Get into a traffic accident that wasn't my fault, but totalled my car and gave me a new outlook on life. - Robert Scoble
Had premature infants that stayed in the hospital nearly 3 months. - Wayne Schulz
Unusual and life-changing. Being hit by a car while riding my bike. I was pretty much uninjured (physically) but it taught me to do more, live more, appreciate more. - AJ Kohn
I've had a few experiences that I'm not comfortable posting about here, but one thing was that I was attacked with a sword when I was about 20 years old. I wasn't hit, but my friend who was attacking me sure tried for about 30 minutes until my other friends subdued him. It made me completely re-evaluate whom I was going to associate myself with. - Andrew Burd
Spent 3 months during the monsoon season in Goa with my best friend, no other 'westerners', and nothing to do except be there. With issue #2 of Wired magazine bought in New Delhi on the way there being the only 'tech' in sight. - Robin Barooah
Serving in the Peace Corps in Guatemala for two years - Shannon Jiménez
unusual? I guess the party I went to last night was the most recent - Prolific Programmer
Wow! These are such great comments I couldn't even begin to compose my own... - "Czar" DJ Peterman
other events: 5 yrs old - Finding my dad dead (my brother was with me 7); having to watch my Mother cry and run out of the house.in horror. - Susan Beebe
Support/be there for my family at the age of 12 during my fathers suicide and my mothers run-in with breast cancer. - Colby Olson
There are two events I always reflect on and consider to be turning points in my life. First, taking a post-graduate year in the UK before going to college. Second, my first true open water scuba dive. - Kevin D. White
Heard, "omg I'm pregnant." That completely and totally changed my life. For the better! - Tad Donaghe
Colby: My Dad committed suicide too... I feel you pain for sure! - Susan Beebe
hit a guy with my car.. I thought he was dead. He had to be airlifted, but fortunately he was ok. It wasn't actually my fault, he jumped out in front of me from a blind spot. I still felt horrible. I'll never forget that. I also drive even more careful now than I did before. - Tim Hoeck
I'm inspired by the question and the comments. For me, what immediately comes to mind is this: my boxer had asphyxiated and his heart had stopped; I resuscitated him with CPR. It gave me 6 more years and an incredible bond with him, and a moment of clarity for which I'll always be grateful. - Donna Mugavero
I went from $6/hour retail sales to $35k/year computer programmer in less than 2 years of hearing that. - Tad Donaghe
Watching my grandfather die in the hospital. Changed my perspective on things. - David Kemper
wow. people who have had to experience the death of a parent through suicide or devastating illness--especially as children or teens... i'm amazed at your ability not to always hate life. - edythe
I started going to college, 2 months later I started to work real jobs, just because I listed I was in college. - Got80s via twhirl
Volunteer work on a refugee camp in the occupied Palestinian territories... so incredible, I've done it twice and plan on going again - Shawn Duffy via twhirl
saving an extremely drunk friend who'd fallen off the pier into the sea...oh, it wasnt the act of saving him that was life changing. It was having everyone see me in my briefs right after - its been boxers ever since.... :] - Zee at WeDoCreative
not exactly something i did, but the event did change me...6 years ago a few days ago, lost a childhood friend to a suicide bomber while she was studying at the Hebrew University in Israel. - Justin Korn
one: The limo driver who picked me up from airport on way to interview at tech university told me everything that was going to happen to me over the next 4 years while describing the future of artificial intelligence and how he operated on his own mouth in graphic detail. I could not sleep all night because of the things he said, and did a 12 hour interview on no sleep. next time that happens I am getting back on the plane... - terra210
edythe, I don't like to dwell on it too much. The phrase that has been used in reference to me has been 'Death follows on his heels.' It's odd to say but I think that taking MDMA was what kept me alive and was the beginning of a new chapter of my life; the previous chapter ended with my father's death, my brief homelessness, etc. It was truly a life reboot. - Akiva Moskovitz
