One thing is clear: Obama has an A+ speech-writing team. I'd actually like to see him win--but I fear he'll get assassinated if he does. - Dossy Shiobara
"I rarely rate something with full 5 stars - I have no problems giving 4, but 5, rarely. This place's food has earned 5 full stars in my opinion. We had dinner at Pandan tonight at 4 PM. On-street…" - Dossy Shiobara
Wil Wheaton recalls his first Rocky Horror experience, and urges everyone to sign the petition to STOP MTV FROM DESTROYING SOMETHING SACRED! - Dossy Shiobara
"This place looks small from the outside, but it is HUGE on the inside! The dance floor is large and the sound is loud. The drinks are on the pricy side - $4 for a cup of beer (yes, a plastic cup!…" - Dossy Shiobara
An important lesson on quantitative comparisons, and why most "green eco-fags" have an emotionally, but not factually, compelling argument. - Dossy Shiobara
An important lesson on quantitative comparisons, and why most "green eco-fags" have an emotionally, but not factually, compelling argument. - Dossy Shiobara
one of those youtube ready cameras sound like something I want bad. it is a little over $100... but I still want it bad. for me technology is only as good as my ability to afford it. recording video for cheap will change my life. keep one in my bag for emergency... this will revolutionize society. iphone should learn from this. - Noah David Simon
I think my leatherman was under a $100, oh and my nokia stereo bluetooth headset. - clarke thomas
Logitech Nano Mouse but only because I can't think of anything that I have that was under $100. Damn... that's bad haha. What about you Veronica? - Michael Narciso
USB adapter for internal hard drives... an indispensable too for sysadmins. - Jason Wong
by dad bought an old Compaq laptop for $300... catch was I can't get the internet working. - Noah David Simon
My linksys travel router or sony bluetooth stereo headphones (hbh-ds220) - James Tenniswood
Palm Centro, it's no iPhone experience, but it works, its cheap, and it's not tied to AT&T - Brian Blankenship
under a 100$? I have expensive taste ... 100$ is what I spend at McDonalds. That's on the bingeing phase of my diet... though I'm taking a good look at those gorillapods - aka Taylor
I like McDonalds... I don't by the Supersize me Meme. but your right it is an expensive place to eat. aka Taylor. did anyone hear about the magazine with the digital cover that is coming out. cheap electronics is the next revolution. I like that cheap youtube camera because I think it is great insurance from violence - Noah David Simon
the elgato264 has saved me LOTS of time in compressing my videos. $95 - Schlomo Rabinowitz
My ipod shuffle underwater headphones from h20 audio - Andrew Fielding
I'll second the notecards. Others would be a flashlight, superglue, green laser pointer, battery powered speakers, apple bluetooth keyboard, and moleskin notebooks. - Royce Mathew via twhirl
My iPod Shuffle, Creative Vado, SD and CF cards, and the 6-card reader! - Daynah
My Sony Clie T665c (though I don't use it that much anymore) and my Bluetooth keyboard. - Jake (aka Jawee) via twhirl
The ones I have gotten recently that I like a lot are my Sansa Clip MP3 player (nice for when I just want a small player) and my AMOD AGL3080 GPS Data Logger for geotagging photos. About $40 and $70 respectively IIRC. - Allen Phelps
Koss Portapro headphones- sure, they look and feel cheap, but they sound awesome for the price. - Jacob Grove
Leatherman Juice, my first slide rule, thumbdrive keychain and hands-free project holder - Robert Hafer
If you already own SD cards than the Sansa e130 mp3 player is an awesome alternative to that apple thing. - sergiooo
Mark - act 3 on saturday!! (I think that may mean tonight at midnight). Ken - don't worry, especially during the summer, you aren't missing anything. Mike - huh, thanks for the pointer, gonna check it out. :) - felix
Act 3 should be coming out at midnight tonight. I'm loving it so far. My fiancee, being a huge Joss Whedon fan has already recorded the songs and is trying to write down the lyrics to memorize them. - James Ferguson
James... just to save your fiancee some time. :) http://imaekgaemz.com/?page_id... I was curious about Freeze Ray but too lazy to do the work myself and found this. :) Can't get the damn song out of my head. - felix
It's fun. I really liked the beginning of Part 1, when it was an actual video journal by Dr. Horrible. Hope we get back to that at some point. - Lon Harris via twhirl
I think it's fun. Cheesy at times, but doogie done good. - daniel morgan
I liked it. Fun approach to the superhero genre. Once the musical started it really came together. Liked the blog entry style. Didn't Josh Whedon also do a Buffy episode as a musical? - Larry Kless via twhirl
Dr. Horrible was a cute opera. Could definitely use more of those today - the format really works for YouTube. - Dossy Shiobara
Larry - yeah, Joss did Once More With Feeling, a musical buffy episode. I think I'm the only Buffy fan in existence that didn't love it. You can see echoes of those songs in some of Dr. Horrible's. - felix
I like it- nice to see something well-written. - anna
i totally loved it. the songs are still stuck in my head. especially the first one of the 3rd act, "look around, we're here amongst the lost and found..." - Brian Ries
“How do you know someone is smart? I've been thinking about that this morning and looking back at all the conversations I've had and one common theme is smart people talk to you about ideas, not about celebrities.”
