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George Dearing to George's feed, Media News and Analysis

IAC's Diller & Liberty's Malone Pessimistic on Twitter [WSJ] {there's lots of corps besides twitter that haven't monetized..geez} - http://blogs.wsj.com/digits...

23 hours ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Don Mailhot, Brad Williamson, AJ Kohn and 2 other people liked this

"Malone said he didn’t think that an advertising model made sense on Twitter, but there was some hope for a subscription model. “Sooner or later people will be willing to pay for these services,” he said. Warren Buffett privately told him that he would pay $5 a month for YouTube, he added." - George Dearing from Bookmarklet

4 more comments

I'd pay $5 a month to get rid of the stupid 10 minute limit on videos, but wouldn't pay $5 a month to simply access youtube. - alphaxion

Twitter will not make it's money on either an advertising or subscription model. It should be making it's money with offering increased features for business/end users for a fee. That way marketing becomes something truely valuable as an opt in service, the way marketing should be run in the 21st century. That's the problem with old media - they just don't get it. They're trying to force old school methods on a new age system and it's just not going to work. Not on Twitter anyway. - John Fox

good observation John..what type of features? I think "packaged data mining" stuff when I hear your thoughts. - George Dearing

George: Not exactly sure of the feature set. Something along the lines where people can opt into special mailing lists in exchange for special discounts on services. The system to put this in place would be offered by Twitter for a monthly or annual fee payable by the business. This way everyone has something to gain. If businesses follow the addage of true community and true marketing... more... - John Fox

As I mentioned in this article a while back http://www.alphaxion.com/... I still see a lot of potential in selling in-house versions of twitter that could be used as a messaging backbone within a company intranet. Sell an extra federation license to the public twitter network and you have a potential for many things. Imagine a change control system that would issue a public tweet... more... - alphaxion

willpate

Repeat @timoreilly I had Lao Tzu "A sound man is good at salvage, At seeing that nothing is lost." laser etched on one of my laptops.

March 8 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jason Miller and Leo Laporte liked this

Just this past week I repaired a Fender 32-channel audio mixer that lived in a studio bathroom for a couple of years. It's true...a sound man is good at salvage. - Ross Bennett

Kevin Fox

FriendFeed Blog: FriendFeed now 6x more awesomer with themes - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...

June 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Wirtz, eric, Mona Nomura and 106 other people liked this

Grats on launching themes! Do you guys go out for a 4-martini lunch now? - Stephen Mack

27 more comments

w00t! - Ha3rvey

awesome guys! nice work! - Alfredo

Those are great! Nice work :) - Jennifer Dittrich

I just subscribed, and kept asking myself ?how could I have missed it? I thought all graphic enhancements so far were for Firefox only. Apparently, however, I didn't miss it by more than 2 minutes! Thanks. - ianf ⌘

Woooooo hooooooo!!!!! - Rachel Lea Fox

=) - Micah Wittman

Superb, great work! - Bogdan Costea

Excellent work, we also need a theme that is time or weather dependent ala GMail Tree theme - Shakeel Mahate

more themes would be awesome, i know it's on the way along with custom themes. what happens to the greasemonkey themes? - Alfredo

YAYAYAY, SO MUCH PRETTIER! - Georgia Diehl

I don't have to hide my butterflies anymore! *does happy dance* - Rachel Lea Fox

Yayay! I love Helvetica. Thank you Kevin and FF team! - EricaJoy

awesome. Using the bamboo one now. We need a neon one next. - Thomas Hawk

*waiting for Kol to appear with an ear-to-ear grin* - chrisofspades

chrisofspades, he is doing so in the themes room. - Rachel Lea Fox

haha thanks Rachel - chrisofspades

Good work, Kevin. Long anticipated, and looks sharp. - Louis Gray

These themes are fantastic. My favorites are Fresh and Helvetica. - Jamie Divine

i went with butterfly corner...because it makes me feel like pretty little butterfly...tee hee! - Cassidy

Me likey! - Paul Wilcox

Helvetica is www perfection - Christopher Galtenberg

Chris, you mean :-D ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Helvetica FTW! - Tom Horn

Anyone else getting the overlap of FF logo on Helvetica? - Adrian

I am not, Adrian. - Fleagle

Fleagle: Just got home and it's fine on my computer. Must have been something odd on the old work computer. - Adrian

I can only see my theme when I'm logged in. Is this how it's suppose to work? - duskstriker

@Bryan It could have been like Orkut, right?? Where you see the user-selected theme on his/her profile page. - Abhishek Das

Paul Buchheit

Real-time search. We have it. It's here. - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...

July 2 - Comment - Like - Share

ravi karandeekar, HealingBrush, Ange Recchia/angesbiz and 378 other people liked this

Try http://friendfeed.com/search... It's also fun to watch the embedded search on the blog blog post (http://friendfeed.com/search...). You can see people discussing the blog post, from the blog post, in real time! - Paul Buchheit

97 more comments

cooool - Dobromir Hadzhiev

coooool - zsafwan 

GREAT ! - Stanislas Jourdan

Eeee. Awesome. - Mark Trapp from iPhone

Impressive! Now you can save real time searches as embeddable widgets. That's just awesome! This is a massively POWERFUL feature. Thank you FF team! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Lol, you flipped the switch before the post came out as far as I can tell. I was searching for it and I couldn't see it. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Yowsa. Makes quick easy work out of social media monitoring, don't it? - Ian Wilker

YAY!!! FriendFeed staff rocks, that's all there is to it =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Congrats Paul to you and your team! Another one bites the dust! - Jorge Escobar

WAAAAAAAAA.. meta real time search.. love the concept of embed a real-time search !! Way to Team FF -- luv u guys !! :)- - Peter Dawson

Do you guys sleep? Honestly, love the constant output and attention you guys pay to user feedback. I know this highly requested and probably not easy to implement. - Frankie Warren

Twitter Killer! - David Schmidt

Thanks so much Paul & Co. Excellent work! - Leo Laporte

hey love they way they launched search.. espcially when its close to "Search Marketing Day 2009" !1 - Peter Dawson

Thanks Leo. Jim and Gary did most of the work on this one though. - Paul Buchheit

Track is back! This is a gamechanger. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

Track is back! - Christian Burns from iPhone

Excellent news. - LPH™ and his dog P™ from BuddyFeed

I think I'm going to scream if I hear "track" again - someone please define it for me - Jesse Stay

Wow, great work! - Meryn Stol

I stand in awe of your hackfullness. - Ted Gilchrist

Good work. Much-anticipated. - Louis Gray

@Jesse: It's a dead twitter command "track keyword" sends you realtime updates whenever the word is used. Think of it like realtime google alerts for friendfeed. - Daniel J. Pritchett

I'm pretty sure Gillmor et al kept calling it "track" because that's what Twitter called it back when they had it for a week. - Daniel J. Pritchett

On a related note, live embeddable searches mean that I can hack together my own FF embeds for the pages that don't have them yet, like say "comment:dpritchett" http://friendfeed.com/search... - Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel, Twitter never had this - this isn't "track" - Jesse Stay

you guys rock. - Karoli

...wowsers! Very nice! - JA Castillo (جاسون)

The blogpost said they're working to implement "keyword notifications" Jesse, that will be "track" - Frankie Warren

Twitter's brought back track, it's just no one cares. You can now have updates by keyword on Twitter pushed to you, via XMPP, just like track used to. Gillmor says that's not track. - Jesse Stay

That's why I hate the term "track" - no one knows what it is. The way Paul is explaining it, as real-time search, is a much better way of explaining it. - Jesse Stay

I guess we're still missing the realtime notifications piece that folks want. You can shape the firehose to watch terms in realtime but you can't yet get it pushed outside of FF via email or IM? - Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel, Twitter has that right now, but Gillmor says that's not track - Jesse Stay

/me prints up a few hundred "That's not track!" t-shirts - Daniel J. Pritchett

Killer feature. I'm watching news about Honduras scrolling by. Very useful. - Chris Baskind

Jesse: Oh, i'm with you... Real-Time Search is a better term :) - Frankie Warren

BTW, integrating this into my blog right now - Jesse Stay

Me too Jesse. Making a new static page for that comment:dpritchett search I mentioned - Daniel J. Pritchett

this is definitely cool and all, but what about API? We are falling way behind on feature sets :) - Tim Hoeck

It's like an alternative to watching TV, in a literary sort of way. - Ted Gilchrist

awesome!:) - m.0

kewl! - phil baumann

Yay! This is the killer feature (once it's in the API, of course ;) - Brandon Titus

I'd love to see a blog post about how this is implemented. Real-time search has some interesting problems. - Chris Lamprecht

I take it back - I can't integrate this into my blog until I can filter it to a single list. I really need an embed for "comment:dpritchett list:e20" except lists are still virtual in that no one other than me can see them unless I use the atom export. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Awesomeness! I'm loving this right now. - Anthony K. Valley ©

Wow you guys rock! - Alfredo

I am sloooooooooooow. But what/where is the template to make the embeddable widget. please? - Marg Uerite

You're right Jesse - it's not exactly Track but it's getting a lot closer. The old Twitter Track allowed you to set up multiple search terms (e.g. track iphone) and get those delivered to your IM with zero time lag. At any time you could type "track" to see what you're currently tracking and "untrack" to untrack something - e.g. "untrack iphone". There are some third party tools that... more... - Mike Doeff

Paul, is there a way to change the title of the embed? The long search string looks kinda bad. - Jesse Stay

Mike, Twitter offers that today. Gillmor says it's not Track. - Jesse Stay

Marg, after you do a search, click the "Share / embed search" link to get the embed code. - Dan Hsiao

Jesse, are you sure? Can you provide a URL describing this feature? I think you're referring to Twitter Search (and saved searches) which is totally different. - Mike Doeff

Mike, it's in beta and available to developers, but it's back, minus SMS support: http://staynalive.com/article... - Jesse Stay

Jesse, when / where did Gillmor say that isn't track? I'm pretty sure that Steve just wants the old track brought back, with some filtering capabilities added (the old Track didn't filter out blocked accounts). - Mike Doeff

Yay! Have been eagerly awaiting this. :) - Rick Turoczy

Mike, he's said in various comments. Looks like Track to me... Heck, it's even called "track". - Jesse Stay

BTW this is on staynalive.com now (look in the sidebar): http://staynalive.com/ - Jesse Stay

for my italian friends: stica... - Alberto D'Ottavi from fftogo

Jesse - you can hide the ugly search bar with a little quick CSS - it's <h1> under an easily identified class. - Daniel J. Pritchett from IM

