Gabor Cselle

Bryce? Zion park ? - Ron Shoshani

Malakoff Diggins, yes? - Richard Chen

Redwood Falls, MN? http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.c... - Gary Burd

Western US near Utah. That's classic geology of that region (think GrandCanyon, NV area too) - Susan Beebe

rock climbing? - Caroline

I don't know, but I'd join you - xero

There are definitive clues here, aren't there? I'll guess TN or The Shenandoah Valley,VA - Maryam

Cedar Breaks? - j1m

I can almost securely say it's not south/southeast USA. Wrong type of pines. Those types of bushes are rare as well. Given the way the cliff/mound are formed, I'd also think it'd have to be nearer the west coast than the east. - xero

northern sierras in the foothills - don loeb

I don't have a real answer, but I can add sarcasm : Somewhere outside with a camera and nearby internet access. And probably bug spray. - Anthony K. Valley ©

Richard Chen is correct. Here's another view of Malakoff Diggins: http://flickr.com/photos/perma... - Gary Burd

Part of the Grand Canyon? - Brandon Titus

Somewhere north of the shire. - Mike Lewis

OK, agreed! it's Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park...and the cliffs were carved by streams of water / hydraulic mining for gold...a-greed. - Maryam

I can't help thinking of it as a dessert... a mound vanilla ice cream topped with a coffee liquer on a bed of mint... - torque

Correct, this is Malakoff Diggins, not a natural formation. - Paul Buchheit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... "By 1853 miners invented a new method of mining called hydraulic mining. Dams were built high in the mountains. The water traveled from the reservoirs through a wooden canal called a flume that was up to forty-five miles long. The water ran swiftly to the canvas hoses and nozzles called monitors waiting in the old river beds. The miners would aim the monitors at the hillsides to wash the gravel into huge sluices. Over time the monitors became bigger and more powerful. Their force was so great they could toss a fifty pound rock like a cannonball or even kill a person. Over 300 Chinese worked on this project and two Chinese settlements existed in North Bloomfield." - Paul Buchheit

Brings back memories of a middle school camping trip! - Richard Chen

Hmm, Pascal-Louis is there too, right? You guys will be a JS compiler power-house :) - Mihai Parparita

I've decided that I prefer small companies, and this one sounded exciting. - Jared Jacobs

Biggest question is why? Why didn't Google get actively involved with Mozilla? - Deepak

I think it's the industry's best chance to topple IE. - l0ckergn0me

I'd love to take it for a spin. Is there an ETA for the public release yet? - Ray Metzen

I read the comic book twice, and despite my Safari leanings, I think this one has legs. Question is... if iPhone trumps Android, does Google port it to the iPhone? - Louis Gray

That's not the point. I use Firefox, and want to know why Google, which has a good relationship with Mozilla (apparently) chose to go the Not Invented Here route, when there was an established open source platform to work with. The only thing I can think of is that this is to get a good mobile browser since webkit has proven itself on the iphone. - Deepak

Please let Google release it as an app for the iPhone with Gears, Flash and Java enabled. And please let Apple let them do that! - Tony Ruscoe

I'm still curious about the firefox usage aggrigation project mentioned in the first half of the year, had a techcrunch article but has gone strangely quiet ever since. Some are claiming it'll cover only interface stats and others actual traffic data. - alphaxion

first release will be sep-02. it now seems clear that APIs like safebrowsing [http://bit.ly/3QvWL7] and gears [http://bit.ly/4amra2] were all part of a longer-term strategy to change the game for their app set. - MikeAmundsen

Deepak, the most logical explanation seems to be that Google wants to take Chrome in a direction where Mozilla doesn't want to go. What exactly that is remains to be seen when the thing is released... - Ray Metzen

Deepak, it may be that the Webkit codebase is simply easier to work with. I haven't looked at either in years, but Firefox used to be quite a beast. - Paul Buchheit

Sounds great to have new players on the browser field. But how will the support from Google to Mozilla be affected after Chrome? - Christian Van Der Henst

Ray/Paul, fair enough. I am not saying that the choice is wrong, but I would like to know why. The mobile future is my guess, but it's only a guess. - Deepak

omg been waiting for this forever! - Kyle Weller

Deepak, that's probably a good guess. Another reason might be that Google apps are more deeply integrated than Mozilla would be comfortable with. - Ray Metzen