Tad: even those people are still smarter than people who tell you about what Britney Spears did last night. - Robert Scoble
You could replace "celebrities" in that sentence with "names of people". In other words, it's ideas and concepts that are important, not egos. Even "nobodies" can have egos. Narcissism shuts out the world beyond the self, we can't learn if we are always holding up a mirror, never looking beyond it. - Jason Wehmhoener
My dad once told me that even the dumbest person in the world can teach you something because he probably knows something you don't. - Jason Shultz via twhirl
Smart people listen more than they talk. - Randy Hall
To me the smart people are those that make a well-reasoned argument for and idea and then do two things. 1. Have the guts to put it out there to the world and 2. Have the guts to change their mind if they're wrong (or hold their ground when they know they're right) - Morgan
I think it all depends on the topic you're discussing. I'd say someone is smart if she can engage with you on the discussion and make you think about it from a different angle. - Bruno Pedro
Jason: it's one thing if I tell you "Doug Engelbart had dinner at the Ritz last night." It's a whole nother thing if I tell you "Doug Engelbart told me that xxxx idea is interesting and he's working on making that better." - Robert Scoble
Duncan for example is a smart guy, but still talks about celebrities, so it's possible to do both and still be smart - Dobromir Hadzhiev
Which reminds me I need to talk to you about an 'idea' at blogher. ok. not really...more about which cam to get for the conventions. lol - Erin Kotecki Vest
I agree... This is especially obvious here in LA... although sometimes the celeb mention is the nature of the business -- or at least mention of -- as Calacanis would say -- "webebrities." - Andy Sternberg
Jason: that's true. I have yet to meet someone who is able to communicate (I have a friend with a mentally retarded son who isn't able to communicate, so we'll leave him out of this) who I couldn't learn something from. Randy: exactly. When I fail as an interviewer it isn't because I'm listening, it's probably cause I'm talking. - Robert Scoble
Andy: when you talk to the smartest people in Hollywood they talk to you about ideas. Trends. People's work. They don't talk about "I saw Tom Cruise at dinner last night" or "did you see what they said about Oprah in the tabloids?" - Robert Scoble
Robert: I agree. The point I was trying to make is that we can learn something from almost everybody, even those who we may think know less then us. - Jason Shultz via twhirl
I think one can be smart and still talk about "Weird Al" Yankovic, because he's smart. - MiniMage via NoiseRiver
Dobromir: Duncan's best work is when he talks about ideas. That's why I love Duncan, cause he tells me who has the most interesting ideas, and he's very willing to debate ideas (I've debated a few with him). - Robert Scoble
I think people can be both highly intelligent and pretty stupid at the same time. Robert Anton Wilson said it better than I can, "When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases." And that doesn't apply to just religious dogma - any kind including political, scientific, cultural, etc. - Tad - just Tad
this is a cool thread! we need a lightbulb "intelligence meter" on FF - users vote on how smart you are based on your posts... bulb gets brighter with more votes! - Susan Beebe
Susan: fantastic idea! Now that's smart. - Bruno Pedro
I have a theory that being smart is simply a matter of the attention that you give somthing. Granted, Nobel Prize winning physicists dont grow on trees. - Roberto Bonini
smart to me is someone who knows what they know but more importantly knows what they don't know - too many intelligent people who never make it to smart because they are too busy broadcasting what they know - Marco
That would give credence to the old saying “if smarts was electricity that boy couldn’t light up a 10 watt bulb. “ - Earl E Morningwood
Social media is about inclusion, don't alienate too much with your labels and boxes - Michael W. May (Joffi) via twhirl
I've found smart people treat being smart like fight club: rule number one is you don't talk about being smart. Rule number two is you don't talk about being smart. To Jason Wehmhoener's point, smart people don't spend their time making a point of how they're wrapped up in smart things or "look what a good person I am for talking to x or doing y." - Mark Trapp
