Joel Gray › Likes

got link? - Kyle Weller

link to the letter ? - elnatobi

link?? :) - Johan

I can't copy and paste but visit http://www.gatesfoundation.com and it might be there. - Robert Scoble

"In early 2009, Bill Gates will send out his first annual letter, a candid look at the issues at the forefront of the foundations work. Sign up to be one of the first to receive the annual letter, as well as other news and information from us." http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages... - Loren Heiny

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about... has a "Sign up for the annual letter" link so I don't think it's posted yet. - Peter Curd

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-... found it - Peter Curd

Brilliant. Must read. - Leo Laporte

He should Twitter instead... he needs the 140 character discipline - Elizabeth McLaughlin

Leo: we won't believe you read it unless you do it live on camera :-) - Richard A.

Leo: I agree. Must read several times. - Robert Scoble

It is his first letter so he has a let of pent up thoughts to share. - Todd Hoff

Loving that letter too...very very nice!!!!! BLOG....yes! http://friendfeed.com/e... - Susan Beebe

Our plane is leaving but I really hope I get to talk to Bill or Melinda this week about their work. See you in 20 hours! - Robert Scoble

I liked the fact that he quoted something optimistic from Keynes in 1930. - barce from twhirl

Thanks for posting the link in the comments here. I can't copy and paste on the iPhone. - Robert Scoble

Enjoy! Yes, please get an interview...that would be terrific!!! - Susan Beebe

I kinda didn't listen to it for many a year - recently dug up the disc and rip'd it. Makes me need to look through the CD binder and remember what else I've been missing. :) - felix

Wow, felix... Pretty Hate Machine is my favorite NIN album. The Fragile is my second favorite. I'm less of a fan of the new stuff. It sounds less original to me. - Lindsay

Ringfinger. Always hated that one. - Akiva

50 bloggers X 10000 twitter following requests.. twitter will be down soon :):) - Naor Mark

Somebody make sure Playboy doesn't see that list. - Eric Schlissel from twhirl

Boo...No Sarah Perez or Corvida. But congrats to the ones I do follow: Veronica Belmont, Gina Trapani, Emily Chang, Leah Culver, & Justine Ezarik. - Mark Krynsky

There's always a few missing on these lists (especially niche bloggers including the above ... Ann Smarty, and Shana Albert) but this is an incredibly good list (with descriptions). Well worth exploring! - Charlie Anzman

Ditto Mark, plus congrats to our Tamar, and Amber MacArthur as well (fan of her stuff as well) - finally a list of females in tech and blogging that doesn't involve "sexiest" or "nakedest." - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

no Perez Hilton? - Jamie

LOL - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I added my mom in the comments: http://mymomsblog.blogspot.com/ - Steve Garfield from twhirl

congrats veronica.... #33, 32.... top 10 soon? already topping twitter's right? - Pajama Domain

good list - sent to my blogger wife :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Could Perez Hilton handle all 140 characters? like, that's a lot! - Herb Myers

This was a great list. Added a few new blogs to Google Reader. - Sean Brady

What... no Cordiva? :-) - Andrew Dobrow

No Natali Del Conte either. Seems more like a "Female Bloggers Influential To Other Females" list. Not so much a list of bloggers that have appeal to men and women, except for some like Gina, Veronica, Cali, etc. - Jim Bergman

Well Female bloggers usually gets 'popularity' faster...but nice list. - Saad Kamal

hey where's SarahinTampa, Cordiva, Cyndy or Svetlana? - update list please! ;-) - Susan Beebe

I love your picture for this article. It looks fun. - tarraguna from twhirl

I'm just happy its up for discussion. - Erin @queenofspain

Only heard of 3-4 of them, Veronica included :D but if they are there, it means they deserve it - Dan V from twhirl

I knew about 3/4s of the list and they absolutely deserve it. These are all great bloggers, well worth checking out. - Robert Scoble

congrats Veronica! - Kevin Rose

This reminds me that had I not given up on the first blog I started back in 98, maybe I'd be on this list. But I don't have the drive and passion these very worthy women have! Congrats to you, Veronica and all on the list! More importantly, keep doing what you do, because it is important and valuable. - Shawna Benson

