This matches everything I'm hearing from around the economy. People are attacking me for being too negative, but they don't provide any evidence of why I'm too negative.
- Robert Scoble
The Japan slide is interesting... a comparison I haven't seen
- Kim Mahan
Robert, I don't think you are being too negative and personally believe we are in for a long and rough ride ahead. But you're right, Americans prefer positivity, they don't want to hear that.
- Sally Church
I don't see what is so wrong with what they are saying, so why hate you?
- Dan owns Comicsforge.com
Good article except for a complete mid-understanding of taxes and personal spending. Buying "stupid stuff" drives the worldwide economy, cutting taxes improve that economy and increases govt. revenues.
- Robert Hafer
Inspiring article about a family run company I worked for back in the 1990s. I love family run companies and I am proud to be with one now.
- Steve Rubel
are there any spoilers? I've not done season 4 yet
- Toby Graham
There're quotes from 5 already, Toby... :\ Get off FriendFeed and jump on sidereel LOL
- Mona Nomura
Yup, I'm on this like flies on a turd.
- Toby Graham
My favorite was when Ari was going to leave his old firm a la Jerry McGuire. He asked Llyod to come with him and Lloyd said (paraphrasing) "do you promise not to make any more gay jokes?"...Ari replied "No, but I'll try my best" have to blog this...
- Ryan
Every moment with Ari is GOLD. I love the way he interacts with his wife. Love him and Lloyd. Love watching him, Turtle, and Johnny Drama. I just LOVE Ari. I think my ideal man is Ari Gold haha!
- Mona Nomura
The Ari character totally makes this show. Oh, hai mona! BTW, the story line in Entourage echoes actual events surrounding Troy Duffy (Boondock Saints) See doc. "Overnight" ... Wahlberg, Weinstein, esp., got burned... this is sweet revenge...
- Richard Walker
from twhirl
The amount of brain power around the globe devoted to selling ads has always boggled my mind. People doing things they find interesting is the engine of innovation. Business and markets often act as a black hole sucking away true creativity in trade for easy monetization. Cezanne spent his life trying to make great art, not capture markets.
- Todd Hoff
Wow, look at him go! He went amazingly far. You can tell he's so proud and happy. Way to go, Milan! I suspect "going far" will be a constant in your life, given your parents' and brother's great support.
- Dawn
Too cute Robert! It's the age of discovery for Milan.
- Larry Kless
Yay! Good job, Milan! Soon he'll be chasing the Gray twins around... :-)
- Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™
Congratulations Robert! I'm not a father but I remember when my god-daughter started walking... it's simply beautiful.
- Andrés David Aparicio
from twhirl
oh boy!! he is on the move!! looked like you wound him up and left him goooo! so adorable. You have an older son, don't you? Is the place still baby-proofed or do you have to start over again?
- Melissa Davis
Fantastic milestone, congrats Robert!
- Mike Fruchter
there's nothing wrong with being a nerd / geek / dork! revenge of the nerds ftw!
- Mona Nomura
I refuse to admit that an Apple nerd is the second iteration of the original geek. I'd buy that the geek and the nerd both fork from the same dork tree, though.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Also, say that second sentence five times fast out loud. :)
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
+1 Mark. The internet is seemingly filled with 'geeks' who can't fix their own computers. (I said can't, not won't)
- Yuvi
Funny >the geek and the nerd both fork from the same dork tree, though.
- Russellreno
Very nice! You could replace the D&D by a deck of Magic the gathering in Geek 1.0
- João Almeida
from twhirl
Geek 1.5 ("The Transitional"): 1. Trusty Palm V (in all its form factor glory) in hand, 2. Inserted into casual conversation: "AOL! - Pssf! Not even on dial-up anymore -- once you go to BroadBand, you can't go back! And High-waters, w/ pair of scissors applied, have become DYI shorts that are the new source of fashion ridicule.