Daniel, good idea - I'd love to change the title more than that though. - Jesse Stay

just a few minutes work and I have a FriendFeed realtime search embedded in a blog http://www.amsterdam20.nl (web 2.0 event) - Jeroen De Miranda

My #laterzheenu tags can be of some use nao. Like right nao. - /Users/genieyclo

Yeah - Brian Sullivan

FF guys: we like your style :) --- way to go!! - Harscoat

I think I'm going to cry - Bwana

awesomesauce! - Simon Wicks

This is a really great innovation, congrats friendfeed team! - (Garin Kilpatrick)

Thanks, Jim and Gary! Lots of hard work for a very cool result! - Anne Bouey

HhhhhUuuuuuGggggEeeee !!! - Harold Cabezas

I want to 'Like' this *twice*! many thanks! - topo

The first step in a storystreaming platform! - Kevin Sablan

Whoa. Wow. And Yes! Fantastic work, FF team. - Micah Wittman

Good stuff although should support negative operators such as I should able to search my name in the all posts NOT coming from me. I've tried "from:-username" but it doesn't seem to work. - Ferruh Mavituna

OK, you guys are wicked talented! It's kind of scary, but I love it. So what's next? Just kidding:) - Michael Fidler

Ferruh: you just have it a bit backwards... try -from:username instead :) - Ross Miller

WOOOOOOOOOOW. Friendfeed is really pushing some cool features out :). Friendfeed is the best :) - alfred westerveld

How can we embed FriendFeed search? - Mike Reynolds

Mike - There's a link at the top of the search just beneath the red bar. - Mitch

A box will pop up, take the HTML code from the bottom of that box. - Mitch

Thanks Mitch! - Mike Reynolds

Nice the embedding code can be dynamic.... <iframe src="http://friendfeed.com/search..." frameborder="0" height="600" width="400" style="border:1px solid #aaa"></iframe> - Mike Reynolds

Thanks @Ross it works fine now, love the RSS output. - Ferruh Mavituna

tabbr likes this - tabbr

Woo! So: will this cause a FF server meltdown anytime soon? - Tim Tyler

very good! - standin

Highly addictive--great stuff! I did notice that if you do a search like [google] you'll see dupe stories streaming by quite a bit (e.g. the TechCrunch story about Google Voice shows up over and over right now). Not sure if it's possible to de-dupe based on destination url a little bit more? - Matt Cutts

two months after redesign, we have access to real-time search. good news bc my preferred search engine is friendfeed. ;) - Franc ☺

We are there, in the battle against Twitter - Michael_techie

Best search engine became better :) - Chirag Chamoli

I can't say enough how amazing this is. So, I ordered a bottle of real-time translation to go with this magnificent feast of real-time search :D http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Micah Wittman

Just to show what is possible now with this feature, I've built SteroidFeed: Go here to see it as well as download the files: http://friendfeed.com/lph... Latest version is 1.01. - LPH™ and his dog P™

It's amazing! - Lizunlong

I've been waiting for this since the new UI, excellent, thank you Paul and FF! I'll give this a play later. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Micah, really looking forward to having your scripts work in Chrome. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

This is great. Well done, guys. - James Myatt

Awesome :D - Praveen Vasudev

great!! - Mike Chelen

Shevonne to Shevonne's feed, The Ladies Room

Love It or Hate It: Watermelon Pedicure - http://www.bellasugar.com/3198923

May 28 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Franc ☺, Mazaamir and 84 other people liked this

I like it for someone else - Shevonne from Bookmarklet

31 more comments

LOVE! And I never paint my toenails - Lindsey is Fierce!

Oh, that is cute. - Rochelle

I'm usually not into this sort of thing but it is really adorable. - joey

Cuuuuuute! - Nakachi Majeeda

It's cute for maybe a one-time pedicure, especially in the summer. - Trish R

hee. it's cute. - edythe

I wouldn't to it myself, but I totally appreciate it. - Martha

I'm ghetto and I get designs like this on my toes all the time. :( - Monique

Hrm....if I liked toes.... - Rahsheen ™

YUM - Christopher Harley

Probably wouldn't even notice it. I guess that means neutral. - Amber Spence

I love that - it is so cute! I don't know that I'd get it on my toes (pink sometimes makes my feet look extra super double pale) but I fully endorse that. - Jennifer Dittrich

Love it!!!! - niniane

Awesome for a 4th of July party, but I probably wouldn't do it any other time. - Shannon

adorable for the summer. - tiffany

I think it looks pretty cool - Nicholas James

fun and whimsical. It's toes, after all :D - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Very cute, my stepdaughter would probably get a kick out of it. - Heather Solos

That is super cute! - EricaJoy

No. - Derrick

looks like a lot of work :) - martha

Love it. Cool. - Judy Jones

does it taste like watermelon? - Joshua Schnell

lol...I don't ever get my nails or toes did, but I think this is cute for summer! - Anna Haro

Nope, not for me. - Katie and her Amoeba Eye

Cute... but not for me. - Ladybug Heather

OMG that is cute!! :) - Susan Beebe

Cute. I'd try it once just to try it. And then I'm done. - Ms. G.Warbucks IYN

Nice. - Ryo

I tried it! http://friendfeed.com/rochell... - Rochelle

Very cute! - Katie and her Amoeba Eye

:)) - emrah gök

Josh Haley

:D http://www.twitpic.com/8x9o3 http://www.twitpic.com/8x9x6 http://www.twitpic.com/8xa1z http://www.twitpic.com/8xa6d http://www.twitpic.com/8xa7r http://www.twitpic.com/8xa8n http://www.twitpic.com/8xacn http://www.twitpic.com/8xadl http://www.twitpic.com/8xaet

June 30 - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Iván Abrego, Ognjen Strpić and 117 other people liked this

Just, you know, trying to break the internet and stuff... - Josh Haley

80 more comments

Interesting.. - Jonathan Hardesty

super - K.D.

You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round, round, round - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

the guy in the middle is behind :0 - jcunwired

...hahahahahaha! very amusing. i could watch this for hours and hours.... - .LAG liked that

LMAO! - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

wINAGE - Johnny Worthington

i don't know about hours and hours but it is mysteriously fascinating. - pea ♥ fierce as a woozle

ohh trippy - James Cooper

mommy make it stop. - Jim Halligan @jim

这是啥么意思？ - FlyMeToTheMoon

Um, yes, this is what I mean? - Josh Haley

@flytothemoon 看这个 https://friendfeed.com/junrxu... 他这是gif版本的，看起有点晕：） - K.D.

Wooop wooopp woooppp - Mo Kargas

Dude, quit jacking up the tubes! - Brett Kelly from iPhone

Oh my... yup, just oh my! - Rachel Lea Fox

holy moly... this is what you do when i skype with my mom? - Trish Haley

O - sean percival

M - sean percival

G - sean percival

Maybe I should have added some music to go with it all. Hi honey. I'm not bored, honest! - Josh Haley

I leave you guys alone for a few hours and THIS happens! What did you do to him?!? - vijay

i'm getting dizzy... and now we're talking about MJ dying... :( - Trish Haley

DIZZY ASS SHIT. - Caroline

going by the view stats on twitpic, the middle dude is the most popular! =P - vijay

We hate that one. He gets all the attention. - Josh Haley

they ALL freak me out. - Tim Hoeck

I'm feeling a little nauseated. - Anne Bouey

+Anne--Right about the time I forget about this, it shows up again. Too funny. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

interesting. I've tried a few times to get animated images to work on FF without success.. I guess piping it through twitpic might be the answer! - veo

veo, yeah Twitpic, RSS (MediaRSS), Delicious, Tumblr all seem to work. There are more than that but those come to mind. - Josh Haley

I'm dizzy - Ryo

can i get this as a screen saver? - Joshua Schnell

Sure, how's $200 sound? - Josh Haley

sembrano le mie palle che girano ... ops lo sapevate che ho tre coglioni ? - Ilbellodelweb

translation of ^^^ "my balls seem to run ... ops did you know that I have three hilt?" I think I need another translator. - Josh Haley

nope.. that sounds about right ;) - Tim Hoeck

اسکل - MiLi

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winneh! - Christopher Harley

you evil genius! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Feeling a little dizzy? - Kevin Hatton

Just one question, Josh: are you by chance spinning on 9 different Aeron chairs that were a steal after the first dot-com bubble burst? The future of the internets: you're looking at it =) - Micah Wittman

Bingo! - Josh Haley

could anybody describe how to create such a picture? thx - Arnaud Fischer

Arnaud, see http://friendfeed.com/mokarga... for tips. And Josh correct me if I'm wrong, he uploaded to Twitpic the same animated GIF 9 times, then created a friendfeed post and attached all 9 images by URL (instead of choosing images from his hard drive). Images coming from twitpic, soup.io, etc will animate, but photos hosted by friendfeed itself won't. - Micah Wittman

Hahaha, nice :) - Simon Wicks

Sir... my muse - Johnny Worthington

@Micah: awesome, thanks! - Arnaud Fischer

Did not sleep well with all the spinning. :p - Josh Haley from iPhone

It's infinitely more amusing when they don't all load at the same time. Spinning chaos!!! - Curtis Jackson

Why the friendfeed limitation on animated .gifs? It seems arbitrary and odd to me. I could see wanting to limit filesize (animated .gifs can get large) but you can upload huge .jpgs without any trouble. - veo

@_@ - Live4Emma (L4S)

Mesmerizing like a lava lamp. Hey! You are a 'Lame-o Lamp'! And you might want to call the folks in the makeup department and get that forehead de-sheened. Remember, your forehead is an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle - And you don't want to blind the crew on their final approach, do you? :-) - Morgan Haley

Good luck trying to land anything on that while it's moving. :p I can always count on my brother. - Josh Haley

/ : ) - D/\\/IIID

Can't...look...away... - Mark Wilson

Hypnotic! - Gordon Herd

ay tweetted 17 hours nonstop - Petr Buben

Without clicking on 57 comments, it's probably been said but 'Hair cut.' - beersage

Is that a question or a remark, beersage? And why not read comments before you comment? - Josh Haley

You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round, round, round You spin me right round, baby - BEX

This is warping my brain - Alex Scoble

aaaaccckkkkkk! - AJ Batac

OMG! That should be the next installment at some fluecy deucy art museum!!! AWESOME. :) It's like whack-a-mole... I keep trying to figure out which one will show your face next and for some reason I'm always wrong. - Lindsay is :)