On the code question: http://news.ycombinator.com/it... - Paul Buchheit

Paul .. thanks. That's an interesting thread in itself - Deepak

Wow is IE about to go the way of Netscape? :-) - Jim Stewart

Predicted this 3 years ago - http://schlerplotti.typepad.co... - Mike Reynolds

I think everybody has the same question. Why Chrome when we have Firefox? Why can't Google extend support to FF? - Rohit Srivastwa

That's bad news for Firefox. The early Google Chrome adopters are likely to be the same people that jumped on early FF as well. But what's more important, I think the idea behind Chrome is to build and position it as an application platform, which FF failed to achieve. - Franci Penov

Looks like a webcast starts at 11 a.m. Pacific: http://bit.ly/3f32hG - Matt Cutts

Looking forward to it. My designer isn't happy though, yet another browser to test not that IE is going away anytime soon. - Angsuman Chakraborty

"Last quarter marked the first time in 30 years that not a single company backed by venture capital went public in the U.S." - Louis Gray

Sarbanes-Oxley was a kneejerk reaction to appease the masses that wanted some sort of assurance that the markets weren't going to implode. After the dust settles SarbOx will be amended--if not removed--and all will be back 'to normal.' On the same note, expect similar witch hunt and follow-up legislation for this go-around. We're already beginning to see indictments for fraud pertaining to the mortgage markets... - grant

I think most new laws are kneejerk reactions to appease the masses that want some sort of assurance. - Gabe

Some witches are worth hunting. - Chris White

I found the comments about entrepreneurs building low capital investment companies to sell to the larger competitors to be quite interesting. Could it be that these people are valuing personal freedom over still having a set of bosses? My guess is that there are far more people who want to create something, than who want to become 'industry titans' with all that entails. The out come is not always a good place for a person to be - compare Jerry Yang to Steve Jobs, or Larry and Sergei. - Robin Barooah

@ Chris: do you mean that trying to find the next Steve Jobs is worth doing? Because a witch hunt only brings to mind all the collateral damage of impostors and accusations. - Clare Dibble

Clare, I was responding to grant's comment about the mortgage markets. I meant that in that case, some witches are real, and worth pursuing, as opposed to the traditional view that witches aren't real, and therefore witch hunts are inherently bad. - Chris White

I'm guessing that the iPhone was under development for at least several years before 1.0 was released. FriendFeed is less than a year old -- I bet that it will be a lot better when it is two years old. - Paul Buchheit

But as you know well, Gmail have got quite many updates after that (but most of them could be counted as minor fixes probably). Just saying that product is good only if it's been maintained. ;) - Daniel Schildt

Does good mean, good enough to go live? I'm a little confused by how good is evaluated. Our hotels meta-search product (wego.com/hotels) has been around for about 2 years now, but we did a re-write a couple of months and it's much much better than before, but still don't know whether it compares to GMail's 2004 level of goodness, or Google's 1999 level of goodness. - arunthampi

Yes, of course good products must continue to improve. The Google of 1999 wasn't very good by today's standards either. It only searched about 70 million pages, for example (vs maybe 20 billion now). - Paul Buchheit

arunthampi, I'm thinking of products that will stand out and have significant impact on the world. - Paul Buchheit

FriendFeed have been under development for just little bit of time but considering that amount it has gone greatly forward. I wish it will develop to even more advanced (but still usable) tool for keeping persons updated without too much of information flow. I wish there would be more features for filtering of information that user could set and control from settings. - Daniel Schildt

Not sure how long Evan was working on identica prior to launch but I am absolutely staggered and amazed how far identi.ca has come in what must be less than 6 months.” - Andy C

2-3 years. Based on Moore's law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... - Igor Poltavskiy

I started eventseer.net 9 years ago, but it wasn´t until recently it became good (after Thomas took over 3 years ago). - Amund Tveit

Habari has been in development for about 18 months. It's a "good product" now (though with pretty low market penetration :) but it will be a lot better in a year. - Michael C. Harris

I think the iPhone was under (serious) development for 3 years prior to its launch last June. - Jamie

