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Paul Buchheit posted an entry on FriendFeed Blog

Simple Update Protocol: Fetch updates from feeds faster

August 27 at 3:12 pm - Link

Richard Bradshaw, Andrew Perry, Igor Poltavskiy, Tanath and 81 other people liked this

"For example, if a site such as FriendFeed switched from polling feeds every 30 minutes to polling every 300 minutes (5 hours), and also monitored the appropriate SUP feed every 3 minutes, the total amount of feed polling would be reduced by about 90%, and new updates would typically appear 10 times as fast." - Paul Buchheit

That's a very interesting idea! I think that for the case of push-generated feeds it will show nice improvements over the current polling approach (which is definitely not scalable). I am wondering if there would be a way to employ the same idea for poll-generated feeds (feeds that are retrieved on request only) though. - Alex Popescu

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That's correct Alex. SUP works very well for most common feeds, but it's not ideal for more dynamic feeds such as a search (e.g. http://friendfeed.com/search?q... ). However, the vast majority of the feeds consumed by FriendFeed and others map into the SUP model very easily. SUP does not solve all problems, but it provides a very simple solution that should work for 90% of feed publishers. - Paul Buchheit

I like the name "SUP"... - Clare Dibble

Isn't this somehow similar to the conditional GET? I might be wrong though as at this hour my head might not be fully functional :). - Alex Popescu

sup? ;) - Tyler Gillies

Yeah...Sup? - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)

Alex, a conditional GET applies only to a single URL. SUP allows feed consumers to simultaneously monitor many thousands of feeds with a single GET. - Paul Buchheit

I've told you I might not be fully functional :-). You're right SUP is a container for updated feeds. Should I post any other questions directly to the room? - Alex Popescu

Paul this SUP technology is HOT!! I am totally awed by this disruptive innovative idea.... very impressive and incredibly brilliant!! wow!! - Susan Beebe

Thanks Susan! - Paul Buchheit

Your welcome Paul, you guys inspire the heck out me...American techie dream in real time...neat! - Susan Beebe

my flickr upload appeared much faster just now... are you guys using XMPP for flickr? - Travis Parsons

and written in .py :)- but if we throttle "generate_sup_update(db, 120)" and "SUP feed: {"since_time": "2008-08-12T01:44:49Z", "period": 120," [[..|..]]" , so if we take "120" and make it lets say "30", wont this make the load even more to both sides ? - Peter Dawson

Peter said throttle. - Russellreno

It's nice to see FF innovating things... its what I miss about livejournal back when it was just danga interactive. - Dave Dash

just curious, how to read SUP? pronounce sap or soup or syoop? - huixing

'sup, like the shortened version of "what's up?" - Tudor Bosman

So, where's the "omg it's not XML you idiots" backlash? - ⓞnor

Atom streams look more effective performance-wise and just a little bit harder to implement on both sides. See SixApart's: http://updates.sixapart.com/ - Alex Kapranoff

More than a little bit harder! Dealing with never-ending XML streams is a massive pain (see: XMPP), and keeping connections open is trouble. Also, the sixapart updates stream is a firehose that gives you all of the content being posted, you have no opportunity to filter out only those feeds you care about. The FF design is pretty much totally more awesome. - ⓞnor

work with feedburner to give you a ping every time one of the feeds changes and you can replace 5h with 'whenever it occurs' ;) - Nicole Simon

I can't wait for a DUDE or YO companion protocol. - abacab

Nice idea, one thing to include would be the information if a resource (feed) has been deleted, whereby one can build a mirroring system over RSS. - Christian Sonntag

Christian: no need; "deleted" is a special case of "updated". If a feed is listed as modified in SUP, the feed consumer will try to refetch the feed, and notice that it no longer exists. - Tudor Bosman

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Best Places to Go Swimming in the San Francisco Bay Area

August 2 at 7:16 pm - Link

it's a cruel summer - Christian Sonntag

Sam Pullara posted a message on Twitter

“ok, i admit it, spending 4 hours on this was entirely too long, but BOSS+CUIL= YUIL: http://sampullara.appspot.com/...”

July 30 at 1:14 am - Link

Christian Sonntag, Tad - just Tad, Donato (ricin), Mark Trapp and 9 other people liked this

4 hours, and maybe a little less that $31 million? Nice... - Nick Lothian

wow, just like Cuil - only with relevant results :) wonder how much Y! could get from MS for this - Adam Kazwell

Sam you rock, this was my first thought on seeing cuil, "someone could write something better using yahoo's search apis in an afternoon" - Jason Wehmhoener

"Searching enough web pages" - brilliant - Michael C. Harris

Don't take it down Sam! - Charlie Anzman

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

winterson.com: episode iii, the backstroke of the west

July 22 at 5:03 pm - Link

backstroke - Christian Sonntag

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

IMFresets.jpg 1430×1313 pixels

July 14 at 4:20 pm - Link

mortgage resets as calculated in 2007 - Christian Sonntag

simonfl favorited a video on YouTube

Monzy performs at Stanford Univ.