Thanks, Lindsay! :) I think that's the first time someone described wanting to systematically hit me on the head repeatedly, yet have it come off as a compliment. I would love to take credit like I was Andy Warhol or something, but alas I was just tired and felt like doing something silly. :p - Josh Haley from iPhone

yep, what Lindsay said. That was one of the first bona-fide instances I've seen of using Friendfeed as a medium for net art. You could get in the Whitney & stuff. GOOD JOB - Kamilah Gill

LOL! I actually didn't mean it the way it came out (the hitting you on the head part, the compliment part is ok ;)). But I'm in tears laughing when I read your reply. Whack-a-mole always frustrated the heck out of me... I did a lot more staring than hitting when I tried to play. It was mesmerizing. - Lindsay is :)

Mil∂d :)))))) - D/\\/IIID

جلال بیا این اسکل رو بببین - MiLi

شبیه پاپک هست - MiLi

:))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) میلی نکبت - پاپک

feeling dizzy ! - Swaroop

don't laugh now, but i'm in the process of making this a screensaver! - Joshua Schnell

I gotta see that! - Josh Haley

WANT - Dobromir Hadzhiev

funy ! - (یونس)

*splodes* - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

Hypnotic, eerie, dare I go so far as to say "scary"? I dare not, lol - Sir Slippy of Slippington

You just did. ;) - Josh Haley from iPhone

you wait - the scary part of this comes when one of these ffoodoo heads stops turning, starts grimmacing and talking to you ..... have you seen one of these heads actually get up off the chair and curse the world??? ... the seeming dissynchronicity, the haphazard discord with which these dollheads turn might drive you ...nuts - Petr Buben

inquietante... - Miketrevis

Paul Buchheit

'Stay classy, Fox News guests: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States." WHAT?! Come again?' - http://origin.reddit.com/r...

July 1 from Reddit - Comment - Like - Share

Tyson Key, Kishore Balakrishnan, Patrick Hall and 83 other people liked this

What can you comment to something like that? - Dan Woods

76 more comments

The reddit comments are kind of amusing: "I'm really really hesitant to blame another person's political views on psychological problems, but that's the only conclusion I can reach with these guys. When you've come to the point where you are actually saying "I want people to die, so that I can be proved right that if we don't do something, people will die" this is now a mental illness.... more... - Paul Buchheit

Anytime someone uses the phrase, "Stay classy", I automatically have to like it. It's like in my biology. - Derrick

Somewhat more seriously, I think there are some people who believe in the necessity of perpetual war, and for those people an attack on the US (such as a city getting nuked) would obviously be a good thing. I remember at the end of the cold war these same people were fretting about the need for a new enemy. Luckily for them, they found/created one. - Paul Buchheit

Holy crap. That guy's talking out of his ass! - Joey Gibson

A vulnerable country > the country they want. (That's even if I accepted that the country would be less vulnerable under them, which I don't) - Matthew DeVries

Wow....I thought the democrats were the ones who want the turrists to win. - EricaJoy

'9/11 ended up making this country safer then ever. The only way to make it more safe would be to undergo another attack.' That's basically what he's saying, right? - Kevin Fox

"...an attack on the US (such as a city getting nuked) would obviously be a good thing." Can we pick the city? - Chris Sparno

Yeah, how are we ever going to get rid of all these pesky freedoms if we don't have a big war? It's like these guys thought 1984 was an instruction manual. - Paul Buchheit

@Paul, We have always been at war with East Asia. || We have always been at war with Eurasia. (Orwell, 1984) - Joey Gibson

Ah Fox...they really should drop the "news" from their title. Propaganda might fit better? [And THIS time they really went too far.] - Abby Martin

wha ... - Khaled A

I have no words to describe what I think about that, scratching my head WHAT? - Karen Swim

Good lord. Add Glen Beck to Rush Limbaugh on the list of treasonous talk show hosts. Disgusting. - Leo Laporte

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Dead Silence

Being liberal is unpatriotic? Compared to that I'm a freaking nationalist! - Heather

the scary thing, really, is not that someone would say this in public, or that Glenn Beck found someone to say crazy things on his show, but that the person saying it is *Michael Scheuer,* who was chief of the bin Laden desk at the CIA. he is a best-selling author, and currently a news analyst for CBS News. he's somebody who has the ear of government officials and the media. he is not just some loon Beck picked off the street, and that is cause for concern. - Karim

My favorite reddit comment: "I was just stunned. I asked, "You hope Americans die by the thousands so that you can prove to me that we need FISA-less searches of everyone???" He answered with a straight face, "Yes". I tried to explain to him how he and Osama bin Laden had reached a point of consensus in wishing the United States harm, but he would have none of it. "It's all for the greater good of America!", was all he said." - Gabe

one hopes Scheuer will claim he "misspoke" and does not really wish harm. or, it could be that he is Cap'n Ahab and bin Laden is his Great White Whale, and the failed pursuit is driving him crazy. and you thought "war is peace" was satire... - Karim

I am going to have to add, that while Glenn Beck is a loony, treasonous sellout, Michael Scheuer is most definitely not some off-the-deep-end right wing, Fox shill. That guy is 100% legit and knows what he is talking about. I thhink that clip might be taken slightly out of context, but if Scheuer is concerned, so am I. But I already know too much about the shortcomings of our Federal Government... - JonathanJoseph

@Kevin. ..9/11, per irrefutable scientific evidence, was an inside job, a controlled demolition. ..is there somebody here who still doesn't see this? ..... its the biggest story of our time .. itl bring very grave consequences for the country ..and yes, another war , attack would keep the bad empire of war within America in power, unchallenged, undiscovered, unremoved, untoppled and uncollapsed - its the old thing, when in trouble, bring on war .............. http://ae911truth.org - Petr Buben

Its Fox soooo ... no surprises here. - Brandon Mendelson

The only chance we have as a country is for blowhards to stop starting wars with other countries so that we can pretend that we don't have problems of our own. - Jennifer Dittrich

Yeah, Kevin, irrefutable scientific evidence! - Gabe

no ..JUST LOOK how they fell ....are we all idiots? ... 10 floors per second pulverized ....they exploded and pulverized into pyroclastic cloud. http://911Blogger.com - http://911truth.org .... - Petr Buben

@Jennifer .. As a country, we have thousands of chances, and choices .. all have truth, peace, justice spelled in them ... insohenceforth, the possibilities and the future of America will are to be unlimited .. just like of any other democratic, peaceful country ... now lets face the facts ... and yes, bad empires do fall ..we have seen it before // other question might be, if official media wont touch 911, should techno geek websites do it ??.. who will break it to the open sunshine day light, officially ? - Petr Buben

9/11 was an inside job? Yea, right, and we all know steel doesn't melt, right ROSIE?? What ba bunch of clowns, ha, ha, ha! - Don Smith

Stay classy? Right. It's REALLY showing a lot of class when you can't make a point without dropping the "F" word ... really classy, Buchheit! - Don Smith

That was a quote from Reddit Don. - Paul Buchheit

Don: Also, see sarcasm. - Kevin Fox

I didn't know that Fox was now the "F" word. - Gabe

Sorry Paul, I should have credited your quote to Reddit! I apologize for that. - Don Smith

Leo, just curious ... why do you think Rush and Glen are "treasonous"? I like Rush, but Glen IS sorta "out there" sometimes. I stopped listening to and watching him quite a while ago. I don't, however, see how either could be considered treasonous. Just sayin' ... - Don Smith

WTF???? - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Don, I don't know if you're trolling... but, if my friends wants me to die so that our enemy cannot kill me, I think my friend clearly betrays me. - Jérôme Flipo

"They are not saying they want it to happen"? I quote Michael: "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to detonate (...)". I'm not a native English speaker, but come on! Also, can you guys keep the discussion respectful? - Jérôme Flipo

Seems like Munchausen Syndrome. Sad. - Rick Cogley

I'm giving this thread the *facepalm* award for attribution errors, conspiracy theories, and trollish commentary. Not to mention the Fox "news" segment that festers beneath :) http://friendfeed.com/ffacepa... - Richard Walker *exculted*

I love how you all hate Fox New but never watch it. You are told to hate it so you do, but you will watch the piece of crap network MSNBC and CNN. - Ryan Ellerbe

Ryan: I love you you purport to know what I watch because you disagree with my views. - Kevin Fox

Fox News is an oxymoron. That is my story and I am sticking to it! - Martha

Related: How much of something do you have to watch before you can decide you hate it without being accused of letting other people make up your mind for you? - Kevin Fox

I thought we all agreed we were going to write it Fox News (R) - Matthew DeVries

so basically what this guy is wishing for is for 100's even thousands of american to be hurt and wounded just so he can say told you so, wow what an egotistical jerk - Kim Landwehr

Once again He was saying Osama would be stupid to do it right now. Our elected class is doing a good job destroying the USA and if he attacked us now we would be united as one. We would then stand up to the elected class and tell no more. Again I ask you to all crawl out of your holes and wake up. Its common sense people. - Ryan Ellerbe

Ryan: Why is Osama our only chance? Why can't the CIA do it like they did on 9/11? - Gabe

LOL the last time they attacked we galvanized around the idiots and gave them cart blanche, thus if they attacked again, it would solidify us around our leaders again. LOL I love people who observe data and conclude that if the same thing happened again, the exact opposite would happen. LOL LOL LOL LOL Do you forget the Patriot Act? Wireless Wiretapping? It's because we gave a bunch of dipshits a blank check cause we were skeered. - Matthew DeVries

HAHAHA under your logic, we would have impeached Bush and Cheney right after 9/11 - Matthew DeVries

WHHHAAAAAAAA???!!! That is sooo stoooopid I can't believe we have idiots like this in US ...augh!! - Susan Beebe

Jérôme: I never said I agreed or disagreed with Scheuer. The only things I've disagreed with are that Beck and Rush are "treasonous" talk show hosts and that 9/11 was an "inside job." The only other point I've even hinted at is that anyone who has to resort to profanity to make a point is just showing their own ignorance and immorality -- and the pattern here is that they all seem to be liberals. If we can't disagree without cursing and calling each other names, we're definitely in a world of hurt, folks! - Don Smith

So in order to defeat terrorists, one must welcome terrorism?? - Mo Kargas

More like, in order for everyone to like Republicans, one must welcome terrorism. - Robert Haas

Need to keep the fear machine well oiled. - Will Higgins™

Yeah we have a lot of idiots. Idiots who voted for Hope and Change from Obama. All we have so far is more and more debt and no change. Well we have change for the worse. - Ryan Ellerbe

