This is the house of a college roommate. Luckily he purchased in 1997 at the bottom of the 1990-97 housing crash in Los Angeles, so he picked it up for ~$200,000 (it was a foreclosure, so he saved ~$50,000). But boy you would have been in MAJOR trouble if you bought this house last year.
- Mitchell Tsai
In Los Angeles, we saw a 50% drop in some houses' values during 1990-97, so we were already prepared for over-valued housing markets. Some of my friends sold their houses 2-3 yrs ago, and started renting, since they figured the market was already over-heated. (See Economist's full-issue on the housing bubble 2-3 years ago).
- Mitchell Tsai
Houses in our old neighborhood were about $259K when we moved in in '98. By the time we moved away in '06, they were averaging about $975K. Just read the paper this morning that that zip posted -14.2% drop in house prices, so now the average home is about $1.24M. Keep in mind these are 1500 - 1800 sf homes on small lots.
- Admiral Anika
Anika: You can type in your old address to see the Zillow estimates. People who purchased before 2004-2006 are probably ok, but if you purchased an inflated house - whoa....! This house is back to Jan 2004 prices (Santa Monica home is back to Jan 2005, and Beverly Hills home is only at Jan 2007). My parents home in Ohio is 2,032 sq ft (with full basement) on a 1/2 acre lot for only $168,000. Los Angeles prices are nuts...
- Mitchell Tsai
Oh, I Iived in an apt.so I wouldn't have been impacted.
- Admiral Anika
Darn, Anika! I thought you cleaned up nicely on your house... :-(
- Mitchell Tsai
No, my husband firmly believed that paying more $100K for a house was ridiculous, so we didn't. Not that I mind, I really didn't like living in that area.
- Admiral Anika
Adjusting for inflation (CPI-U), this house was purchased for $306,000 (in Nov 2008 dollars), so it's still about 116% too high (possible bubble). The Santa Monica house is 101% too high, and the Beverly Hills house is 71% too high - assuming that the original prices weren't already inflated (bad assumption) - so lots of room for the housing bubble (aka Ponzi scheme) to fall further.... Unlike companies, houses don't produce anything. Year 5000, these houses will be dust (but the land may have value).
- Mitchell Tsai
There were some interesting articles (~10-20 yrs ago) on how the advent of the "2-career" couple put upward pressure on house prices - pricing many homes out of range of the 1-career family. Real estate is a funny cross between the "problem of the commons" (overgrazing community property) and a "ponzi scheme" (pay the old owners with money from the new owners) - especially since the prize might be a better school district for your kids. Tough problem.
- Mitchell Tsai
Just priced out the home I grew up at in Huntington Beach, CA and it was now valued at $571,000...big drop...it was up to $896,000 about 4 years ago. My parents bought it for about $70,000 in 1975. They used to own 10 or so homes, but sold them 1 by 1 for cash
- Susan Beebe
Susan: Adjusting for inflation http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2... $70,000-75,000 (June 1975) is $277,000-297,000 (Nov 2008), which says your old Huntington Beach house could still be 92-106% too high...
- Mitchell Tsai
holy cow...that's not good! I cried when I wanted to buy a house in OC...not a chance
- Susan Beebe
Mitchell how far do you think prices will really drop though? that's the tough question to answer
- Susan Beebe
I think the drop depends on the economy & jobs. Remember how Texas houses got super-cheap after the oil bust in the 1980s? Los Angeles apartment rentals in 1993-95 got super-cheap after CA could pay it's bills, and UCLA tripled it's tuition (2 bedroom for $500-600/month!). I hear that a LOT of people are buying first homes now due to the lower prices & banks needing to resell the homes (e.g. that's how my roommate got his house so cheap in 1997 - a $50,000 discount from the fair value from the bank).
- Mitchell Tsai
Right... I do remember the TX housing bubble. Of course I graduated from UCLA in 1992 and the prices were NOT cheap (drove in from Ventura everyday... PCH was great commute! :)
- Susan Beebe
Popular estimates in the press - another 20% drop? But it really depends on your neighborhood.
- Mitchell Tsai
Susan: You're lucky you didn't buy in 1992. One of my UCLA friends bought a house in 1990. Around 1997-99, he declared bankruptcy because he was upside-down on his mortgage, and I helped him buy a car after the bankruptcy. Imagine that you are 21 yrs old, and for 7-10 years (age 21-31) your house is going negative. So his accountant suggested that he sell. If he had waited 5-10 more years (2002-2007), the house would have started skyrocketing... but that's a long wait (and due to the internet bubble).
- Mitchell Tsai
Wow, that's quite a story...poor guy. Housing costs was one of my pet peeves about CA living...just too dang costly. Eventually I left in 2000 and have since owned beautiful homes in NY that would have easily cost 10x as much in CA
- Susan Beebe
Awesome! My parents house in Ohio ($168,000) would be ~$4-5 million in Beverly Hills ($4 million for the 1/2 acre of land, and $500,000 for the house).