July 11 at 1:18 pm - Link

Christian Sonntag and Chris Roat liked this

Scott Beale shared an item on Google Reader

Twitter Fail Whale 3D

June 30 at 9:23 pm - Link

***™, Les, AJ Batac, Niall Connellan and 3 other people liked this

That just made my night. Great share! - Niall Connellan

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Netflix Community Blog: Profiles feature NOT going away

June 30 at 7:58 pm - Link

Nice to see a company listening to customers... - Christian Sonntag

Benjamin Golub shared an item on Google Reader

JavaScript Client Library for the Google Contacts Data API

June 30 at 7:49 pm - Link

Ron Emrick, directeur and Christian Sonntag liked this

Dare Obasanjo posted an entry on Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life

The GOOG->MSFT Exodus: Working at Google vs. Working at Microsoft

June 29 at 8:57 am - Link

Satya Boora, David Peacock, Todd Nemet, Christian Sonntag and 14 other people liked this

I commented on Dare's blog on this: http://www.25hoursaday.com/web.... Between the blog, Reddit and FF, I'm not sure where to put a comment. Welcome to Web 2.0. - Joe Beda

What's cool (IMHO) is how passionate employees are about defending their respective companies. I have no doubt that the resulting conversation and its impact are among the healthiest ways to grow as a company. - Dimitri Glazkov

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I'm still seeing a ton of brain drain out of Microsoft. Had some more smart people I used to know when I worked there telling me they have had enough and are going to leave soon. - Robert Scoble

Robert, anecdotes (like statistics) can be used to justify any argument. :) - Dare Obasanjo

Well -- anecdotes are all we have here. Outside of the various HR departments (and they aren't talking) there is no real hard data here. "Recently I’ve been bumping into more and more people..." All I can talk about is my experiences as I've worked at both companies. - Joe Beda

Dare blames terminal "startup-itis" for the devaluation of experience and process at Google. But it looks like an over-attention to consumer products may also play a part. Helps explain their slow progress with enterprise penetration. - Sprague D

Sprague: oh, please. Enterprises just don't change directions very fast. Heck, go look at a counter at Hertz Rental Car. They are still using a DOS app. Microsoft's #1 problem isn't Google: it's getting Enterprises to adopt its new stuff. - Robert Scoble

Dare: well, I wish you'd focus on making my wife's blog faster. She's always complaining about how slow it is, and just now it forced me to enter a Passport password just to get in and see her blog. Damn, I wish she'd change to Wordpress. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I work in an enterprise (a big one) and Microsoft has little problem getting the ear of IT and Ops managers to pitch new solutions. They have a track record. On the other hand, we met last week with an account manager from Google to discuss their solutions to some of our challenges and their solution to every problem was... search (the enterprise search appliance). Not credible. - Sprague D

Sprague: yeah, that would get me to kick that guy from Google out of my office too. Amazingly lame. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I'm sure there are people working on improving the performance of Spaces in their next major release. SinceI don't work on our Web properties I can't help you there. However I'll be sure to mention that Robert Scoble keeps nagging me about Spaces perf everytime he encounters me in comments across the internet to the Spaces devs when I'm in the office on Monday. I'm sure this will push it to the top of their priority lists. ;) - Dare Obasanjo

Funny. this seems to be a frequent topic these days. I had similar conversations with folks last night at the @garyvee drinkup. Still deep divide between Orange and Blue badges at MSFT. My bro in-law works in the Office group. Horror stories. Political BS, people being forced out of orgs. That was reason I left back in 1999. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg via NoiseRiver

Dare: Wrt you not working on web properties -- I think this is the source of some of the disconnect. Developing services is *very* different from developing client apps and platforms. Those difference permeate every part of the company and imply various strengths and weaknesses. (Enterprise is a great example) When working on web properties, thinking in terms of "next big release" is very rare. Most often, the changes are much more incremental. - Joe Beda

Joe, I haven't worked on client apps or platforms in three years. I work on Web platforms that support Web and client apps. So my perspective is primarily from a Web perspective. I have no idea what goes on in Office, Windows, DevDiv, etc these days. - Dare Obasanjo

