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Philipp Lenssen posted a message

“What happens if you assemble 100,000 non-programmers and let them judge the "beauty" of a piece of source code?”

yesterday at 3:42 am - Link

My friend Niko and I wondered if this method would give any clues like: hi-quality software vs lo-quality, anomalities/ bugs, etc., or whether there is no relation at all. We also wondered if there could be specific code visualizations which would aid the method, other than looking at chunks of text (as text may not be a "proportional" visualization of what the software does, whereas program structure and flow visualizations may be). - Philipp Lenssen

Don't forget "Code Art" http://images.google.com/image... - Reto Meier via fftogo

Your blog has a lot of readers, right? You could post a "poll" where you mix a few basic questions about programming language syntax, questions about programming experience, and questions about which source code sample seems better written. See how the answers correlate... - ⓞnor

"Beauty" is kind of a weird metric. Possibly more interesting would be to ask something like "You are making a choice between two equally capable products with comparable specs and features. Given the following code samples from their implementation, which would you buy?" You could ask the question for radiation therapy machines, game consoles, or exercise machines. - ⓞnor

Duncan Riley posted a message

“Have FF rooms jumped the shark? Just visiting my subscribed rooms, at least half haven't been updated in a week. Found a list of top rooms I'm not subscribed to, same number, and even then all but a dozen or so I hit with more than a couple of posts in the last week.”

yesterday at 3:01 am - Link

Kenichi Matsumoto, Mike Fruchter, AJ Batac, Jeremiah Owyang and 23 other people liked this

perhaps people rushed in too quickly in setting them up? I'm just as guilty on the Inquisitr Fun room as well. Need to start updating it more - Duncan Riley

the rooms have never had a use case. for example im in "auto-junkie" room - firstly i already tag the item in delicious and it comes thru friendfeed i dont want to tag it again. if i do tag it for my "autojunkie" room it doesnt show up in my normal friendfeed feed so no1 sees it. basically FF rooms dont work and wont unless its changed; ideally when i shared an item in google reader or tagged it in delicious it autotagged or i classified it to a friendfeed room, then content niches could form.. - ben barren

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I had a feeling they might be like facebook groups. - jjprojects

I don' - Dave Winer

They were a novelty at first but they have their uses. I'm going to use a FriendFeed Room so friends and family can follow my adventures in Japan in a few weeks' time. It might make a few of them stick around here too. http://14sandwiches.com/2008/0... - Martin Bryant

The identi.ca room's pretty busy :) - Charlie Anzman

Haven't really used rooms much after the initial launch experimenting. But I think that's just because I don't need this feature at the moment and there may be many use cases for others for this. I guess Friendfeed has the real usage stats on their server... hey FF, care to share? :) - Philipp Lenssen

I've found that rooms are not that useful - but what would be really useful for me would be to be able to assign different people to different groups (or rooms) so I could separate social from business topic from political, etc. Then being able to watch three or four feeds side-by-side rather than have to choose between tabs. - Craig Thomler

Of course every user could choose to group people together in the way that made sense to them - which makes these groups fundamentally different to rooms - which are the same for everyone in them :) - Craig Thomler

rooms may be better suited to private use. i know small groups using them for work collaboration - rob zand

I've only just started to use rooms, so I'm not sure whether they've got staying power. It seems one subscribes to people for themselves but rooms for topics, and that seems like a useful distinction to me. - Michael C. Harris

Yeah, they jumped it. Same syndrome as creating too many subforums on a bulletin board. Fragments the conversation. FF'll need Rooms when the rest of the world turns up here later. - laurence timms

Rooms are a weird concept for subscribed content. If I go to a bar with only people I know and like, why would I put some of them in a room? Why not just stay in the bar? - Cait

Cait, I see it as the difference between going to a bar with people you like - you'll have a good time even if the bar is crap - and going to a bar you like on your own - you might meet some like-minded folk. - Michael C. Harris

No, they've just finally dropped to normal levels of a post-launch. Just like every other product. Now you weed out the bad room and keep the good ones. - Ben Parr

I think the real problem is lack of (easy)discoverability for public rooms - Brian Sullivan

I periodically step through the rooms I am subscribed to and leave the ones that look dead. - J. Phil

I think notifications would help, or some way to integrate new items into or beside your regular feed. That way people would see when new items were posted and jump in. That and some sort of rooms directory. - Josh Lowensohn

I think the rooms are pretty useful for "private" groups where you're focused on collaboration but maybe not so much for general use. The public ones are good for discussion of new stuff (Identi.ca) or for sharing (the Invites group) but it's easier just to post to your main feed for other stuff, IMO. - Lindsay Donaghe

Rooms have some really good use cases for business (lightweight collaboration) and special events (Apple conferences). As specialized discussion places, their usefulness is decreased a bit due to the nature of FriendFeed: your subscriptions determine the content you see. People that would really be into say, knitting, don't need a room. They just do their normal thing here and others decide whether to subscribe to them or not. - Hutch Carpenter