- Mitchell Tsai
Right ...my current house would easily be 4+ million if it was in BH. I live right off the Irondequoit Bay (near Rochester Canoe Club) where I can walk down to the water in about 10 minutes down the hill. Fabulous home on 1/3 acre land with fabulous expansive views of the bay (all rooms but 3 see the bay), plus we got a great home with a low price tag$! :D
- Susan Beebe
[Update 10/15/09] House has risen to $743,000. Value has been going up since Jan 2009's low of $658,000.
- Mitchell Tsai
it'd definitely going to take me a while to get to a million. I'm publishing about 200 photos to flickr a week right now and at this pace it will take 92 years to get there. I'll get the pace up to 400-500 a week in the future though. Better technology should make processing easier and someday my kids will be grown and I'll be able to quit my day job and focus on this even more. The best photos have yet to be taken.
- Thomas Hawk
When I think about this I realize your best days are ahead of you.
- Russellreno
What's your shot/publish ratio? I mean, on average how many shots do you take to produce those you publish?
- Yuval Atzmon
atzmon, I probably average about 2,000 shots a week that I shoot. And I'm probably processing 300 or so of those a week at present, so I'm probably keeping about 15%. The other 85% never get processed and are kept in my archives. I'm trying only to process and publish the shots that I think meet a certain quality criteria.
- Thomas Hawk
You upload a lot more than I do. I have about 40,000 pictures but only about 2000 uploaded. Mostly because I have not gotten around to processing more. =)
- Jauder Ho
from twhirl
Jauder, the good news is that processing will only get easier in the future. I've watched it get better with each successive Adobe release. Lightroom 2.0 is the best processing tool yet. It's not necessarily faster per se though because with more tools there are yet even more ways to tweak a photo hence even more time. But the tools to speed things up are coming too. auto geotagging, better anti dust tech, faster processing speeds, easier online tools with faster broadband are all around the corner.
- Thomas Hawk
16,000 ?? Yikes. Cool number. Congrats.
- Charlie Anzman
This photo is total awesome. It is made even more awesome by the knowledge that there are 15,999 more photos just as awesome as this one. EDIT: This photo is now my desktop background. :)
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
Always loved that quote " The best photos have yet to be taken. - Thomas Hawk"
- johnpiercy
Congrats, I even don't think I took so many photos in my life. :)
- Ferhad Fidan
from fftogo
@thomas: Yahoo should be giving Flickr to you for free. You'd do a great job with it. And it would be historical: the first user-generated (company) acquisition :)))
- Alberto D'Ottavi
from fftogo
I guess the metier of 'photo editor' is kaput...or, at least, greatly altered....
- Chris Gulker
You know they are going to delete your account without warning once you hit 999,999, right? :)
- Ace
Ace, I hope not, I'd be so pissed. Actually I think alot of what gets me so upset about all the content/account deletion issues is that I really do worry that it actually will happen to me. Flickr staff hates me and they'd *love* to delete my account. I worry that I'll wake up one morning and everything will have been nuked. I suppose that's why I'd like to see them enact the ability to...
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- Thomas Hawk
Holyshit! You have taked just couple of photos...
- k00pa
Because this post is from September last year k00pa :)
- Simon Wicks
@Chris Gulker. Someday I hope to work with a photo editor. God knows I need to. I like to think of my Flickrstream today more as the raw material in a lot of ways for future projects. A good photo editor adds tremendous value to shaping a photographer's imagery.
- Thomas Hawk
When I saw the headline a little bit ago, I thought it was like the building in Brooklyn that just collapsed. These photos...wow. It just decided to have a lie down. I hope no one was hurt.
- Admiral Anika
Any structural engineers in the house? How is that possible. I'm not an engineer but I've built legos and logs and what not, and simply can't imagine what could do that short of an explosion (gas main?) or an earthquake.
- Adrian
Thanks, Andrew. That article is very informative.
- Admiral Anika
Aha! Sinkhole / erosion was my third guess. If something doesn't give underneath or energy is applied in a direction (earthquake, explosion, Godzilla, etc.) its simply can't topple over.
- Adrian
Unfortunately, a migrant worker was killed in the collapsed building when he planned to jumped out of the window. More horribly, the buildings beside the apartment are slanting to the ground, which could be seen by the naked eyes, though the state media denied it.
- xiawinter
Adrian, There are many reasons why a building like this could fall over. If the foundation of the building was not sound or was sitting on unstable earth. If the structure was inadequately designed, the lower floors could collapse under the load from the upper floors. Luckily the building was under construction and no one was living in it yet. I wouldn't want to be living in any of the adjacent buildings until they figure out what caused the failure.
- Jeff P. Henderson
From one of the other comments, it sounds like the buildings were built on unstable ground or their foundations were not designed correctly for the location.