I just do not understand how people can defend Fox News. I mean do you really like to be lied to? Do you really think that statement that the Fox News guests is appropriate? How do you defend that one? - PC Easy from twhirl

Ryan: What would Change look like to you? - Gabe

Mainstream media is ALL the same. A bunch of idiots trolling and egging on their competitors. As long as there is government, there will always be a created enemy to allow excessive force. Open your eyes people, there is only one political party in this country......Corporations/Banks. - Mike VanLare (slayerboy)

+Mike. They're all trolls. - Will Higgins™

And who knew, all this time the ANTS were taking over the world! Welcome to our new ANT overlords! - Richard Walker *exculted*

What I really liked was what came after that line. We're safe from OBL's attacks because he already thinks we're melting down just fine as we are, thank you very much. - Andrew Skretvedt

""I was just stunned. I asked, "You hope Americans die by the thousands so that you can prove to me that we need FISA-less searches of everyone???" He answered with a straight face, "Yes"" So why are some people still stone deaf to those who point out the clear evidence that Sept. 11th 2001 was a false flag attack? - Marg Uerite

Then you ask why the rest of the world thinks Americans are stupid. You keep the smart ones quiet and give airtime to idiots. That "person" should be sued for inciting to violence and betrayal to the country.That's what would happen if the guy was a Democrat... - Alexandre Gamela from twhirl

Power makes people insane. Losing it does the same. - Alexandre Gamela from twhirl

Newsmax, a leading neoconservative propaganda outlet, has been seeding and cultivating the notion for several years now that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are going to detonate a nuclear weapon on American soil. Think about it. Newsmax has also been in the forefront in exploiting 9/11 to push forward the neoconservative agenda. Two words: watch out. - Sean McBride

This kind of thing gets me very worried. VERY. What is wrong with people? - Eric @ CS Techcast

where should we start eric lol - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Scary. - Mike Reynolds

This is like the dumbest thing I've ever heard. - Shawn Whitmire

Fox News - We Distort - We Decide! - ScottBourne

"We Distort. And Deride." "We Lie. You Comply." - Marg Uerite

We demolish skyscrapers. ..what the heck were we thinking? - Petr Buben from IM

Petr: you're saying Fox did 9/11? - Gabe

no, Im not ...we don't know who did it - The Biggest Story of The Century - .... we don't know who did it yet, but we know for fact that it was an explosives aided controlled demolition - Petr Buben

Petr, why explosives? I know that some explosives were detonated at/near the base. But I believe the speed of disintegration and the absence of a realistic remnant pile obviously imply something other than just explosives. - Marg Uerite

Anyone who thinks it was kerosene fuel (jet fuel) from a "commercial plane entered the building" on a top floor, really has to "look closer." As far a Michael Scheur, It's called "revelation of the method" You're being told straight to your face and if you don't get it, you're nothing but complicit. He was "chief of the [']bin Laden['] desk at the CIA he is a best-selling author, and... more... - Marg Uerite

"9/11" = Murderous Hoax, "War of the Worlds" = Hoax, "Project Northwoods" = Leaked Plans for Similar intelligence operation. Why people have no imagination for this? = "Big Lie" cf "Mein Kampf" - Marg Uerite

@ Marg ..it was a high tech high explosive nanothermite. per conclusive evidence. you can paint this stuff on the walls. it will bring down a building in a nice controlled demolition ... but maybe also something else, some other explosive ... but not nuclear weapon or fusion explosion .. there is no evidence of that ... http://ae911truth.org - http://911blogger.com ...... /funny, recently, vice pres Joe Biden was handed papers in Los Angeles with this evidence, and asked about controlled demolition - Petr Buben

Stephen Mack

For English to evolve, grammarians must die - http://www.zeigen.com/blog...

July 1 from Zeigen - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff Douglass, Kamilah Gill, Lora Lufark and 26 other people liked this

From my post: "Starting today, I resolve to never make another spelling or grammar flame. For informal forums, I may gently encourage others to stop making such corrections as well." - Stephen Mack

93 more comments

Sweet. As I'm a terrible speller. And generally have bad grammer (and yes I'm misspelling that on purpose. grammar just doesn't seem right to me. Let the evolution begin). :) - Dario Gomez

Dario, I don't think I've ever seen you misspell a word prior to that, so you're far from a terrible speller. I agree "grammar" looks weird. There aren't nearly as many words ending in -ar in English as -er. Kelsey Grammer also has a lot to answer for. But I certainly can get behind your proposal that "grammer" should be a valid substitute for "grammar" from now on. For English to evolve we'll also need to get the spell checks on board. - Stephen Mack

I don't think I have the patients for this. - Brian Johns

If by 'evolve' you mean 'dumb down for the un- and miseducated', I'll take an unevolved English any day of the weak. - Akiva Moskovitz

Certainly took me a while to get past that point of view, Akiva. But to take the first example of my post, why do we put up with irregularities? Why make it so hard for new learners and non-native speakers to learn? WHY do you feel the way you feel beyond wanting others to have to go through the hurdles you went through? - Stephen Mack

That's precisely it, though, Stephen. Flattening the learning curve doesn't make it better and it isn't that I want people to have to go through what I went through: this isn't about me; it's about being educated. Taking this to its horrifying conclusion, you might as well champion for the dismissal of complex words. Why use 'extrapolate' instead of 'explain' or 'loathe' instead of... more... - Akiva Moskovitz

If English is so hard to learn, why do I hear many Polish adults speaking better English here in the UK than British children in schools? Simply because the kids aren't being taught well enough and the resources are too few and too late. The problem lies within the education, not the language itself. - Charlotte {charley} M

Akiva, I'm not advocating the removal of words. I'm advocating simpler spelling -- similar to Benjamin Franklin's original proposal, which I'll link in separately. English evolves over time whether you want it to or not ("doughnut" to "donut" in American English, for example). Is someone "less educated" for wanting spelling to be simpler, so that learners can acquire the language faster? I don't want to rob the language of anything except pointless irregularity. - Stephen Mack

I dated a linguistics major once who was pretty adamant about language needing to be allowed to evolve, and was NOT the type to constantly correct others. However, I think that there's a difference between "letting grammarians die" and having them "loosen up" (losen up? lol) a bit. The bigger question, I think, is how organic we let the evolution be. For example, if we let lolcats-speak gain too much inflooense [sic], we've let the reigns go too much. - George Saj

Charlotte, English is objectively more irregular than, say, Spanish or Polish, and is therefore harder to learn. Of course non-native speakers learn English successfully all the time. But for those who learned several languages, ask them which was easier to learn. English has notably higher barriers than many languages because of the pervasive irregularities. We could reduce the amount of time by simplifying, that's all I'm saying. - Stephen Mack

Re: "Bad spelling as a signifier for low intelligence is a deeply-ingrained bias in our culture", It's interesting because my dad is an intellectual, but a terrible speller - [anecdotally] it seems has more to do with personality than actual intelligence. He just has other people (i.e. my mom, a grammarian) proof-read anything he sends out there. That said, in this age of... more... - George Saj

I have to go with Akiva on this one. English is hard to learn? Practice. When you practice something it gets "easier" not because the nature if the thing changes but that your capacity to do thing has increased. - Josh Haley from iPhone

English seems to have done OK despite the grammarians: It's use continues to embiggen. - Andy Dustman

Personally I like my education/intelligence to shine through. Although, I do type "slang" in conversational posts. - MicahBear78

Let's look at what rational reason there is to NOT reform and and simplify English spelling. If you've spent any time teaching reading to a young child you know how many irregularities there are. It adds complexity and difficulty, so there are costs, but with what benefit? We have: 1. Tradition. "But we've always spelled things this irregularly." Not true, and not rational. Spelling in... more... - Stephen Mack

Perfect case in point: Josh's comment. FF helpfully marks it as coming from the iPhone. His two typos ("if" instead of "of" and the missing "that") are clearly artifacts of that communication device. But did I understand him? Perfectly (even if I disagree). Why get hung up on that? As long as communication was achieved, that's my new standard of acceptance. Josh is correct that practice... more... - Stephen Mack

And Andy, I love love love that comment. - Stephen Mack

Perhaps the reason you understood Josh's comment despite the errors is because of context. If you were reading it centuries later in isolation there would be room for doubt as to what he really meant. - Trish Haley

Trish, true, but let centuries go by and suddenly you're reading Chaucer: "Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote" (http://www.canterburytales.org/canterb...) What a perfect illustration of how spelling changes over time. ("When April with its showers sweet / has pierced the drought of March to the root") - Stephen Mack

Now we have to take into account accents and pronunciations to decipher that. - Trish Haley

Chaucer wasn't just about spelling differences. Take it down the absolute basics and you have phonics, blending the sounds to make a full pronunciation of that word. If simplifying words is the way forward, then the phonics are changed and in turn, so is the word. - Charlotte {charley} M

Charlotte, I agree -- and think that's a good thing, with many advantages, and no disadvantages beyond "that's the way we've done it for a while now." - Stephen Mack

A friend with a linguistics background who uses it practically in his day-to-day life explained the ebb and flow of language (which is mostly an unplanned phenomenon) like this: Language trends toward simplicity if sufficient comprehension is conserved. It moves toward more complexity when ambiguity interferes too greatly. So my theory is there will always be grammarians and anti-grammarians, it's just that their number and degree of influence will also ebb and flow. - Micah Wittman

Sorry but if I have to trust a Ste[ph|v]en on this, I'm going to trust Pinker over Mack. - Akiva Moskovitz

Also, well put, Micah. - Akiva Moskovitz

No one show this thread to Mignon. - Matthew DeVries

I haven't blogged much, so I keep going to this well, but dammit, read my post! http://dariusmdev.wordpress.com/2009... - Matthew DeVries

English is still evolving and the UKians will continue blaming the Yanks for ruining the language even tho they themselves were mutilating it long before we existed. :) - Dead Silence

Sounds like you're asking for intelligent design here. You can't get rid of grammarians if you want evolution to work. They're the only natural predators irregularities have. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Wow, Bruce. That's just... wow. You're comparing people who care about the English language with people who don't believe in evolution because of a belief in a creator deity? That's such a wild comparison that my monitors just degaussed themselves. And they're LCD monitors. Are you going to lump mathematicians in here as well? They're bigger sticklers than grammarians are. - Akiva Moskovitz

Spellings I'm not too bothered about, but grammar is an essential part of the written form. Without it the entire meaning of prose gets screwed up. Still, regardless of this and irrespective of how many rules you put into place, a language will change and evolve along with the people that speak it. Imagine how things will change once we take to the stars. - alphaxion