@Paul, ah in terms of significant impact, maybe we don't measure up (as yet) but im guessing that will happen very soon :) - arunthampi

It depends on what you mean by "good product". Good for lead users? Good for a distinct social milieu? Good for the masses? Also I believe it is very hard to tell when a product has been finished. Gmail 2010 won't be the same as Gmail 2008. - Benedikt Koehler

"Good to use" is not universal since different people have different need and for some of them, tool can be always difficult to use. - Daniel Schildt

Software is generally asymptotic to good, (isn't it?) because as software gets better it attracts more users, each of whom has a slightly different definition of "good". But some more random examples: Windows 1 -> Windows 3 == 5 years; Unix 1969 -> 1985 (by which time it was clear it was dominating workstations except for DEC); Linux on the desktop 1991 -> 2007 (Ubuntu 7); Mozilla/Firefox 1998->2005. It's pretty clear that web software matures quicker than desktop. - Nick Lothian

if you write software you should consider your users as BORC, not those weak dumb individualistic humans. that way you write software that fulfills needs. the more streamlined your BORG can do it the better. leave the task to make pretty buttons to the designers. the last step would be to imagine a human again and make your software human/error-proof. - krz9000

It looks like the incandescent light bulb was around for 75 years before it was commercialize-able: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... - Clare Dibble

Game development is about 2-3 years but not sure if there's much correlation of development time to quality. - Chris Bentzel

Human brain software takes 2–3 years before it is able to reasonably control its host human. - Amit Patel

how long does it take for a good product to go bad or rot? Why do some products still remain relevant after many years? - Shakeel Mahate

The first fax machine was sold in 1861. - seth

I heard Writely was built and sold (to Google) in 10 months - Stewart Rogers

Interesting question, but I can't answer it because I can't figure out how long anything has been in development other than by the community of people who are working on it, but then I can't correct for the bakedness of ideas when a community starts. And then I'm not sure which of the ideas in the bundle that is a product was really important to its success. Hmm. - Daniel Dulitz

Products are so different from each other, it doesn't always make sense to compare them. Products that are built on existing technology usually take less time than those built from scratch. The reality is usually a gradient between the two extremes. Consumer electronics often take longer than other products because of the difficulty developing, testing, and certification of hardware, as well as having physical alpha and beta testing of the software. - Chris White

@ seth Sadly, the first fax spam came in 8 minutes later from a travel agent offering a package to Hawaii. - Brian Norwood

The original version of WebTV was built within one year. I refuse to ever work that hard again. :) - Chris White

I think it's a question that can be answered historically, if you look at the time from when a group of people commit themselves to the realization of some idea, to the time when a similar group with a similar idea make an impact on the world. The answer for software *seems* to be 2-3 years, much of which is spent fumbling around in an unfamiliar space. For new drugs or new modes of transportation or new paradigms in visual art or whatever the time is different, and there's a lot of variance in any case. - ⓞnor

based on the startups i've seen over the years, 1 yr to prove the concept and 2 yrs to fully launch first "stable" iteration, then improvements from there on out to succeed (definition of success differs based on model/plan) - that'd be my swag of it... - mike "glemak" dunn

I like this topic Paul -- don't see it delved into all that much, at least in places that I tend to keep my eyes on - Eric Berlin

great topic.. longevity is key to successful product. if you are working on something new (not a copy of something else), you got to factor in some iteration time as well. It's interesting that many here are coming out at the same 2-3 year time frame - i agree also - Travis Parsons

I've been PM for an enterprise software suite for 8+ years now and it's taken that long for it to mature to the point where large corporate customers around the globe are deploying it for mission critical applications. We've gone through 4 major releases and countless minor/dot releases in that time. This is technology that originally was developed by a startup back in the 1996-2000 timeframe that was bought and sold via M&A activity 3 times in just over 8 years. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

“software is lettuce, not gold” (Brian Behlendorf) so perhaps it's never good.. particularly if you are marketing guy facing ever-changing competition - Travis Parsons