- Jeff P. Henderson
"About 130 nearby households were evacuated and inspectors were examining the foundations of seven other identical buildings in the "Lotus Riverside" compound, saying they appeared to be intact Saturday evening, the report said. The incident was a new blow for Chinese property developers, who have been severely hit by a sagging market amid the global financial crisis. Those who bought...
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- Jeff P. Henderson
The pilings sticking out from the bottom of the toppled building do not look very substantial nor do they look like they were very deep into the ground.
- Jeff P. Henderson
"Concerns over poor construction and low-quality materials have plagued China's construction industry as the country rapidly builds up its cities and infrastructure needed to maintain its growing economy. Anger over poor construction boiled over during after last year's earthquake in central China after about 7,000 schools collapsed and relatives of dead children spoke out against graft they believed led to shoddy construction. " http://news.my.msn.com/regiona...
- Jeff P. Henderson
Here's more photos: http://zonaeuropa.com/200906c... I see no re bar in the pilings that are sticking out of the bottom of the building. Definitely inadequate if not shoddy construction.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Thank you Jess, for bringing this to the attention of English speakers.
- Dallas Cao
This is why purchasing power parity adjustment of Chinese GDP is such nonsense. Shoddy construction of buildings and infrastructure in China is the norm. While not this bad, typically buildings through out the country will never last as long as a european or north american equivalents.
- Gersham Meharg
That's the secret of the double number of GDP growth for the past years, they built something that didn't last long, soon they rebuild it and then the number were double counted.
- Paul
This is nuts. I almost didn't believe it, but then I found pics from several different angles. This shoddy workmanship in China really needs to stop. It's just getting ludicrous now. Why are so many people there so keen on saving a yuan that they don't care if people get hurt or killed in the process? I know we have similarly unscrupulous businesses in the US, but they seem to take it to a much worse level in China. Perhaps because looser regulations and corruption allows people to get away with things.
- Kamilah Gill
God has been busy blessing America, and then who has time to save our chinese people?
- Paul
Is it my impression or is the 'foundation' completely clean? No stretched/torn steel supports etc?!
- Adrian Scicluna
this is like a nightmare, which I had, come true, ... where Im in a house that starts to shake back & forth and then turns over .. that is where I wake up.
- Dickbuttkick
now u can see how it looks like after you woke up :) i can see that there is a big need of urban housing in china but to risk the lives of many people is just irresponsible. its houses...they are build to stay for some time i guess. they should spend a little more time to make it right
- Chris Hofmann
Wow, I know where that is. Nothing like taking the time to properly scope out a location before building a high-rise on it.
- Darren
Looks like the foundation only went about 6 feet into the ground. Hell, many two-story homes in the US go down that deep. So the fact that this is a 13 story building with such a shallow foundation, it isn't surprising that it just fell over. A stiff breeze could have knocked that building over.
- Jason Huebel
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp... - "They also took samples of concrete and reinforcing steel bars from the collapsed 13-floor building" - so apparently there was some amount of steel in there somewhere...
- Andrew C
Would be cool if Friendfeed could convert posts to my chosen language and visa versa. I'd sure like to be able to read and respond to these posts!
- Jeff P. Henderson
FF is so amazing that it collects users' comments from all over the world with different language, so how do you English-speaking guys read Chinese ? I suppose most of Chinese users read English with no difficulty.
- xiawinter
Everybody is welcome to join the group "Say Chinese in FF" if you have interest in Chinese language or information,which has more than 1000 members--http://friendfeed.com/chinese...
- kelvin
I am very curious, the buildings is slowly going down or a sudden fall? If it is the latter, not less likely to break the glass, especially the top floor. ----- 我是很好奇, 那個樓是慢慢倒下去的 還是轟一下子倒下去? 如果是後者, 玻璃不太可能不破的, 尤其是最上面的樓層.
- JohnDu™
Green homes are becoming an increasingly popular trend, with eco-friendly dwellings - from apartment buildings to monstrous mansions - popping up all over the world. Unsurprisingly, America’s got the largest of them (we are expecting Dubai to catch up any time now, though). The fact that an unnecessarily large space isn’t very environmentally friendly hasn’t stopped legions of builders and homebuyers from snapping up properties as large as 15,000 square feet. Many have attempted to make up for the excess square footage by piling on as many green features as possible, from solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling systems to low-VOC finishes and sustainable flooring. Whether or not you agree that you can “have it all” and still be eco-friendly, the parade of ridiculously oversized green homes isn’t likely to stop any time soon.
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
from Bookmarklet
isn't it pretty typical to reach excess before you find balance? netbooks evolved from bigger tech. with time they can retain their simplicity and power. hopefully :)
- Derek Chilcoat
Respectfully, I have to disagree. These things are barely usable today. Maybe, if all you want to do is email and browse the web, then, yeah, they are fine. But, to do real work and more, you need a real computer, not these crippled and stripped down things with smallish keyboards and tiny screens. If I want that, I'll use my Pre instead.