My heart goes to those of you who lost a parent to suicide. My mother also committed suicide and even though I was the ripe old age of 26, she was my only parent so I was in a bit of a tailspin for awhile. Deciding to not immediately join my mother (just after I found her body) was the most life-changing thing I've been through. Though moving from Portland to San Francisco on my own is a close (and more positive) second. - vicster
Responded to the holy spirit, repented of my sins, and trusted Jesus as my savior. - Larry Huffman
Another one for me now that I think of it. A good friend of mine was raped. The compassion one might have for criminals goes away in a second when it is someone you know ... and then you figure out, everyone has a bunch of someones who are effected. - AJ Kohn
Running away from home at age 17. It changed the course of my entire life, possibly in a good way. - Shayna via StumbleRead
shayna - good for you. if any of my attempts had been successful, i might possibly have ended up better off. but, anyway, really. that's brave. some people don't understand that there *really are* situations where the children know better than the parents. - edythe
Getting over my "self", watching thoughts, and breathing. - Brad Nickel
Mine seem mild be comparison to some here. Had motorcycle accident (not my fault), almost died, suffered nasty head injuries and as a result brain damage. - Nick Cowie
Witnessing an unescapable destiny - a motorbike rapidly approaching my own bike sideways, ultimately hitting me. Result: one 5m somersault, one seriously dislocated knee, one broken finger, and one summer vacation canceled. Overall, it was a rewarding experience. Every moment since I value much more. Remembering every day, there's only one life, no matter what someone wants you to believe. ;-) - Nenad Nikolic via twhirl
I booked a flight from Louisville, KY to Washington, DC to attend the court session for Sibel Edmonds in front of Judge Reggie Walton. A link describing the event is here: http://friendfeed.com/e/760ce1... . This event was life changing because it let me know how deep the cover-up of the truth about 9/11 went. http://friendfeed.com/rooms/9-... - bill giltner
Trusting my intuition, but learning how to develop it better. Never ending process. - Alex Hammer
When I was 17, I had to identify my older brother's body. I was watching TV on a day off from school and I heard the doorbell ring. My brother had been missing for a few days, and for some reason I just knew it was somebody to tell me the bad news. It was a highway patrolman at the door with a Polaroid, and it wasn't pretty because they found him after being in Lake Erie for a few days. Then I had to go to my mother's office and break the news to her. - Gabe Schaffer
deciding to marry my wife, complete with her (then) 3 yo twins from her previous marriage. I've certainly grown as a man, father and husband since then - good times. - Rob Inskeep via twhirl
So many life changing things - Big one - Getting out of the Navy! - Todd Jordan
Got pregnant, got preeclampsia, delivered preemie @ 28 weeks and almost died. Nicholas is worth every minute of pain and recovery, but I don't think I'll try it again. It's funny, I didn't think women died from pe. - Kate Kapetanakis
Getting engaged. Didn't take, but I'd say that it definitely changed my life. - Steven Perez
save myself from drowning at the sea without knowing how to swim - Oscar Juarez
Attended the Landmark Forum that got me have much deeper perspective in my relationship and gotten married. - BeeLing Poh
proposed to my wife on our first date; got married 2 weeks later. (that was 12 years ago) - dave mcclure
@mcclure -- really? i need to read more about that story. amazing. - Sacca
I ditched my graduate studies in life sciences (only needed to complete & submit my thesis) and then switched to computer science. - imabonehead
When I went to my first rock concert. It seemed like they're spinning magic from their guitars. - Vamsee
picnicking with my girlfriend (now wife) on the top of a tea-hill in puncak, java...watching a little cloud drifting slowly towards us. a few minutes later we have been covered by small water particles :) it was a wonderful moment of pure beauty. - krz9000
Dave McClure, your wife's name isn't Tina, is it? My first girlfriend and I dated for over five years, then she cheated on me with a guy and married him a month later. I'm just kidding around: the story's true but the guy's name was Sean I think. - Akiva Moskovitz
taking a hike amongst the Terrence Rice cultivations in the Kodai Range ..was about 4500M, literally a walk in the clouds and walking thru villages that have had the same sustainable practices for over 600-700yrs .. - Peter Dawson