- Micah
from twhirl
If my ADND gaming group is any indication, the game is still D&D, but character sheets are on the computers. I fully believe I combine the best of both worlds; with a Tablet PC my character sheets are both digital and handwritten. I've got to admit the spreadsheet users have it nice, when it comes to stat penalties and recalculating...uh, I think I should shut up, now.
- MiniMage, enterRUPPted
I've heard this for years, starting like my freshman year in high school. History teachers always complain that modern media is making a "sound bite" culture.
- Kevin L
@klecu: one could argue that a 'soundbite bite culture' is a reasonable response to information overload
- .LAG liked that
I like it too! Great light work! But this make me wonders about FriendFeed and Photo Blogs. When we publish something with RSS in FF, we don't see any images. FF should have an option for photoblogs and automatically display images from RSS feeds of photoblogs. Anyway... My comment is at the wrong place :-D !
- Éric Senterre
Eric: Thanks for the comment. Thomas Hawk actually questioned this as well and I believe Sudar is working on a WordPress plugin to include pictures (http://friendfeed.com/e...). It is something necessary and needed.
- Justin Korn
putting out some pretty impressive stuff these days Justin.
- Thomas Hawk
photos should display correctly if your blog supports media rss. support for media rss was added to ff about a month ago.
- Rafael Robayna
Rafael - not sure what I need to do differently then. As you can see here (http://friendfeed.com/e...) the post did not have the image. Suggestions?
- Justin Korn
I've been waiting it to be available for FF3 beta, since it's off beta now the plugin is ready to go, and I love it. Also implemented it to my blog gallery.
- Koray AI
Thanks for giving a shoutout to PicLens! Glad to hear you're enjoying!
- Cooliris
Trying to use Gina's Todo.txt on Ubuntu now. Will see how it does for me. I am a big believer of TEXT. Remember freeform text PIMs? So wish I had created the one I envisioned with tags and hyperlilnks. I guess its not too late.
- Brad Nickel
"Things" works great with iphone and ipod Touch and when they add syncing with the mac, it's perfect.
- Tommi Rissanen
All very good reasons. I can't live without my Freemind maps. Whether its planning code or even just problem solving. Its a lot more intuitive than trying to use Planner (or MS Project) to plan something, and can then be easily translated across to Project software if you need it to. Its especially good for defining your own workflow and strategies as well.
- Stephen Cropp
I've been trying out mind maps every now and then but still haven't been convinced. What exactly is it about mind maps that make you more productive or efficient?
- Benedikt Koehler
I've started to doodle mind maps instead of notes for meetings and it certainly makes more sense to me when I return to the notes
- Andy Britcliffe
from twhirl
What are the best programs to Mind map?
- Toby Graham
They need to get smarter first. MindMeister gets close with the nodes you can click on to search for pages related to the node. I want to create a mindmap and have it suck in my bookmarks related to each node on the map via tags. That way I can just build the map, have the research I have done before come to me and then move on from there.
- Stephan Miller
from twhirl
Anyone remember "The Brain"? So much promise - but it didn't quite work. Mindjet is a really good but doesn't integrate well enough into my todo / project managment solution.
- Soulhuntre
Mindmapping is a useful construct. We used it with the major scenarios of our last software release and -- with MMPro and a TFS Plugin -- exported them directly into Microsoft Team System. Cool.
- Robert W. Anderson
from twhirl
Any good web-based Mind Mapping solutions? Ultimately I'd like an Evernote for Mind Mapping which would run everywhere.
- Al Degutis
from twhirl
I would lose my mind without mindjet mindmanager
- adolfo foronda
As I mentioned early --I'm a mindmapper junkie...and doing it collaboratively via mindmeister in real time has been great with clients.
