"In the end, you can't change your body chemistry. But you can wear one of four Centers for Disease Control approved repellents. Sprays and lotions including DEET, Picaridin, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus or IR3535 (which has made Avon's Skin-so-Soft lotion a popular choice) have all been deemed effective and safe to keep the bugs at bay." - edythe via Bookmarklet
Mosquitos love me :( I'll wake up in the morning with four bites; my boyfriend next to me will have zero. I can't think of a single redeeming quality about skeeters. Grr. - Jennie Lin via fftogo
they love you two because you are both so sweet - RAPatton
When i was a kid (maybe 4) i used to think that the mosquito gets under your skin (because of the bumps). I used to hammer the mosquito bites with my fists screaming "Die! Die!" - Parth Awasthi
see now, that's the sort of thing my mom would say to try and make it better. because I was so sweet. she also told me I had so many freckles because really, they were angel kisses...and the angels just loved me :D - Erin Kotecki Vest
awww. that is so corny, but it's really cute. - edythe
A friend of mine just started keeping bees. He reckons they like some people okay, but will attack others for no particular reason. Pheromones or something. - john conroy
Stay away from DEET as there is too much mixed research. Skin so Soft is a good choice (the scent can get to me, though). In Haiti, I learned the value of a good sleeping net. Luckily, the skeeters haven't hatched enmass yet here in Mich, giving the festivities of the day a better outlook. Do skeeter eaters actually eat skeeters? - Michael W. May
I've always been the mosquito magnet of whoever I'm with - which sucks because I'm also mildly allergic, even w/out any scratching they blow up on me. Fortunately my wife seems to have slightly sweeter blood and she tends to take the hits for me now. That's why I married her. ;) - felix
Yup. I'm the magnet, and the hubby is not. Even if I don't scratch the bug bites they swell up. **sigh** I stay inside a lot. :P - Cheryl Jones
I've always wondered if it was "regional." For instance, when I first moved to Dallas, it was months before mosquitos would bite me. They would drain other people dry before they even touched me. Sadly, that faded over time. - Harvey Simmons
Oh, and garlic... eat more garlic in summertime. Give and take ;) - Michael W. May via twhirl
Thanks for posting this edythe. I've always wondered about this. My wife will get eaten alive outside, while I often get no bites. Wasn't sure if it was strange luck. - Hutch Carpenter
Two natural repellents - lots of vinegar in the diet, and a few drops of lavender oil behind the ears and on ankles. I hike and kayak a lot, and refuse to use chemical repellents. - Jody Carbone
MWM: you may have something there. I moved here from Louisiana, and I eat a lot less garlic than I used to. This calls for an experiment! - Harvey Simmons
Jody, I've read that vinegar (acetic acid) is actually an alkalizing agent... the article says that mosquitoes are attracted to lactic acid produced as a result of exertion. So increasing your pH makes sense! Now, I'm off to patent my mosquito-repelling, anti-fatigue sports drink... :-D - Karim
my body temp seems to be a little higher than the average bear, but my blood must taste like piss because i hardly get bitten or stung by anything - Cee Bee
edythe, thanks :-) slightly confused now because I'm reading citric acid can substitute for vinegar. citric acid is used mostly in soda pop, which is likewise acid. i hope i just didn't invent the soft drink... lol - Karim
It's gotten so bad that I have to regulate myself. I use a plug-in for FireFox called Leechblock that you can use to limit your time during the work day.: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... - Dan Kaplan
huh? F5 just blips my Mac's little sound level at me. - Thomas Hawk
@Thomas F5 = Command + R on a PC. Refresh. - Parth Awasthi
Yes, FF is the new internet addiction. F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5... - Tad Donaghe
The only way to solve this problem is for you people to post quicker ;) - Earl E Morningwood
@Jason you essentially just told Amy Winehouse she should check herself into rehab - how likely do you think we are to match your show of discipline? lol ; ) - Marco
At some point we just need FF to auto-refresh every second and include a pause button so we can stop the action to read stuff that catches our eyes. That would be pretty freaky, huh? - Tad Donaghe
it has been eating into my reading and sleeping time - RAPatton
What? Reading Friendfeed isn't constructive or creative? - Tom Landini
Sometimes I interrupt what I'm doing (re-reading the manual for Twilight Struggle) just to check for new FriendFeed action. Totally addicted. - Akiva Moskovitz
I do that too. But now we're going to see the Incredible Hulk. - Robert Scoble
F5=Crack. Crack is Whack. Flickr = Crack. FF is the new Flickr. - Russellreno
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... It helps if you don't notice the walls of the maze aren't very high and there are these people looking down on you. - Karim
RusselReno, I had to double-check to make sure that you weren't Steve Gillmor - Todd McKinney
time consumption is simply the manual behavior. Get an auto refresher and save a micro second. ;) then again, if you want to remain aware, you have to read everything! - thecolor
use twhirl and updates come automatically to your desktop... no need of refresh, layout is awesome (discussions, etc) - Gustavo Munoz via twhirl
“I wish we had the ability to filter out foreign language entries. Some folks post in both English and their native languages, so one wouldn't want to unsubscribe just because they sometimes post something you can't understand.”