I left a bunch of rooms because they were just spammed. The rooms I moderate are slow but steady (I need to import some feeds). Even FF itself recognizes that they need to do a lot with rooms to make the more usable so I'm sure we'll see improvements soon. - Jennifer Leggio

I grabbed a couple of rooms and haven't yet set them up ... lots of potential, just no time. - AJ Kohn

Most of the rooms that I am subscribed to or moderating are pretty slow. I still think they have huge potential. I think part of the problem is FF doesn't currently offer an easy way to discover these rooms. Some room directories (not hosted by FF) have popped up but these haven't gained much traction as far as I can tell. - Mike Doeff

I'm in a ton of rooms but I just haven't gotten into them yet. I think I need to get rid of 99% of the rooms I'm in and focus on one or two rooms. Bootstrapping community is very tough work. The only way these things will get popular is for one person to really care about a room and tend to it daily. That's the kind of work that I just don't have time to do anymore. - Robert Scoble

That's not what "jumped the shark" means - Bjorn Tipling

yup - Gary Dobkin

Bjorn, "jumped the shark" in the context of past its peak. Happy Days reference. Mind you, they may still come back again. - Duncan Riley

I have not even looked at rooms, I just don't see the point. - Cait

Duncan, it requires some ridiculous event like Fonz jumping over a shark, that signifies desperation. Something past its peak might never have jumped the shark. - Bjorn Tipling

Great, now I'm getting room spam... and I can't report it... rooms doomed to fail - Cait

Rooms seem like a feature that should have come out later. - possible248

A "Search for a room" feature will help bring them back... ;-) - AJ Batac

I've used ff rooms to replace 37signals Campfire chatrooms for ongoing private one-on-one conversations. That's worked very well. We like the appearance of the ff rooms versus Campfire and the ability to group our formerly random chatting into topics. Campfire itself is a great product, of course. - John Murray

Jeremy Zawodny posted a message on Twitter

“Microsoft Word Viewer is kind of a piece of crap”

Thursday at 10:24 am - Link

Charles Nadeau, Franklin Pettit, Jeremy Brooks, Peter Dawson and 2 other people liked this

Details please :) - Philipp Lenssen

It's all about the OS X quick view, bro. - Cote'

Too many words. Drop "viewer" and you're good. - Stephen Pierzchala

use Open Office it really has progressed in such a short time. - James Robertson

don't know about 'viewer' but Word kicks ass! - Bruce Williams

I wouldn't have included "Word Viewer" :P *goes and hides from people with stones* - Martin Rix (Mrrix32)

Andy Baio posted an entry on Waxy.org Links

Boing Boing responds to "that Violet Blue thing"

Wednesday at 9:15 am - Link

Adewale Oshineye liked this

Hrmph. - Philipp Lenssen

I wonder what people would say if MSM decided to rewrite history and "unpublish" material in order not to "lend credibility" to someone. But I guess it's all summed up in their statement "It's our blog and so we made an editorial decision". - Sprague D

Didn't the Kremlin like to "unpublish" people who'd fallen out of favor, and some modern biblical scholars say that Paul and others "unpublished" the role of women in early Christianity. Then there are the people who do the same with photos of former friends and lovers from photos with a pair of scissors (or Photoshop). In terms of scale, I guess we can as where BB's actions fit relative to those? - Erik S

Philipp Lenssen posted a link

She sings "Somewhere over the rainbow" backwards... and the video is played backwards

June 30 at 5:38 am - Link

Daniel liked this

Here's how she sings it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - Philipp Lenssen

niniane posted an entry on Niniane's Blog

life imitates tv

June 29 at 7:11 pm - Link

fiorano, April Buchheit and Clare Dibble liked this

I never really got into this show despite its popularity among my peers - perhaps my intuition at work? - April Buchheit

To paraphrase, I wish the show had not been so impressively uninsightful - j1m

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Who are you paraphrasing? - niniane

To paraphrase your final sentence. - j1m

they were always there for each other...even in bed :) Great show. - Pokai

"Page not found" - Philipp Lenssen

http://www.google.com/reader/v... - Ionut

Bret Taylor posted a message

“We finally got job titles at FriendFeed”

June 27 at 2:59 pm - Link

Nima Arabi, Eric Danker, dave mcclure, Alex Barbara and 160 other people liked this

Can I be the staff photographer? - Thomas Hawk

Awesome times two! - Wm Scott Rees

Show 47 more comments

where's your bret ? :)- - Peter Dawson

"Supreme Allied Commander" - Bret Taylor

do you get business cards with the titles too? - Thomas Hawk

Deputy Senior VP? Gimmie a break. ;) - ron k jeffries

So who's getting "Final Cylon" then? - Mark Dykeman

whatever happened to the "aggregated aggregator?" - Marc Canter

Awww. I liked "FriendFeeder". :-( - Mitchell Tsai

huh, that's odd, I was under the impression that you were the Senior Executive Vice *Group* Director of VP Coordination & Vision... did you not allocate your synergies properly and get demoted?? - felix

