bathroom. Didn't you read the end of the sentence?
- niniane
where was the bathroom located?
- bob
Ah, good question. Read my latest blog post for a play-by-play.
- niniane
At Los Charros, investigating the burrito pipeline.
Frederick Akalin, edythe and Tudor Bosman liked this
Yum. I've yet to find a place in SF that I like more than Los Charros.
- Ocean
ha, i've heard about the burrito pipeline. :)
- edythe
If you are ever in Salt Lake, check out Lone Star Taqueria. Everyone else will tell you to go to Red Iguana but they are all so very wrong. Lone Star also has the advantage of being just a drunken stagger from my house.
- Kevin D. White
And in case you missed the pipeline story: http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Paul Buchheit
Game theory explains dinner-party dates. - By Mark Gimein - Slate Magazine - http://www.slate.com/id...
Trisha Okubo, Random Duck Encounters, Tobias Boonstoppel and 7 other people liked this
"The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders.""
- Jim Norris
Interesting theory. But I'd offer an alternative explanation: young, eligible bachelors are (by and large) not interested in dinner parties.
- Tudor Bosman
Can too.
- ⓞnor
Hey, you can't keep editing the same comment over and over!
- Jim Norris
shouldn't there be some way to flip back through the edit history of these comments?
- j1m
/Like Jim Norris' and j1m's comments
- Voyagerfan5761
Please, not wiki-like. Instead, thread like Reddit, then let commentary stand until any respondent clicks “Comment”, at when “Edit” disappears. For comments already in edit but not yet posted, warn respondents when they click “Comment” to respond, and allow the edit to continue and deny replies until the edit posts. When “Edit” already appears, clicking it checks the server to prevent a race condition.
- John Lam
This simple state interaction ought work clearly enough for users to get quickly. I don't understand why no sites use it, instead of edit timeouts (such as Digg and Newsvine). (Apologies for jacking the subject. I also ran out of space for reply.)
- John Lam
John, checking on the 'edit' click wouldn't prevent all race conditions, just some. The whole comment threading and editing can of worms is a toughie. There are clearly features that make sense individually and can easily be added, but there's no simple line delineating commenting system from a full fledged message board. There's a good middle ground to be had, but I don't think people...
more...
- Kevin Fox
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