"Any sub-entry of entry is written in language which you don't want to read, then the whole entry will be excluded." Any way you can exclude only the foreign language comment, and not the entire entry? - Dewald Pretorius
Is it just me? None of these links are working for me -- they don't even budge - Shey
I think it's just me -- for some reason I can't install any GM script - Shey
why filter. . . couldnt we write some code to translate? - Anthony
If you write code to on the fly translate Persian/Farsi and English back and forth, let me know. - Michael W. May via twhirl
@Mike W May....i mentioned that a while ago but it never took...I really think FF should just ask you when you sign up, and that language you chose should be the proprietary. - Anthony
but honestly, Twitter isn't good because it can do this, Twitter can do this because it is good (i.e. because it is in widespread use). Any widespread medium, e.g. email or blogs can achieve the same effect if a lot of people are involved - Ivan Pope via twhirl
@Ivan - You are correct, but is the speed of the process in this case the real story for those, like you, that understand this can be done in any widespread medium? That's what I was impressed with. I also like that the first comment was from someone saying they wanted to do that in another city. That person is kind of missing the point like you said. Yes, organize a blood drive, regardless of medium. - Sean
This is a good application of Twitter, but I agree with Ivan that it's mainly an effect of the number of people involved. Look at all the things that people on the Digg communities have accomplished when they were pissed off. Get a moving message out to enough people and they will organize. I will be glad when data portability and connection frameworks like Gnip get established enough that we all have instant huge potential audiences to help persuade to our causes. We could do amazing things. - Lindsay Donaghe
I'm finding FriendFeed more and more useful... it's kind of scary. AFAIC, I'm interested to see how this "CC" integration will work moving forward.
It seems that a better approach, however, would be to enable me to create an account on ReadWriteWeb with my OpenID and then use OAuth to authorize my comments to be sent to my FriendFeed account, rather than having to type in my key everytime. - Chris Messina via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Sweet integration! I almost want to have an MT blog now, but I know Disqus is gonna come through for me in the end. Right, Daniel? Daniel?
Anyway, good job, looks great and it really raises FriendFeed's profile here on RWW. - J. Phil via FriendFeed MT Plugin
w00t! just want to make sure that this shows up in the FF comment stream too. thanks for the info! - ~C4Chaos
@factoryjoe, I have thought about that approach as well. I may very well update the plugin in future such that your FF account can be linked to your MT login (whether native or OpenID). That would certainly make things smoother, as all your would need to enter is your openID. - Mark Carey via FriendFeed MT Plugin
I was just watching a presentation by Tapscott (wikinomics dude), with a panel of "next generation" Gen y'ers in front of big name NY execs. I was thinking it was unfair to mislead all these senior executives that they are representative of most people their age - the panel are just early tech adopters like everyone else here (rather than typical 22 year olds). But I've just come back to reality, realising how early adopters influence the masses - this is a perfect example of how a early adopter crowd influence an early adopter blog which in turns influences the mainstream media which in turn influence the mass market. News like this mark turning points for these products I think. - Elias Bizannes via twhirl
I think this is a cool feature and had to try it.