What an impressive list! Quite a few I follow already, but nice to have some more to check out. - Sally Church

ok which one s/we get Playboy to cover ? Remember TC's post of late ? - Peter Dawson

Why does there have to be a separate list for most influential male/female bloggers? Why not just a list for the 50 or 100 most influential bloggers? Why the gender distinction? - Michael Tefft

After posting about the bikinibloggers of Urlesque & the wish for naked bloggers of Playboy at http://www.aboutblank.nl it was worthwile to pay some attention to influential female bloggers. Really influential, I'm talking about. But why do all these American sites pay so much atttention female bloggers, I wonder. So sudden, I mean. - Ton Zijp

whole story is suspect due to claim that blogging pair coined term "fugly" - WTF! :-) - Deva Hazarika

Andy, just that the attention is there so suddenly, in such a way that they all make a list (20 bloggers Urlesque wants to see in bikini, 9 Playboy wants to see naked, 50 really influential according to N x E). I follow news about weblogs worldwide, I publish about it daily, so for me it's really surprising that in just a few days all these sites are concentrating at female bloggers. I don't take conclusions on that, but it really surprises me. July = bikinimonth? Like Urlesque said? - Ton Zijp

I know a few, and have a few others in my rss reader. But this blog post is screaming for an OPML. - Laura Scott (@lauras) from Alert Thingy

nice resource, re: formatteddad's comment- as long as there is no bias or exclussion. anything that brings more voices to the conversation- the better! sometimes we need to identify the voices that might not be getting the BIG exposure. - michael sean wright

where's corvida? where's corvida? - Sarah Perez

Congratulations for making the list! - Jeff P. Henderson

@Sarah - I was looking for Corvida too! - Yolanda

What about Paige and Gretchen from MommyCast? They deserve to be on the list. - Barry Reicherter from twhirl

You go girls!! But where are the AFRICAN AMERICAN & HISPANIC & INDIA, etc bloggers. A little discriminating, don't ya think? - ChaCha Fance

Tattoo is currently pointed to the planes for Jesse Helms - Tony C (Unrated) from fftogo

@ Earl - Tattoo and Jesse Helms are in different places, tattoo would have to be pointing way down. But i like any small call alternatives. - SteVe C

Midget Jello wrestling it is then - Dread Pirate PJ from NoiseRiver

No, just...no. - xero

holy, cheap. are they even making money? - Hao Chen

@Brian Norwood - LOL, that might actually raise the slumping sales of Surburans - gregory

Its too late in the afternoon to try to type anything that makes sense. - Tony C (Unrated) from fftogo

My guess is higher gas taxes - John Stockton

California has higher taxes and also requires a special formulization of gasoline that, at times, creates a little additional pressure on supply. - RAPatton

Does it translate to cleaner air for California? - Alan Le

ah nice! I didn't know that. - Alan Le

That's what friends on FriendFeed are here for! ;) - Kevin C. Tofel

+1 Kevin - Hao Chen

Ctrl+T also works if you are a keyboard shortcut junkie - Joel Gray from twhirl

Yeah, I've always used Ctrl-T, usually followed by Ctrl-E (search) - Jon Galloway

I Ctrl+T too, in fact, I barely even touch the mouse when browsing. =P - Daniel Bruce

Yeah, not sure what's the fail. Was the laptop running Vista? Was it there for a demo? Tons of Mac's at MIX to demonstrate cross-platform capabilities, for instance. - Jon Galloway

It could have been shennanegins as well. But I liked it. :D - Joel Gray from twhirl

Lovely. - dkb from Alert Thingy

My most favorite one is "United" - PooMa

I have to remind myself to use the "safe" setting at work so that no one gets surprised if they wander into my office. Actually, I use safe most of the time at home because my son likes to sneak up on me while I have headphones on. - ha3rvey (Hugs 50% off!)

