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Dan Hsiao posted a link
September 16 at 8:17 am - via Bookmarklet - Link
"Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of “drill, baby, drill!” I’ll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats, exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall — “Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!” — because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it. ... it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.”" - Dan Hsiao
"In order to disguise the fact that the core of his campaign is to continue the same Bush policies that have led 80 percent of the country to conclude we’re on the wrong track, McCain has decided to play the culture-war card. Obama may be a bit professorial, but at least he is trying to unite the country to face the real issues rather than divide us over cultural differences." - Dan Hsiao
I wanted to quote over half the column but I'll stop. Just go read it. - Dan Hsiao
YouTube
Jess Lee favorited a video on YouTube
Damn It Feels Good to be Banker -- A Wall Street Musical
Play
September 13 at 11:15 pm - Link
I like the "Three C's". - darren
Nice dig against "Walt Whitman" (the school district, not the poet) too. We used to compete against them in high school gymnastics. - darren
i think that just melted a little bit of my brain. i feel so confused. i want to laugh and cry at the same time. - Mike Massey
YouTube
Dan Siroker favorited a video on YouTube
Damon Condemns Palin
Play
September 10 at 4:37 pm - Link
Google Reader
Keith Pelczarski shared an item on Google Reader
September 10 at 12:16 am - Link
Nice comment: "There is no argument. People don't vote based on logic. They choose the logic that supports the emotional decision they've already reached." - torque
I couldn't agree more. I don't understand why Obama's team doesn't understand the basic principles of rhetoric. Rhetoric is not the same as negative attacks. It's a positive affirmation of factual negative characteristics (or at least it can be). - darren
I have to agree; the ad was clever, but using the word "maverick" only reinforces that frame in people's mind. - Jamelle
Obama needs something simple that voters will remember. Maybe every time they mention Obama, it should be within a few words of "leader". And every time they mention McCain, it should be within a few words of "old" or "out-of-touch". - darren
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a link
Official Gmail Blog: Making security easier
July 25 at 2:54 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link
Very useful. - Patrick Kempf via twhirl
Finally! - Benedikt Koehler
why would i ever turn this on - peter
Why it took them so long. I've got that improvement (packed w/ 20 others) from Better GMail 2 FireFox extension. My favorite improvement is Folders4GMail - label/sublabel get organized as folders. - Nenad Nikolic via twhirl
Nice! At last! :) - AJ Batac ♘
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! :) - JohnBfromMemphis via twhirl
Nenad: There are good reasons due to SSL performance costs, specifically latency and to some extent concurrency. You can negatively impact user experience by using SSL naively. Security-conscious users like yourself won't care about the added performance cost, but the other 99.99% will. - Steve Weis
About time!! - Susan Beebe
I wonder what Gmail is using for their SSL acceleration - AJ Batac ♘
"don't always use https"? that doesn't make sense! now if they said "Use https every time" and "60% of the time use https every time" that would be much easier to understand... :) - David Vasileff
It should be a checkbox. As for why not use ssl -- browsers are really dumb about caching with ssl, so for people with slow, high-latency internet connections, it could be really painful. The actual computational cost of ssl isn't that big of a deal -- it's not the 90s anymore. - Paul Buchheit
@Steve I fully agree with you. It may be the case that Google neede to scale up their infrastructure prior to making HTTPS widely available as "set-and-forget" option. This will definitely increase a number of SSL users by (at least) two orders of magnitude. Maybe they deployed SSL server farm based on quantum cryptography? ;-) - Nenad Nikolic via twhirl
N: I doubt this will increase the number of SSL users significantly. Most people (rightly) have no idea what SSL is and will never know this option exists. Everyone reading this operates in a bubble, so we're not a typical demographic. When G enables SSL by default, that's a different story. (ps - Quantum? I'll have some of what you're drinking. ) - Steve Weis
I thought the slowdown with SSL is not the encryption itself, but that each connection requires lots of overhead to negotiate. - Gabe
@Gabe, for persistent HTTP connections, the overhead would be in encryption / decryption, right? Of course, I have no idea exactly how much that is quantitatively. - Ashwin Bharambe
@David, "Use https only when typing your password" wouldn't fit. - Bruce Lewis
If they wanted to make it easy, always https should be default. - Colby Olson
Paul, does Gmail use persistent HTTPS connections? How often are new connections made for things like new windows, attachments, graphics, etc.? - Gabe