"Senior Executive Vice Director of VP Coordination & Vision" and "Deputy Senior VP of Strategic Synergy" Fantastic! SEVP of VPCP and DSVP of SS... - Mitchell Tsai

bingo? you had me at strategic synergy. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Ah! Interesting :) The funniest is that these guys don't even wear shoes at work, and play with thier bicycles in the office - directeur via NoiseRiver

ok pauls title is really wacky - "Sr. Executive Vice Director of VP Coordination & Vision" - like wtf does that mean ? SERIOUSLY !! btw what does "VP" stand for ? - Peter Dawson

Scott Adams (?): "If it's more than two words, it's not a career" - Philipp Lenssen

I want Senior Fetchit Boy reporting the Staff Photographer. - Russellreno

These are beyond fantastic. Can I be your Human Branding Liaison? - Ginger Makela

ahh good quote Philipp :)- - Peter Dawson

I know a guy who runs a 600-person company, and walks around the offices barefoot! Not even sandals. My brother works there - Rhythm & Hues Studios - http://rhythm.com - Mitchell Tsai

Another company I helped rented a house at the beach - rather than a traditional office. Lot of fun having meetings there. They took surfing breaks for lunch. - Mitchell Tsai

I think i need to include those in full in all posts from now on - MG Siegler

longest title i've ever seen - you could have thrown in an acronym! - Allen Stern

awesome job titles! - Susan Beebe

this is hilarious :) liked it! what lies in the name of title-fame? - Aditya Kothadiya

...China, Korea, India, WYOMING, Singapore... HA! - Clare Dibble

Ana, what is my title? - Gary Burd

LOL, how about numbers like in movie Brazil "010046" - Pokai

any Historian-on-duty ? :) - silpol

You need a staff librarian. No, really, you do. I'm available, and like most librarians, I work cheap. - Cecily Walker

Did you guys steal these titles from Yahoo? - Eric Eldon

Is Ana still the "Chief Miscellaneous Officer" or does she go by a different title these days? Also, I'd like to know the other FFers' titles. - April Buchheit

Did you get to make up your own? The coolest title I've seen has been for a Microsoft employee - Professional Geek (before he worked there his title was Amateur Geek) - Craig Thomler

I actually have an outstanding diplomatic relations issue with wyoming. Who would I talk to about that? - J. Phil

So Bret, what's your title ? (This kind of culture is the kind that spawns neat stuff. Always has, always will. Keep it up!) - Charlie Anzman

Mine is "Supreme Allied Commander." I was always jealous of NATO. - Bret Taylor

I'm a little scared that some people don't seem to realize it's a joke. - Alan Cheslow

And here I was soo confused thinking Bret was the CEO! hehehe (ok he really is guys!!) - Susan Beebe

I just noticed Casey has Asian strategy in Wyoming? yo what?! - that's funny! - Susan Beebe

Do you have any Master Squirrel Hearders (project mgrs) yet?? that's my specialty - Susan Beebe

I really want a title too. If I bring all the Mommybloggers over...I better get one dammit - Erin Kotecki Vest

So is Casey's job to reach out to those parts of the world that twitter works? - Nancy Babyak

What's yours, Jim? - Anne Bouey

+100 - Josh

Very funny. You almost had me fooled for a minute :-) - Andy C

I want all those titles - Calos via twhirl

Kind of funny, but hey, that FriendFeed business card in the background looks nice. - Daniel Schildt

@bret NATO is not cool - seen them through cross-hairs back in end-of-80s, they ain't that cool as they try to pretend :) - silpol

Wow! - Yuvi

I got mine this morning: "Kevin Fox - Comptroller Third-Class, Tiger Team V" We are so going to kick Tiger Team III's ass at this year's interoffolympics!!! - Kevin Fox

haha! I wish more work places were like this. - Tsega D

I'd like to be the senior vice associate president of all things that the senior executive vice director of vp coordination and vision doesn't see. - Robert Scoble

Nice job title Paul! Did you try to max out the characters that would fit? :) - Alex Barbara

Paul Buchheit posted a link

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

June 24 at 7:58 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

hank, saku7up, Luigi Centenaro, Rodrigo Jaroszewski and 87 other people liked this

"I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. Let me give you my experience from yesterday. I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there. The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up. This site is so slow it is unusable. It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45..." - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet

This email nails it. So I wonder, if Bill Gates knew and experience the flaws of his own product in 2003, why no action has been taken to improve it? The Microsoft website is still a mess and Windows is still Windows. - fbrunel

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"I reboot every night," Priceless... - Christian Sonntag

Christian, I noticed that, too. But it's strange. I never reboot XP, just put it to sleep at night and it works perfectly. - Sprague D

This is real? I can't believe this is real. This is like every user experience with Windows ever: if the Chairman of the company who makes the software has the problems (and is pissed off about it), and most of the issues he's talking about haven't been fixed after five years, 1) how much power did Gates really wield, and 2) what the hell? - Mark Trapp

http://www.betterdesktop.org/ - If Bill Gates actually sent mail like that every day, there is no way Windows would work the way it does now. Want some cool insight on usability - check the link out. - Tim Hoeck

