"Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, criticized the broader trend in creating protest zones during international events. He described Beijing’s protest zones as inadequate and said Chinese citizens would be very reluctant to use them, given the political priority that the party has placed on the Olympics. He said the police might use video cameras and collect names of demonstrators." - Ana via Bookmarklet
Reminds me of the "Free Speech Zones" we set up in the U.S. during various presidential events. - Brian Johns
This entire event is making me mad. I hope the world notices and starts to care. - Sacca
"Etiquette for Interacting with Handicapped Athletes: Pay attention to avoiding taboo subjects, quit using bad platitudes, and do not use insulting or discriminatory contemptuous or derogatory terms to address the disabled. Say things such as, “You are amazing,” or “You are really great.” When chatting with the visually impaired, do not say things like “It’s up ahead,” or “It’s over there.” When chatting with athletes who are paraplegic in their upper body, do not say things like “It’s behind you.”" - Ana via Bookmarklet
Is there going to be a national letdown after the olympics? The build up and focus seems greater than usual. - Chris White
Wow. Regarding the visually impaired guidelines, is it okay to say "Watch out for that moped driving on the sidewalk"? Also, why is it insensitive to tell an upper body paraplegic that something is behind them? - Kevin Fox
@Kevin: presumably because they can't turn their head (or torso) to look, but I think it's far-fetched. - Tudor Bosman
Ahh, that makes sense but is still counterintuitive to me. If the disabled person is looking for something and it's where they can't see I would think it would be helpful to let them know, rather than stay silent and wait for them to have to turn around in hopes of finding it themselves. Also, I was thinking more along the lines of "Where's the stadium? It's behind you" rather than "Check out the pretty girl behind you!" But now I understand. - Kevin Fox
"Grim news for Merrill Lynch in the FT today: Executives have been informed that there will be no more private-jet travel, unless they really, really need to do it. That's right! No more attentive service and wet bar and those delicious crunchy things that Marquis serves every time they go anywhere. Turns out writing down $9 billion has a terrible price." - Dan Hsiao
This part is my favorite: "At Goldman, staff have to contribute to repairs to their BlackBerrys if the damage is deemed to be their own fault." - Ana
If a stock goes down and they smash their BlackBerry in anger, that's not their fault, right? - Casey Muller
"About three years ago he began steering his partners toward an emphasis on alternative-energy projects, or "green tech" in Kleiner parlance. The new eco-focus has attracted plenty of hoopla, most notably late last year when Doerr hired his pal Al Gore as a Kleiner partner.
Yet the firm's shift toward energy investing is only part of the story. As important is Kleiner's steady drift away from the industry that made the firm what it is today: the Internet. Kleiner's investments defined the Internet's first generation. Without Kleiner there was no Netscape, and without Netscape there was no cash-gushing dot-com boom. " - Ana via Bookmarklet
Kleiner Perkins has an entrepreneur in residence at NREL right now. I bet if you could use the internet or similar technologies to track where the power you consume was generated, they would be all ears. - Clare Dibble
Please don't enter anything into the Google account box! - Ana via Bookmarklet
I keep getting that one as well. The worst part is that Gmail gets confused due to forwarding and actually claims that it was mailed by Google! - Paul Buchheit
Hmm I'm getting "Server not found", tried via Browserpool.de. - Philipp Lenssen
It may have been shut down. I imagine that these things don't last long. - Paul Buchheit
Ana, it just involves shipping a package, it's not that bad :) - Sanjeev Singh
Yeah, once I read the request, I discovered as much. Sanjeev, I just wouldn't have expected you to use the phrase "pretty please"... made it seem like it was going to be a lot worse :) - Ana
What also bugs me: People who offer you food, prefaced with "This tastes kind of funny to me, I don't really like it. But, here, you might like it" - Jason Kaneshiro
How about "Sweetness Please " ?? :)- - Peter Dawson
I have been thinking about the movie since I saw it on Saturday, and I've found myself liking it less and less. Not to say it was bad--I definitely still liked it a lot, but I think this review captures the issues I have with it (I tend to read reviews after I watch a movie). From the review: "These are good and necessary things to ponder, yet they're nearly lost in the cross-cutting clutter. You come away impressed, oppressed, provoked, and beaten down, holding on to Ledger's squirrelly incandescence as a beacon in the darkness." - Ana via Bookmarklet
:( I know people will "Like" this, and they should feel ok about doing so even though it seems sort of morbid. But I really did love the Golden Girls, and reading about her death makes me very sad :( - Ana via Bookmarklet