I'd say 2-3 years easily, just to get real traction and work out the kinks before the product really starts to mature (if it's any good to start with). If you're out too early and it stinks and everyone bails on it, what's the point? (Case study: Friendster.) - Brandon Uttley

somewhere between 3 days and 3 years - Gabe Ragland

Varies. You can nail it first time (rare) or you can work toward it from a decent base. The latter generally happens in the 2-3 year range. If it takes longer nobody adopts it unless they have to (or if they can change it). - xero

it depends on the company ( big, small or a startup) usually when big/established companies trie to build a product in a market which already has competitors, they try to make it game-changing (a.l.a iphone), or differntiate it ( gmail ) and this means spending sometime on the product to get it right and better. Also, big companies have the advantage of scale means they will have a user base that's willing to try their product out... This could also be a disadvantage, as they would need to worry about all the issues beforehand. That's the reason Google worries about scalability, Microsoft spends months to years testing their operating systems... I guess its different with startups.. how long did it take to build a youtube or a flickr or even a friendfeed ? Months ? Most of the consumer software startups work on their product for a few months and then put it out and iterate over it. - Krishna Gade

Until it's ready. Sort of like toasting a piece of bread. - Ryan Massie

"Linux started as a terminal emulator".. !!!? Or not. - Nick Lothian

Definitely a lot of points that rang true for me, especially the "Chicken and Egg" point. - Adam Thorsen

I myself have worked on two start-up concepts and a revitalization effort, each of which bombed, but each one taught me something different. I finally threw in the towel on my last start-up and picked up a full-time day-job because I couldn't find anyone willing to share hats. We were already incorporated, so I was the CEO, book keeper, technology evangelist, sales guy, support tech, development lead, and development team. Needless to say I fried myself within a year and nearly went off the deep end. On a happy note, I'm loving my work now and haven't given up the entrepreneurial bug yet; I'm preparing myself to be the best co-founder in the world, knowing that the time will be right when the right team comes together to solve the right problem. - Chris Stewart via twhirl

Congrats! - Benjamin Golub

Congrats!!! - Dan Hsiao

Wow! This is like baby overload all of a sudden. - Brandon Titus

Congratulations! Why do I have the opening from the Six-Million Dollar Man playing in my head? - Mark Trapp

that really was fast. Congrats! - Robert Seidman

Congrats Paul and April! - Hutch Carpenter

Congrats! Second delivery this week on Friendfeed! Just plain awesome. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

@Mark because you're old? Congrats, Paul! - Zach Landes

Congrats! Now we need baby pics. - Tad - pals w/Terrorists via fftogo

Congrats! All these babies are making me feel domestic and stuff. I should go do some manly stuff like change my oil. - ha3rvey

That *was* fast. Congrats and hope everyone's doing well! - Carla Thompson

@harveysimmons Typical guy comment ;) Congrats. I want a baby damn it! - Michelle Marie Miller

@Harvey, change a diaper instead. It's a safe middle ground. - Louis Gray

How is the baby? Everything OK? - RAPatton

Congratulations :) - kbourke

Felecitations les Buchheits! :) - directeur

Congrats! - Michelle Martinez

Congrats Paul we all welcome the newest FriendFeeder! - Mark Krynsky

wow! Congrats - Bindu Reddy

Congratulations! - Cyndy

congrats! hope everybody is healthy and happy - David Vasileff

Whole-hearted congrats and hope the baby is well...... - Chris Reed

Congrats! A brand new social media user. :) - Dana Franks via twhirl

Congratulations:) - Zahra HB

Congrats! - Shey

Congratulations April and Paul! How is little Beavis doing? - Jim Norris

woo-hoo! Congratulations Mr. Paul! - JA Castillo

wonderful news! congrats - Peter Fenton

Fantastic! - Mitchell Tsai

Congratulations! - Benedikt Koehler

So great - Christopher Sacca

:) - edythe

Welcome Baby Buchheit! I hope mom and baby are both doing well. - Clare Dibble

Mazel Tov! Welcome, Beavis. - Gabe

Congrats! - Erica Baker

Congrats! - Steve Rubel

I'm happy to see the extraction was successful. Congratulations, - Robert Felty

Congrats! Mabrook! - Mo J.