Pwned! - Ashwin Bharambe

Here's another article about Microsoft executives and their troubles with WIndows: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03... - Gary Burd

I'm sure it's real, this is classic BillG. But getting flamed by the CEO is one thing, actually making a giant complicated mess of an organization and a giant complicated mess of an operating system work in a nice simple way is hard. - ⓞnor

If he truely sends emails like this every they, then I think they are falling on deaf ears. - Ryan McCutchen via twhirl

And Gates should be praised for actually USING his products. Some executives don't. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

I respect Bill Gates a lot more for reading this. Now all they have to do is do something about it. - Stuart Woodward

@stuart: They did fix some. Try going to microsoft.com and downloading movie maker via downloads. My main annoyance was two pop-ups, one for silverlight and another for a survey. The e-mail is from 5 years ago. - nadim

You see I wouldn't call that a 'rant' or even as Gates titles it, a 'flame'. It is simply honest, constructive criticism echoing the valid concerns of thousands of end users. More power to Gates. What concerns me is that Microsoft have senior people in place who are unable to discern that. This quote is just brilliant 'So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.' You simply could not make it up. - Andy C

I wonder what he thinks of Windows usability in general. I feel it's getting worse. - Philipp Lenssen

@Stuart Woodward I completely agree with you. I'm a Microsoft solutions architect and my respect for MS has just leapt ten-fold - Jonathan Nguyen

it is good to know that Gates has similar issues as me... to bad for him he can't ditch MS for Linux or Mac like I did. - nick carrasco

I'm not entirely sure this email is genuine - but even if it is almost every issue raised has been dealt with... if it was even true in 2003. As someone who uses and supports Linux, OSX and Windows Vista systems both personally and for clients the simple reality is that Vista is a good desktop OS and Server 2008 is a SUPERB server OS. - Soulhuntre

I am not sure how Linux and OSX have better usability than windows.. not the case for me and a lot of people I know.. - Adriano Gonçalves

@Soulhuntre - It's real. What people don't understand is that it's his *job* (okay it _was_ his job) to send emails like that all day. - Jordan Hofker

Kevin Fox posted a message

“Wow, I never knew 'fiancé' was the masculine and 'fiancée' was the femenine. And they say English is confusing!”

June 24 at 10:07 pm - Link

Randy, Christian Farley, Tanath, Andrei M. Marinescu and 13 other people liked this

Blame the French. René vs. Renée, too. - Mark Trapp

fire zhe missilez! - Hao Chen

Show 24 more comments

This sparked me to find other words like this, there's also: protégé vs. protégée, and blond vs. blonde - Mark Trapp

+1 Hao - Glenn Slaven

In English you got: employer vs employee - Philipp Lenssen

Philipp, those are two completely different words with different meanings though. They're not gender specific. - Tony Ruscoe

In French, fiancée is the feminine for fiancé. http://www.larousse.fr/encyclo... - Ionut

Things like that are the reason why I refuse to speak any French after having endured five years of being tortured with the French language in school. - sebmos

Many European languages feature gender specific nouns. It's a true blessing that English also doesn't have gender specific indefinite articles. - Reto Meier via fftogo

Hm ... when I think about it: I'm Austrian, so I speak German, which is probably even more complicated than French. (Still: I refuse to talk French. *grr* My anger sits deep.) - sebmos

It can be quite confusing. - Mathew A. Koeneker

@sebmos: My mom is from Wien. Nice to see the Austrian presence. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker

I'm of Austrian descent, does that count? - Mark Trapp

Hurrah! Someone (thanks Mark) mentioned the blond / blonde thing. Normally I can let a lot of this sort of thing slide but for some reason I am an absolute stickler for my blond(e)s! - Patricia Hanrahan

This is new to me as well, not a term I have been associated with yet! - Joe Dawson

so what do the gay community say when they introduce each other ?? does it take into consideration the gender or the role ?? - Peter Dawson

Mark, of course, you count. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker via twhirl

Oui oui - Shey

Never had any French courses Kevin? doh! Any adjective takes an "e" at the end if it's femenine. So we say: aimé, aimée, mangé, mangée, and so on... :) - directeur

This is why I got a D in second semester French in college, despite growing up in Louisiana. - Harvey Simmons

Poor guys :) French is my 3rd language and I speak it as well as my native one, English is my 4th... German my 5th :) - directeur

directeur, now you are just showing off :) - Patricia Hanrahan

Patricia: Si! e un poco italiano for the ladies! :p ( so that makes 6 ;-) ) - directeur

Well its normal for french people. You tons of this kind of rules, exceptions, and you even got worse, mais le français est une belle langue... - Ben Borges via fftogo

Harvey: Louisiana French is much more a patois. Would this be the correct word? - Mathew A. Koeneker

Mathew, yes it's a patois, they call it cajun right? - directeur

it's a weird word either way. When I was engaged we stuck to boyfriend and girlfriend. - Stefan Hayden

Language diversity is good for the brain and your inner culture, i can read tibetan, speak fluently french and portuguese, my english is not that bad, i can understand a bit of spanish and italian, well i guess i'm european B-) - Ben Borges via fftogo

I found out the hard way after writing to my not-yet wife in a card that I was so happy that she was my fiancé. - Chris Reed

Philipp Lenssen posted a link

bomomo now works in Internet Explorer too!