- George Gray
what's needed now is refinement and i see that best coming from apple, but also from open source - it's easier for apple since they're closed but the open source route is the ideal (imho) - MS has definitely been left in the dust, but we'll see how win7 does over the next couple years ... but refinement in the UI/UX and overall OS areas are what is most needed now, not performance enhancements - totally agree dave
- Chris Heath
There are 6 billion people on the planet and most of them aren't like us and for most of them what a netbook does is just right and the cost is just right too. That's why there's so much pressure on these companies. They had everyone snookered into thinking you couldn't make a good-enough computer for $500, well it turns out you can make one for $250. For most people a Honda Civic is plenty of car. The netbooks are that kind of computer.
- Dave Winer
I'm not quite sure whether to agree or disagree with Dave. Netbooks aren't particularly good for 3D gaming, and I'm not aware how good they are for watching movies. I think it would be safest to say that if netbooks are not all that *most* of us need, they are just slightly below that.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
Rishabh, what kind of processor do you think is in a dvd player? movies are fine on netbooks (if you can get a dvd drive) - and what percentage of the laptop market is 3d gamers?
- Chris Heath
Huh...I'm not sure Dave comes from, but most families I know need more than a Honda Civic. Try stuffing two adults and kids into a Civic. Doesn't work. I want more than a 'good-enough' computer. My laptop has a 17 inch screen that I can use for than a few minutes. It has a real keyboard that won't cramp my hands after a few minutes use. Where I do agree, though, is that a 'netbook' is...
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- George Gray
Chris: About the DVD players, good point. I didn't think of it that way. About the gaming, I think that many younger computer users most likely would engage in some 3D gaming on their laptop.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
MS may have lost share but they're still close to 90%. Fact is most of 6B don't have fast internet so SAS is meaningless and main reason, imho, that MS isn't losing share faster is b/c it's not the PC its the software. I have 1/2 apps that I can't economically replace with Open Source or web based that's why I'm still on PC plus who has the time to master 1/2 dozen learning curves?
- Tom Gray
You're right Dave, Netbooks are like the Honda Civic, only from 1973. They had a 3-cylinder engine and were a basic 2-seater that got you from point A to point B. Netbooks basically do the same thing but they aren't for everybody, kind of like the original Civic. Great cars though, and ran forever. http://tr.im/nRsK
- Perry Cortell
Disagree. I have a netbook and I like it quite a lot but it's not a daily driver by any stretch of the imagination.
- Rachel Luxemburg
I actually agree with Dave and then some. My primary computer is a Blackberry Curve. It's easily augmented with a Nokia N800 and/or iPod Touch. For many mobile professionals today, a Netbook coupled with smaller, ligher tools really are all we need. I use a Dell laptop that's way overpowered for what I use and need it for today. I think there's a balance point we haven't found yet, but...
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- Ken Camp
Dave, I'm curious about this. I'm not a netbook user though would like one. How is that all we need? What about our mobile phones? I'm certainly not saying we necessarily need a macbook pro, but as a podcaster of a fairly well listened to series, I think I need more than a netbook offers. Can you explain what you mean so I can better understand? Thank you.
- Sheryl
Apple cannot refine a product it chooses not to sell. The netbook is the child of SE Asia, not the US, and look at their push into imac style all-in-ones. Maybe they are farther along the form factor and usage model than given credit.
- Hayes Haugen
I've been playing with SkyGrid for a little while - http://www.skygrid.com/ - It's sort of a free Bloomberg. TechCrunch covered them a little while back - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009.... See my screenshot below to get a sense of the UI.
One thing I have noticed is that in any ovie, v show, etc where anything odd happens, the English are always portrayed as standing in place saying something like "This can't be happening" or some stupid thing like that, when it clearly IS happening. Is this some sort of national trait? I like to think that if, say, the dead rise and turn on the living, I would fight back + run to safety FIRST and worry about the ontological implications after.
- Neal Jansons
Laugh, sure. But your pounds sterling end up in a California bank account. ;-)
- Chris Baskind
My cousin dl'ed the Moron Test and tried to get me to take it. I told him he'd already failed because he was a moron for buying it in the first place. He was unamused. I wasn't.
- tinypants - Hagitha of FF
To be fair, he's kind of a tool, so it's less a reflection of the app and more a reflection of how much I want to throw him off the nearest high-rise.
- tinypants - Hagitha of FF
I notice that the U.S. is no longer a nation of morons -- for the last few days, "The Sims 3" is #1, so we're now a nation of replicants.
- Stephen Mack
got this after my first intelligent use of ff filtered search. populist USA likes to feign ignorance and UK likes to superficial awareness
- Lane Rapp
OMG, Shevonne, I hate that! That happened to me once when I got out of the Air Force and was looking for a job. A guy wasted two hours of my time trying to get me to sell Amway crap.