I was thinking the Like was for Getty's work and I think others hopefully get this is a like of applause, not "yea, she's dead!." - Chris Reed
According to bumpshack.com, Getty was the second youngest among the Golden Girls and was actually younger than Bea Arthur who played her daughter: http://bumpshack.com/2008/07/2... - April Buchheit
Golden Girls was one of the few shows that actually made me laugh out loud late at night. Estelle played a significant role in that ensemble. - Anne Bouey
Sad. Golden Girls reruns kept me company for dinner through my first year of working. - Clare Dibble
Aww... I thought some parts of the show were corny, but I loved watching a lot of the episodes. - Mitchell Tsai
Wow. I would have thought she would be more like 100. They did a really good job of making her look 80 twenty years ago. Golden Girls was definitely a ground-breaking and funny show. - Robert Felty
I know this isn't funny, but I laughed out loud when I read this part: "Last weekend, the police in a rural region of Yunnan Province killed two people after a violent clash with 500 rubber farmers. The farmers, armed with knives, injured 41 police officers and damaged several police cars in a confrontation rooted in a long-running dispute between farmers and a local rubber company, state media reported." For some reason, I was picturing farmers fighting off the police using rubber knives and chickens. - Ana via Bookmarklet
I was picturing little toy soldiers, except rubber and farmer. - Jim Norris
"Ana Yang, who ran the Obama office in Erie, has returned to her job with hot start-up FriendFeed. Yang worked on campaigns in five states for Obama. He lost all five primary races. McCain supporters must hope she decides to help out in the general election." - Ana via Bookmarklet
Really? I would think that most people would find hanging with Ana to be a lot of fun. - RAPatton
While hanging out w/ a friend of mine this weekend, I guess I was being sort of a pain. He meant to send this as a text to another friend of his, but accidentally sent it to me instead. This was definitely the funniest thing I've had happen to me in a long time, and for future reference, a good way to send a hint ;) - Ana
Ha! See, anyone that thinks that is a good hint would be a lot of fun to be around. - RAPatton
Glad you were able to find the humor in it, not sure if I would! LOL! - Trish Robinson
wow...that was such a mini sit com. :) - Anna Haro
If I were you, I'd work 'Not really enjoying myself' into conversations from here on out. - Akiva Moskovitz
Working w Ana. Not really enjoying myself. - Jim Norris
are you sure he didnt mean to send it to you? maybe it was just a passive aggressive move. i should employ this technique myself! - eviltom
did you text your friend back with something witty once you got the text? - Charles Hudson
Actually, I discovered this text a few hours later (didn't take my phone into The Dark Knight) when we both got back to the car. I showed him the text and was like, "Um, did you mean to send this to me?" and I swear I have never seen anyone look so mortified in their lives :) - Ana
Reading Ana's Friendfeed updates. Not really enjoying myself. - Adam Lasnik
Ana - were you pissed or contrite after seeing this? - Hutch Carpenter
a few weeks ago didn't someone tell you straight up that you were getting on their nerves or similar? what's up with your other friends ;) - Chad via twhirl
"Beijing Olympic organizers may have a Biblical-level challenge on their hands - a plague of locusts buzzing down from Inner Mongolia, where they've already chewed up 5,000 square miles." [snip] "Unlike other unwanted visitors, the Chinese government can't keep out the winged insects by denying them visas." - Ana via Bookmarklet
well, at least it's only locusts. considering the set of 10 plagues, it could be worse. for example, darkness. (because then no one can see the events!) - eviltom
We'll have to make sure we remember to mark our door with blood. - Ana
Don't the Chinese only allow one child per household? That's kind of a modern twist on the old tale about taking the firstborn...now it's all children except the firstborn! - Colin Wright
Couldn't agree more with you Paul. We love it out here in the Bay Area and wouldn't trade it for a permanent return to Manhattan. But there is something special about The City... - Kevin Scott
You're killing me out here in SF, Paul. Just killing me! :) - Mike Yang
:( Some of us would trade almost anything for a permanent return to Manhattan. Btw, here's a recent NYTimes op-ed by Frank Rich (who, for people who don't know, was actually the NYTimes theater critic before he became a contributor w/ a political bent) on South Pacific: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05... - Ana
We visit atleast once a year and I love the city... Don't like the weather though :( - Bindu Reddy
Have one home there and other home here. I recommend it. - Daniel Dulitz
""They cannot depend on weather modification. Nature is bigger and stronger than the Chinese people and rockets," Rahn said." This Rahn guy has no idea. - Ana