Smart people usually start talking by conditioning everything - and the first condition is for them to say they are not an expert ... - LPH
Smart folks understand questions are important, they are not afraid to admit ignorance and appreciate that learning is a process not an event. - Dave Martin
LPH: hmmm, the ultra smart like Douglas Engelbart (who really is the true visionary I've spent time with) just paint pictures in your mind of how the world will be someday. He never said he was expert at something, just talked about how this new world would work. I could listen to that guy for hours. At 82 he's easily the smartest person I've met. - Robert Scoble
Michael: that's an interesting question. The biggest way I've found? The only skill not smart people have is in ripping down other people's ideas, or, worse, trying to rip down other people altogether. - Robert Scoble
Robert, put it another way: smart people talk about the world that could be, not that the world that is? - Mark Dykeman
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar."
- Donald Foster - Roberto Bonini
Smart people simply can get the job done faster and pay attention to the hidden details that others would miss. I still don't know how to best test for it, though. - Ben Parr
You know a person is smart when they do not follow the crowd and pay $500.00 for a cell phone. - Paul L. McCord Jr.
smart people are visionaries, humble and most likely pious too. Take a look at the peoples who are deemed as being smart. These are some of the comman attributes of these type of people.! - Peter Dawson
I think it can go both ways-Charlie Rose talks about both-ideas are great, but what is with the people behind those ideas - that's very interesting! I also think its a natural human instinct to talk about others - it depends on the context. "I saw Tom Cruise last night" is the lowest common denominator. Inquiring about the dynamic of Shell's latest barrage of public vitriol and the work ethic of others in the Valley are spurned from natural human curiosity that we all share, whether we ask it or not. - james svenson
Robert: ”Smart” here as different from ”Intelligent” – I have one story that will help us out here to identify a smart person. I had a friend at high school that knew he was not that intelligent, but he was smart: - he used to research old exams to see what the previous year tests would possibly cover on the upcoming exams. He used to collect all class notes from the top “dedicated” colleagues that were willing to share the notes. He would then select the top 10 of about 20 topics that could come up on the exams. This guy passed always and with the minimum needed to advance. What he did in my opinion was that he OPTIMIZED all his capacity to achieve one goal and that as it. He knew his weakness so well that he found ways to overcome them. He went from high school to university and to MBA: he travel to Europe for about a year and returned to get the job he wanted. - Joao
@susanbeebe: I dunno, I'd feel pretty hurt when the system took away my lightbult entirely. - MiniMage via NoiseRiver
I remember my dad once telling me what Eleanor Roosevelt said... "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Brian Sloane
the first sign that someone is really smart... they will tell you they're not but they will show you they are. - Scott Lockhart
I'm not saying I'm particularly smart, but I truly find celeb gossip one of the most uninteresting things I can think of. - Ian May
I think that smart people are the people that get things done. Imagine two people that have never heard or met each other and both of them come up with the exact same brilliant idea. One person brings the brilliant idea to a reality, while the other person doesn't. Which person is smarter? - Here's... possible248! via NoiseRiver
maybe true...but everyone is smart in their own right. you might be a social media whiz but not know anything about putting in kitchen cabinets. I'm a firm believer that everyone has their sweet spots in terms of knowledge. The really smart ones, just take the time to expand that sweet spot so it's more than just a spot and more like an area. - Don Martelli
I think a smart person can talk about both. That way he/she can converse with all people and not make anyone feel less smart than them. - Adrienne Van Houten
Adrienne: I agree with that. But smart people never start out that way. - Robert Scoble
What an awful generalization. That's how I know when someone is smart. When he doesn't make an implied generalization like "stupid people talk about celebrities". - Jay Cruz