- Leif Hansen
Al: www.mindmeister.com :) (multiple user updating real time, one touch Skype, jottable notes via 1. “My Geistesblitzes” = widget (Windows and Mac compatible) 2. SMS (Twitter) or 3. e-mail plus moticons, smilies, and tons of visuals galore. Once complied, the map can be exported and shared in various ways; which for a free service is phenomenal, plus the data can be exported in multiple ways.. I blogged about it here -> http://bit.ly/1EdpIG)
- Mona Nomura
"John McCain has wholeheartedly adopted Karl Rove's low-minded and uncivil playbook. "
- newsjunk.com
If Obama doesn't hit back with overwhelming strength, using more force than the Rovians, he stands a good chance of suffering the same fate as John Kerry. McCain is highly vulnerable to the Rovian tactics he has apparently endorsed.
- Sean McBride
I'm really pleased (and a little surprised) to see this editorial from the NYT.
- Tegan Dowling
"The 5 million people on Obama's e-mail list are just the start of what political strategists say is one of the most sophisticated voter databases ever built. Using a combination of the information that supporters are volunteering, data the campaign is digging up on its own and powerful market research tools first developed for corporations, Obama's staff has combined new online organizing with old-school methods of voter outreach to assemble a central database for hitting people with messages tailored as closely as possible to what they're likely to want to hear. It's an ambitious melding of corporate marketing and grassroots organizing that the Obama campaign sees as a key to winning this fall."
- Rick Powell
from Bookmarklet
This seems like at first blush they have taken many of the advances the Bush campaign made to the process and pushed the envelope even further with better processes and technology. This is good. Question though, at what point does the analytics so thoroughly drive the political message that there is no original substance left to a candidate? And does more intimate awareness of differing views of voters only increase the risk of the candidate being viewed as a flip-flopper (with multiple messages everywhere)
- Chris Stevenson
I like the sound of that club. Where do I sign up?
- Jeff P. Henderson
Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon? Lisa: No. Homer: Ham? Lisa: No. Homer: Pork chops? Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal. Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
- Andrew Smith
I like the one that says "Red Meat, Because the West Wasn't Won on salad"
- Andrew Leyden
I work for Cabela's and that's a very typical saying for our corp. headquaters
- Garrett
spotted a shirt in wisconson- "vegetarians= bad hunters" made me smile ... mmm....bacon
- michael sean wright
on the other side of the car is the mean people suck sticker, correct?
- Pete D
I soooooooooo want one of those stickers! lol awesome
- John Blanton
Brian: Humans contribute just as much, if you skin and cook them right...
- Ian Betteridge
very telling presentation of chav lifestyle
- Ralf G.
One of my all-time favorite bumper stickers!
- Craig Eddy
Few years ago I was consulting for ENI, one of the biggest energy group in the world and they used to have economists and of course a chief economist. I know in Fiat group they have economists roles too. Banks and financial services are also common employers for economists roles.
- delbo
A very interesting article. I think Google will be much bigger than Microsoft in a very small amount of time.
- Toby Graham
Toby, Google has a LONG way to go to overtake MSFT. In FY2007, Microsoft had revenues of $51 billion, compared to Google's $16 billion, with operating income of $18 billion compared to $5 billion. The only measure by which you can put the two in the same league is column inches on blogs :)
- Ian Betteridge
In other words: Microsoft makes more in profits than Google makes in revenues.
- Ian Betteridge
Another place Google excels over MS: a far more adept Corp Comm group.
- Sprague D
Ian: Yeah, but Microsoft's been around for much longer than Google, and Google's caught up that far in this relatively short period.
- Brent Newhall
Brent: Quick growth like that isn't actually as unusual as you might think. For example, Apple grew from a $1 billion business to a $10bn one in the ten years John Sculley was CEO. Google has grown to $18bn in 12 years. Google is riding a fast-growing market - but how far will online advertising expand? Will it continue to dominate that market, when there's no "lock in" (as there is in the software market)? There's too many questions to say that Microsoft will be beaten by Google any time soon.