- Alex Scoble
Yea I have had a few people try that with me.
- orionstarr
"So, you want me to find enough people that will buy your laundry detergent?" "No, the key is finding people to do that for you!" "So, I have to find a dozen people that can find people to buy your laundry detergent?" "Nevermind."
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
"Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture. It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago."
- Derrick
from Bookmarklet
I just watched the video from Karoli's link. He looks flustered. That being said, I have absolutely NO problem with waterboarding other conservative talk show host who want to bleat on about how tough they think they are. Consider even he didn't have his hands unbound too, so it wasn't even a direct simulation.
- Admiral Anika
You know, they sent two congresscritters up in the early days of the space shuttle. Congresscritters have taken demonstration rides in all sorts of fancy military aircraft. Waterboard congress.
- Wirehead
No safety toys in real life... Wirehead, you have something there...
- Michael W. May
Intelligence committees are a good place to start
- Michael W. May
it's worse when you consider how many people get this treatment and are then released with no charges against them...pointless..
- Franz Sittampalam
from twhirl
Then again, he's also wimpier than the detainees.
- Morton Fox
My personal theory is that nobody's under any illusion that torture gets any useful answers. The whole point is that if you break somebody, they'll tell you whatever will make the torture go away. So, what they are really looking for is a confession from every single of them and a signed confession smoking gun pointing towards the most politically convenient targets. Which they haven't been able to properly get.
- Wirehead
My gut tells me Wirehead's right. On another note, do real interrogators use a cute little stainless-steel teapot for administering the water?
- Nathan Rein
and do detainees get to hold rubber cows to single when to stop? That was horrifying. I wonder how anyone can think that isn't torture. I'm with Anika, I would have liked to see a true simulation. But maybe this will get people who listen to that show to think about it...
- Anna Lynn M.
now, if more conservative radio hosts would offer themselves up to being tazed 2, 3, 4 times in a row... i'd like that even more!!!
- docrivs
Can we see O'Reilly waterboarded??? PLEASE???????
- Zach Flauaus
Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Pretty much anyone still calling themselves a Republican nowadays. If you're still GOP and you consider this torture, please pipe up and defend your party!
- Internet's Tad
Well there you go, popular consensus says no.
- Alex Scoble
I have much respect for this Erich "Mancow" Muller guy I had never heard of before now. Mad respect. That is both following through on what you believe and huevos grandes.
- Michael W. May
ah... Mancow's still @ it huh? good for him.
- jbrotherlove
I have never heard of this torture but just from Mancow's reaction I'm terrified of this. And to think the average person lasts 14 seconds, that's nothing!
- Andrew Trinh
Sounds right to me. This reportedly was only used on 3 people. One of which was the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) who boast of personally beheading the American journalist Daniel Pearl. Is it me or does water boarding seem kinder than the treatment KSM extended to Mr. Pearl?
- Mrsth
totally missing the point. We should not be torturing. Either we agree to the genvia conventions or we don't live by rule of law. Just because some people treat people bad, and outside rule of law doesn't mean we should. As for Daniel Pearl, he wanted the story, and he left the USA and he got the story. Interviewing Arab extremist, as a Jewish Journalist, has its own set of dangers.
- Hutch
OK, so while I think our torturing people has done more to put us in danger than any information we might have gotten, my first thought was: How authentic is this? Is this a setup, and is the waterboardee actually in cahoots with the anti-torture side? I mean, it's almost too perfect of a story.
- Mr. Gunn
Well, I am fairly sure that no liberals were sitting around with Dick Cheney thinking up torture techniques, if that is what you mean.
- Hutch
You know what the difference is between me dreaming of Dick Cheney getting waterboarded and Dick Cheney dreaming of doing the same to some poor bastard? Only one of us is in a position to make it happen and then laugh it off later. And it ain't me, Skippy.
- Steven Perez
from IM
Yes, but thinking that you are mad enough to do something to someone, and actually doing it are two entirely different things. I might be mad enough to where I mutter under my breath 'I'd like to punch that guy in the face' But I don't, because it would be wrong. I would hope there is a bit more of a difference between you and dick cheney, and you have some basic self evident ethical behavior.
- Hutch
also, lincoln said, 'Any man can withstand tribulation, if you want to see what a man is made of you give him power' I think we have seen what George Bush and Dick Cheney are made of.
- Hutch
I'm honestly a little worried it seems so easy to do... It would be not so good if kids on youtube got the idea to try this to each other.
- Frankie Warren
That's nice, I didn't know you could put panoramas on Flickr. I have some QTVR's as well, do they support Quicktime?
- Gilbert Harding
Gilbert, you can share panorama in Flickr easily. recently Flickr add ability for add video. but i think you must convert your Quicktime to flash or maybe flickr can do it for you automatically.
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
Mahdi: Thanks for that but I'm not sure what converting to Flash would do the QTVR's. I might do some testing here first.