smart people think through questions and give full answers. who talks to you about angelina jolie? i agree anybody asking scoble about that is "not as intelligent," but probably nice people...unless they have no idea who you are....maybe they ask you these questions: "is veronica belmont really cute in person? or is kevin rose really a ladies man?" however, smart people are not always smart in all aspects of their lives... - Pokai
"Smart people talk about ideas. Common people talk about things. Mediocre people talk about people." -Jules Romains - Joe Lencioni
You know when someone is smart when they know what they're talking about and they have a good understanding. "Smart" people grasp things better and/or have ideas. - Kevin Porter via twhirl
Smart is not about opinions ("Stupid ideas"). You can be smart and have different beliefs. I'm wondering if they are "smart" conversations or just engaging conversations. I'm much more interested in sharing ideas than sports scores, gossip, or transitory circumstances. - Barb Gonzalez
Ugh. Most of these comments seem to prescribe behavior to those who are "smart" - one of the only commonalities I've ever seen of truly smart people is that they make their own rules. To say they only talk about X not Y or they listen more than they talk or any other behavioral observation misses the mark with me. Smart people don't subscribe to other peoples' ideas of what they should be. - Lucretia Pruitt
Smart people realize how little they know but have no need to try and convince others that they know a lot. - Dossy Shiobara
Scoble, no one is "smart" or an "expert." It doesn't really matter at all. The only thing that matters is how people preceive someone to be. My blog, http://onlyjames.com/ is constantly growing, so I believe people to think I am smart. Then again, I might be a complete nutcase. :D - James Mowery via twhirl
I think you can define smart a few different ways as well. I think the question you're really asking is "How to determine if someone is INTELLIGENT?" - David
I have noticed that they seem less likely to urinate in their pants than the general population - Seth Shapiro
Takes a long time of knowing someone and seeing how they react under differents sets of circumstances. People are smart in some ways, but not in others. - Francine Hardaway via twhirl
When I hear the word "celebrity" I now think of Sarah Austin's Pop17 which come to think of it Robert, you have never acknowledged that I know of. Her site is about a new kind of celebrity. For her, and for me, the interesting celebrities are people who become famous because of their outstanding work. And she does not attempt to ask about shallow tips or favorite colors, but rather about their work. The people she tends to interview are micro-celebrities small in size, but important. - Andrew Baron
Smart people don't brag about how they can recognize smart people. - Rutger Blom
I enjoy people who talk about other change-makers in the world. People who point me towards amazing & influential musicians, dancers, physicists, politicians, chefs, etc... Sometimes the geek-world is a little heavy on ideas. I enjoy hearing about the life history & paths of unusual chemists, religious leaders, and environmentalists. Just as some of my friends have more "aesthetic sense" than others, some are unusually attuned to remarkable people, and some to innovative ideas. - Mitchell Tsai
@ Scoble, once again you've hit a collective nerve with this thread. it goes back to what makes us human? "i'm not human without you"- Desmond Tutu re: Umuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...) communities like friendfeed should be a place where we explore these types of questions, there is enough pablum out in this world already, thanks for pursuing this line of questioning. - Nice Fish Films
I have an idea in that I'd love to get Britney Spears on Twitter - I think that would do wonders for her career. ;) - Jesse Stay
Is smart a measurement of intelligence or emotional quotient? One's intelligence is measured and quantified, like it or not, whether intelligence is synonmous with smart, that maybe another question. One can have emotional quotient as well i.e. street smarts and it too is measurable. Intelligence is not dribble. Intelligence, for me, is the generation of ideas with vision followed by implementation. Intelligence has many forms as well albeit plasticity or crystallized. Good nature versus nurture question. - ka3drr