Akiva, Pinker is a nativist -- very very far from a prescriptivist. He describes the evolutionary models of language in great detail. I cannot recall him writing about spelling reform one way or the other. How is he relevant to this discussion? - Stephen Mack

Wait, I'm proposing unnatural predation on irregularities! Brain hurts, must consider. - Stephen Mack

I don't see spelling as independent of syntax. - Akiva Moskovitz

Fine, Akiva, so let's take a few spelling examples. Suppose I'm elected supreme dictator of the universe, and I issue a decree that says from now on, all the "-ight" words in English that rhyme with "night" (might, right, sight, etc.) are to be spelled "-ite" instead. ADVANTAGES: Consistency, ease of learning, fewer letters to type. DISADVANTAGES: Spell checkers, dictionaries,... more... - Stephen Mack

Akiva, no. I'm being a stickler about English usage myself. The word "evolve" is being misused here. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Bruce, ah, sorry. Totally went right over my head. - Akiva Moskovitz

Bruce, I disagree. The "doughnut" to "donut" change is a perfect example of evolution in action. Look at that Chaucer excerpt earlier. All of the changes follow an evolutionary model -- things get simpler over time, due to survival of the fittest. Even Pinker, evoked earlier, describes the evolutionary model of language change similar to what we're discussing here. - Stephen Mack

Matthew, I read your post but I'm too dense to see the point you're making, sorry. - Stephen Mack

I find it ironic that Akiva misused weak when he meant week. :) - Alex Scoble

Stephen, sorry, but this discussion is slowly edging its way off the rails. The hypothetical you invoke is just way too unlikely to even be worth addressing, if you ask me. I might as well say, 'what if as the supreme dictator of the universe, I made red into blue'? - Akiva Moskovitz

@Bruce the collectivised mutations of something (language in this case) that eventually give rise to the formation of a distinct and new entity. The changes to our languages are organic in nature and certainly paralelle that of species in the natural world via many different evolutionary pressures (technology, interbreeding, random mutations as a result of generational change....) - alphaxion

There's no advantage to turning red into blue. There are numerous advantages to simplifying and regularizing spelling. My main point is to get you to consider WHY you want spelling to stay the same illogical way it is now, when it has no advantages beyond preserving (a fairly recent, in the scale of things) tradition. - Stephen Mack

Stephen, evolution creates as many irregularities as it eliminates. Why are there two correct spellings of harassment, for example. English will only get simpler by deliberate planning. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

I do think the prescriptivists are fighting a futile war. But spelling reform is just another form of prescriptivism. I say, tolerate diversity and let natural selection hone orthography. If more people favor nite over night or the single word loose instead of the two words loose/lose, then that's the way the language will go. Nothing you or I can do is going to stop it. - Victor Ganata

Stephen, the point is, you can't regulate either spelling nor grammar. They can and will change over time. - alphaxion

(Gah, three excellent comments within seconds of each other, and I want to respond to all three. Want threaded comments.) - Stephen Mack

Too much pretty would never have happened in Stephen's world. - Matthew DeVries

Threaded comments are hideous. Take the time, read slow and read it all. Compose your thoughts and say what you need to. You have no where important to be. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, I'm missing the "too much pretty" reference. - Stephen Mack

(Pounces, claws extended, on the either/nor pairing in alphaxion's comment.). :-) - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Well Eye'd explane it beter, but sea, yu've removed all werds I need to make my point. I'm left with nuthing to rephyne my thawts. - Matthew DeVries

Let me be clear: The dictator example is a hypothetical, and I'm not actually advocating we force wholesale spelling reform down anyone's throat. Instead, I'm asking people to examine their biases and beliefs. Previously I was a spelling snob. I made spelling flames. Despite believing in the abstract that I was a descriptionist, I was actually behaving as a prescriptivist. However, in... more... - Stephen Mack

It's a legacy language, like Windows. It has to maintain backwards compatibility. People with your ideas tried that Esperanto movement way back when, because to get to where you want to be requires a full rebuild from the kernel up. Unfortunately language isn't an if you build it they will come sort of thing, so how bout we just leave it as it and let it evolve like it's supposed to,... more... - Matthew DeVries

For English spelling reform, we may have to look to other languages to lead the way. Filipino, the official language of the Philippines (which is really just a standardized dialect of Tagalog) basically incorporates tons of English words, but has changed the orthography to match the conventions of written Filipino, which is close to being completely phonetic. I understand Japanese kind... more... - Victor Ganata

Matthew, the Chaucer excerpt refutes the backwards-compatibility notion. I find Esperanto ridiculous, because it was mandated, not evolved. Almost no one wants to learn a whole new language just because they find English too complex or irregular. I agree with the rest of your comment. You illustrate the point I'm making perfectly. Before, I was acting as an agent resisting language... more... - Stephen Mack

My point, though, is that there have never been any brakes, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. - Victor Ganata

Victor, we've done that already and continue to every day/year. - Matthew DeVries

Stephen, the Chaucer excerpt doesn't refute anything at all. It can't. It's inanimate, and kind of meta. - Matthew DeVries

It shows that language changes and doesn't have to be backwards-compatible. - Stephen Mack

Matthew, true. I just think it'll be more dramatic when we start borrowing back from languages that are completely outside the Indo-European family of languages. - Victor Ganata

Victor: English borrowing words from other languages is a fait accompli. - Andy Dustman

Victor: Suppose someone says to you, "Good nite!" and you say back to them, "You miseducated nincompoop, don't say 'nite,' it's spelled 'night.'" You are acting as a "brake" as you say. Right? - Stephen Mack

Stephen, No it doesn't. It's inanimate. It doesn't refute anything. It's can't. It doesn't possess the intelligence. - Matthew DeVries

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons. 'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.' The waiter turns to the... more... - Matthew DeVries

Stephen start your sentence, "The Chaucer excerpt that I quoted illustrates....." At least I think that is what you are attempting to convey. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, yes, that's what I mean -- apologies for use of metonymy as a grammatical shortcut. (And thank you for the literalist Panda joke.) - Stephen Mack

Matthew, that's one usage crusade you'll have to give up on. Information wants to be anthropomorphized. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Well played, Bruce. - Stephen Mack

Yeah, well played...... - Matthew DeVries

On a more serious note, I think Stephen is making a good move by loosening up on spelling as his son starts to read and write. That fits the methodology I've seen work really well in Montessori schools. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Yes, he should be well suited to a twitter dominant world. Make sure he takes AP LOLcat in highschool as well. - Matthew DeVries

Twitter's ability to influence language is probably substantial. - Stephen Mack

Stephen, yeah, I see your point. On the other hand, such a response might actually act as a accelerator, if the person I said it to thought I was someone not worth listening to. - Victor Ganata

Andy, true. I was specifically thinking of English borrowing words back from languages that had originally borrowed from English, which, yeah, we've already been doing. - Victor Ganata

Kids are good at unlearning. Empower them first. Tighten up spelling later. - Bruce Lewis

If I started 'loosening up on spelling', I'd never get a job because I'm a writer and am expected to produce literate and correct copy. - Charlotte {charley} M

Bruce L., you're exactly right, and it's very interesting to me that proper spelling is now hardly emphasized at all in the early grades. - Stephen Mack

Charlotte, I'm not suggesting all literate and correct copy be discarded wholesale. As I mention in the blog post, business communications are one venue where we place a huge emphasis on proper spelling and grammar, and that's not going to change for generations if at all. Really I'm trying to explain why for informal discussions (such as the ones here on FF) I'm interested in personally being less of a stickler. - Stephen Mack

Clearly spelling bees are corruptors of teh youth. Won't someone please think of the children? - Andy Dustman

Andy, did you see Spellbound? Freaky how much work is involved, for obscure words that most people have never heard of. I am all for intellectual competition, but the value of the top level of competition like that really escapes me. It seems to turn the kids into stress cases. - Stephen Mack

Stephen, I have not, but spelling bees are the intellectual equivalent of beauty contests. Memorization != rational thinking - Andy Dustman

Ah, good, then your previous comment was sarcastic. (I approve.) - Stephen Mack

I think there's enough nails in the coffin of this premise. I'm off to start my long weekend. - Matthew DeVries

Enjoy your weekend, Matthew! Don't worry, the zombie of this premise will dig its way out of the coffin over time. - Stephen Mack

Yes, there's a greasy red spot where the dead horse used to be. - Andy Dustman

Is there? I missed it. Better keep on kicking to be sure. - Stephen Mack

Amusingly, this is quite possibly the most grammatically- and syntactically-correct comment stream I have ever seen. - Sir Slippy of Slippington

:) I certainly don't want anyone to accuse me of wanting English to evolve solely because I don't know how to speak it. And FFers are an unusually literate bunch. - Stephen Mack

Language will as language always has. It is a plastic, mutable thing, that changes from place to place, from generation to generation, from one media form to another. Old grammarians don't die, they get abbreviated. - Sir Slippy of Slippington

A few years ago there was a news story that tracked the rate of decrease for irregular verbs. They predicted that in another 100 years only the most important irregular verbs will be around. That is kind of strange to predict where the language will go. - Rich Thomas

Slippy, I just dislike the people who hold on to the set or rules they learned like it is set in stone. - Rich Thomas

I think we all have a tendency to hold on to the rules we learned like they're set in stone. Otherwise, they'd just be guidelines :-) - Sir Slippy of Slippington

I tried to resist, but here's an example of current day comment prose to dissect: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009... <----- endless linguistics theories will swirl around the reason for the strategic placement of the single comma, the only punctuation whatsoever therein (if you don't count ALL CAPS as punctuation). - Micah Wittman

Alfredo

Physics WIN - http://twitpic.com/508qo

May 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, emrah gök, Andrea G and 328 other people liked this

awesome - Alfredo

60 more comments

I want to do that on my exercise balls. - Anika Malone

How many tries (and broken bones) did that take? - Johnny Worthington

Homygorsh - Martha

First animated gif that didn't make me cringe or want to hide it. cool. :) also, i won't be trying that on my exercise ball anytime soon. - patricia

I just don't know how you figure out you can do that. - Curtis Jackson

I'm sure if I tried it I would be in traction right now. - Kevin Pedraja

Really Awsome! - Piero Tagliapietra

Amazing .. - johnpiercy

Wooow! - z.o.s The Cylon

süper :) - Göksel Şirin

O_o - Bluesun 2600

THAT IS CRAZY AWESOME! - Chieze Okoye

wow. gotta reshare that! - Ňicķ

very cool...perfect landing too - Jeffrey Marsh

Are you serious? No way! - Andrew Trinh

I seriously just bought one of these today. but I'm with pea♥ fierce as a woozle. no attempts for me. - Nathalie

wow that is sweet - (jeff)isageek

Dude! - BEX

Usually stomping on balls makes me uncomfortable, but this is pretty awesome. - Phronk

I expect this move to be all the rage in Rhythmic Gymnastics in the next Olympics. - Jeanine W.

