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"As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ's radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama's own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws." [http://www.eff.org/deeplin...] - MikeAmundsen

But people paying attention noticed a hint of Obama heading in this direction when he voted for Bush's wiretapping bill, basically making the program of warrantless wiretaps legal. - Rory Partalis

Agreed, Rory. That being said, there were two options by November; Obama and McCain. Of the choices, Obama was the one at least saying "the right things" (from my POV, anyway). I voted for him, to give him the opportunity. It's not like McCain was going to reform the PATRIOT act. I gave Obama the chance to fail at this, and so far, he has. - Ken Kennedy

seems like more of the same on the banking end of things as well: http://www.salon.com/tech... - andrew

Next Panel: Cheney bites his finger off.... Seriously though the real situation behind this as documented by the EFF is very disheartening. Not surprising though. - Baconner

I can't. Google kills projects as a pass time :-( - Richard A.

Blogger could be one that has worked out - BCK

Writely - Bwana ☠

Google Earth? / Keyhole - Shawn Farner

I love this service, im really hoping they continue development, any insider info? - Kyle Weller

Writely + XL2Web + TonicSystems -> Google Docs, Keyhole -> Google Earth/Maps, Urchin + MeasureMap -> Google Analytics, JotSpot -> Google Sites, Zingku -> Google FriendConnect, Android -> Android, DoubleClick -> DoubleClick, Feedburner -> AdSense for Feeds (in-process); sorry about Dodgeball. - Jeff

... and David Pogue's comment after the post gets it right -- a new version on new infrastructure will be coming soon. Apologies to anyone who has run into issues on the legacy version. - Jeff

BTW, for folks who don't know, the Jeff posting on this thread is Jeff Huber, SVP of Engineering @ Google. Very cool that Jeff is hanging out here, IMO. - Kevin Scott

Jeff: Will the new version be open source, ala Jaiku? ;-) [Thanks for the list, btw.] - Ken Sheppardson

Forgetting Feedburner? Typical. - Bjorn Stromberg

...or just not trying to give an exhaustive list. I was just asking for one, after all :-) - Ken Sheppardson

Great! And I use this for my local phone number here in Florida. My cell number is still from Kentucky. - tomit

@Jeff thanks for commenting, you have revived some long lost hope in Grandcentral ;) Any more news would be awesome, update the gc blog ;) - Kyle Weller

I'm like tomit. I use GC as my local number, as my cell number is still a Chicago area phone. - Adam C.

Thanks for stopping by here, Jeff. :) - Matt Cutts

It's great news that Grand Central is still alive; I use my GC number as my primary number, and I've been getting nervous not having heard anything from Google about it for so long. I'd love to see it integrated into GMail/Google Talk. - Chris Johnson

I still have to wonder why it took a post like mine to get Google folks talking about GrandCentral again. I don't want them to promise what they may not be able to deliver, but a post every now and then on the blog teasing what we may expect in the next version...and assuring those of us who count on the service that it's still viable would be nice. That folks have to read comments on blog posts and FriendFeed to get official word is ridiculous. - Judi Sohn

@Judi I wonder the same thing. Google wouldn't give away any state secrets by just saying, "Hang tight--we're still committed to Grand Central, and there's a new version somewhere on the horizon," especially as they were announcing the demise of some other services and people were getting antsy about Grand Central. - Chris Johnson

This article seems sensationalist. I'm seeing improvements in GC and can't wait to start paying for it. Their communication seems to be lacking for sure and my trust in Google will take a severe hit if this service were to falter (I don't think it will), but the conclusion of this article is plain silly. - coldbrew

Quite surprising to hear that Google keept a project like GrandCentral apparently deep sixed like this while performing a total overhaul on the infrastructure. - Samuel Bishop

@coldbrew, I really didn't mean it to be sensationalist. With absolutely no public word for nearly a year, and Google's history of ignoring their acquisitions to death, what else was I (or anyone else) to think? - Judi Sohn