Moved my family to California to intern at the best organization in my industry, not sure of job, and had all our stuff stolen along the way. But 2 years later it has proven to be the best career decision I could have made... - Tony
Went through the devastation of an ectopic pregnancy. - JMS
dealing with my fathers' sudden death, now stopping to smell the roses as often as possible. life is too short to bother with B.S., enjoy life to the fullest, work comes last - I'd rather be happy, then rich. - clarke thomas
highly useful view into the economics of a traditional vc by a not so traditional vc, always amazed at fred's openness ;) - mike "glemak" dunn
Given the fantastic detail on this post, it makes you wonder what other information he is going to share. The info on how much they "need" to make for a good investment was really enlightening. I had always heard a requirement of 10x investment for a "success" so this makes it more interesting. - Rob Diana
one of the genius guys of the new era, showing what openness is about, and how useful it is. inspiring, hope-giving, useful. - gregory lent
Fred, thank you for openly discussing this information. - seman
I am not a VC but I believe that greater transparency in investing, while not fully "open source" as a model will (or can) be nonetheless transformative in results returned as it educates the marketplace and harnessess the "wisdom of crowds". VC efforts are scaling (e.g. Google, Intel and many others) so smaller entitites (although no $100 million entity by definition is ever small) will need to perhaps add additional sources of value to positively differentiate itself. With the various size players I believe that an increasingly complex (and perhaps integrated) ecosystem will emerge, in which some firms may serve as feeder firms for others, and more specialized investing niches may continue to develop (market segmentation or partitioning). - Alex Hammer
Hey Yuvi, what feed did you use for those? I tried my FF feed a while back but it puts my name, post, and a few other words that are more related to the feed itself than the content were the biggest. I'd like to make one to maybe put on Moo cards. Thanks!! - Lindsay Donaghe
I love how in Mona's there are two instances of bacon, one capitalized and one not. :) - Lindsay Donaghe
I love wordle! Just realized that you can right-click a word to remove it from the cloud. - Stupid Blogger
Linday: I wonder if taht's the reason there are more laughing than bacon instances ;) <3 - Mona N.
@Yuvi - THANKS MUCH!! Could you send me the word list in a file so I can play with it in Wordle (lindsay[at]donaghe[dot]com) ? That's awesome! I have a color scheme I use to customize them some more in Photoshop. I'll owe you a favor sometime! - Lindsay Donaghe
I am shocked and surprised that my name is not mentioned by Mona, my supposed #1 fan, in this thing. I'm just going to assume the word 'cute' (in pink no less) is what covers her mentioning me. - Akiva Moskovitz
@Yuvi - I found this tool and thought it might be useful to you too. Tim is using it to share the output of his pipes/script with people to modify their Wordles: http://www.textsnip.com/ - Lindsay Donaghe
@Lindsay - "Please keep it under 70,000 chars" -> Ouch. - Yuvi
Can someone make a video like this about Trolls? Do not feed the Trolls! LMAO - Igor The Troll
What I want to see is a giant cigarette come and attack the next Asshole I see flick a lit cigarette butt out the window on the freeway! - Jeff P. Henderson
But the weird thing is that these photos were already there, and I added *different* photos to the same album that includes these. Should be interesting to watch. - Louis Gray
Can I come sleep on your couch some time? ;) - Jesse Stay
We don't need Digg or Reddit to survive, either. - Chris Baskind
Chris, true, although I never say no to the occasional Digg headline either :-) - Duncan Riley
I have to say, Duncan. I've greatly enjoyed your content much more post-TechCrunch. And I believe this is part of the reason why. You do indeed write to the audience, and not to the TechMeme potential. Good stuff. - Nathaniel Payne
What Nathaniel said. And that's kind of what I was digging at, pardon the pun. I'm thinking if we write for readers, the traffic will follow. - Chris Baskind
I noticed the same for Polymeme...it's a strange thing but I'm learning to use it in ways I do find useful. - Hrag
For what it's worth, The Inquisitr is becoming a must read for me. Enjoyed this piece, pretty illuminating stuff on a few different levels - Eric Berlin
-high five!- ....let's go have some pork chops, of course! - Mona N.