I liked Dion's polite reply post about getting back to tech discussions. For example, earlier this week Google rolled out OAuth support for all of its Google Data APIs, which is a good thing for OAuth and for people that want to make mashups in a secure way. - Matt Cutts

Dare, are you working on internal platforms or stuff that needs to be installed on customer's machines? That is probably the biggest difference. When you are talking about code for an internally hosted service vs. code that is shipped and supported. My mistake: client apps/platforms is probably too narrow. I think that many people underestimate the difference in software and process between running a service and shipping code. - Joe Beda

Joe, I don't work on customer facing stuff. I work on Web-based platform services which are used by Web apps (like Spaces and Hotmail) and client apps (like Messenger). - Dare Obasanjo

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Gregable.: Reservoir Sampling

June 29 at 9:40 am - Link

Your goal is to efficiently return a random sample of 1,000 elements evenly distributed from the original stream. How would you do it? - Christian Sonntag

Benjamin Golub shared an item on Google Reader

Google Data APIs now easier to use for mashups

June 27 at 3:21 pm - Link

Christian Sonntag and Tony Ruscoe liked this

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Davenetics* : Do What You’re Great At

June 26 at 8:16 pm - Link

Why not define yourself by your news services and the other stuff where you destroy the competition? - Christian Sonntag

Mitchell Tsai posted a link

16 Inspirational Portrait Photography Techniques [Epic Edits - 12/10/07]

June 24 at 11:55 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Faizar, Mark Krynsky, Andy Roth, Diana Valerini and 34 other people liked this

Simple tips for beginners. See http://friendfeed.com/e/334c51... - Mitchell Tsai via Bookmarklet

wow:) - shandiz

wow... - Arjun

Kevin Fox posted a link

Ammonite Washbasin | Bath | Home

June 24 at 11:34 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Daniel Schildt, Karl, Igor Poltavskiy, haron (ничего личного) and 55 other people liked this

Want. - Kevin Fox via Bookmarklet

Coolness factor +1000 - Ross Miller

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So, you wash your hands under the spigot (which is annoyingly set back), and then a trail of dirty soapy suds slowly winds its way down the spiral, so you have to run a gallon of water when you're done just to wash it all away...? And if you, say, spit into the sink after brushing your teeth, you'll probably splash places the spiral-trail of water never actually reaches at all, and then you'll have to take a washcloth and clean your sink basin. - ⓞnor

ⓞnor has a point... - Voyagerfan5761

woooha! - Fu_

I have a feeling kids of all ages would be dropping coins, balls, etc in there to see them roll down. - Sacca

this is art, not function. - Russellreno

If it's art, why pretend it's a sink? Why not just make it a pretty fountain somewhere, and not bother with things like a faucet handle? (Similarly, I never understood why so much ornamental pottery is trying to be a bowl or a cup or a vase. Nobody's ever going to eat out of it or put flowers into it, why limit yourself with the false pretense of functionality?) - ⓞnor

If you're going to have a sink in a guest-accessible bathroom, it might as well be something that looks nice. Yes, it's not terribly practical, but so what. Yes it's going to need some extra attention when cleaning, but so what. Someone who has an awesome sink like that is likely to have a housekeeper. @ⓞnor: It's not that it's EITHER a sink OR it's art. It's BOTH. - Cyrus Lendvay

In my view there's a balance between form and function. People are often willing to compromise on functionality in exchange for aesthetic enjoyment. This is true everywhere. 'Getting it done' and 'Feeling good about it' are always goals and in some objects those goals compete. I wouldn't want every sink to have such a focus on aesthetics, but if it was a sink in an environment where the aesthetic experience was more important then it may be a valid tradeoff. - Kevin Fox

(off-topic-friendfeed-gush): man, i love that ff can spark a heated debate with a picture of a sink! - Trent Olson

I love what you can do with concrete, although I prefer the hard lines of a ramp sink like we're doing in our downstairs bathroom: http://www.concretenetwork.com... You can embed stuff into concrete also, but I haven't thought of anything cool yet. - Chris White

I love this sink. Our ordinary sinks look pretty nasty if you don't wash them with a sponge pretty frequently, and I seriously doubt we're washing our hands or brushing our teeth in an unusual way. - Jason Wehmhoener

why can't i be rich so i can get all these cool things? - Chris Harris

@Chris Harris: Build one. Concrete isn't very expensive. We built our vanity out of a console table from Pier1 and a home made bowl from Ebay. It looks like we paid $2000 for the whole thing, but our cost was <$250. - Cyrus Lendvay