Great! - Daniel Schildt
About time.. Too bad it breaks the Blackberry Gmail app :( - Marc Chung
@Marc - YES! I had the same problem, but something I didn't try was turning on HTTPS on the BlackBerry App? It's in the settings "More..." then "Settings" - let me know how it works out for you and I'll turn it back on (amyers@gmail.com) - Aaron Myers
Gabe, what do you mean by "persistent"? There's all the usual HTTP keep-alive and such I'm sure, and chat does a new request maybe every minute, so there's probably almost always one or two connections from every browser. The big problem with SSL is simply that connections take a long time to establish (due to the extra round trips) and that web browsers don't properly cache https content. - Paul Buchheit
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a link
July 22 at 11:42 am - via Bookmarklet - Link
"The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”[1] Perhaps, the agency has conceded, some “new, unforeseen technology” might warrant an “exception” to this formalistic test, but in the agency’s view, no such technology has yet emerged so there is no reason currently to use a more inclusive standard." - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
The author of this blog clearly thinks that getting rid of software patents would be bad and would somehow hurt Google. However, I believe that the existence of software patents is a much greater risk for Google (and other innovators) than benefit. Google is about a lot more than Pagerank (and competitors already have comparable if not the identical algorithms). Meanwhile, the thousands of patents that they don't own effectively form a giant minefield that could hurt them at any moment (see RIM). - Paul Buchheit
(grabs papers, runs to patent office) - Karim
Like = trying to figure out the issue. Some software probably should be patentable, but the standards are too murky to sort out. Probably the PTO wants to wash its hands of the mess. - Sean McBride
Looks like it's time to go the 'trade secret' route instead of the 'patent' route. It's kind of nice: If it's something that's obvious from the user experience it should be harder to patent, but if it's something that, even when the service is public, can still be hidden, then third parties shouldn't just be able to copy it. One-click shopping shouldn't be protected, but O(1) search algorithms should be. (Wait, what? If there were an O(1) search algorithm it'd change everything! I contradict myself.) - Kevin Fox
I like the "physical transformation" argument. Computer technology has boomed in spite of software patents, not because of them. - Gabe
I admire the ironically pro-competition and social progress roots of patents. I also respect the efforts of many to equitably apply those antiquated laws on the violently innovative realm of software and the Internet. Nevertheless, I will be so happy to see the USPTO concede the futility of these patents and pull the plug. (Though, depending on what kind of plug and how they pull it, they may owe someone royalties.) - Christopher Sacca
Patents are a tax on small bazaar innovation in favor of big cathedral innovation. In some fields maybe that makes sense. But despite all the patents I've filed for, the things that had the biggest impact on the world weren't patentable (and shouldn't have been). Patents fetishize the "inventor" and the "invention" at the cost of actual progress. - Daniel Dulitz
I wonder if this will put those of us who work on "physical transformations" even further behind. Did you know it currently takes and average of about 15 months from the time an order is placed for a wind turbine (example large equipment) until it is operational? This is part of the argument for patents... you can eventually recoup the cost of this large equipment if it works enough better than your competitors during the protected period. - Clare Dibble
I still can't believe that Yahoo/Flickr tried to patent "interestingness" of social media. Does anyone know how I can find out the status of this patent request from 2006? http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacg... The patent office's search sucks and I can't find it anywhere there. - Thomas Hawk
With equipment/ material costs rising, will this just make software even more attractive relative to say consumer goods or energy? - Clare Dibble
Many large corporations do not file their really key technologies. They just lock them up. This makes it impossible for market competitors to find out what they are up to. - Paul "Maverick" Denlinger
I support not having software patents. They're like patenting chord progressions. - Chris White
Chris, with respect to chord progressions, I think you are thinking of "copyright" and not "patent" ;-) - Karim
I am so happy to hear this. I want Blackboard to go out of business. O - Akshay Dodeja
Karim, no I'm fine with copyright. From my perspective, chord progressions are like algorithms. I think people should be allowed to build on other people's work or invent something using techniques that are fairly obvious.. However, I'm not okay with people just taking somebody's work verbatim and selling it as their own, as in using somebody's copyrighted song or application source code. - Chris White