Did Friendfeed finally lift the ban on "unsafe" photos? Or is this just a coincidence that so many photos weren't marked that way on Flickr? - Eric P

#5 looks like Bianca from Lars and the Real Girl. - Anna Haro

Eric, these photos are probably considered "safe" by Flickr. Could be because they simply haven't been "reported" as unsafe by the community yet. Flickr relies on users to voluntarily code their content as "safe" or "unsafe" but then has a button where the community can notify flickr or unsafe. It's very difficult to get feeds of unsafe photos out of Flickr. Censorship runs pretty high over there. - Thomas Hawk

"Nudity on FriendFeed: What Are Some Sensible Rules?" http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2008... - Hutch Carpenter

Nudity at work? You should be working, not socializing! lol Even the Vatican has nude paintings. Is this like Amerkan thing? No nude? Are Americans ashamed of their own bodies? - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

@Thomas Hawk: That's what I thought. Shame though, I was hoping this meant there was a better policy. @Hutch Carpenter: The world needs less censorship, not more of it. And if FF *did* adopt censorship filters, nudity is pretty low on my list of things I'd want to see censored. First they should get rid of the incessant "Friendfeed's so great" and "What's wrong with Twitter?" discussions, which are much more offensive to my sensibilities as a thinking human being. - Eric P

I would rather see FF censor discussions about itself than some fine art nude photos. - William Beem

@Eric - I wrote that post as more of a "we control the nudity" philosophy. You'll see my recommendations are pretty wide open (e.g. please no goatse's). If ever there are filters put in place, they shouldn't be at the content level, they should be something each user controls. - Hutch Carpenter

I'm pretty tired about this NSFW discussion. The content filter was a great invention at flickr, but they don't use it right. There are still unflagged photos - and problems with flagged photos which can't be viewed at all in some countrys. For example here in germany you can't turn the content filter off, but a naked nipple at work wouldn't be a problem - using flickr or friendfeed at work would. For me the only solution is to seperate work from private, and don't use community sites at work. - Hannes Trapp

@Hannes Trapp: I've been telling people that for years. Do your work at work. Too many people feel a sense of entitlement to using their office computers as their own and then get mad at someone else who doesn't have the same limits as they do. - William Beem

It's still outrageous to me that Flickr won't let Germans see nipples on Flickr when you see far more sensual imagery simply on television commercials in Germany. - Thomas Hawk

Hey I want to see Boobs and Bush or I will burn the Internet! LOL - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

I came for the boobies... I stayed for the depth of field. Epic work. - Johnny

Thanks Thomas, love Patricio's work! - Larry Kless from twhirl

Hide, 'coz it's not safe for dad :) - Yuvi

Yuvi we need to convert your father! ;-) Is he a Priest or something? - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

@Igor: He's just a normal Indian father who wants to *protect* his kids. - Yuvi

You know, that's funny, I wasn't allowed to look at almost anything growing up, and I STILL hide these things on my screen when my parents are over. Habit, I guess. Oh, and there's your answer to why I like looking at women so much, Yuvi. - donato

Try met-art.com's free tour & Look at the magazine-cover-like shots. http://met-art.com Great photographers of female nudes. It's funny what standards are used. In the dance world, I have a "modern dance" friend who has a nude shot of her & her boyfriend on the card. Even in universities, we have nude dance performers. My brother says dance has spoiled him for strip clubs - "not sexy enough". - Mitchell Tsai

Yeah, already have. - donato from twhirl

Hide!, for me too.. - Azeem

love them....excellent shots....and Yuvi dad need not know :) and nor does my boss.... :) - Arjun

Mitchell are you advocating nudity as freedom of expression? Maybe Mitchell was a Sadu in his past life. ;-) Yuvi, I want to come to India, cover my body with Ash and walk through the streets like Sadu does. - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

leave twitter aloooone!!! someone recently said that twitter is Britney of the web 2.0 world, sounds about right - Dobromir Hadzhiev

I used to love that movie "Old Yeller." I miss that damn dog. - Thomas Hawk

yes Thomas Hawk... sympathy gets the vote - NoahDavidSimon

Dobromir, that is hilarious! - Karen Swim from Alert Thingy

Leave twitter alone, all in all, you're just a, another git in the wall :) - Prolific Programmer

Genuinely funny post! - Roney Smith

Once Bill created his foundation with Melissa I changed my attitude about him. - Russellreno from NoiseRiver

I second that! Well said. - Scott Kuperus

Hope he put something aside for his retirement. - Steven Livingstone-Pérez from twhirl

The more I've learned about how Gates' views wealth, the more I've grown to respect him. In contrast to the wealthy industrialists of the past, Gates' views about the estate tax and and the role that philanthropy ought to play for the wealthy is a positive force. - Thomas Hawk