Very impressive :0 - Adval

boy, if you messed that up it could really put a damper on your day. Some doof needs to try it and put up their fail-flip on youtube. Absolutely amazing, though. - Rick Cogley

totally awesome!!! wow! how fun! - Susan Beebe

Was waiting for the neck snapping moment....was pleasantly surprised - Toby Graham

If I taught Physics, I'd show this to my students for open discussion - Bwana

LOL - Quality! - Qwerty

wow - Gökmen Karasu

wtf :)) - Batu

Thought he was going to munch it, clearly, he's not human. - Will Higgins™

How many times did he try that until he got it right? - Louis Gray

Not sure how many - but my guess would be that this guy is a competitive gymnast (based on the body and the setting) - things like this often come easy (when you have trained for a dozen years to develop muscle, balance and body awareness), - Brian Sullivan

holy wow - Mattb4rd

easy? If you're Jesus maybe. - Mattb4rd

Haha thats awesome! - Nicholas James

I would love to see the out takes on this - Josh Haley

I really would like to try it - Marcello Del Bono

Otherwise known as the orthopedist's full employment act. - Tom Landini

win - Jeremiah Owyang

ZZZOMG! That is such a PHYSICS WIN. A new way to use an exercise ball! - Sean

It was amazing when he did it once, but how does he do it non-stop over and over? I lost count already. - Josh Haley

yeah and how does he teleport back to where he started? - Alfredo

bah to science, +many for physical fitness, :O - chaz2b

hogeeee! fugeee! fugaaa! - Ken Okabe

WOW! Even I am impressed. - Shawn Whitmire

I can't get enough of this. Of course it should carry the "don't try this at home disclaimer". I'm sure they could run a whole episode of Amerca's Funniest Home Videos of people trying to do this. - Mark Krynsky

Awesome ! - DAL

wow - orionstarr

Is it possible that there are some hidden cables here? His form seems too perfect as his feet swing around at the end. - Brian Sloane

nope. no cables - Alfredo

Youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Andrew C

nice. - Alfredo

I'd like to see the blooper reel - Abbas Haider Ali

i wanna try, it's awesome! - tibetsong

I am going to try this next time I go to the gym wish me luck heha. - Jason

Next time I 'm at the gym, I'm gonna give this a try! :) - burdr

burdr, did you try it out?? 8^) - Chieze Okoye

The sequel: http://friendfeed.com/nathanc... - Nathan Chase

This thread was discussed on the FFundercats (http://www.ffundercats.com/2009...) - Josh Haley

#awesomesauce - Alfredo

Damn, that guy knows his arse from his angular momentum. - Sir Slippy of Slippington

BTW no longer on YouTube. Bummer. - Jill Hurst-Wahl

Petr Buben to FriendFeed Feedback, FFNews24, FFLobby, Mashable24

Search is now LIVE ! cool ! .. excellent move from Friendfeed! How to become number 1 on the web!

July 2 - Comment - Like - Share

Meryn Stol, Peter Dawson, Daniel J. Pritchett and 2 other people liked this

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... ... http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009... .. wow ..embed Friendfeed real time search into other websites :] .. good. ..help them, Friendfeed, to become real time, real web sites ! :] ............http://mashable.com/2009... ... Friendfeed, the brain of the net ! ........ now Google should make their normal search results scrolling ala real time .. per option ////or better, have whole pages scroll :] ......// http://thenextweb.com/2009... - Petr Buben

Anthony Citrano

*You* balance the budget | Los Angeles Times - http://www.latimes.com/news...

July 1 - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, yasin ghasemi, Cibeles and 69 other people liked this

“Try your hand at closing California’s budget shortfall, estimated at $24 billion. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Cut spending, raise taxes and/or borrow to get the state out of the red. For each choice -- drawn from proposals from across the political spectrum -- we’ve tried to give some sense of the effects. As you craft your proposal, the Deficit Meter will show your progress.” - Anthony Citrano

40 more comments

Holy crap...I tried it...raising taxes only gets you about halfway there and then you have to make some pretty painful cuts to get the rest of the way there. California is truly screwed. - Alex Scoble

I got them into the green but it took some doing. Interesting that "legalize marijuana and tax at 10%" wasn't an option as a revenue stream. I wonder how quickly the scenario would change if it were. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

My only option is to move to florida - EARL (Born in the USA) from fftogo

@Tina - it is an option (Assembly Bill 390) but not within the current emergency session. @Alex: Yes, but it ain't just California. The state continues to serve as an essential US leading indicator. ;) - Anthony Citrano

Wow, that is amazing to see. I didn't even manage to get it half way down. My mom is in human services and as a recent college grad with no insurance it was hard to cut anything from education, human services, health or state workers. Poor Cali. :( - Heather

@Earl: Florida, New York, and Michigan are close on California's heels. Try maybe Hawaii instead. - Ladybug Heather

Another 6 months of Obama, and the U.S. will be like California. - Spencer

That's an awesome visualization. California is pretty fucked. - Eric P

I fixed it, but I raised the hell out of some taxes to do it. - Steve Lowe

Here is what I would do.. I'd actually probably do more than just what has been proposed: http://www.latimes.com/news... - Bill Rawlinson

If you cut everything but the one-time fixes, and don't raise taxes, you are still in the red. California is boned. Can we sell it to Japan? China? - Andy Dustman

@Spencer: clue up, mon vieux. - Anthony Citrano

@Andy, Heather, Eric - as I said to Alex: this isn't unique to CA; it's coming soon to a State House near you. - Anthony Citrano

Yeah, but not to the extent that CA is facing...unless the economy gets worse. :) - Alex Scoble

@Alex - that depends on whether you measure "extent" in percentages or absolutes. In absolutes, of course none are to the extent of CA because it's the largest state economy. But in percentage terms, most state budgets are similarly fucked over the next fiscal session - two if they're lucky. - Anthony Citrano

I disagree. California is uniquely fucked up because of its constitution and system of ballot referendums (prop 13). Other states are able to adjust and respond more effectively as they go along - obviously they haven't stayed deficit free, but the situation isn't *as* dire elsewhere. - Eric P

It's important to keep in mind that this is a static tool for what is an inherently dynamic problem. You can raise taxes, sure, but you'll also lose an extraordinary amount of revenue in subsequent years as families relocate. And if you think that won't happen, keep in mind that Cali is already hemorrhaging high-earners. Cali's problem is a spending problem, just as the rest of the... more... - Forrest Cox

Good fun, balance California budget! - Mike Reynolds

Wow, this is a great visual representation. Totally depressing. - joey

@Eric P: yes, California has unique challenges. But what I meant was that the core problem - i.e. the state being totally bankrupt - is not unique. Many US states will be right behind it. - Anthony Citrano

In MO, we had a GOP Gov. who made draconian cuts to balance the budget. It made him unpopular and he only served one term; but we are stable fiscally now. - Robert Hafer from iPhone

@Anthony - but not too many other states have an economy roughly the size of France's. A good comparison here is Texas, which is also very large, very diverse, and is in comparatively sterling fiscal shape. - Forrest Cox

Just legalize our states #1 Cash crop, and the tax revenues from it should go a long way to shoring up the budget permanently. Then repeat for every other state and things might actually start to get better! Imagine that! - Michael Fidler

The budget "options" are too old. Due to a failure to act before July 1 - some options are no longer available. - LPH™ and his dog P™ from BuddyFeed

I didn't see an option to cut the salaries of the governor and legislators to minimum wage level. - John

I balanced the budget and have almost $11 million left over without raising ONE TAX! http://www.latimes.com/news... :P (And yes, I'm dead serious) - Mike VanLare (slayerboy)

No new taxes? Select the "possibly illegal" cuts and give voters next election a choice: keep more of your earnings and invest in your own futures, or give it all to us and trust us to rain those benefits sufficiently back to you. Do you really have confidence CA can do that efficiently? - Andrew Skretvedt

After experimenting and looking at the list, any change of less than a billion dollars is barely worth making. Fixing this is going to be painful, but this is what you get for continuously demanding services, at some point they need to be paid for. The "cut the health and dental care for state retirees maybe be illegal and will be challenged in court" is kind weird: if the state goes bankrupt, those won't be paid out anyway. But I guess everyone gets to feel good about not having to cut that. - Andy Bakun

I also don't get why we're spending money on some of these things. Why are we keeping illegal immigrants in state prisons? Why have they not been deported? Wouldn't deporting them as soon as possible actually be cheaper in the long run? - Andy Bakun

New constitution. - anna

That wasn't too hard. I made 14bn in cuts and 16bn in new taxes, giving me a budget surplus of 6.8bn which I will bank for the next two years as the tax base shrinks even more. I gutted law enforcement (over porked as it is), cut hard across community college level (sorry kids, suck it up for a bit and read on your own) but left k-14 intact as well as ALL health and human services. - Cole Jolley

Why must the education of our future generations and their potential revenue make the chopping block so frequently? -- Mr. Jolley thanks for the break down. - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

It's amazing how may state funded freeloaders there are in Ca. - Kenny Elliott

Maybe I didn't see the option, but I wanted to release all non-violent drug offenders, and others incarcerated for victimless crimes. That should've been worth something. - Dave Roth

This is a wonderful application. It's very easy to armchair quarterback things like budgets. It's good to be able to see options laid out in an interactive fashion like this. Should do it more often, particularly before elections. - Barry Biddlecomb from twhirl

My one gripe about the application: It only shows the *deficit*, not the entire budget, and cuts that have been proposed by politicians. This is around $130B if federal funds aren't counted, $200B with federal funds. http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeti... - Andy Dustman

Gawd...this is hard to do without cutting much needed programs (I think anyway.) - Adam C.

California is setting an early example for a wholesale rethink sorely needed in the United States. That is: what should government really be responsible for? As many of you have said, this is an example of free-riding entitlement gone amok. And if you all think this is bad, just wait until we have to take the same approach to the federal budget.... - Anthony Citrano

I am up for paying more, well much more, taxes to provided guarenteed quality education and healthcare. I also willing to cut failed systems and policies like the war on drugs and illegal immigration. - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

The thing is, paying more isn't even an option, since the Governator will terminate any bill that tries to raise taxes. Although I wonder how long that stance is going to last. - Victor Ganata

+ Victor - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

Jorge Escobar to Jorge's feed, FriendFeed Feedback

FriendFeed needs to start thinking about releasing mobile apps to consume it... one for iPhone and for Android. What do you think?