Duncan, nice, that post came out even better than we planned. Now how about starting a whole blog dedicated to how much Techmeme doesn't matter? - Gabe Rivera
Maybe for the 3 month anniversary Gabe ;-) - Duncan Riley
I agree with the other Eric, The Inquisitr is becoming a great site. However, I think you should buy up all of the similar domain names because every time I tell someone about it, they mistype the URL and get to some dumb site :) - Eric Florenzano
Eric, true, my wife found one last night based on a real basic typo - Duncan Riley
techmeme is the bulletin board at your local safeway, little 3 x 5 cards, ballpoint pen letters, lawns mowed, babysitter needed, daycare offered, lost kitten answers to max, for sale, 1983 mustang, 63,000 miles, regular oil changes... just for tech-lust folks - gregory lent
Gregory, I forgot to mention in the post that my last headline on Techmeme was a post discussing the problems with Techmeme.....total coincidence :-) - Duncan Riley
all the stuff we have to go through in order to grow up .. sigh - gregory lent
Duncan is a talented, sometimes provacative, always intriguiging (thought-provoking) writer. And great headline writer and promoter as well. - Alex Hammer
Duncan I think if people send email to questionsorcomments@techmeme.com with subject line $$$ you will get respond back otherwise your email goes to deleted folder :) I build techmeme for my self I would be glad to add every f*** tech blogger ... Anyways as I commented on your blog, awesome post I love it! - Live Crunch
I think there's far too much emphasis on whether or not one "makes it" on TechMeme. And zealots who follow TM with every breath and then show up in the comments area to say stupid crap like "why did this make it to TechMeme" need to get a life. Read and subscribe to what's interesting, don't be so focused on "where" it comes from. There is no single golden source on the web. - TDavid
Traffic alone is a tough measurement. We've also had a huge rise in the adoption of syndication. People going to sites is in decline (or slowing) almost everywhere. - Kevin
“Mark Zuckerberg and I talked about FriendFeed today. He says he likes the search engine here. Explained that Facebook's scale is slowing them down. Says that 90 million users make things go slow.”
Yes, and Google's billions of users make Google search reaaaaallllllyyyy slow as well ;-) - Duncan Riley
That's obvious and rather understandable. After all, we've seen how slowly the latest layout updates propagated to all the users. - Svetlana Gladkova via twhirl
He was talking about developing new features. - Robert Scoble
Definitely new features are hard to build when they should be scalable for 90 million of users from the beginning - Svetlana Gladkova via twhirl
Sverlana: that is totally NOT true. If companies had to build services that way none would ever get built. - Robert Scoble
that s precisely what i mentionned in a previous frienfeed post of your. FriendFeed will always be ahead of Facebook in terms of speed of execution - ouriel
I think Friend Feed right now only seems to attract us geeks, but they will come. - Barbara Duck via twhirl
Dawn: I just found out today that someone I know who is 32 needs a bone marrow transplant or will die soon. I wish I could do more. Will try to help. - Robert Scoble
@Dawn... Hahahaha (it is Spam right?) hahahahahah (god I hope so or Im a bastard) hahahahah....Idiot - Roger Kondrat
Robert: When you say "90 million users make things go slow" are you referring to speed to implement new features (development) or speed to search for something or speed to display the basic UI, etc. You mentioned in response above "he was talking about developing new features." How does that relate to the search engine here? Also, coming from a relatively new developer, how does development change when you are developing for 100 users or 1 million users? - Justin Korn
"Says that 90 million users make things go slow" Sure, if all were actual "users." I early on found FB too superficial & frivolous to be useful, and now the only reason I even know what's going on there is FF. Maybe it's Zuckerberg's college junior concept that's really slowing things up. As Duncan Riley observes, all those "users" hasn't slowed Google search too much, huh? - Dean Barnett
Dawn is not a spammer, unfortunately, even though she did take this thread off topic. - Robert Scoble
Thank you, Robert! I'll pray for your friend. - Dawn
Dawn you should have started a new thread here. - Robert Scoble
Duncan, that's a completely disingenuous example. Search is a static problem and has very little (if any) user context. Anything involving a social graph, especially one where the graph includes 90 million people, is MUCH MUCH harder. Search is essentially a constant time operation, whereas a social graph operation could be O(n^2), where n is 90 million. - Jason Carreira
Robert, what Svetlana said is 100% true. If FB introduces services that don't scale and bring down the site, you and the rest of the bloggers will be all over them. - Jason Carreira