I loved the creative capitalism exchange between Buffet and Gates. Did anyone read that?! - Shivanand Velmurugan

I love how the $20,000 flat-screens I first saw in Bill's house in 1998 ten years later are now everywhere in the US (and $100). His efforts have really brought a lot of stuff to the masses. He's a lousy coder, but one hell of a business-person. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for social entrepreneurship and philanthropy will be a powerful combination. Best of luck to Bill! - ..and will you please friend me back in Facebook? :-) He's got 4 connections on LinkedIn (I know one... wonder who the other 3 are...) - Mitchell Tsai

Viva Bill Gates - Farzad

Hillary and Barack sitting in a tree... - Robert Scoble

There are part of a set called: "Barack and Hillary on their way to Unity, NH, 6/27/08". Mmm... - Rubin Sfadj

Now and weeks before now it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. After the odds against Hil went long, the game then was to stay in long enough to coerce BO to help payoff Hil's debts. In the last weeks the game changed. It was no longer the climb to the White House, it was the climb out of debt. Hil wants to be debt free by 2012 so that if BO steps on himself through naive inexperience, she is ready to ride to the rescue. - Frank Derfler

@Frank Her campaign is 22 mil into debt, but that includes a 12 mil loan from HRC herself. - Rubin Sfadj

I see they coordinated their clothes' color - blue suit; blue tie - good for pics. - brie sansotta

I like how it says: "Barack Obama (friend of Robert Scoble)" I thought he was my friend too ;-) But being a friend of Robert's pretty much puts you into the picture! - Alex von Halem

"I would not advise to disable the feature though unless you are sure what you are doing. The Mozilla team may block plugins and add-ons that are installed on your system using that option. If it is disabled this is not possible." Translation: don't block us from checking in on you, because you're not very smart, and we know what's best for you. Man, I hate Mozilla's "The user base is dumb" mentality. - Mark Trapp

This is exactly the type of thing that makes me seriously consider switching back to Opera right now. FF is the OSS app, WTF? - Michael W. May from twhirl

What Jordan Hofker said. Yeah. - Yuvi

http://arstechnica.com/news... @Jordan MS does phone home. Who cares? All they are doing is using it for statistics, and protection of their users. And if it bothers you, turn it off. But don't come crying to me if you download a malicious addon. - Tim Hoeck

@Tim - If it bothered me, I would turn it off. That isn't my point. If IE phoned home with the same information, people would throw a fit. This isn't going to change my usage of FF, but it's something I think it would have been nice to know during the install process. - Jordan Hofker

They should automatically come in... - Mike Wills

You can manually refresh by hitting the "share something" button and selecting your flickr feed. - JA Castillo

Thanks, I'll try it - Fraser Smith

Fraser: The FriendFeed-Flickr feed has been really messed up. Some people report delays of days... Sometimes the manula refresh doesn't respond for 20-30 min, othertimes it acts in seconds. Much worse than the Picasa link. - Mitchell Tsai

Be careful with this... it's very buggy.. Also, when a stream is started it takes 2 hours for it to end out even if you stop something. It basically renders your account unusable for 2 hours if the XBOX 360 option doesn't work for you. - Brandon

Watch out for the chump MSFT/NFLX DRM that comes along with this. I still haven't gotten it to work for me yet. http://thomashawk.com/2008... - Thomas Hawk

Dugg this yesterday. Can't wait to get my desktop fixed so I can try it out. - David Cook

I tried this last night and got codec error on the 360 when trying to watch any of the netflix movie. - Alan Le

@bret - I'm getting a lot of messages of warning :) But you probably already have Vista installed on a machine so you should be fine. - MG Siegler

@Thomas Thanks for a great followup... HDCP = bad.I like how all video cards/monitors are advertised as "HDCP Ready" or "with HDCP!", like it's this wonderful feature. To me, it can't be a good thing to have hardware attempt to protect content. You are guaranteeing that something is going to go wrong, and it's not going to be an easy fix. - Tim Hoeck