Kevin: Fair enough; mostly I was responding to Russellreno, who seemed to be saying that it wasn't legitimate to complain about functional deficits. I think it's legitimate to point those out, and also perfectly legitimate to say "yeah, yeah, but it's *so pretty*!". - ⓞnor

That's probably no fun to clean... ;-) - Justin Santamaria

I do think it would be great to have this one in the guest bathroom. Great conversation starter. - Russellreno

Chris, your concrete sinks seem pretty and functional. I like the way embedded leaves look on pottery, but on a sink it would be hard to burn them out and they probably don't match the theme you are going for. Mirrors are always handy in a bathroom, but easy to make a space go from classy to tacky. - Clare Dibble

Don't care if it's hard to clean. I have a thing for spirals. And for cool stuff. And for art. DO WANT. - Lindsay Donaghe

Paul Buchheit posted a link

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

June 24 at 7:58 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

hank, saku7up, Luigi Centenaro, Rodrigo Jaroszewski and 87 other people liked this

"I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. Let me give you my experience from yesterday. I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there. The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up. This site is so slow it is unusable. It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45..." - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet

This email nails it. So I wonder, if Bill Gates knew and experience the flaws of his own product in 2003, why no action has been taken to improve it? The Microsoft website is still a mess and Windows is still Windows. - fbrunel

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"I reboot every night," Priceless... - Christian Sonntag

Christian, I noticed that, too. But it's strange. I never reboot XP, just put it to sleep at night and it works perfectly. - Sprague D

This is real? I can't believe this is real. This is like every user experience with Windows ever: if the Chairman of the company who makes the software has the problems (and is pissed off about it), and most of the issues he's talking about haven't been fixed after five years, 1) how much power did Gates really wield, and 2) what the hell? - Mark Trapp

http://www.betterdesktop.org/ - If Bill Gates actually sent mail like that every day, there is no way Windows would work the way it does now. Want some cool insight on usability - check the link out. - Tim Hoeck

Pwned! - Ashwin Bharambe

Here's another article about Microsoft executives and their troubles with WIndows: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03... - Gary Burd

I'm sure it's real, this is classic BillG. But getting flamed by the CEO is one thing, actually making a giant complicated mess of an organization and a giant complicated mess of an operating system work in a nice simple way is hard. - ⓞnor

If he truely sends emails like this every they, then I think they are falling on deaf ears. - Ryan McCutchen via twhirl

And Gates should be praised for actually USING his products. Some executives don't. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

I respect Bill Gates a lot more for reading this. Now all they have to do is do something about it. - Stuart Woodward

@stuart: They did fix some. Try going to microsoft.com and downloading movie maker via downloads. My main annoyance was two pop-ups, one for silverlight and another for a survey. The e-mail is from 5 years ago. - nadim

You see I wouldn't call that a 'rant' or even as Gates titles it, a 'flame'. It is simply honest, constructive criticism echoing the valid concerns of thousands of end users. More power to Gates. What concerns me is that Microsoft have senior people in place who are unable to discern that. This quote is just brilliant 'So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.' You simply could not make it up. - Andy C

I wonder what he thinks of Windows usability in general. I feel it's getting worse. - Philipp Lenssen

@Stuart Woodward I completely agree with you. I'm a Microsoft solutions architect and my respect for MS has just leapt ten-fold - Jonathan Nguyen

it is good to know that Gates has similar issues as me... to bad for him he can't ditch MS for Linux or Mac like I did. - nick carrasco

I'm not entirely sure this email is genuine - but even if it is almost every issue raised has been dealt with... if it was even true in 2003. As someone who uses and supports Linux, OSX and Windows Vista systems both personally and for clients the simple reality is that Vista is a good desktop OS and Server 2008 is a SUPERB server OS. - Soulhuntre

I am not sure how Linux and OSX have better usability than windows.. not the case for me and a lot of people I know.. - Adriano Gonçalves

@Soulhuntre - It's real. What people don't understand is that it's his *job* (okay it _was_ his job) to send emails like that all day. - Jordan Hofker

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

worthless_color.jpg 1486×639 pixels

June 23 at 8:50 pm - Link

Andreas Matern liked this

zero dollar bill... - Christian Sonntag

Awesome - Andreas Matern

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Svetlin Nakov - Blog » Blog Archive » Rejected a Program Manager Position at Microsoft Dublin - My Successful Interview at Microsoft

June 21 at 9:29 pm - Link

Microsoft interview process - Christian Sonntag

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Hulu - Dude, Where's My Car?