I notice that some people have a blog-entry item that does inverse linking -- reporting pages that link to the blog entry.
It looks like this is automated. I think that would be very useful and I am out to find out more.
Wouldn't this (perhaps) solve the track-back problem. There would have to be some sort of white-list/black-list system to deal with link bait, though, wouldn't there? - Dennis E. Hamilton via FriendFeed MT Plugin
I changed the title, to remove Twitter. It's not technically correct that we're integrating Twitter -- although of course the link that attracts FriendFeed comments could come from Twitter. In this case it came from the RWW rss feed, but it also went to Twitter via Tweetfeed. The trouble with these things is they make one's head hurt :-) - Richard
Ah, now I am in FriendFeed and can see how this works from this side. Have to find the opportunity to comment in Twhirl too and I will be very happy. - Dennis E. Hamilton
@Richard: Interesting. The title doesn't change in FriendFeed, of course, but your comment about it does, which I guess is close enough for computer work. - Dennis E. Hamilton
the other cool thing is that the FF comments actually get saved to our RWW publishing software. So if FF ever went down or stopped working, the comments will still be on RWW. - Richard
I love this feature! I wish the WordPress plugin worked in a similar fashion. - Mack D. Male
When I try to post trough Feedly, I get -error: 404 -- undefined'. Hmm... but it seems this is only true for some posts and not for others. - Kris Haamer
Wow! Looks great. An elegant solution. - Chris Baskind
Good enough reason to take a second look at Movable Type - Andy Roberts
Nice work with the CC to FriendFeed, I really like the direction that this is going and FriendFeed integration with sites is definitely the way forward! - Joe Dawson via FriendFeed MT Plugin
cool .... i swear a blog is coming that is ONLY comments, and a prize will be offered to determine what the article was about
dang, startup anybody? - gregory lent via FriendFeed MT Plugin
“I have pretty much ceased working on Witty, a twitter client that I wrote in WPF. It's just no longer interesting with the ridiculous twitter api limits.”
Photos are the biggest thing. Facebook is to a large extent a photo sharing site, but their TOS prohibit you from doing anything interesting with the photos -- they're trapped inside FB. - Paul Buchheit
Yes, Mr. Morin. Tear. Down. This. Wall. - MG Siegler
I also want photos to flow into Facebook from other repositories. Display my Flickr photos in Facebook and let people tag them please. - Benjamin Golub
Man with all the hypocrisy, it really stinks in here. - Gavin
does not gov have the same exact motivation for not opening up as facebook? - Fred Grott
@sacca's point is fun, but it's a fact that the gov's data is ours, and debatable that FB's is. Both would be great, but the Gov's should happen yesterday. - Nate Koechley
First, government data is created through taxpayer dollars and since we all kinda have an ownership stake in the gov, we should have access to its data. FB data is FB's, per their TOS. Second, FB has data that is more valuable than other services -- it's a big business decision for them to be more open or not, and imho it's not clear if being more open is worth it to them at this point. Update: I see Nate already said basically the same thing. Anyway..... - Eric Eldon
Unfortunately most government organizations get the lowest-bidding contractors to build their content which usually means lock-in to proprietary data and clunky 'net applications. Just check out some of their intranets. IE6-only VBscript running on 10-year old proprietary multimillion dollar software - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl
I've seen a lot of agencies just mirror "what works at other government offices" which tends to perpetuate this cycle of technical stagnation. Some orgs do get the message and it's usually because of some introduction of Web 2.0 technology into certain facets. However, it needs to be internally evangelized and pushed up the ladder to the decision-making personnel (who usually don't understand the need). - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl
Bumping my follow up Twitter comment to FriendFeed comments: Back to my comment on the government. Wouldn't it be awesome to get updates on new laws and programs through the various social feeds? My thoughts on this come from the new cellular phone law in California. I think many people are probably finding out about this for the first time by seeing the blinking signs above the highway. It would be amazing if a notification for a new law came in through twitter, or friendfeed, or facebook (or all of them). - Dave Morin
Yes but Dave you missed everyone's point the value proposition is not in opening up as you would hoped but holding back. Politicians hide info to keep power, corps hide information to keep customers locked in..when users finally have away to route around than that info-lock in has NO POWER..that day is coming Dave very soon - Fred Grott
My comment was intended as a prod between pals. I make it a habit to tease Dave and other friends at FB about the relatively closed nature of some of their platform. I was by no means attempting to jump into the fray regarding OpenSocial/FriendConnect.