Wow, this thread took a turn while I was typing...sorry to hear about your son. I would suggest posting a post asking if anyone knows anyone. Since Robert knows you, have him endorse it in a separate post. - Justin Korn
Good luck Dawn! (Another argument for DM in FriendFeed). About the 90 million makes stuff slow - I like the Google comparison. How much computation does Facebook do compared to Google? Really? Sounds like poor knowledge of real-world scaling issues. - Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: I absolutely despise DM's. Please don't ask for such a thing. They are far, far worse than email. - Robert Scoble
Sorry...I've only posted a few times on FF. I've never started a post. - Dawn
Mitchell: people tell me Facebook does a lot compared to Google. - Robert Scoble
Dawn: anytime you are going to switch topics to something not being discussed you should start a new thread. I still wish you would. I can't link people to your plea here. - Robert Scoble
I apologize. Nevermind. I think I'll just going to fly down there and see what I can do myself. Thanks anyway. - Dawn
If Zuck. enjoys FriendFeed so much, why doesn't he allow us to create a special tab for FF in the new Facebook-profiles? That would be such a perfect fit! - Vincent van Wylick
Jason, we're too big is a rubbish excuse. It doesn't stop Google, and it's not as though FB is lacking in the funds to create something. How much money does a company need to create something? $488.2 million is how much FB has for the problem (ref: http://qbase.tradevibes.com/co...) - Duncan Riley
Robert: I understand that DM is a mess & that you've got x,000 unreplied DMs. How would you suggest people contact you on FriendFeed rather than "hijacking" a thread? If I find someone on FF who doesn't have Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, I'm hard pressed to do anything other than hijack a thread if I want to leave a note. - Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: You could call him. His number's on his blog. Just a suggestion. :-) Or send him an email. Just sayin'. - Lisa L. Seifert
Facebook is computing 90 million personal news feeds, which is quite a chore. I heard some stuff at the Data Mining conference at Stanford, but I'd love to hear really get-down-dirty numbers to see if Facebook is really tackling new scaling issues, of whether the Google team is just better at building server farms & handling distributed computation hw/sw issues than the Facebook team. - Mitchell Tsai
90m users plus their privacy settings make things slow. - David Vasileff
Duncan, I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to handle it, but don't compare apples and oranges. The problems Google search faces are very different, and have to do with the sheer number of hits, but each hit does a lot less computing to generate the result, because it can all be pre-computed. Also, don't overestimate the amount of money FB has... they just had to borrow a bunch to buy thousands of new servers. - Jason Carreira
Overall, it's another example of the death of the relational database for large-scale apps. Google doesn't use a relational database for this very reason. - Jason Carreira
The baby stuff you learn in school is different from real-world big systems with parallel, distributed, failure, etc... problems. I love hearing "oh. my system is scalable" from new tech teams at startups. What I'd like to hear is that X users producing Y load on Z servers will give A failure rate, consume B power, and have C down-time. We backup using strategy D. Our querying/prefetch/pre-computation method E & F will run into problems when G, H, or I happen. Our distribution method J has limitation K. - Mitchell Tsai
everybody connected to everybody all the time is a huge tech problem ... nature does it though, effortlessly - gregory lent
Do you REALLY believe FB has 90 Million Real Live Single Profiled People as members? - Scot Duke
@Scot, yes. Theres about 15m in the UK alone. - Jamie
Zuckerberg and Bret Taylor may each evolve into the next Steve Jobs type CEO.Each is brilliant, and great with the consumer (e.g. UI, parallelling Apple's obsession with UI/design) - Alex Hammer
Has FB performance been an issue for most users (excluding any third party apps)? Has the pace of introducing new features been a major problem for FB so far? - Amir Gharaat
I hope I make your list and if not, please let me know why so I can potentially improve. - Allen Stern
Glad to see that you are starting to realize, despite Techmeme that the world doesn't revolve around just the bay area. - Harold Gilchrist via twhirl
Gotta say you're bang on the mark there. Tech blogging should be about the tech, not the biz. - Luke Robinson
Allen: I like your blog. It's just that I love hanging out with all of you and talking geeky stuff a lot more than talking about this deal and that deal and all that. - Robert Scoble