was discussing this with a friend and he posited an interesting question: will this make it even more important to keep the employees who work on developing new technologies happy? - Marco (aureliusmaximus)
See also http://arstechnica.com/article... regarding the studies of innovation & patents in IT vs BioTech fields, and possible reasons - Nick Lothian
I also think the EFF is a great resource for this stuff. Their Patent Busting project is fantastic. http://w2.eff.org/patent/ I was on the wrong end of one of those Acacia patents once and it made me sick to my stomach. - Christopher Sacca
I think this is great news, especially for big companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Larger companies have more to lose from potshot lawsuits than to gain. Very little of software business success comes from having a patent on a process - it's all about execution, and legal defense prevents those who are producing working software from doing what they do best. - Jon Galloway
Oh please let this mean that the one-click patent can be consigned to the garbage can of history. We demand easier shopping! - Earle Martin
So who would a decision like this be bad for? Besides patent trolls, and maybe patent lawyers... - nadim
i never end up reading the original article that these long response feeds are based on...so even here, the original writer gets no credit for stimulating this conversation. So who's to say people should own anything. The Fugees sampled Enya for "Ready Or Not" and gave her no credit, but I am sure Enya got the idea from somewhere. Again this is cyclical, or tangential rather. But where is the place for barter in this world then? I think the human instinct to barter is always going to trump giving stuff away - Rajesh
A follow-up from GrokLaw: "It's one lawyer's opinion and analysis, one with a stake in the outcome. Would you like to see what another lawyer says about the subject, in contrast?" http://www.groklaw.net/article... - Simon
FriendFeed
Evan Parker posted a link
Google LatLong: Pound the pavement
Google LatLong: Pound the pavement
Show all
July 22 at 11:26 am - via Bookmarklet - Link
Walking directions! - Evan Parker via Bookmarklet
Congrats! One bit of feedback -- the "Use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas" seems like a big waste of space in the UI. - Jess Lee
s/Like/Love - Erica Baker
@Jess It's not a waste of space when it makes you think twice about walking through a neighborhood that you might get mugged in. - Erica Baker
I wonder if it knows about hills? (and avoids them) - Paul Buchheit
@Erica: it's not the advice I lack, it's knowing which neighborhood I might get mugged in. - Tudor Bosman
@Tudor That sounds like an opportunity for a mashup with crime stats to me. - Erica Baker
What about bike directions? Those seem much more useful to me... - Christina Kuhn
Erica++ for finally finding a good concise way to do a modified Like. - j1m
Yay. Nice. - Mandi
5 years ago we would have never considered 'walking directions' or 'bicycling directions' or 'siteseeing directions', why not give us multiple routes, based on hills/crime/site-seeing, and color them different, maybe we want to walk a different way back. user generated gps paths would help too, but thats a lot of data to analyze. - David Lynch
Google Reader
Tessa MacDuff shared an item on Google Reader
May 13 at 11:20 pm - Link
so true. love it. although i think all-nighters are harder post-college. *getting old* - darren
Gmail/Google Talk
Ocean updated their status message on Gmail/Google Talk
“Orion Beer”
April 28 at 9:04 pm - Link
me want some - darren
FriendFeed
Jess Lee posted a link
April 25 at 11:12 am - Link
so cute! poor little penguin. "There are no plans to make him a matching surf board." - darren
Picasa Web Albums
Ocean published photos on Picasa Web Albums
IMG_0737.JPG
pa191050.jpg
pa191050.jpg
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October 27 at 9:21 am - Link
楽しかった!おめでとうございます! - darren
YouTube
Paul Buchheit favorited a video on YouTube
How Lord of The Rings Should Have Ended
Play
March 30 at 1:59 am - Link
ha. i had a very similar thought upon reading the books many years ago - MG Siegler
did not Mordor have any decent anti-air defence against such a puny bomber force? e.g. a pack of nazguls. OTOH, the entire eagles folk could invade... - 9000
YouTube
Jess Lee favorited a video on YouTube
rabbit massage
Play
March 22 at 6:32 pm - Link
Avni and I laughed out loud when it started flipping the real bunny's ears. - Tom Stocky
I love it! That is so cute! - April Buchheit
For those of you with short attention spans, skip ahead to 0:25. - Jess Lee
I have very, very short attention span, and Jess you lost me somewhere between word 5 and 6 in your comment can you please try condense your writing. - Philipp Lenssen
HA! - Soup
Reality giving into the mechanized world. - Joel
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a message
“There were actually two major speed improvements. The first happened last friday when we launched a new ethernet cable. Sanjeev discovered that the old one was causing 3% packet loss.”