Would have loved to have overheard that one, heh. - CJ Kloote

Patrick, my son, told the commissioner that if he tries to censor the Internet it'll make him just want to seek it out even more. I shared with him how smart the kids are and how they will get around any blocks you try to put in place. Patrick told him he turned on all of his own parental controls just to see what they did on his Mac. He said they made his computer unusable. I love that... more... - Robert Scoble

Putting this in my "Unexpected sentence of the day" file. - John Craft

Wonder how the commissioner reacted... :) - Vinodh Nandakumar

The commissioner is trying to protect kids from porn. I told him that Patrick and a group of kids visited whitehouse.com (back then it was a porn site) because a teacher told them not to (that was when he was seven years old). I told him that wasn't the surprising part, but that one of the kids knew how to delete the cookies and history in the browser so that the parents wouldn't be able to see that they had visited that site. - Robert Scoble

Vinodh: when my son said you won't be able to stop it, the commissioner said "we've got to try." - Robert Scoble

Thank you Scobleson, it may get though their thick skulls one day! - Dave Pook

We are smarter than you realize. Wonder why Patrick ain't on Twitter/FF? - Yuvi

When will they ever explain WHY they've got to try, especially with a living, breathing example of why it won't work right in front of them? - Rick Powell

I am a firm believer in getting the government out of the censorship biz, so don't take this wrong. Generalizing this to everything is flawed, however. It is true that kids are more than smart enough to find ways to do all sorts of things we probably should discourage them from doing - so just because controlling something is hard does not ALWAYS mean we should give up trying. - Soulhuntre

why does the govt think it needs to take the place of good parenting, before the internet kids found their parents playboys - what's the govt suggestion that? - clarke thomas

I don't mean answering these questions in terms of feasibility or technology. I mean asking the basic question as to why regulating content for particular users or any user is the government's business at all? And sorry, asking that question is what a conservative would do. A fundamentalist would not see the point of asking that question at all, and so to answer your implied question, that's the reason why he would never give up trying. - Rick Powell

@Soulhuntre - I agree - there are areas where I think censorship is good. But porn didn't do any harm to anybody, so why censor? The best thing to fight negative consequences of porn shown to children (like thinking that sex is, well, like in porn movies) is to tell them about it. Censorship won't change anything, it makes it much more interesting. (I like Austria's law that punishes denial of the holocaust, on the other hand. We are able to control Neo-Nazis violence pretty well through that.) - sebmos

And yes I think that fundamentalists are currently in charge of this administration. - Rick Powell

Tumbled this quote, with link to FRIENDFEED, not Twitter. - Phil Glockner

I just finished reading Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother" so this tweet really resonated with me. Censorship, ultimately, is a futile excercise- not the least because people dont like being told what content they can or cannot consume. The solution is not censorship, or any other enforced form of protection. If they want to protect kids from *anything* don't you think it would be more... more... - David Adam

Explaining the reasoning for things to kids is a good first line of action - but it is not always going to work. For one thing, younger kids are KIDS and in short their brains and logic functions simply do not always function rationally. Any parent knows this. Children are absolutely worth talking to and reasoning with - but sometimes that will fail. - Soulhuntre

sebmos - I personally find laws like that to be no better than censorship of porn. Saying "I support free speech - but obviously not THAT speech because it offends some people" seems odd to me. That is exactly the argument used to control porn. - Soulhuntre

The difference: Neo-Nazis commit violent acts against all kinds of people (political enemies, foreigners (especially asylum seekers), non-believers) - they still do - and they make an obvious lie. Porn doesn't harm anybody, it's not a fact that can be proven wrong, etc. Neo-Nazis don't offend people, they kill people. (And try to destroy democracies, which is their stated goal, much like the NSDAP back then.) - sebmos

A modern democracy should do everything it can to stop people from violent acts, especially if they are politically motivated, and especially if they have the goal of destroying the democracy. - sebmos

Explain why the fact that parenting is subject to failure, in other words, that kids and parents are human, is a reason for government to intervene? The FCC Commissioner can't, he just knows it's true, deep down in his heart. Not good enough, sorry. Unless we make elected officials answer these basic questions, we will only go in circles. - Rick Powell