Congratulations! - Anne Bouey

Congratulations!! - Gabor Cselle

Awesome! - Thomas Hawk

con'grats!! - Peter Dawson

Congrats! - Mike Doeff

Hey Paul, congrats! - dario

congratulations! - Sarah Perez

that's awesome :) congratulations!!! - Georges Harik

congrats! - Derek Collison

Conga-rats! Yay!!! - Lisa L. Seifert

Congratulations! - Sam Harmon

Congratulations ;) - Alejandro S.

Fantastic! - Capn' "One-Eye" Longman ☠

Congrats! - Igor Poltavskiy

WOW... a BABY Buchheit entered the world while I wasn't looking...amazing! great secret there Paul!! Congratulations on your new addition to your family!! :-) - Susan Beebe

Congrats! :) - Aviv

Thanks everyone! - Paul Buchheit

I wish all good things for the new life. - Daniel Schildt

From somebody who's Internet experience has been heavily influenced by you (you were one of the first blogs I ever followed), best of luck and I look forward to seeing the results of your new opportunity! - Damon via twhirl

yahoo won't be the same without you.. :( - Augusto Becciu via twhirl

Just to hope you all good to your new work, whatever it is. - Daniel Schildt

Where are you going? Anywhere we've heard of? - Tony Ruscoe

Jeremy. Good luck. I can only echo what Damon said above - Deepak

good luck - Andreas Gohr

shocked to know that u'r leaving. good luck. - Jansen Lu via twhirl

:) - Sarath via Alert Thingy

shocked. And happy for you :) - John Mueller

woo. crazy. all the best to you. - Josh via twhirl

Congrats on a huge move, and all the best, Jeremy. You'll be deeply missed as a Yahoo, even by those of us that don't work there. - DeWitt Clinton

Welcome to the ex-Yahoo club, Jeremy, and congratulations on the move. Looking forward to seeing what comes next for you. - Ryan Kuder

Congrats! - Ginger Makela

Best of luck! - Mike Reynolds

Who's the next lucky one to hire you!? :) - directeur

Good luck! - Matt Wood

Reading this in Friendfeed. Doesn't seem appropriate to "like" it. More "ackknowledge that it is news". You seemed like a force for good in a good company Jeremy. - Scott Koon via twhirl

Congratulations ;) What's next ? Google or Own project ;) - David Berrebi via twhirl

@Jeremy startup please!! ;-) - Erhan Erdogan

He said a 'smaller' company. So that rules out Google. - Adewale Oshineye

Best of luck Jeremy ! - Charlie Anzman

Good luck Jeremy, can't wait to see what your up to next. - Barry Schwartz

Wow! All the best man! - Robert Cooper via twhirl

Wow! Good luck Jeremy! - Niranjan Tulpule

The problem with having an ! in your company name is people always sound so excited when they write about leaving - Christian Anderson

oh, dear. - edythe

Good Luck, Jeremy. - Krishnan Hussein Subraman

All the best to you Jeremy....I'm looking forward to the next chapter. in your book. - Jerry Chacon

Go FriendFeed!!!! EPIC WIN! - Steve Isaacs

FriendFeed was rock solid throughout. Way to go Bret, Paul, and the rest of the FriendFeed team. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I never had any doubts. Nice job, guys. - Louis Gray

Love Ya Friendfeed! - Parth Awasthi via twhirl

Indeed ! that's was very nice! Have you done anything special about this Bret? (Like twitter's folks) - directeur

very nice. anyone could guess Friendfeed would make it. - Josh via twhirl

way to keep the fail whales away - Jeremy Raines

We did move a few things around, but nothing temporary - the event inspired us to optimize a few things we had been meaning to optimize anyway. - Bret Taylor

yay scalability! - Neha Narula

Bret: Big! Congrats! You've done a very nice job ! :) - directeur

I guess that I will be hanging out with ya'll for the rest of the day. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker

FriendFeed FTW! - mathew ingram

unlike the oh so much stress Twitter will be having FriendFeed will be up and running - Outsanity

I'd like to second this notion: well done Friendfeed, you guys have your shit together and I respect that. - ryangraves

Rob (Radez) actually just said the same thing. Good work, guys! - Gabor Cselle

Even wordpress hosted sites are down! FF is well hosted and manged! - Lakshman Prasad via twhirl

well done you guys. - Tsega Dinka