- Gilbert Harding
Neither and both. Often times I've just stumbled across a great product. If I don't know it's out there, I won't have a "need" to get it. Once I'm aware of something, that product can sell itself.
- CAJ, somewhere else
I can't buy a product good or bad if I don't know about it. Once I know about it it will sell itself.
- Tai
This question makes me think about Kevin Kelly's 1000 fans or Seths 10 super fan thresholds
- Mark Essel
Alan, the product is that once you realize the need, you will probably know the product that can satisfy it and will buy it instead of looking for a better alternative that might very well exist. Right?
- Svetlana Gladkova
Tai, that's what I'm talking about: you can't sell the best product in the world unless people know they need it but once they do realize the need, you can avoid all the extra promotion expenses easily.
- Svetlana Gladkova
We all know that fruits and vegetables are good for us, especially fresh ones, and when they are in season. However, dried fruits have theirs own indisputable health benefits, too. There are many delicious dried fruits out there, and you can find five of my favorites below.
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
from Bookmarklet
I eat raisins almost every day. Good stuff.
- LogEx
Dried apricots and dried cranberries FTW! The local healthfood store has bulk dried fruit bins and I like making my own trail mix from 'em
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I think driving in the left road might be so adventurous. but lead to hospital :)
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
If I could get on 95 and end up in Rome, I'd be one happy American.
- Kim G.
Seriously, you all think the road on the left is bad? I'm going to have to go find a map to post of something called "The Tail of the Dragon" =D BRB
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Tina: It's not 'bad' per se. Just that high speed travel will kill you. Now, if only I still had my bicycle...
- Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty
تو این جاده (عکس1) با سرعت 200 تا بری و تو جاده (عکس2) پیاده روی کنی. عجب حالی میده
- ♥ D E V I L S ♥
Sometimes it feels like, every road leads me back to you...
- Zahra (raoros)
Feed publishing > FF Bookmarklet:
Can we have the new Feed Publishing settings added to the bookmarklet?
I think it's The best spot to have them, and i'd like to set them differently per each post i make via bookmarklet.
his site is pretty cool though i wish photographers wouldn't watermark their pictures. i know why they do it, but it takes away from the really great photos
- Cee Bee
I rode a 20 footer like that in Hawaii on a boogie board... Dropped me straight onto the sand, and then proceeded to drench me with 3 million gallons of water... In retrospect, I'm probably lucky to be alive right now.
- LarchOye
that might be "thrilling" the first time around, but after continually getting pounded like that i'm sure it can become a bit of a "challenge" to deal with
- Cee Bee
"Swimming coach Mark Davies says his young swimmers are beating the clock, now that they're being chased by a hungry "croc." Davies says he lets his swimmers dive into the pool first. Then, he tosses in the crocodile. One young girl described the experience as "absolutely terrifying." Davies says he checks the croc's swimming speed first, and makes sure the swimmer has enough of a head start that the crocodile can't really catch up. "
- April Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
Wasn't Phelps meant to be on a 6,000 calories/day diet when in training? So when he's doing bong hits, that would adjust to around 12,000 - that croc might be on for a real big dinner :)
- Patrick Jordan
Good thinking AJ. Let's throw the croc in with Phelps.
- Roberto Bonini
Back in my high school the swim team side wouldn't have wanted him. But if he had had passing grades, water polo would have recruited crocy for sure.
- Micah Wittman
+1 John E. - "what could go wrong?" indeed
- Hutch Carpenter
"No other president's disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year," says CNN polling director Keating Holland. "That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating." Before Bush, the record holder for presidential disapproval was Harry Truman, with a 67 percent disapproval rating in January of 1952, his last full year in office.
- Thomas Hawk
from Bookmarklet
I feel safe in predicting that history will be much kinder to him than social media. Much. Nicer.
- Mike Lewis
from Alert Thingy
W's captures are so unfortunate. He always looks like Curious George.
- Mona Nomura
Congress' numbers are worse, but nobody noticed
- Robert Hafer
I do have to say that I loved David Letterman's "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" series that he did on Bush.
- Thomas Hawk
No president has provided more comedic material than W. If nothing else, we enter into a wasteland the likes of which we've never seen, one where we'll see the real measure of The Daily Show's writers. How good are they without a 1,000 pounds of raw material daily? I think our national comedy defense is strong and we'll be fine, but it may be rocky for a while :)
- Bob M. Montgomery
As long as no more terrorist attacks have occurred during his watch - good to go.
- tony
STDs have a higher approval rating that Bush.
- Admiral Anika
Are STD's more popular than Democratic Congress too?
- tony
It's too bad that congressional approval ratings aren't broken down by party. It's easy for folks to say that Congress's low approval rating is the fault of the majority party, but that logic is at odds with election results where Democrats were re-elected to every post they ran for, while many Republican incumbents lost their seats.