A few thoughts - one I am not advocating censorship - my point was that imperfect control is not universally a reason to abandon mitigation efforts. In the specific case of the FCC - we are having the wrong discussion. The FCC censors because "we the people" have asked them to do so - they CAN censor some areas because, in theory, "we the people" own some communications media (spectrum). Frankly that's OK with me ethically - those that own something can control it as the please. - Soulhuntre

So if the body politic owns something, then as a nation we can elect to control it. What bothers me much more is government censorship and control attempts of PRIVATE communications channels (the internet and so on) but that isn't in danger from the FCC but the court system. BTW the laws that most often are used to censor speech and obscenity are NOT Republican ones in the main but bi-partisan or left sided. Every religiously driven censor is matched by an extreme feminist or political correctness thug. - Soulhuntre

With the final caveat being, as long as it doesn't violate the First Amendment, which, actually, is why we are having the right discussion. - Rick Powell

@ sebmos - I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that 'porn doesn't harm anyone.' A 10-year-old who's looking at some of the extreme stuff available can come away with a distorted view of what healthy sexuality looks like - that's 'harm' in my view. That said, FCC intervention isn't wise, because it worn't work. What does work is proactive parents who aren't afraid to talk openly about sexuality with their kids. - John Craft

@sebmos - your point about the neo-nazi thing is fine - but not, to me, good enough to censor. There are many who feel that porn drives violence (they think it drives rape) and denies what they see as a "war against women" and purports a lie (that women should / want to be raped). Their feelings are as strong as yours so why not let them censor too? Its a very slippery slope. - Soulhuntre

@John Craft - The average 10-year-old won't see extreme stuff, but "normal" stuff in best case. You really would have to search for extreme stuff - something I'd say they won't, because they are happy with what they can find easily. - sebmos

Great. Patrick is going to be the catalyst of some new legislation. Another Scoble rocking the boat. :) - Kreg Steppe

@Soulhuntre - There are actually studies that suggest that porn decreases violence against women, because men have easier, other ways to satisfy themselfes. Also, this is a different thing: It doesn't work. Porn isn't controllable. No matter how hard you punish people, it won't change anything. Just look at the Middle East. Or look at the US, which is strict compared to European countries. Or look at the Middle Age. - sebmos

@sebmos - remember, I am not arguing FOR censorship of porn, I am arguing against censorship in general. My point is simple, for everyone who agrees with you in objecting to one form of speech (holocaust denial) there are lots who all agree on censoring something you would not want censored. The only way to not get in trouble is simply avoid censoring in all but extreme circumstances. To many, the case for stopping porn is as strong as the case to avoid denial commentary. - Soulhuntre

@johnacraft - the issue isn't (to me) the FCC with porn - frankly they have almost no impact on the adult industry (which I am part of). It's federal law that is out of hand and off kilter. The "2257" stuff, not the FCC, is the real problem. - Soulhuntre

good discussion here. as a typical mom, i worry about my son on the 'net. currently, standing over his shoulder works (when he goes 'net, i turn on extra monitor in kitchen. he knows i watch). i do have porn concerns for children. awful, raunchy stuff i do not want my under 10 (or even 14 yr old) to see on 'net. terrible images of women. terrible. sooo, bigger question to wise folks here, how do you handle this issue? - Barbara K. Baker

@Barbara - You're watching what your children do on the internet with an extra monitor? Omg... (That's definitely the wrong way to handle it. They'll find a computer you can't monitor and will do it anyway, but in secret. They loose trust because they have to keep secrets from you, they won't go to you if they really have questions about sex.) - sebmos

good tip on "Pure," might have to check that out next time and shoot it. There's so much amazing stuff to shoot in Vegas. I liked the vintage neon down on Fremont St. more than the strip though. The West Wing Bar in the MGM grand is fantastic to shoot during the day. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas: Have you shot the inside of the Golden Nugget after the renovation? The hills on the West side on Las Vegas are cool too. Red Rock casino is gorgeous. Someone did a "Top 10" swimming pools of Vegas. The Wynn has a great outdoor club with some nice shots. - Mitchell Tsai

I've shot the Wynn outdoors at night. Beautiful place. http://www.zooomr.com/photos... Never shot inside Golden Nugget or the landscape around Vegas. I have a feeling I'll be back many times in the future though to shoot more there. So much potential. - Thomas Hawk