I'll answer with this: the people's intelligence that I most desire and respect are the ones who are able to bring reality to the "out of the box" ideas they have. Plenty of people can speculate, but very few have the competence to bring a good idea to the rest of us. - Tony
I still have no clue who these A-listers are that people talk about but I'm interested in ideas both from other people and also sharing ones I come across. Celebrities? Phooey, give me an original thinker any day. - Sally Church
Pop culture aficionados are not necessarily stupid. I think the smartest people can carry on a conversation about nearly anything, and like it or not popular culture is a great source of inspiration for many ideas. - Lindsey Smith
Hmmm, how about... Methinks "smart people" think about having conversations with people (aka "intellectual celebrities") with whom they can talk about ideas and... Sigh... It still goes back to Howard Bloom: http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/P... —I'm a Zen Buddhist, but I still do think "God" is fair... As in, I can brainstorm pretty well, yes, but I'd die in the Aussie outback if you put me there. :P - kwok heng
Thats a great observation. If only we could make those ideas a reality :) You are a fun guy to talk about ideas with. - Christian Burns
Is this where we talk about Paris Hilton ? - Eric Berlin
Eric: my niece says Sean Faris is hot. I don't even know who that is. Off to the Google for me! :-) - Robert Scoble
I think I have a trump card. go look at The Inquisitr..there's some pretty intelligent posts on there and, also talk about celebrities. You can tell someone you are talking to is smart by the way they treat the subject at hand and, how they deliver their portion of the conversation. - Candace Holly
Funny you should mention him, Robert. I'm working with a website, and he's one of our celebs on it. The odd part, for me, is that we have all of these B+ list celebs, and I don't know any of them. - Bradley McSpinn
I put it to you that smart people talk about people rather than ideas - Jim Yiapanis
Advertising with google? Subscription model? Sell my data to data mining services? Flip it? Something else? Is anyone else a little worried? - Hao Chen
Seems like they could implement the same ideas people bounce around for twitter... inserting ads, charging the top users etc... - Matt Baron
they'll take it offline, make it a subscription model forcing all addicts to pay! Seriously though won't they build a large userbase first then sell? - Toby Graham
@Toby but the person buying it will want to make a profit from it, so there needs to be income somewhere... - Martin Bryant
I'm not worried, they have at least a couple of years to prove out whether the service is useful to the average joe, and if it is, they'll find a way. It has the potential to be people's first stop for social networking, and that in itself makes it an extremely valuable channel for marketing. - Matt Baron
Twitter's gotten multiple multi-millions in venture capital with no actual business model and less coolness (and uptime) than FriendFeed. So I'm not sure FriendFeed cares. :) - Robert Fischer
Use the twitter downtime ad idea, and create downtime intentionally??? - Yuvi
@Martin but Youtube? Isn't it just a massive loss leader for Google? - Toby Graham
data is valuable. mining that data is like printing your own money. web 2.0 = attention economy and we're all giving it to friendfeed in exchange for the service they offer. - Dossy Shiobara
@Robert Bubbles like that are likely to burst sooner rather than later in the current economic climate... - Martin Bryant
I asked this a while back and it was answered with silence basically. I see no reason why they couldn't put contextual ads down either the right side or occasionally inline with the feed (like Facebook). Won't bother me, I assume they can do it tastefully. - xero
@Toby I suppose. Stick adsense down the right-hand side of FriendFeed and they'd turn a profit I imagine! - Martin Bryant
@Dossy I agree, but to make money off that valuable data, they'd have to sell it, or give it away and take a cut from third parties, right? - Hao Chen
You're welcome. Though the article does not entirely solve the problem. Third parties should still create a valuable (=monetizable) service using twitter/friendfeed. Is there any advantage in this model? - Giovanni Lion
@Giovanni I agree. So far, I've only seen http://friendfeedlinks.com/ which is good, but not that deep in substance. Need some good analytics done on the data to get something truly interesting and valuable. - Hao Chen