Not too interesting an article overall, but here's this little tidbit at the end: "The Hong Kong Jockey Club, which operates the territory’s horse racing tracks, has already suffered an embarrassing security lapse. A track steward discovered last year that someone had installed under the turf an elaborate system of pneumatic tubes and valves designed to fire tranquilizer darts into the bellies of race horses." - Ana via Bookmarklet
Just to be clear, this is Kevin's kitten, and not mine. I am not a crazy cat lady. - Ana
And by 'Kevin's kitten' she means kitten that Rachel and I are fostering. Maddie (and Rocky) will be up for adoption at the Palo Alto Animal Services in a week or two. They're both amazingly cute and well behaved. - Kevin Fox
I can has... awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww... - l0ckergn0me
You might want to double check Ana - you just may have caught crazy-cat-ladyitis when Janine and I crashed the FriendFeed sanctuary on Monday - the wifey is definetly a crazy cat lady virus carrier!! - Steve Craft
so cute. is the cat going to be at the next happy hour? - Charles Hudson
Sadly no Charles. I thought about bringing them to the last one, but Maddie doesn't do so well with big crowds. She was loving Ana though... and Ana, one cat does not a crazy cat lady make. Just think about it. ;) Both kittens were so tired after their FriendFeed outing they both feel asleep when we got home. Rock is currently asleep on my foot, its too cute! - Rachel L Fisher
I'm going to the show on Friday in San Jose! I listened to Viva La Vida on repeat too many times until I had a hard time falling asleep because the song kept playing in my head, and I had to force a moratorium on listening to it. It's been 3 weeks. Time to re-immerse myself anew! - Ana via Bookmarklet
Silly Ana, hate should not be confined to private rooms, it should be given room to breathe and grow and eventually lead to bombing the heck out of far far away places. BTW discovered on the Jet Blue flight home from Mounatin View yesterday Sirius radio has an "all Coldplay" station for the next month. - Steve Craft
Does anybody have any extra tickets for San Jose's show? I need 2 to 4 tickets. Ping me. - Randy Ksar
And 3 new high-flush-capacity-yet-still-water-efficient toilets too! Yay for plumbers! :) - Ana
Yay! Then we can take down the sign that says 'Please do not flush any tissue or napkins in the toilet.' That kind of wording always confused me as a child. What else am I supposed to do with the tissue? Still, not as bad as the time we sent off my grandpa on a cruise and the toilet said 'don't put any foreign objects in the toilet' and I was trying to figure out how French toilet paper was different than American and why it mattered. - Kevin Fox
I always read that type of note wrong, Kevin, giving too much punctuation. "Do Not Flush: Tissues and Napkins in Toilet"... so, I wouldn't flush. - Louis Gray
@Kevin - There is no toilet paper flushing allowed in South America (or Central America). You put it in the wastebasket next to the toilet. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to stink too bad. - Robert Felty
This was the link I'd actually wanted to share, the SFMOMA press release (http://www.sfmoma.org/press/pr...), but that page didn't have an image on it, so I had to link to this page instead. I blame the limitations of the FriendFeed bookmarklet. - Ana via Bookmarklet
I wasn't aware that she was already on the board of the San Francisco Ballet. Cool. - Kevin Fox
You're complaining about the word processor itself, or the document list? - ⓞnor
The word processor. Spreadsheets is super slow too. Imagine how fast a scalded ape would move. Now imagine the opposite of that. - Ana
I don't use docs that much, but I actually find spreadsheets pretty reasonable. What browser/OS are you using? How big/complicated is your spreadsheet? What specific operations are slow? (Like "I press page down and it takes 1.5 seconds to render" or whatever.) - ⓞnor
Probably this has shown up in lots of people's feeds already, but this is what happens when I'm only subscribed to like 30 people :) - Ana via Bookmarklet
Oh my god, Dan the intern is brilliant. He suggested I try speaking in Chinese, because it uses a "different part of my voice." And it totally works! It's still raspy, but it's like 200 times better. If my voice doesn't come back by tomorrow, I will have to speak to the other FriendFeeders in Chinese, and Dan can translate. - Ana
So I tried this "Axe" that Ana bought and I'm still not getting wildly chased through the streets... Going back for more Axe now... - Ross Miller
Oh Ana, how WILL you be able to concentrate now?? ;) - Jeanette Martinez
Yes, I do find myself fighting off the urge to push aside the printer and hundreds of file folders between me and Ross, and tackle him to the ground... - Ana
I am most astonished by the combination of super-engineers and post-morning workout. All our super engineers wouldn't recognize a workout beyond perhaps the Wii fit. - Steve Craft
isn't Axe the one that makes women go crazy and jump on the men??? who did you spray it on? - Pokai