Google does not care about a community. They just care about selling their ads. This is why what Google touches FAILS - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

so what's your account name? - clarke thomas

Define good taste - Dan Kaplan

Jazz is good taste. Everything else is just... well... music :) - directeur

didn't know stevenhodson listens to electronica...good stuff. - Alan Le

Another great use of social filtering. I've become more interested in Flickr and photos through here. Music will have that same quality. - Hutch Carpenter

I've been doing the same thing Marshall! Let's see.. Recently, I've listened to revcorwin (old friend), onejasonforsale (another friend), stevenhodson, tlandow, and calebelston radio stations. Good stuff! Oh, here is mine: http://www.last.fm/user... - Phil G

http://www.last.fm/user/bgolub <-- Phish, Talking Heads, Grateful Dead, etc - Benjamin Golub

I have a problem with Louis' station, since I can't SIT when listening to it. You can take the club kid out of the clubs... It's probably my favorite but it is completely not conducive to working. Ben, I'll add you, but I'm guessing yours might involved a few flashbacks. LOL. The Dead? Good to see the next generation appreciates some good music. - Cyndy

http://www.last.fm/user... - Steven Hodson

Sometimes I'll cruise http://friendfeed.com/public... and look for songs and bands that I've long since forgotten, and go listen to them. http://www.last.fm/user... is me -- indie hip hop plus some off-kilter (Ween, CVB, Rev HH). I'll be sure to check out these other stations when I get home. - Kirk Kittell

Oh yeah.. here I am. ;) Excuse any Hannah Montana and Suzuki pieces... kid iPods sync on my account as well. http://www.last.fm/user... - Cyndy

Blatant room promotion. 17 of us (so far) as streaming all of our recently played tracks into the lastfmfeeds room - http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Ontario Emperor

Reggae: http://www.last.fm/user/sheyhu - Shey, Jamaican of FF

OE - Good call. - Russellreno

Ontario, I love the idea but I just can't keep up with FriendFeed when streaming in in there. I like to either play someone's station or see ones that they "love" on last.fm. - Cyndy

look at this thread! is FriendFeed awesome or what?? it's SO much fun! did you know MyBlogLog gets 4X as much traffic tho? oh well - Marshall Kirkpatrick

I've been trying to get into Last.fm the past couple days. I think I'm just not getting it. Pandora seems so much easier. - Yolanda

how to find people with last.fm in FF? - Ivan Pope from twhirl

I've been on Pandora. Gonna have to check out Last.fm. - Hutch Carpenter

Marshall - re MyBlogLog - If you build it they will come. FF has the infrastructure to continue to grow over time. - Russellreno

are some people just pandora people and others last.fm people? Because pandora has never appealed to me but I'm a last.fm evangelist. - Jason Toney

http://www.last.fm/user... @Hutch: Thanks. I will add my feed tonight to the room. Darn websence blocks LastFM. - Mathew A. Koeneker

Pandora is fun for the chance to hear things you weren't expecting. I assume Last.fm has some of those aspects as well? Just signed up. - Hutch Carpenter

i've always been a Pandora user but the social side of things is so much richer in Last.fm. I've just been hovering over peoples' names here on FF and looking for the Last.fm logo. that said, the Pandora player is much easier to use. - Marshall Kirkpatrick

I'm a pandora person as well, but maybe I'll listen to last.fms on here - I doubt many people share my geeky tastes, but who knows? - Erin

Marshall - I like Pandora as well, but Pandora is pretty much restricted to users in the USA, preventing our international friends from listening to our playlists :( - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Yolanda.. Last.fm and Pandora are both great but, like Twitter and FriendFeed, have completely different goals. Pandora works behind the scenes to tailor a stream to you. last.fm throws everything together in a huge pot and gives you the sliders to make a great listening experience. They call this "scrobbling" (actually, the AS in LAST stand for "Audio Scrobbler") .. anyway, like a stew, the more stuff you put in it the better it is. Add a bunch of people, hook up last.fm to your itunes, go nuts! - Phil G

interesting, hadn't thought about doing that. Gonna check your out, Mr, Kirkpatrick! You better have the Celine Dion at a minimum:) - Schlomo Rabinowitz

Pandora users, see http://friendfeed.com/e... for mashing up Pandora and Last.fm - Michael W. May