- Kevin Fox
Kevin, rest assured that Democrats in Congress share ratings just as low as the Republicans. The Democrat advancements last Tuesday are due solely to the Obama's coat tails, not to the fact that America thinks they're doing a great job. Proof in point: When the Democrat leadership was speaking several weeks ago on the financial crisis, Wall Street tanked. The minute they shut up, it recovered. That happened every single time they went in front of microphones. Every. Time.
- Gregory Pittman
from twhirl
Gregory: I'm not sure what you mean. I'd like you to find a single Democrat (or Republican) in Congress who has an approval rating as low as President Bush. Here's a source to get you started: http://www.surveyusa.com/50State... The approval rating of an institution is completely different than the approval rating of its constituent members, and it's overly simplistic to try and brand an institution's low approval rating on a single party.
- Kevin Fox
I would even go so far as to suggest that the low approval rating of the US Congress is largely due to its perceived ineffectiveness in challenging or reversing the abusive practices of the Executive office.
- Kevin Fox
So they were ineffective in challenging Bush's policies. They're the majority party in both houses and have been for years and they get low ratings because they were ineffective in challenging Bush's policies. That doesn't even come close to approaching logic.
- Gregory Pittman
funny how the conversation is being diverted from bush to congress as if they had anything to do with the last 8 shitty years
- Cee Bee
...and Truman was one of our great presidents. Nixon was the best Environmental president in 50 years.... and blah blah... proves nothing. Bush did fuck up the loan situation... but popularity polls... make me like him
- Noah David Simon
Cee Bee, are you saying they had *nothing* to do with the last 8 years? I hope not, because if you are, you're showing a gross lack of understanding of the American political system. Chris, indeed they have been a no-op Congress but accomplishing the things you suggest here would have been detrimental for America. No doubt we're about to see just how detrimental.
- Gregory Pittman
from twhirl
I agree that Congress has been ineffective for the last several years, and that it deserves low ratings. I do however disagree with assertions that the low approval ratings are an indictment of the Democratic party. If that were the case, the Democrats wouldn't have drastically solidified their hold on both houses last week, and I don't buy the coat-tails argument.
- Kevin Fox
they've been around for two years and like chris white wrote, have pretty much gone along with the bush administration's follies in order to not step on toes. regardless of that, this thread was about bush and his failures until a few of you"party loyalists" tried to flip the issue in order to cloud/avoid the subject
- Cee Bee
It'll be interesting to see if Howard Dean's successor will invigorate Congress beyond simply trying to limit GWB's damage.
- Kevin Fox
I'm not so sure the Democrats were merely following Obama's coat-tails. Democrats picked up House seats in states that didn't even go for Obama, and in states that did go for Obama, some Democratic candidates won by much higher margins than Obama did.
- Victor Ganata
You can't do very much when the minority party makes sure to block you whenever they can, and even if you manage to push something through, there's a veto pen waiting at the other end.
- Victor Ganata
Well, no excuses now. You guys have the ball. Dems: Please give us a date you will cease blaming Bush and take some responsibility. I bet we have to wait til the mid term elections. Kind of like a dog chasing a bus. What do you do when you catch it? Tee hee.
- Oldengrey (Jay)
January 20, 2009. I may keep blaming Bush/Cheney, for the things that need to be fixed (privacy, civil liberties, Gitmo, Iraq), but I won't blame him for continuing to try and block them.
- Kevin Fox
At least he's leaving, the sooner we can move on the better...
- Grant Bierman
Odd how GWB is so unpopular and Obama is so popular, when they share so much in common.
- ComicList
The comments of Bush supporters and apologists continue to be as empty-headed and substance free as they have been for the last eight years. They simply can't discuss policy issues in an informed and rational way. That is how we got into our current mess and why it is that Bush has pegged the unpopularity meter.
- Sean McBride
Hey guys. here's an opportunity to agree on something. Bush was a terrible president, right? We (all) I hope want the best for Obama, because we want the best for our country, agreed?
- Rod Bauer
from twhirl
We may not agree he was the absolute worst, but there's no disputing the fact that he was terrible. But, unless you've got a crystal ball that actually works, there's no telling what will happen the next two years (until the next midterms.) With the economic disaster, it's not going to be pretty no matter what the government does. Hopefully we'll make to the other side OK.
- Victor Ganata
"Ha HA" in my best Nelson voice from the Simpsons
- sofarsoShawn
Nixon was the most popular elected president ever. your point is lost on me. check the 1972 election results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ...in fact most people during Watergate still liked Nixon. and for good reason. relative to the other people (besides Reagan) in the last fifty years he was a strong leader.
- Noah David Simon
Instructive comment - Henry Kissinger once asked Chinese PM Chou En-Lei "what do you think about the repercussions of the French Revolution, in the present day?". Without missing a beat, Chou replied "Too soon to tell" Note - French Revolution began in 1789.