June 24 at 5:22 am - Link

Cristi liked this

All credits go to Nikolai Kordulla for hacking away to create a crazily cool Flash version of bomomo. - Philipp Lenssen

Philipp Lenssen posted a link

How to board a train that never stops (video)

June 23 at 2:30 am - Link

Ivan Tarasov, Dylan Parker, Robert Konigsberg, Chris White and 25 other people liked this

That's crazy! :) But it's a genius idea, surely saves lots of energy. - Éric Senterre

Assuming the train goes 200km/h and is 100m long, that would mean over to 1.5g's for acceleration / deceleration. "Please hold on" :D - John Mueller

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Seems foolish. The main train cannot get full with such little top shuttles. How do they maximize the number of travellers? - Eric Sausse

had a similiar idea during endless stops on local trains too, always failed to come up with an idea for a sufficient fail-safe solution for this time-critical process. - Max Hartmann

@Eric: If they provide access to passengers to go "downstairs" then the problem is solved. Now my concern was: what if I want to ride through several stations? That would mean I have to switch shuttles at each station (seeing that shuttles get switched at each station). But again, that problem can be solved if I'm sitting "downstairs". - Rami Botros

@Rami: do you think shuttle can have the necessary capacity for main train stations? If so then the concept is interesting. Thanks for your response. - Eric Sausse

My impression is that you could easily move between the main cabin and the 'transition cabin' while it's docked. My biggest concern would be what happens when more people want to get off the train than will fit in one transition cabin? - Kevin Fox

Would definitely work better in a typical commuter scenario where people are mostly getting on and heading for the same destination. - Reto Meier via fftogo

Whoa. But let's see passenger planes that don't land, and then color me impressed. - Kirk Kittell

Kevin, doesn't every normal train have the same theoretical problem that more people want to board it than fit in? You could solve this with reservations, more frequent trains, etc. no? And in case of emergencies or other rare situations I'm sure the train could stop for a change... - Philipp Lenssen

@John: I read your comment and thought of Spaceballs: "Sir, and you better buckle up!" "Ah, buckle this. Ludicrous speed, go!" - Kirk Kittell

I imagine you could extend the length of the boarding capsule to the length of the train itself if necessary. But what happens when there's more people in the capsle than can fit on the train... - Reto Meier via fftogo

But does it really save energy? I mean I always have to decelerate a capsule and accelerate another one per station. Only way it saved energy here is that the capsue is way smaller than the train. But I could save just as much energy if I just shrank the size of my train to that of the capsule.. Any thoughts about that? [But it does save a lot of time..] - Rami Botros

The conductors would be really pissed if you held the doors on that train. - Benjy Stewart

so if you didn't get off the little car and into the large one in time, what happens? Are you stranded several miles away from the station, hanging in midair? - Jason Kaneshiro

Jason, the little cabin car will be stuck either to the station or to the train, so you won't be stranded... - Philipp Lenssen

I always thought they should just drop the last car off the train shortly before they got to the station and let it coast to a halt. - j1m

a nice idea, with two reservations: (1) limited "bandwidth" and (2) aerodiynamic imperfection. - 9000

Damn cool. It requires ascending and descending from the boarding car to the train car, which might be difficult for handicapped and elderly. - Robert Konigsberg

Robert Scoble posted a message on Twitter

“"John McCain is aware of the Internet." Defense of McCain on stage at #pdf2008 in argument about whether candidate needs to use a computer.”

June 23 at 9:34 am - Link

Cyvros/fyc, Lucretia Pruitt, Susan Beebe, David Petar Novakovic and 36 other people liked this

that just made me spit my coffee - Erin Kotecki Vest

I'm not a McCain supporter (by a long shot), but... I don't need to play the violin or cello to understand music. - Kirk Kittell

Show 35 more comments

That is probably one of the lamest answers of all time - I am aware of Congress and the Presdential Election coming up - doesn't mean I know it or am compotent to run for office... - Tony via twhirl

he's only aware of it? - Jennifer Van Grove via twhirl

@Jennifer: He overheard former Senator Gore mumble about his "invention" in the Congress hallways, surely - Kirk Kittell

he has said he does not use a compute - Erin Kotecki Vest

is he "aware" that there was a twitter presenditial debate with someone else representing him??? - Jennifer Van Grove via twhirl

you know who doesn't know how to use a computer? My grandma. And I don't want her running the country either. - jason burton

Jimmy Carter could operate a nuclear submarine, but that didn't help us when Iran took the hostages. - Ontario Emperor

Presidents need to understand the Internet the way they understand our highway system, freedoms of speech and assembly, what NASA does, why the CDC needs a bigger budget, and how much of his campaign site operations is offshored to Mumbai... - Phil Wolff via Alert Thingy