Thanks MWM!! That little app is the bee's knees. - Yolanda

some good vibes over @ http://www.last.fm/user... - Dobromir Hadzhiev

np :) - Michael W. May from twhirl

Ivan Pope - one way to find people with last.fm in FriendFeed is to look at http://friendfeed.com/public... - Ontario Emperor

Great discovery Marshall...I think of this as a dynamically generated muxtape made by my friends without the fuss. Here's my eclectic station http://www.last.fm/listen... - Mark Krynsky

I still do not get how the Friend Feed comment integration plugin works. Commented here and on the blog but where does it show up? - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

I want sugar cane in my coke. waaah - Noah David Simon

Igor, we've been working out some problems with the plugin. It works now and both of your comments are showing up now. - Scott Beale

Thanks Scott, it looks really nice. Love seeing my pic on your blog. I wish all world problems were so easy to solve as an FF plugin. - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Looks pretty cool on your blog, how does it fit with the themes? - Amit Morson

It's not updating very frequently though... - Amit Morson

Where could I find this plugin for wordpress Scott? - Colby Olson

I remember seeing this on TV and thinking it was Awesome. I also seem to remember there being some alternative, shorter, versions... but I can't remember what the difference was =P - Daniel Bruce

Colby, I have a whole FF thread about the plugin: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Scott Beale

Amit the reason I doesn't update immediately is because I'm running WP Cache which is necessary in order for our blog to perform well with the kind of traffic we get. New comments will show up when I manually clear the cache or it expires on its own. - Scott Beale

Now that is a feature! - Ross Miller

What is Facebook? :P - Yuvi

My Facebook usage has weened so much. Basically its just a photo sharing site. - Neil Dunn

I'm using FB less and less now - Prefer normal email to FB email too, in fact I have nine million notifications awaiting my attention but all of them are probably pointless likeness, vampires etc etc.... - Nick Lewis

facebook is a closed platform, I prefer open web2.0 platforms where I can do what I want ...via twhirl - ryan opaz

lowest common denominator stuff lasts a long time, facebook should not get too smart - ana ma roopa

No kidding! I don't have FB at work (a good move, really) so trying to schedule with people is impossible that way. - Jennifer Dittrich

Were it not for the lack of this feature, FB would get zero pageviews from me these days. - Richard Chen

Chris, I couldn't agree with you more, in fact last year a wrote a blog post outlining the need for a Social Network Message Autoresponder http://laughingsquid.com/social-... - Scott Beale

Where's Facebook's feature wishlist page again? - AJ Batac

I was thinking about something like this for Twitter. Redirect them to friendfeed... - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

...and the exclamation point was spotted on a freeway overpass in Mountain View, threatening to jump. Google talked it down. - Mike Doeff

That leaves an unfortunate combination of letters remaining. - Scott Ludwig

So YAHOO was an acronym?...combination of founders first names??? - Arjun from twhirl

Arjun: Yahoo isn't an acronym. It's referring to a type of hominid-creature-thingy in "Gulliver's Travels" - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

The O's left for Google a long time ago - hunter walk

you can spot them occassionally down at the bottom of the search results goooo*oo*oooogle - Alex Gawley

Where'd Y and A go? Scoble told me one of those O's is worth about 5billion each! go grab it quick and cash it in (me thinks it is a lottery ticket!) - Susan Beebe

Yang has resigned? - Brian Sullivan

YAHOO stands for 'Yet Another Hierarchically Officious Oracle' or so it did in the beginning ... - Ivan Pope from twhirl

It's funny how that acronym applies in a very different way now than it did when Yahoo was a hierarchical web directory. - Kevin Fox

For some reason I heard the Wilhelm Yell in my head when reading this... AHO - John Frost

lol @ John - Karim

lol @ Scott Ludwig. - niniane

FWIW, in order to get it to run, I had to change the imports in messagethreading.py from email.utils to email.Utils and email.header to email.Header. I'm running 2.4, not sure if the library names changed between versions...of course, it also doesn't run to completion in 2.4 because Mihai's using the 'key' arg to max() - Jonathan Betz

It breaks on non-ASCII chars, too bad. But the idea is wonderful! - Alex Kapranoff