Harold: I've always realized that. I feel I got unfairly tagged with believing the world only was about the Bay Area. I guess I deserved that to some extent, but this area is quite dominant in the world of tech (including the tool you're typing on right now) so some of my boosterism is to be expected. Funny that the top Israeli company has offices here too. - Robert Scoble
Kudos to you Mr. Scoble, what a very bright post you delivered today! Thank you for bringing some fresh perspective, that's always refreshing and welcome. I'm also happy you cite Lifehacker as an example. They focus on the smartest digital experience possible and help us improve ourselves. That's the biggest deal of all. Techbloggers should never forget it. - c0wb0yz
I love the tech first and foremost but the business is important too, especially in respect to the sustainability of said tech. - Jamie
Jamie: I agree. But the business needs to serve the customers and the customers/participants/users or whatever you want to call you and me aren't coming first in this industry anymore and that's worrying. - Robert Scoble
Wow funny enough thats the way i have been feeling for a while now I am looking forward to seeing what is next from the Scobelizer... - John Spencer via twhirl
I agree overall - CN has only a small percentage of biz - most is trends, analysis, and reviews. I had an interesting discussion about this with someone last week - if i had a computer that could handle video, i'd make a quick video to explain - there's an important part you are missing - Allen Stern
Next is to get some sleep. Gotta be up at 7:30 to be at Fortune Conference at 8 a.m. for breakfast. It's an incredible conference, hope to see some of you at the Tweetup at 5:45 p.m. - Robert Scoble
Allen: will be watching in the morning for what I was missing. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I had to stop ranting at some point, it was getting too long! :-) - Robert Scoble
This is often relevant from major blogs/ celeb bloggers. The smaller and more personal blogs are still focusing just on tech ;) Perhaps you need to update your feeds :-) - Dennis Bjørn Petersen via twhirl
Dennis: I know. It's why I spend a lot more time here lately than on blogging. The smaller stuff shows up here a lot more regularly and I see a lot less "Yahoo business news." - Robert Scoble
Excellent post Robert. It's why I don't read Techmeme as much as I used to. The life and joy in exploring, playing with and dissecting tech, the geeky exuberance in 'new stuff' has been lessened across almost all tech sites in general, leaving a bland veneer that is just business talk. Things a geek like me doesn't care about, as I'm not an investor. - Mo Kargas
Techmeme has suffered because most of the tech blogs they follow have become nothing more then PR outlets like you said. - Harold Gilchrist via twhirl
As I posted in your comments, that's a really good post. It's great to see the old Scoble back - the one who I started reading back when your "latest thing" was Tablet PC! Welcome back, mate. - Ian Betteridge
Robert, blogging is becoming commercialized, as it becomes popular. I do not see it as a problem. It just might mean that you and a bunch of other likely minded people have to move on to a greener, more fascinating and less populated pastures. Like friendfeed, etc. Luckily, there are lots of them around and tons in the pipeline. Enjoy! - Павел Романовский
I don't know, Robert. On the one hand I agree 100%. And can I say that as editor of WebWorkerDaily I am the one who gets those 15 press releases a day and I *constantly* have the "is this useful?" filter on. I hope that's clear in our postings. Anyway...Your post is kind of like the person who is used to picking their own corn complaining about the supermarket because it's not the same garden. It's not. The grocer has to pay its bills, as does the paid tech blogger. - Judi Sohn
I know I am a newie to all this but I have been reading blogs for a while. I've bee thinking up a response and I'll post later. Long comments on the iPhone make for one queasy bus ride. - Derick Valadao
Finally. Thank you. I follow 357 feeds. Everyday. Granted I have many pop-sites (lifehacker, engadget, etc) on the list. But not one is of these "new breed" of tech bloggers out there. Even though I am in the industry, they do not speak to me. They are just another form of CNN to me. Linking to each other and regurgitating the same gibberish, no matter how relevant or important, it does not speak to me. Anyway, welcome back! This is very refreshing news to me. I will be following it with much interest. TY! - Carlos Ayala
We should all just organize a "Tech Blog Strike", unsubscribing to those blogs that only push press releases. Let's see how they sweat when they see their subscriber count falling... - JungleG
Obviously my previous comment was "tldr". I just wanted to say how great it is that a person in your position is able to repurpose his content to better fit the goal you are trying to reach with your content. It's a great direction to take in a time where most blogs are just trying to echo up to the top. - Derick Valadao