- Russell Wagner
exactly @Russell Wagner you are quoting the Nixon admininstration.... hence Nixon is not really a pariah. I'm not justifying Watergate... but with Nixon you are dealing with a man who was a good leader for the most part. if you compare Nixon to W Bush it is not a shock who is more popular. better to compare W with Carter
- Noah David Simon
Mohomed, do you have any particular reason for resurrecting this old chestnut? Not complaining, just curious... It's a keeper for sure though :-)
- Richard ¿digame? Walker
Just making the point NoahDavidSimon - too soon to tell...
- Russell Wagner
I find it ridiculous that you are talking about Bush when Obama's Chas Freeman is in the news. guess what zionist hater!? you lose http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Noah David Simon
OMG. A fact! Let's not talk about *that* but instead make specious statements of comparison! Let's shift the conversation to another political body entirely! Too bad they don't track the US approval rating of dictators, huh? Maybe I should try this when I get a performance review. "Nevermind my rating, what about that Angolan dictator!" [edit] Sorry, but it's annoying to see such rationalization. He was one of the most unpopular presidents while in office. Deal with it.
- AJ Kohn
"U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey." http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Noah David Simon
"Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons -- his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship. Heads should be rolling at the White House for the embarrassing series of...
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- Noah David Simon
and you still talking about Bush? where you on the football team in highschool?
- Noah David Simon
@NDS: Again. Apples vs. Turtles. Approval of a President by People versus Approval of a President's handling of a topic by a group of economists. These are *not* alike. For the record I'm an avid Obama supporter but I *do* dislike his handling of the economic crisis. And whether you like it or not, Bush *was* unpopular leaving office. No amount of comparison or tangential topics will change that.
- AJ Kohn
I'd say when the economics guys says you suck... that is a rather bad sign. Truman was a great president. so was Lincoln. both unpopular. Nixon I mentioned was the most popular... for a while. shows how fleeting pop love is. Robert Scoble was the whale of the Alist. now he is leaving Fast Company. give me the king of the world and I will show you an easy target to harpoon. I didn't vote...
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- Noah David Simon
"What do you think Bush’s legacy will be? You know, I think the closeness of his administration to events right now and the public perspective on those events and his handling of those events and the outcome—you know, right now, I think, has a mixed result. ’Cause while everyone could scream and jump up and down about the war, you can’t take away from the guy a number of things. One, he...
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- Noah David Simon
haha... we used to do something similar in high school... we'd draw it on the blackboard and claim it was a rocket ship... I miss high school
- Shawn Duffy
from twhirl
I think meme came from Richard Dawkins. meme=the mental equivalent of a gene. A thought that passes all around like a virus. So meme here is something that one or a few people start doing and soon everybody's doing it. right now posting photos of doodles. it's like a fad but memes seem to run their courses even faster.
- Kamilah Gill
this message brought to you by the society to cut up men
- Cee Bee
If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
- jfayel
By the time Billy realised that the friction between his leapord skin thong and the mechanical bull he was riding would cause a spark, it was too late...
- Johnny Worthington
oh these captions killed and Mladen stole mine, i was going to go with "So sexy it hurts."
- Admiral Anika
The Wicked Witch is dead! I got away with her shoes and leopard thong! Gonna put this helmet on in case a house falls on me too... I'm off to see the Wizard!
- Daynah
Mel Gibson's fourth and final installment to the Mad Max series was greeted with critical skepticism and poor box office receipts. (IMdB)
- Chris Baskind
"I don't think my hose will put out that fire"
-
i havent laughed like this in a long time - took me a minute to get it haha thanks
- Allen Stern
Shey, if you put it on Flickr or your blog or something, we can link back to it and spread the word....
- Bora Zivkovic
I don't get .......ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! LOL!
- Mike Lewis
you guys are retard i have seen this image 50 times on the internet somewhere....TIRED OF U PEOPLE GOING NUTS OVER SHIT THAT IS SOO BLATANTLY OLD it makes u look inexperienced
- Caroline
Holy crap, who pissed in Caroline's corn flakes this morning?
- Peter Ghosh
Caroline, on behalf of all of FriendFeed, I humbly offer our sincerest apologies for not consulting with you first to get permission to post something that you may have seen but others may have not.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I’m deliberately un-liking this and then re-liking it just to bring it to the top and spite Caroline.
- Guillermo Esteves
I've seen it before. Ive even posted it before ( to stumbleupon ), But that's ok. It's still funny as shit. I'd much rather look inexperienced than come off like I have that "shovel" she's selling shoved up my ass.....sideways.
- Tony, Paradox of FF
Apparently, this is the note from the mom to the teacher: Dear Mrs. Jones, I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over...
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- Shey, Jamaican of FF
I have never seen this and it's funny! There used to be a strip club in my town and the cafeteria workers at the school say a student used to pay for lunch with a lot of wrinkly $1 bills.
- mandyvan