Free food (& $25 free $25 drinks): High-roller rooms of Caesar's Palace (I'm banned there), Wynn, Mirage, Venetian (I'm banned there too) have free buffets, fresh watermelon-orange-grapefruit juice. NO Gambling required. Free Hennesey XO at Caesar's Palace. Lots of stuff they won't serve at the regular tables. Carry a roll of 50-75 $1s with a $100 on the outside (100 bills is too thick). If hassled, bring out your roll, and give the attendant a $1 as a tip... - Mitchell Tsai

Thomas: The trails to the west of the Red Rock casino are quite lovely. I'll have to post some of my photos from there. Also, some of the restaurants are gorgeous. Las Vegas has the most incrediblely BAD design and some of the most creative architecture. And the grand canyon is a few hours east... The pond/lake just east of Vegas (forgot the name) is lovely also, but don't get stuck in the the traffic. Go very early in the day...driving there for the sunset light is a royal pain! - Mitchell Tsai

Upstairs at the Pure is ourdoors and has great aerial shots of Vegas... And the Vegas ladies have the most awesome shoes in the US (almost as good as Italy & Japan...) super-uncomfortable 2-4" stuff... - Mitchell Tsai

Lots of free passes to all the nightclubs (on non-special nights). I have a whole sheaf of passes if anyone's visiting vegas... They scalp them for $1-20 on the streets. But you can pick up stacks of them for free if you know the scene... - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell, you'll have to come with us on the next DMU Vegas meetup. You sound like you know your way around there. ;) - Thomas Hawk

What's DMU Vegas? In 2007, I was "officially" a professional gambler - made more money on my 1099s from gambling than from anything else... Ok on blackjack since 1990, but I got banned at two casino chains for slot machines. Of all the crazy stuff, I didn't know I needed an "act" for slots also... Turned $1 into $12,000 in 2 weeks and became too visible. Oops. Dumb! I had free rooms/suites (Diamond) at Harrah's for a whole year & I blew it! - Mitchell Tsai

DMU Vegas was a trip that a few of us from a Flickr group went on a few weeks back for a weekend. A good time with lots of shooting. My set of images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Thomas Hawk

I'm heading to vegas with my wife next month for a short getaway and we're going off night. where to get the hookups Mitchell? - Alan Le

Alan: What kind of hookups do you need? Rent a car from Thrifty - average $12+tax = $20/day. Hotels, I get comped, but Priceline can have good deals. Use $10 disposable CC for test rez at Priceline... See BFT http://biddingfortravel.com Food I usually get for free from (1) comps (2) going to the high-roller rooms. If you have to pay, the Orleans has a fantastic buffet for $7-12 - better than most of the strip. I'll be back in the Berkeley 7/3-7/8 if you want to pick up a bunch of club passes. - Mitchell Tsai

If driving, get this $13 book http://www.amazon.com/Unoffic... (old editions at used bookstores are ok) and drive the BACK roads on the west/east of the strip (Never drive the strip outside the 2 am - 8 am night-time. Traffic sucks.) I have particular parking spots that I like at Wynn, Caesar's Palace, Paris, and Monterey Bay - and I walk to the other casinos. It's too difficult to learn all the different parking entrances. Park at El Cortez when downtown. - Mitchell Tsai

Tons of "fine dining" (getting comped $400 dinners is "fun"...). What kinds of food are you interested in? Do you gamble? What shows do you like? IMO none of the free-$20 shows are any good (old bored dancers) except the FREE Rio show (every hr in the afternoon 2 pm? - 8:30 pm?). Spring for the $100-$300 6-8 best shows in Vegas. More expensive, but well worth it. Some locals get a 2 for 1 ticket deal if you can hook up with one. Two half-price tix booths - haven't tried since I don't pay for shows... - Mitchell Tsai

Favorite buffets are (1) Paris - French buffet is so different from regular stuff (2) Wynn - pricey $30-40 (3) Orleans $7-15 some free coupons (4) Golden Nugget - downtown (awesome bread pudding) (5) Mirage (6) Rio Seafood. Warning - a LOT of strip buffets (New York, Circus Circus, Excalibur, etc...) are way worse than the free food at high-roller lounges - not even worth eating with a free comp. - Mitchell Tsai