I think just the fact someone has to SAY 'John McCain is aware of the Internet' is frankly the problem here - Erin Kotecki Vest

John McCain is probably the last candidate of his generation to run for President. - Dave Winer

you know, I'm "aware" of foreign policy and budgeting. doesn't mean i know how to run the damn country - Jeremy Toeman

who said it? - Bill Seitz

I'm "aware" of open heart surgery. Do you want me operating on you? - Mike Doeff

I guess that means that he knows there's something called the "Internet". That's almost as good as the head of german ministry of justice answering "Browser? What was a browser just now?" who still prepares laws pertaining to users of said Internet. - Andre Heinrichs

The problem with McCain's statement is that it reveals a lack of intellectual curiosity about strategic developments in the world that are affecting us all. He seems to be out of touch with what is going on in the real world, and becoming more out of touch with each passing day. This situation is not going to improve -- he is in a state of mental decline. Without puppeteers at his elbow, like Joseph Lieberman, he would be completely adrift. - Sean McBride

Is the Obama Girl speaking at this conference? I'd like her to do a video with John McCain like the one she did with HRC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - Dave Winer

Turn it around: Is _the Internet_ aware of John McCain? Just so happens I interviewed _the Internet_ the other day and when asked the pointed question: "Many claim you _are aware_ of John McCain, but don't think he's relevant?", it mustered its best Cheney impression and said, "So?" - Micah Wittman

Perhaps Mr. Bush could show him the Google? - Philipp Lenssen

George W. was also just "aware" of newspapers, and you see where that got us. As for the Internet, remember his famous quote about the "Internets" : "Information is moving -- you know, nightly news is one way, of course, but it's also moving through the blogosphere and through the Internets." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007 - Stephane Osmont

I think bush is more aware of the internet then McCain. Afterall he knew you shouldn't keep incriminating emails laying around. - Nelson de Witt via twhirl

John McCain. Because who do you want answering the telegraph at 3 A.M.? - Karim

It's very clear that this election is about the 20th century (McCain) versus the 21st century. The US may just not be ready for the future. Which will be really sad. - Tad Donaghe via fftogo

Karim, LOL! Is McCain also aware of the semantic web? - Bill Sodeman via twhirl

This makes sense considering his comments on net-neutrality. Troubling though across the board, given that there are so many issues still very much on the table. - Jody Carbone

The key issue IMO is that the Internet is one of the key drivers that is transforming the economy. And if you don't "get" that, then you won't understand how we need to change how the gov't interacts with the economy. New leadership should "get" alternative energy, the Internet, biotech and other key transformational technologies. That way, we can spearhead efforts (funding, education, etc) to lead in those areas. It's not enough to simply be aware they exist. - Barry Graubart via twhirl

lol. The definition of non-sequitir is to couple the word 'awareness' and McCain. - S Adler

It was Mark Soohoo, who works on John McCain's campaign. - Robert Scoble

That must explain why he doesn't know what a blogger is - OH WAIT he has been holding regular conference calls with bloggers for over a year now. to @jasonburton's point - last time I checked the president does not run the internet so what exactly about that example makes sense? Should we now make computer literacy a prerequisite for serving as an elected official? Trust me - I wish he wouldn't have said it but until someone can prove to me that not being tech savvy is a prerequisite for leadership... - Marco

@Kirk Kittell - That's the wrong comparison. What you said (playing violin necessary to understand music) would mean that he's asked to be a programmer to understand technology. No, it's enough to use it - much like I demand somebody to like to listen the music they say they understand. So as long as he's not actually used the internet, a word processor and simple stuff like that, I think it's a save assumption that he doesn't understand anything. Well, he doesn't understand economy too, by his own account. - sebmos

American's generates more Internet related innovation particularly in content generation, and social media but there are many other countries leading in eGov services. Looks like McCain won't be helping you guys out with the digitisation of your Gov services anytime soon. - Roger Kondrat

Marco - would tech savvy requirement in this day and age be such a bad thing? - jason burton

@jason absolutely not (although "requirement" may be a bit extreme) - just trying to point out that alot of the comments are illogical and unnecessarily extreme. I would love it if McCain was a mobile computing, FriendFeeding maniac but someone can be a good President without having to be tech savvy. (I say that knowing full well that McCain's lack of tech capabilities is far from the only problem most people on this thread have with McCain.) - Marco

@sebmos - Yeah, I might be off a bit (though in your example, I'd compare the programmer to the music composer, but I get you). The point I'm really getting as is that I don't hold this against him at all. He doesn't need to understand the technology or use a computer to be President -- as long as he is the best guy to lead the nation and is open to appointing the right people to positions that need those skills. I might have voted for him in 2000, but not this year; he's not a Luddite, perhaps, but close. - Kirk Kittell

McCain isn't the President for me. I'm looking for a president that understands how to get in touch with my generation, and the internet is my primary source of information. If McCain doesn't use a computer and can't tap into that stream of info, he's going to have a hard time understanding what I want and how to give it to me. I'm not faulting him for his computer illiteracy, I just know that unless you use the same general set of tools that I use, we're going to be out of sync. - Nick Malaguti