June 21 at 9:29 pm - Link

DWIMC brought to you by McDonalds dollar menu, LOL.... - Christian Sonntag

I was surprised at how much DWMC made me laugh. - Robert Konigsberg

DeWitt Clinton posted a link

Google Code Blog: Google I/O recorded sessions now posted

June 12 at 11:18 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Dan Brickley, Christian Sonntag, Erica Baker, Sumit Chachra and 20 other people liked this

It's up -- all of the Google I/O sessions. Which were your favorites? - DeWitt Clinton

Bruce's "Surprisingly Rockin' JavaScript and DOM Programming in GWT" session was one of mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - DeWitt Clinton

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And a link to the whole playlist on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/view_pl... - DeWitt Clinton

And a great take on Ajax and the open web from Alex Russell: http://sites.google.com/site/i... - DeWitt Clinton

Even Faster Websites with Steve Souders was a good one. - Frankie Warren

Great resources! - Kevin Cearns

Pageview_Limit_Exceeded once you click through. Oops! - Tony Ruscoe

At the end of Marissa's speech she says Google needs to do a better job of listening to/working with developers. It will be interesting to see what they do with that, IMO they could learn a thing or two from FF. - nadim

@tony - Apparently you all liked it, you really really liked it. Getting that fixed as we speak! - DeWitt Clinton

@nadim - I agree, we'll always have tons to learn from developers! Start a thread in the Google Code room (http://friendfeed.com/rooms/go...) with some of your favorite suggestions? - DeWitt Clinton

@dewitt - will do, after giving some thought to what my favorite suggestions are. - nadim

Pageview_Limit_Fixed_Now - Scott Johnston

When I click through, it takes me to a login page telling me why I should sign up for Google Sites… - Amit Patel

Meh. That's been happening when users aren't signed in, though it is set as world readable. Let me see if I can stop the login page from popping up. - DeWitt Clinton

Just watched Effective Java by Josh Bloch. Sweet. - Elias Torres

@eliast - Have you picked up the 2nd edition of the book yet? - DeWitt Clinton

Not yet, but I was waiting for it to be out and this video told me is out. - Elias Torres

Best Practices for Spreading Your App without Ruining the User Experience is a win. :) I love this quote: "If you behave like a disease, people develop an immune system" Someone needs to tell that to the app devs on facebook. - Erica Baker

Andy Baio posted an entry on Waxy.org

Interview with Alan Taylor, Creator of Boston Globe's The Big Picture

June 20 at 8:01 pm - Link

Paul Smith, Casey Muller, Christian Sonntag and Andrew Smith liked this

Bret Taylor shared an item on Google Reader

Here’s the Detailed Details of the New Yahoo Reorg

June 19 at 11:47 pm - Link

Thomas Hawk, Chris Farrugia, Brian Daniel Eisenberg, Christian Sonntag and Hutch Carpenter liked this

reads like it came straight out of Catch 22. - Thomas Hawk

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Not This Quarter on Vimeo

June 19 at 1:38 am - Link

Spend some time on mmwebinars... great plan! - Christian Sonntag

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

Joshua Jenkins | Flickr co-founders exit, what’s next?

June 18 at 2:49 pm - Link

One of the better Resignation letters to yahoo. - Christian Sonntag

Jeremy Zawodny bookmarked a page on delicious

Moving On

June 17 at 5:37 pm - Link

Sean Kelly, Jeremy Hall, Charlie Anzman, Robert Scoble and Christian Sonntag liked this

"San Francisco is filled with distractions. There are always crews tearing up the street, trains that are delayed, buses that have broken down, homeless people begging, friends having parties, and so on." - Jeremy Zawodny

Bye. - Jay Tannenbaum

Doesn't that complaint apply to any city worth living in? - Adam Kazwell

I'm going to Washington DC next week. Should be fun to get out of "superficial" San Francisco. - Robert Scoble

Well Kendall Square is the reason why Cambridge is the only city I'd consider outside of my west coast preferred troika of Seattle, SF and San Diego (in that order of preference). That said, I found Aaron's reasons puzzling, but different people are different people. - Deepak

The thoughts are obviously very personal preferences expressed publicly. I feel the same way about big cities in general - great to visit, but I have no interest in living there. I enjoy smaller city and even rural living, likely due to my upbringing in a small town. Big cities have no appeal to me. - Jeremy Hall

Christian Sonntag shared an item on Google Reader

SnapShot of friendfeed.com (rank #6,068), twitter.com (#896) - Compete

June 11 at 9:02 am - Link

friendfeed vs. twitter traffic. actually FF playing ketchup - Christian Sonntag

Atul Arora posted a link

Patterns for Designing a Reputation System » Yahoo! User Interface Blog