Damn, Mitchell! :) - felix from fftogo

Man Mitchell, you are the king of Las Vegas. - Thomas Hawk

Felix: Want to fly into Las Vegas sometime? Ever done Comdex? - Mitchell Tsai

I've got travel tips for New York, Paris, London, Shanghai, Osaka, Krakow, Pisa, Budapest, Tel Aviv, and Cairo. Some friends have been pestering me to write a travel blog/book (and buy a camera)...so I bought a camera 2 years ago & started blogging on a semi-blog at Tribe.net http://people.tribe.net/b2c9ca3... (but it was missing monthly-weekly archive, keywords, and articles just get buried) I just moved the travel blog to Blogger http://mitchelltravel.blogspot.com/. - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell, added your travel blog to the greader. :) Been to vegas a few times, never to comdex, though. Next time I go, I'll definitely ping you for some quick tips! :) - felix

Good morning Felix. Time for me to head to bed... (out of likes again...at 545 for this week) - Mitchell Tsai

Man Sarah's come a long way in a short time. Great shots Mitchell. Will ping you next time I'm headed to Vegas :) - Charlie Anzman

I would give up cable if it weren't for sports. I don't see a viable option for that yet online. - jason burton

@ThomasHawk: What's your set-up like? Wireless? Are you using any non out-of-the-box software? I'm thinking about doing something like this once my dead xbox360 (grr!) is repaired. How do you watch netflix on xboxs? Thanks. - Seth

reading the linked article about WMC vs. Tivo - could WMC really beat Tivo? @Thomas, did you have Tivo previously? - Tim Hoeck

Seth, My set up is hard wired through a gigabit ethernet home network. The extenders do work with wifi as well though. I watch Netflix on the XBox 360 simply by putting a DVD in it and playing it. There is also an add on though that lets you watch Netflix "Watch Now" on an XBox 360 Media Center Extender as well. http://myweb.cableone.net/eluttma... - Thomas Hawk

Tim, I've been a TiVo user since the very beginning. I had a series one box and an HDTV DirecTV box. I *love* TiVo. But I prefer my Media Center / Extender set up more. Why? It does everything TiVo can do but I don't have a monthly fee to pay TiVo -- plus I like the movies/photos/TV interface better. I can also play XBox 360 games and watch DVDs on my extenders -- I can't do that with a TiVo. - Thomas Hawk

One comment about Dave Zatz's comparison article. He mentions that of the three extender units the XBox 360 unit was "noisy" while the other extenders were silent. I'd agree with that observation when comparing against first generation XBox 360s. Those fans were noisy. Microsoft replaced the fans though in the newer boxes and they are significantly quieter. - Thomas Hawk

I think the TIVO is an excellent device, but being the gadget geek that I am, I prefer the HTPC setup. More power, more flexibility, no monthly fees (although we HTPCers tend to spend a lot of $$$ in the long run anyway) and better control over the content. I use SageTV's HD100 Extender which doesn't work with VMC, but does work with SageTV. One advantage of this setup is the server can run Vista, XP, WHS, Mac or Linux. Regardless of whether VMC or SageTV is used though I prefer HTPC's over TIVO. - Brent Evans

@ThomasHawk, Thanks for the hinkfo. - Seth

I don't get to torment them anymore :( - I signed up for that silly do not call list...and there's NO WAY to unregister (https://www.donotcall.gov.au/) - Craig Thomler

@Les - You have to be sure to re-register every so many years or your number goes back into the list. - Justin Korn

I think it's every 4 years but I could be wrong - Stefan Hayden

Yes. - Russellreno

We disconnected our home phone and just have cell phones. The only number we give out is our GrandCentral.com number. We haven't received a telemarketing call in a long time. - Jason Shultz

The Do Not Call List became permanent in February 2008 so you do not need to re-register. Last week I started getting telemarketing calls on my cellphone. How did that happen? - Anne Bouey

Both Grant and Murphy. - edythe

Kinda strange, click any thumbnail and they all link to the first image. A buglet perhaps? - Fraser Smith

Oops, not on the Friendfeed site, only in the iGoogle module. Must investigate further. - Fraser Smith

D'oh! Not even iGoogle, it was in my gmail sent via sendmerss.com. I'll go hide in a corner now :o( - Fraser Smith