The team is going to hold autograph signing sessions for a fee, and they will recoup revenue that way. - Louis Gray
The behavior/traffic data is likely to be valuable to large companies like Google. - Jason Wehmhoener
Tim - you might think that's a joke, but that's XKCD's business model, and it does quite well. ;) - J. Phil
Large flash banner ads. They'll take 1 minute to load, and then provide an explosion of colors and sound in your feed. - Ranjit Mathoda
@Bwana if it worked for the underpants gnomes, it'll surely work for friendfeed. - Jason Shultz via twhirl
But, I'm sure they are just hoping to get bought by someone who can figure out how to monetize it. Unless they are planning on injecting Google Ads or Yahoo Ads into the stream. - Jason Shultz via twhirl
@J. Phil I wasn't joking. I want one! :) - Tim Hoeck
They can do value-add subscriptions. You want custom icons for your blog entries? $10/yr. Stuff like that. They would have a hard time trying to lock existing services behind a pay-wall, though. No one likes to pay for what they once got for free. - [self setNick:@"willia4"]
I think that a social medai search engine that is based on the enourmous amounts of data that FF has on us and the items that we post. That is where the ads will feature because they can be targeted using the same data. - Roberto Bonini
@Shey That sounds like last.fm's recommendation system. Still it's hard to think of a non-ad way to generate revenues. Shouldn't companies want to use friend feed (or any other social media) as higher order entities like youtube sponsored channels? - Giovanni Lion
By selling high quality, non-commodity, food. - Paul Buchheit
Been a thought on my mind as well....... We've all fallen in love with this place and certainly wonder what will be done to make sure it doesn't just become another flooz.com. - Chris Reed
Ads? Maybe. Subscription model? No. Data mining? Yes. How? 1) Advertiser comes to Friendfeed and asks "How many of your subscribers mentioned positively the word {enter_brand_name}?" 2) FF says "There are 25,000 FF members who have mentioned the brand positively. Do you want to reach them? It's going to be 0.01/user. That's 25,000 x 0.01. Your bill Mr. Advertiser for this ad reach is $250. Make sense? - AJ Batac (Yoda)
... tshirts and krispy kreme donuts, it is. - Hao Chen
Tim - I'm right there with you. I'd buy a FriendFeed T-shirt, and some FF beer as well. Not sure about the doughnuts. - J. Phil
@AJ If FF is public anyone can do that. Selling bandwidth and let qualified third parties do the datamining would be much more profitable. - Giovanni Lion
There is no arms race. Let Lively be cross platform and live for more than 24h and have largescale adoption among those who don't have first lives - THEN, and only then, can we talk about an "arms race". 4 reelz. - Aaron Brazell
Cross platform? That's the easy part. I agree there will be some real challenges for 3D adoption. It's just not easy enough for the average user yet, but if anyone can do it, Google can. - Hao Chen
Tried out Lively for 5 minutes. It was so unusable for chat, I couldn't believe this had Google's name attached to it. Even "The Palace" was better than Lively, you know, back in 1995. I hope Lively was someone's "20% time" project, because if it isn't--it's embarassing. - Dossy Shiobara
Just tried Lively and couldn't get logged into any room.... scaling issues already??? - Jim McCusker
Trying to play, but Lively isn't ready for me... Linux > Lively - "Czar" DJ Peterman
I could only login if I signed in thru the link at the top of the website first. - Hao Chen
@Dossy it was someone's 20% project, I believe, yes - Matt Hooper
I think connecting content creators to revenue is dangerous with the likes of CopyBot running around. If it's easy to steal, the price people are willing to pay falls to simple convenience (ala iTunes). - Justin Gibbs
@Justin Agreed, content theft/digital rights/DMCA is another huge hurdle that needs to be overcome. - Hao Chen
my prediction is that this goes nowhere. just like most of G's other initiatives. - felix
Looking at the bigger picture, I, for one, think that if this was someone's 20% project, then they did an AWESOME job and that they are pushing Google forward towards the right direction. - Hao Chen
"(Note: The venue is now "Piccolo's Restaurant" and not "Lotsa Pasta".) Piccolo's is located just outside the East Gate of Smoke Rise in Kinnelon, NJ. Went for dinner on July 3rd and chose to sit…" - Dossy Shiobara