Presidents need a deep understanding of Government, International relations and defense strategy. They need to have experience working with other government members. They need to have a lot of skills.... whether or not they know how to follow me on a Twitter account is so far down the list it is microscopic. - Soulhuntre

The next president will have to deal with an issue more important than net neutrality - oil. Does McCain know how to change the oil in his car? Does Obama? Barr? McKinney? Nader? (Oh, Nader probably rides a bicycle.) - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

The fact that McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, is nearly as inarticulate and incoherent as George W. Bush, and is under the thumb of the same neoconservatives who engineered the worst foreign policy disaster in American history (the Iraq War), is probably more significant than the fact that McCain hasn't demonstrated the slightest intellectual interest in a technology which is revolutionizing human civilization and which is substantantially driving the American economy -- but not much more significant. History passed by John McCain quite some time ago. - Sean McBride

Wow, I can't believe that a candidate would lack computer skills some 20 years after they've been in use. I suppose he's had secretaries, law clerks and aids his entire professional life so he didn't *need* to use a computer per se. This is astounding to me and clearly seems untenable for a Presidential candidate today. - Susan Beebe

Siggi Becker bookmarked a page on del.icio.us

YouTube - Taipei 101 Damper movement on 12 May 08

June 23 at 1:39 am - Link

ryan liked this

The intelligence of mankind in action - Siggi Becker

They got a Google office over there... - Philipp Lenssen

Where? In "action", "intelligence" or "mankind"? ;-) - Siggi Becker

niniane posted a link

I don't agree with this analysis, but it's funny.

June 21 at 7:37 pm - Link

Clare Dibble liked this

So basically, she's saying she has no idea what love is, and she's too angry to even admit it exists? - j1m

I got way too distracted by all the blinking stars and pink background and ads and sidebars to actually read the post. Who is this person? - Robert Felty

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re: j1m. No, she's just being very assertive. She believes in love. - niniane

re: Robert. She's one of the top-100 bloggers. She's the #1 blogger in Singapore. - niniane

she is hillarious....check out her review of iphone where her producers actually gave her fake china iphone instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - Pokai

"Who is this person?" I once interviewed her... http://blogoscoped.com/archive... - Philipp Lenssen

@Niniane and Philip - Thanks for the info. Now I know, and knowing is half the battler. - Robert Felty

re: Philipp. I like the interview! How did you know how to phrase the Singlish question? - niniane

Bret Taylor posted a link

American Film Institute: 10 Top 10

June 17 at 10:43 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

mr-mojo-risin, Orli Yakuel, Mahdi Ebrahimi, Shayan Shahand and 42 other people liked this

The American Film Institute apparently picked the top 10 movies in ten genres. Would be curious to hear what everyone thinks. - Bret Taylor

Yeah, I would like to know what everyone thinks too...especially because I work for AFI. - Michael Carter

Show 19 more comments

wow, Godfather - Zahra HB

cool list. but i'm looking down into each category top 10: why no Chariots of Fire (sports) and why Terminator 2 instead of Terminator 1 (sci fi)? - Pokai

GF II the GF I-only time sequel better than original which in the case of GF one- a msterpiece no mean feat, Aliens another example of sequel being better than original. The Right Stuff, Once Upon a Time America, N xNW to name a few that weren't one there. Lists always so limited and subjective. Edward Scissorhands and Donnie Brasco pretty brilliant too. - Mark Forman

Interesting no single top 10 - maybe to make you look through categories. Overall looks good for 'big' American movies. Everyone'll have their pet grumbles - mine would be: no Gladiator in epics (Reds? really?); Outlaw Josie Wales rather than Unforgiven; would be nice to see David Mamet in mystery but I guess not big enough films; some great films don't seem to fit the genres: Do The Right Thing, Taxi Driver. Glad Groundhog Day got recognized - great and underrated. There should be a Bill Murray category. - Steve Crossan

I saw this article earlier and decided to completely skip over it. I don't think its easy to pick top 10 movies in any genre, and I know I wouldn't want to be the one who does it! - Ian Rathbone

GF I is the best. - corlyon

Sci-Fi: Not a bad list, but it's Terminator 1, not 2 that deserves the list. I could make arguments for Gattaca, Road Warrior, The Matrix and Buckaroo Banzai on the list. - AJ Kohn

Whoever built that site: thumbnails are quicker to download if you actually use smaller images, not browser-resized large versions :) - Philipp Lenssen

I'm surprised they don't have a "Drama" category. Shawshank Redemption should be on that list! - Karen Padham Taylor

I watched To Kill A Mockingbird as a 12 yr old from the back seat at the drive in. Boo Radley had me spooked for 90 minutes. - Russellreno

Have to echo the T1 v. T2 comments. But more importantly, how does Matrix not make the sci-fi list? Also, I always preferred "The Longest Day" to "Saving Private Ryan". And it's a little weird (albeit understandable) to have an animation category without anime . . . - Mike Yang