March 11 at 5:54 pm - Link
I thought FF ran on EC2? - Benjamin Golub
No, we used to have our crawl there, but we've always served from our own DC. (and now the crawl isn't there either) - Paul Buchheit
Why don't you use EC2 any more? Inquiring minds and all that. - Walter Korman
Probably because they have mad loot now (http://www.businesswire.com/po...) - Benjamin Golub
Walter, amazon ec2 doesn't provide static ips, so it's tricky to serve from or crawl out of (if you want other people to whitelist your ips). - Sanjeev Singh
@Sanjeev: Amazon just announced static IPs for ec2 :) - Amit Patel
Yeah this is a really big step forward for ec2. - Sanjeev Singh
Blog
Bret Taylor posted an entry on FriendFeed Blog
February 25 at 10:00 pm - Link
Congrats! - Jason Chen
Thanks to all of you for helping us get here! We are excited to open it up and move on to some big features we have planned :) - Bret Taylor
Congrats! Looking forward to the big new features. - David Vasileff
Awesome news! - Sage LaTorra
Love it! - Ross Miller
Congratulations, guys! ^_^ - Jess Lee
Congratulations, I'm spending more and more time trawling FF, there's always something new here - Glenn Slaven
Congratulations! - Christopher Black
Congratualtions! 축하합니다. 더욱 더 발전하세요. - zizukabi
! - j1m
Congrats! - Bindu Reddy
Yay friendfeed! I'm so excited for what's to come, although I'd still love the site even if it stayed the same - Emily Miller
Congrats from Belgium too! - Maarten Somers
congrats guys. you've built an excellent product, one i became addicted to very quickly. it will be interesting to see how it now evolves with a larger audience. - Carla Thompson
Yay! - Anne Bouey
Reddit
Paul Buchheit liked a story on Reddit
February 11 at 2:06 pm - Link
do we know if the memories are actually real? did the guy have normal memory otherwise? - ⓞnor
I dunno, but the comments on that story are awesome. - j1m
YouTube
Bret Taylor favorited a video on YouTube
Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video
Play
February 2 at 4:19 pm - Link
yes, young urbanites in their 20s and 30s definitely can! - ƃuɐʞ
The speech itself talks about the founding fathers, slaves and abolitionists, immigrants, union workers, and other subjugated classes changing their world for the better. While none of those groups are young urbanites, I do feel pretty disenfranchised by our government over the past few decades, so from that standpoint I guess it is about young urbanites, and that's fine with me. - Kevin Fox
kang: Giudiani was going to produce a similar song called No You Can't, but then he decided that he couldn't either, and he withdrew. - j1m
kevin - i support obama over clinton, the orig. speech was great, etc. etc. i just think it's funny that will.i.am didn't cast any old people in his video. - ƃuɐʞ
Ahh, fair enough. :-) I feel old for not recognizing most of the people in the video. - Kevin Fox
kareem abdul jaffar is not in his 20s or 30s - Shakeel Mahate
i imagine a music video message is also targetted primarily at those in their 20s and 30s though, right? - Dan Hsiao
There is another version targeted at jazz fans in their 50s, but it's an instrumental - j1m
first time I have felt inspired by a politician in my lifetime - Derek Coatney
delicious
Sanjeev Singh bookmarked a page on delicious
October 7, 2007 at 1:14 am - Link
"beautiful people have more daughters" and other nuggets. - Sanjeev Singh
My favorite line: "One-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man." - Ana
oldie but goodie - Huy Zing
Over the years I've liked many articles from that site. If FF ever does a Trends page (like Reader's), I'd like to know which sites I FF most often. - Amit Patel
"Humans are naturally polygamous" is not a correct summation of the current state of thinking in evolutionary terms. The more accurate summation would be "Humans are naturally adulterous monogamous." You can read more about this in <a href="http://drtatiana.com"><i> Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation</i></a> or <a href="http://books.google.com/books?..."><i> The Red Queen</i></a> - Ruchira S. Datta
Whoa, that's ugly. How do I link so that the anchor is the title of the book and not the URL? - Ruchira S. Datta
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