- Ian Betteridge
Ian: Oh, certainly agreed; I don't think Google's going to beat MS's market share or earnings any time soon. Just saying that Google has grown quite far, quite fast, and if the trend continues, things will be interesting. Of course, trends rarely continue.
- Brent Newhall
I didn't see anything new in the NYT article but it confirms what I already thought - "winner takes all" on the Internet Front. I suppose the only thing, now, that can stop Google, is, perhaps, the Internet, itself, collapsing - something that's not that likely.
- Marshall Sponder
To me the key point of the article--and the most meaningful difference between MS and Google--is the former coerces to achieve its network effects while the latter co-opts. This reveals a more fundamental difference in world view: negative versus positive sum.
- lang davison
“You have to be big and bad, not just big.” time will tell if Google goes past MS profits. But the article raises an interesting question about the behavior of big companies. Hard to tell which direction Google will go, especially if the global economy darkens. Morals hold pretty well in good times; not so sure during the bad. Temptation is perennial.
- phil baumann
@ paul: I agree. The thing is that in these perilous ecomomic times we now live in, Google cannot easily consolidate like outher industries would to help them get over the worse.Google may well arrive at the point that it cannot continue as it is.
- Roberto Bonini
In all those emails subpoenaed from Microsoft, are there several stating "say, let's all apply the network effect today!"? I just have trouble believing that either company was premeditated about this network effect during their first 5 or 10 years. Its just economists analyzing it long after the fact. Microsoft is arrogance, bluster, and jumping up and down on stage. Google instead has something called "execution". Versus the 5 years Microsoft spent on Vista, for which the word is "train wreck".
- Indio Apache
Seems like a puff piece. The author has clearly not read "Linked" by Albert-László Barabási (one of the world's leading experts on network effects). On page 103 (you can read the preview on Amazon), Barabási compares Google and Microsoft. He says Google exhibits the behavior of a "fit get rich" network, in which the fittest node becomes the biggest hub. "The winner's lead is never significant, however."
- Karim
Barabási then describes a second type of network, "winner takes all," in which the fittest node grabs ALL the links (star topology), and behaves like a Bose-Einstein condensate. "And there is a network in which we cannot fail to notice one node that carries the signature of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The node is called Microsoft."
- Karim
@Karim, Steve Lohr, the writer, specializes in Google puff pieces.
- Sprague D
So, basically, you have a NYT hack job authored by a guy with a history of writing pro-Google propaganda :-) saying "Google is teh new Microsoft" on the one hand, and one of the most important scientists of the 21st Century telling you that Google and Microsoft aren't even in the same league on the other. Hmmm. Hmmm...
- Karim
Is this from the You Suck at Photoshop guys?
- Vince DeGeorge
donnie is back today, maybe the competition made him show up again
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
That was a good use of ten minutes. I'm smiling again.
- Russellreno
Ok, after watching the new YSAP - This is much much better - flavor of the week to be sure.
- Vince DeGeorge
I'm crying. The details in this were just great. I don't work in IT but I know this is what people must put you folks through...
- Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)
that's brilliant. and i'm about ti run out of battery power here, and I won't bookmark, adn I'll probably 4get about these guys 4eva. what a shame!!!
- john conroy
You mean he rebooted the webserver without submitting a Change Request Application with work procedure and rollback steps to the Change Advisory Board for review at their next weekly meeting? ;-)
- Stuart Woodward
:)) I was getting very frustrated with FF's best of the day page, showing mostly meta-links about FF itself all the time. And then this. Once in a while, there is one single link that makes all these page loads worth it :)
- Yaniv Golan
LMAO for most of the 10 min. Will fwd to several IT peeps I know...and maybe a few peeps at Twitter. Wonder if they'll think it's funny.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
The realism of this thing is just awe-inspiring. That techie behave pretty much like any techie I've ever encountered who's been asked to do a stupid task. And the sales dude is lethally real too. This is Dilbert meets The Office on steroids. Thanks for the link.
- Roy Blumenthal
from twhirl