That said, as a FB user, while I was thrilled to see them start passing full text emails to me, it does bum me out that I can't reply back to the thread from my regular email inbox. It is an annoyance, and Dave has heard this from me before. This seemed like a fun opportunity to remind him of my #1 feature request.
More importantly, for the record, I am particularly impressed by Dave Morin when I see him participate candidly in public discussions regarding issues like these despite his high profile. Having been in a big company and knowing the effort that it takes to manage internal PR in parallel with community expectations, my hat goes off to him. It is very clear that Dave cares deeply about users and works hard to make them happy. - Sacca
@fred gott. i'm sure dave would like to know how soon that day is, since you seem to have such a clear idea. - Eric Eldon
WRT the lowest bidding contractor theory, hows about some of the more financially comfortable devs offer up their services in the form of govt contracts with outrageously low bids. Put your money where your mouth is so to speak. - Erica Baker
@eric listen to Gillmor Gang its closer than u think - Fred Grott
@Fred we agree on a lot of this. i was put off, however, by your antagonistic language towards dave, who has been at the forefront of opening up social network data to third parties for quite some time now. - Eric Eldon
@eric users wanting their data as free as possible has none of the tone you subscribe to me - Fred Grott
@Fred how many Facebook users want their data free right now? - Eric Eldon
Better if govs give access to the raw data. In my experience, trying to get a decent api from a gov department is kind of tricky. If you get the raw data there are plenty of companies & non-profits who are willing & able to build decent APIs around it. - Nick Lothian
@eric its not free part as u imply we want useful data that can only come about by full data-portability no user will ask for free or data portability because they do not know it as that. - Fred Grott
@fred i fundamentally agree with you. i just think facebook gets too much shit for "not going far enough" even though it has been the (social networking) industry leader in data-sharing. just look at how myspace was treating third party developers in previous years. this is a process. - Eric Eldon
This is what will happen more often with FriendFeed - items that appear and are discussed here will become news more and more. Expect this to happen more often. - Ben Parr
"Sorry to contradict your stereotype of MSFT employees. I'm at the stage in my career (6 years working at Microsoft) and my life (newly married with a baby on the way) where I'm not impressed by free lunches and unfocused usage of my precious time. Things I think about now include 1.) I have experience with the software development process that I'd like to share with other so they don't make the same mistakes I made. Microsoft has lots of formal mechanisms to support this including becoming a mentor (I've mentored interns) and a software management career path. 2.) I don't like fire drills because it means someone fucked up and it often means it eats into my personal time (evenings and/or weekends). As lame as it sounds, lots of the process at big companies like Microsoft is to reduce fire drills. How many XSS and XSRF security issues are reported for Google services on proggit versus MSN/Windows Live properties? 3.) Culture. Despite what you read on Slashdot, Microsoft has been..." - Dare Obasanjo
I started at Microsoft many years ago when it was 'the' place to work for a software developer. It was great. I still work here, because its still great. The fact that I now have a family, and Microsoft supports me in that, is a wonderful thing. I'm probably being too thin-skinned, but I always find it painful when my peers out in the world say and assume really nasty things about Microsoft, its people, and its products. - Bruce Williams
I thought those were stuffed animals at first. What is the story behind these pictures? I assume it has something to do with the earthquake and panda sanctuaries in China. - JP Landry
"More details have come out about the first (and maybe only) Battlestar Galactica TV movie, which may air as soon as this fall. The good news is, it'll be written by Buffy/Firefly scribe Jane Espenson, who just scored a hit with the BSG episode "The Hub." The bad news is, it'll be directed by BSG star Edward James Olmos, who has a track record of directing some of the worst episodes." - Mike via Bookmarklet
They also speculate about it featuring "juicy cylon backstory." Yesssss! - Mike
Sorry everyone just noticed this was already posted. I even forgot to add a picture :( - Mike