July 2 - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Bill Heslin, Roberto Bonini and 5 other people liked this

Yes. After 4 -Long days on the iPhone only I can attest to the need for a better app. - LPH™ and his dog P™ from BuddyFeed

4 more comments

don't forget us lowly blackberry owners too. - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

... and one for BlackBerry and one for Nokia and one for Pre... - W. Brant Kesseler

Ok, ok... let me see what I can do ;) - Jorge Escobar

There are at least four iPhone apps for FriendFeed so far; just none of them 'official'. I've personally used amigo and BuddyFeed. They both have their pros and cons (and would be awesome if somehow combined into one app). - Akiva Moskovitz

FFToGo continues to be the most complete for Android, although I do like the /iphone implementation, but it eats too much space on my G1. Argh! - Jorge Escobar

Kevin Fox

Sorry Karl, but my empathy for passing celebrities circuit has exceeded its bandwidth. Please die again later.

July 1 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Buddy, Dario Gomez and 14 other people liked this

hahaha, nice Kevin! - Georgia Diehl

5 more comments

BREAKING: More celebrities will die. Kevin, you'd better get that circuit replaced, stat! - Stephen Mack

Karl was, from all I can tell, a stand up guy with a large body of work. He will be missed. - Alex Scoble

Please stop breaking. - Kevin Fox

True Alex, and I mostly kid. - Kevin Fox

put a penny in it? - Dead Silence

Finally a celebrity role model: married for 71 years, lived to be 97 Congrats Karl, we should all be so fortunate. - Sean OBrien

Thomas Hawk

Monthly unemployment numbers come out on Thursday. Expecting 9.6%. How soon until it hits 10%? It will make a lot of headlines when it breaks into double digits.

June 29 - Comment - Like - Share

Lars Clausen, Leo Laporte, Anthony Citrano and 3 other people liked this

as goes the unemployment rate so goes credit card default rates. - Thomas Hawk

3 more comments

I assume you are referring to US numbers. We are already at ~11.3% unemployment in CA! - Jeff P. Henderson

right, yeah, this is the National number. - Thomas Hawk

(As with the faux-inflation numbers), the reported number is very sanitized. True US unemployment is already well into the double digits. - Anthony Citrano

welcome back to the Carter years. - Thomas

Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I need to visit Vancouver at least once in my life. How awesome is a city that has both a shoreline and mountains?

July 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Katie and her Amoeba Eye, hollyseven, pea ♥ fierce as a woozle and 12 other people liked this

Like, uh...Los Angeles? ;) - Derrick

10 more comments

Yeah, but then I have to put up with shallow LA people! (Current FF LA residents not included) ;) - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

love Vancouver :) - martha

LA's warmer and sunnier. But Vancouver's pretty awesome, too. - Jandy

Also I've already been to LA, but never to Canada. It was quite pretty in LA, even while I was walking around Compton. (long story) - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Vancouver is awesome & the whole world can see how much next winter - Tracy Benham

Vancouver's.... OK. I'm not exactly the best person to ask, even though I've lived here for almost 9 years. The summers are pretty hard to beat, though. - Cecily

Damn, I got Leo AND Chris to like this? I need to post more stuff about Canada. Hi guys! - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

So far, this has been the best summer I have ever seen. You should get up here soon. Weather is unbelievable. - Nicholas Molnar

*finds passport* - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I like Vancouver - born and raised here - but yeah, what Cecily said. I do like the weather here, both summer and other seasons. Pretty much anywhere else that's not colder in winter has summers too hot for me. =) (SF excluded) - Andrew C

Vancouver is also notable - for urban planning enthusiasts anyways - for notably *not* running highways all over the place, unlike basically every other metro area on the continent. - Andrew C

l0ckergn0me

Mount Rushmore as seen from Canada.

June 27 - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Sarp, abigailashleawhitaker and 411 other people liked this

HAHAHAHA - Anika Malone

45 more comments

Fair trade for them getting the good view of Niagara Falls I'd say. - invariant

frickin sweet! - BEX

lol - Ryo

LOL - Tibor Holoda

Yup that's exactly what it looks like from here. - Barry Sanschagrin

ROFL - Ethan

So where exactly did Nicholas Cage enter to find the treasure? - Geoff Schultz

LOL! too funny. - John Blanton from twhirl

LOL - Roberto Bonini

Heh. B. Kliban did a cartoon of this with their pants down. Good job on this, tho :-) - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

hahaha, that's funny! - freedom fighter mom from twhirl

What? There's another view? Please post. - Ken Morley

I'm pretty sure it's in the collection "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head", published back in the early/mid 70s. I know I've got it around here somewhere... - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

ROTFL, "the other side" - Roberto (postoditacco) from fftogo

Hahaha. Awesome sight for 'em Canadians! - Santosh

face down and ass in the air! Love it! - John Hillestad

Cool, except anybody who's been to Mount Rushmore knows it faces east! So really this is the view from Wyoming. - Ben Hanten

Ben: Americans have never been known to have a sense of direction. - l0ckergn0me

Hilarious :-D - Ace

I literally LOL'd. - Mike Cefalo

Sarah Palin sees this from the other side of her house. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

awesome - Nick Humphries

I lol´d. - Jens Christian Freund

ahahahahahahah - Adriano Mercurio

LMAO! :-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

lol ... yup that's just what we see from Canada ... a bunch of asses - jay macpherson

Well played, jay. Well played. - Jason Huebel

*access memory: Braveheart battle scene* - Mo Kargas

Too funny! - Mark Harai

Haha... I LOL'ed for real too. - Barbara

wiping away tears. rofl - metageoff

+1 Jay (not really true, but still very funny :o) - Ken Morley

Hay I am Canadian !.....giggle - hollyseven

How did I miss this?! HAHA - Mona Nomura

I think somebody has a wedgie! - Curtis Jackson

The view from Canada is the rock on the left & Lincoln's shoes. - Wade Dorrell

that is epic. ;) - Philip "dmouse" Campbell

Hilarious! :) - SoMuchMoreThanAMom

Awesome! - Timothy Federwitz

hahahaha wtf - tohuko

That's priceless. - Todd Libby

Teddy has a nice butt =p - LouCypher

where do you get this stuff from - Frank loves it - Kathi Barrett

That is brilliant. B3TA or somewhere similar? - dannystaple

Hahahah! Mount Rushmore as seen from Canada. - KyNam Doan

haha ace babes xx - abigailashleawhitaker

Scott Beale

Karl Malden has died at age 97 http://www.latimes.com/news...

July 1 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

SUSAN J SPAULDING, John, Leo Laporte and Ton Zijp liked this

I had to google him to see who he was. :/ - Matt Mastracci

Doesn't get much better than this: married for 71 years, famous, Oscar, Emmy, lived to be 97. Congrats to Karl, we should all be so fortunate in our lives. - Sean OBrien

Hacker News

Month of Twitter Bugs kicks off with bit.ly vulnerabilities - http://www.thetechherald.com/article...

July 1 from Security Bloggers Network - Comment - Like - Share

Leo Laporte liked this

The Month of Twitter Bugs (MoTB) kicked off this morning with four vulnerabilities for the popular bit.ly URL service. The bit.ly service, the second most popular URL service used on Twitter according to Tweetmeme.com, is vulnerable to a single XSS attack on URL information pages created by the service. There were three other XSS attacks, but those were all patched before disclosure. The list of bit. - Hacker News

Hacker News

China backs down on July 1 mandate for Green Dam - http://www.thetechherald.com/article...

July 1 from Security Bloggers Network - Comment - Like - Share

Nick Neary and Leo Laporte liked this

China has pushed back their mandated timeline for filtering software that was to be preinstalled on new computers entering the country for sale. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Tuesday that the reasoning for the backtracking, what they call a delay, was because PC manufacturers needed more time. The MIIT did not issue a new deadline or mention one in their press release. - Hacker News

Duncan

Digg on Jeopardy! - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

July 1 from Digg - Comment - Like - Share

Joe Geeting, Mitch, Steven Rodriguez and Leo Laporte liked this

Aaron Draczynski

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block launch gdgt - http://www.engadget.com/2009...

July 1 from Digg - Comment - Like - Share

Gary Sanders, Kevin, Simon Wicks and 3 other people liked this

Alex Scoble

Today was a good day on friendfeed. I got on Louis Gray's monthly 10 recommended friendfeeders list, Leo Laporte left a comment on a thread, the friendfeed team gave us themes and no one noticed that I didn't workout for the 2nd day in a row.

June 30 - Comment - Like - Share

mjc, Ladybug Heather, EARL (Born in the USA) and 28 other people liked this

Worthless slacker. - Geoff Schultz

12 more comments

LOL - Jason Huebel

Checking out the list, I have no clue what my bio would be :) - Rodfather

lazy bugger you... ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

I noticed you didn't post any workout update (I looked), but I can't say anything because I haven't been able to workout in over a week. - Anika Malone

Another FriendFeeder whining about people not noticing him... sheesh. ;-) - Sprague D

ROFL - Alex Scoble from IM

I've only gone through 1 day of the 30 day challenge, and that was last week. - Rodfather

What's holding you back, Rodfather? - Alex Scoble

Laziness and soreness (from softball) basically. I'm done with the soreness part, so I'll do day 2 tonight. - Rodfather

Cool - Alex Scoble from IM

that is a kool combo there alex :) - (jeff)isageek

at least get in shape for the wedding. Then you can let yourself go to pot. - BEX

Yeah, had to give my ankle a rest though. - Alex Scoble

Thomas Hawk

Oklahoma Legislature to Consider Proclamation Linking the Economic Crisis to Obama’s Immoral Policies « JONATHAN TURLEY - http://jonathanturley.org/2009...