Sleepless in Seattle in a top 10 list? Ouch!!! Jungle Book needs to be there in the animation category. I'd put Rear Window at #1 in mystery and Usual Suspects higher. My favorite movie is the #1 Epic. The Matrix (how did that not make it) and Empire Strikes Back need to be on that list. And they need categories for Casablanca and Shawshank (unless I missed something) - Deepak

Um, Where's Kazaam with Shaquille O'Neal? Disappointed in the AFI for the obvious oversight. - Matt Musgrave

Titanic #6 in Epics? Verrry interesting... I'm curious what the criteria were but I guess in the end it's simply subjective. Personally, I'd put The Lion King as #1 and have Monsters Inc somewhere in the list for animated films.. and maybe The Princess Bride in romantic comedy. I agree Shawshank should be in there somewhere. - Shirley Wu

Here is the complete press release with all the criteria and voting info: http://tinyurl.com/5sez38. To your question about epics, AFI defines epics as a "genre of large-scale films set in a cinematic interpretation of the past. Their scope defies and demands--either n the mode in which they are presented or their range across time. By this definition, Titanic is an epic. Btw, Shawshank was ranked #72 in the latest AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Michael Carter

Bret, a special request: Please create a special movies room where you periodically put out movie topics for debate "best action movie" and we debate or put up different movies for people to *like* to create a FF list. we can debate, etc. also, you can put up additional topics like "hulk (old vs. new)." if you create the room (and administer), then the intelligentsia would follow to create a lively debate.... - Pokai

With so many other Hitchcock films included, for me personally, it's sad not to see "Marnie" get a mention. Grossly underrated and along with "Rear Window", maybe Hitchcock at his best? I also agree Shawshank should be in there somewhere! - Emma

I almost completely agree with this list but might put Annie Hall ahead of City Lights for romantic comedies. UPDATE: I see it's #2, fair enough. - MG Siegler

the searchers is such a damn good movie. i had to watch it about 10 times for one class in college. And it really doesn't get much better than the top 10 mystery list in itself. - MG Siegler

I just added this to my tivo guru guides, i already subscribed to the AFI 100 and it's been great to see the movies that are 'classics' but I somehow always overlook. On this new one, I want "The Secret of NIMH" in animation, "Two For the Road" in romantic comedy, replace "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" with "The Magnificent Seven," and I'm somewhat not displeased with the other lists. - grant

Good list, but it would have been nice to see a Documentary genre! - Dean Terry

I would complain that it's missing 2 of (to me) the best movies, Rosemary's Baby and Raiders of the Lost Ark....but, oh, look, it is in fact missing those entire genres. Surely horror belongs among the top 10 genres worth making a list for? Surely Action/Adventure belongs among the top 10 genres, and, actually, among the top 3? - j1m

Ross Miller posted a message

“Google FAIL”

June 15 at 10:47 am - via mail2ff - Link

My Blog Posts, Amit Morson, Jason Runyan, Josh and 22 other people liked this

Seriously? - Ross Miller via mail2ff

Just re-created that one. Weird. - Hutch Carpenter

Show 4 more comments

I get a different answer: three different blocks of results, the first for Ross Miller and Ross J. Miller, the second block for Danny Tarkanian, and then a third block for hits of Miller on the web, including rossmiller.net. It looks like Ross Miller and Danny Tarkanian are closely related terms in Google's mind, I suppose because of the Nevada secretary of state election? - ana

I guess you're just not interesting enough to the Google :) - Paul Buchheit

That is the exact opposite of a vanity search, no? - Cyndy

Is there a relation between the two names? - Philipp Lenssen

Odd. I'll invite some colleagues to dig into this. EDITED TO ADD: Ah ha, I think I found out what may be triggering this situation. Do a search on the two names, and you'll see that there was a big (political) race between -- you guessed it -- Ross Miller and Danny Tarkanian. And, contrary to the screenshot above, I'm unable to replicate a search results page without [ross miller] results at the top. Hmm. - Adam Lasnik

I did cut out the two top results to make it more compact... which is why it says "See result for:" instead of "Did you mean:"... That said... I still don't want to see results for Danny Terkanian when I search for my name... Just seems kind of weird... Even if he did run against that other *me* in Nevada... - Ross Miller

Ross, I'll mention this to folks here, but Google returns Ross Miller's Nevada Sec. of State website at #1, and our algorithms currently think that people interested in Ross Miller might also be interested in Danny Tarkanian. If you're not named Ross Miller, this would be a pretty helpful set of search results. :) - Matt Cutts

Andy Baio posted an entry on Waxy.org Links

Montage of girls giving the "Myspace salute" to verify their identity

June 15 at 4:35 pm - Link

Rami Botros and Ginger Makela liked this

At Friendfeed I miss the explanatory second sentence that is provided at waxy.org... - Philipp Lenssen

Pretty cool http://www.myspace.com/index.c... - Paul Buchheit

Is it a coincidence that all girls in the video have Amy Winehouse-esq eyeliner and similar hair? - Ginger M