June 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

John, Leo Laporte, Anthony Citrano and 8 other people liked this

In the resolution below, Kern’s resolution declares in pertinent part: WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; and WHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of Prayer; and WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior; - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

20 more comments

wow. the things that get introduced as Govt. proclamations in Oklahoma boggles my mind. So much for separation of Church and State. - Thomas Hawk

So I wonder what caused the economic crisis October - December 2008? Inquiring minds wanna know! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

this politician is wacky. this sort of an official govt. proclamation is just absurd. - Thomas Hawk

"BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, believers in the One True God and His only Son, call upon all to join with us in recognizing that "Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord," and humbly implore all who love Truth and Virtue to live above reproach in the sight of God and man with a firm reliance on the leadership and protection of Almighty God; and BE IT RESOLVED that we, the... more... - Thomas Hawk

Which one is the month dedicated to an immoral behavior? I feel like I've missed a holiday somewhere... - Jennifer Dittrich

I wonder if they realize that saying the economy is God's punishment for our liberal attitudes puts them one step from the Westboro church. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

What is sad is not that these nutcases exist but that they can get elected to public office. - Brian Sullivan

Jennifer - June is gay pride month. I'm guessing that's what he's referring to. - amygeek from fftogo

Just to be clear -- the nutcase is a she. - Brian Sullivan

Brian, not in SF they won't get elected ;) Apparently District 84 in Oklahoma's a bit different though. Here's her website: http://repsallykern.com/ She says she's a Kernservative on it. - Thomas Hawk

*facepalm* - MikeAmundsen

somehow I imagine that if this legislation makes it all the way to President Obama's desk it's a gonna be vetoed. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas, your link title makes it sound like State Legislation, not federal, so even if the Legislature passed it it would never reach Obama's desk. - Bill Rawlinson

All this type of rhetoric demeans thinking political conversation. The folly. - Jason Nunnelley

Ah, here we observe the resulting spawn of the unholy merging of Jackassery with Wingnuttery. Yeesh! - vicster

@amy - Oh, duh. I'm glad I celebrated :) - Jennifer Dittrich

I know Bill. I'd just think it be fun for Obama to get to veto something like this. ;) - Thomas Hawk

this story just reminds me how radically different various parts of the U.S. can be. Our liberal cities can do stuff that's pretty wacky too. I remember a few years back when the good citizens of Berkeley defeated a ballot measure which would have required all coffee that was sold in Berkeley to be organic and fair-trade. - Thomas Hawk

I doubt the wacky backwoods rednecks of Oklahoma (not my categorization) would actually pass such a resolution. Some politician is just making headlines with this kind of crap. - Jason Nunnelley

authoritarian, ethnocentric folks are going to go down fighting as their worldview is increasingly marginalized by a more rational and accepting worldview - this is how it starts, but I predict it will get MUCH worse and more violent - William Harryman

Separation of church and state is a joke in this country. The founding fathers are rolling over in their graves ... meh. - Rene Wirtz

Matthew DeVries

Madoff Sentenced To 150 Years In Prison - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009...

June 29 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Jon Gosier, howardrs, QuiBariLibera and 11 other people liked this

I can't believe the bastard didn't get life. - Matthew DeVries from Bookmarklet

9 more comments

"The judge said the estimate that Madoff has cost his victims more than $13 billion was conservative because it did not include money from feeder funds." "The jailed Madoff already has taken a severe financial hit: Last week, a judge issued a preliminary $171 billion forfeiture order stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments, and $80 million in assets Ruth Madoff had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5 million." - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

And still they left him with a chance to get out of prison.....:( - Matthew DeVries

because he stole the retirements of millions, I can't imagine that even in a federal "country club" prison their isn't someone with a mom or dad who is now poor - he will be shank bait for quite a long time - Mike Taylor

He said shank bait. - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

Does the forfeiture order return any of that money to the victims? - David Darrow

most will have to sue whoever controlled their funds for that and then they have to petition the courts to be part of the settlement - will take years to work out who gets what. - Mike Taylor

In Italy would have elected him/it as Prime Minister, here the law is not equal for everybody! - QuiBariLibera from iPhone

good riddance - howardrs

Call me when the bait gets shanked. - Dave - SustainedEuphoria

Still pissed he didn't get life - Matthew DeVries from fftogo

Shayna

The Geek Atlas - http://www.geekatlas.com

June 30 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

Thomas Ward, Rick Reynolds and Leo Laporte liked this

Maya Baratz

over(heard) &under(stated) - College Humor does it again, this time bemoaning... - http://mbaratz.tumblr.com/post...

June 29 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

Leo Laporte and MG Siegler liked this

College Humor does it again, this time bemoaning Evite while celebrating Pandora in a "Web Site Story." Love it: http://su.pr/76BVHs - Maya Baratz

Shambhu N. Vineberg

Today's Artists Bow to Michael Jackson - http://vineberg.blogspot.com/2009...

June 28 from Musings on Technology, PR,... - Comment - Like - Share

Tsali, Jon Gosier and Leo Laporte liked this

Yeah, contemporary 'urban' music is usually vapid, narcissistic, voyeuristic and not at all soul-ful. Can't listen to much of it, anymore. - Jon Gosier

Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Steps

June 28 from email - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Siva, Tsali, Jon Gosier and 4 other people liked this

Based on the blood splatter I would say the assailant stood ::here:: and murdered the Zune sending it first into the wall and then careening down the stairs. - Geoff Schultz

Rofl.... or in this case down the stairs. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

John Furrier

This blog post is flying around the web - Kudos Mark Hopkins and to all SiliconAngle contributors; I love peer blogging http://www.siliconangle.com/ver2...

June 26 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Kevin Arth, Guy Martin, James Watters and 9 other people liked this

Great article on technology Iran has for purposes of looking into Internet traffic. - Robert Scoble

20 more comments

We are getting pinged by many news outlets for the great indepth work Mark has been doing on this story. He has built this up fast with the help of all the Friends of SiliconAngle. Crowdsourcing is free and can produce high quality work. I love Peer Blogging. Fast and quality. - John Furrier

Robert: btw great to see you yesterday at GigaOm's event. Keep your ear to the ground and your camera rolling !! - John Furrier

I actually had this convo with Nico Pitney last week, and in fact it was information gathered from our Iranian friends here that made it obvious that DPI wasn't being used. - John Craft

Thanks John for chiming in... - John Furrier

Thanks guys. My obsession with this whole set of Iran stories has definitely turned up some interesting angles and a *lot* of interesting folks outside my normal circle with good things to say on this. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

nytimes askes is free news worth the price http://www.nytimes.com/2009... - John Furrier

answer is Yes when it;s more accurate than the paid news like WSJ as it is in this case with Mark's story on Iran DPI.. community driven opinion and analysis is actually more efficient than generalist news... - John Furrier

Mark: i'm also getting feedback "inbound" from geek mailing lists on this issue - the experts are out there and chiming in ... - John Furrier

That WSJ piece was a classic example of a little knowledge being dangerous. And I assume the reporter pulled the usual stunt of calling and asking for a comment an hour before deadline. Given the need to involve Legal, review contracts and NDAs, etc., there's no way the spokesperson could have given an informed answer. - John Craft

From my friend Bruce Ong over on FB (i'm reposting it for him): An encrypted tunnel out is still reasonably safe. I hope Iranian citizens are using encrypted tunnels. Although based on what I hear from some of the DPI start-ups, even encrypted tunnels (like ssh on port 22) may no longer be safe. For example, a marketing blurb quoted from Palo Alto Networks's website: "Based on... more... - John Furrier

Its scary where the technology for DPI will be in a few years for sure; its also good to know Iran isn't on the cutting edge yet. I hope the US sets up a ton of Wi-max, satelite etc pipes into Iran just as the Iranian people used dishes to get international news for years. Anyone within X miles of the border ought to have a free Wi-max beamed in by the UN as part of the sanctions deal. - James Watters

Bruce Ong writes on FB: I don't think Nokia has any DPI product they are selling. A lot of good DPI vendors right now are still in start-up mode. So I agree WSJ didn't do a good job of research when it implicated Nokia in this. However, whether Iran does or does not do DPI is in my mind still an open question. For the following reasons: 1) Iran's whole bandwidth outbound... Read More is... more... - John Furrier

Was it you and I, James, that were talking about the power of encryption here? I know that the encryption in bitTorrent is able to defeat DPI packet shaping schemes. I think it'll be a long time before these bits of equipment will be able to thoroughly spank a well informed encryption user. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I was talking to you about the torrent conversation happening right now on Bay Area Geek mailing list the Bill Norton turned me on to... - John Furrier

Mark-yes its an arms race. I'm not on the cutting edge with it but if they get the SSL pattern down (perhaps by early socket open key passing capture) it would be possible to do it a different way. - James Watters

http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt... top google hit on DPI/SSL - James Watters

Mark: Your'e absolutely correct. Plus, no matter what they do with DPI, or things like SSL patterning, it would still be fairly easy to get Twitter traffic into and out of anywhere, piggybacked on other allowed traffic, and run through a proxy that separates and reconstructs the traffic. And it would be exceptionally difficult to discover. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

So that means that @timoreilly needs to remove this tweet http://twitter.com/timorei... - Adam

Adam, great point. Slash-dot seems so noisy and web 1.0 troll filled. Its almost nostalgic to read it again. - James Watters

I was particularly surprised that the readers of Slashdot in the comments didn't point out the inconsistency. I posted something there, but it got no attention. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Mark - You're article is awesome. Thank you very much for the work. :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Gunny The Fuzzball ™

Take my love, take my land Take me where I cannot stand I don't care, I'm still free You can't take the sky from me Take me out to the black Tell them I ain't comin' back Burn the land and boil the sea You can't take the sky from me There's no place I can be Since I found Serenity But you can't take the sky from me...

June 27 - Comment - Like - Share

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:) - Josh Haley

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No power in the verse can stop me.... - Matthew DeVries

Watching Jaynestown - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

No. THIS is what going crazy feels like. - Matthew DeVries

The man they call jaaaaaaaayne - Josh Haley

No, no THIS is what going mad feels like. - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

I wish my dad got me a Inara for my birthday. - Matthew DeVries

During one of the WoW in game holidays (forget which) you could buy "Mudders Milk" at the drink vendors. - Matthew DeVries

Good bye Mr. Higgins. This and Our Mrs. Reynolds are my favorite episodes. - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

River, honey, he's putting the hair away now. - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

I miss that show so much. - metageoff

Joss should just forget Fox exists. I'm shocked that Dollhouse was renewed. - Gunny The Fuzzball ™

Probably one of the best things they ever put on TV - David C Ravell Jr

I miss this show so much. - Michael Ellis

If you're going to stab me in the back, at least do it to my face. - Bruce Webster

shiny. - Sir Slippy of Slippington

If I ever decide you need killing you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed. (Edit: I think I got that quote wrong. I fail.) - DGentry

Man I wish this show hadn't been canceled. So many good memories. - Eric Geller

YES - Ha3rvey

Inara's in my bunk. I'll be in my bunk. - Josh Haley

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