“I will be in Peru (in the jungle and hiking Machu Picchu) for two weeks starting tomorrow. FriendFeed's big launch next week will be happening without me...”
Have fun; some friends of mine have visited and it sounds amazing. I think I know what you'll be launching :) - Benjamin Golub
the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is *amazing*. Just remember, the easy part is getting up - going down was much harder and I was jealous of all the people who had walking sticks, I destroyed my knees going down without 'em. - felix
Well, they'll see how much they miss and need him when he's gone. A lot! Not a dumb move. - Alex Hammer
Perhaps FriendFeed is relocating its offices to Peru, and Bret is just the advance guard. :) - Ontario Emperor
have fun! i'm going to be down there in the Peru jungle in just over a week myself - Brad Warren via twhirl
Yeah, that's one of xkcd's "things", You should click thru to the site to see the mouseover. I only discovered them after I'd been reading xkcd for a few weeks (how slow am I, lol) and it brought a whole new level of understanding to the whole thing for me. - Slippy Lane
Love XKCD. Hate FF breaking the mouseover. - James Polley
... breaking the mouseover makes you click through to xkcd though... right... I mean otherwise you'd miss the hidden message! - Ross Miller
بچههاي فرندفيد: اقايون/خانوما. بياين حال اين خارجكيها رو بگيريم و تو اين كامنتدوني شروع كنيم در مورد اين تصوير كامنت بگذاريم.لطفا نظرتون رو در مورد اين تصوير بگين - mhmazidi
@mhmazidi اتفاقا این وب سایت رو خیلی وقته که دنبال می کنم...کمیک های خیلی خیلی جالبی داره...فقط یک کمی سنگینه و گیکیه به قول خودمون ...چیز جالبیه بهش سر بزنید گاهی ... (اسمایلی این هم سهم من در کامنت فارسی) ه - Selma
it would be nice if friendfreed could perform some basic translation if the user set it that way ;) - Hernan Garcia via twhirl
Ich "mag" Hernans Kommentar. [Translation: I "like" Hernan's comment.] - Philipp Lenssen
hehe ...i think we have managed to provoke some curiosity :D - Selma
@mhmazidi می تونم هدفتون رو از این حرکت بدنم ؟ - Navid Kashani
Yes it is Farsi (Persian) language ...and no ...as a professional translator I have not seen any efficient automated translation system for it yet (some students here are working on that), especially since the lines here are written in a broken informal style which makes it even more difficult to convert. - Selma
Selma, care to comment on the general jist of the conversation that took place in this thread? - Mark Trapp
Oh lol…definitely... sorry! Dr. Mazidi just commented there to share the picture with the Persian Friendfeed users as well as letting the English users know we do need a translating system ;) … I commented on the fact that I have been regularly following xkcd (I'm not a geek…it's just a phase that I'm going through :D) and advised others to do so as well… Navid was wondering why we were commenting in Farsi … we were also wondering if it might tickle other people's curiosity … our experiment proved effective! :p - Selma
I love this!! Thanks Bret!! who created this? too cool! - Susan Beebe
Haha, thaks Selma. I was wondering what was going on :) - Mark Trapp
Am I the only one who finds it annoying that this story is constantly being pushed up due to comments? I understand the point, but I've seen this on my FriendFeed every day for the past week and a half - bart
bart: my subconscious had the exact same reaction. I love xkcd but I was getting sick of this one. I guess it's time to start using the hide function. - Alex von Halem
Bart, hide feature, I believe you two haven't met. I'll leave you two to get acquainted. - Mark Trapp
@Mark Good point ;) I totally forgot about it - bart
"And while the anti-GTA zealots who blame the game for inspiring real-world violence are decrying it, the press is heaping it with praise (of 31 reviews listed on Metacritic.com, 24 are perfect scores). The New York Times calls it “a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun.” Noting that innocent bystanders in the game now groan in agony when murdered, Slate’s reviewer explains, “what makes Grand Theft Auto IV so compelling is that, unlike so many video games, it made me reflect on all of the disturbing things I had done.” MSNBC says simply: “Grand Theft Auto IV will blow you away.”" - Bret Taylor
I am really looking forward to picking up my copy of the game, the release is a defining moment and it's the first blockbuster of the year! The raw success of the series cannot be questioned as it's a brand like no other!! - Joe
I'm looking forward to getting a copy myself. I've managed to somehow steer myself away from all of the negative news surrounding it as it only seems to repeat the same message that we've already heard from previous titles. - Ian Rathbone
I've been up late the last two nights playing it...work is going to be painful this week... - Nick Austad
I'm going to try to put this off until september so that I can enjoy the summer. - engtech
"Mukesh Ambani, the fifth richest man in the world, is having a new house built in Mumbai. Mukesh made his money as head of Mumbai-based petrochemical company Reliance industries. His net worth is over $43 billion and he, his wife, and 3 kids currently live in a 22-story tower (the whole thing)." - Bret Taylor
Anyway, it's a HECK lot of money in a house. - Cesar Cardoso
It is misleading that there will be only 5 people in the house. Ambani's have a huge extended family, lots of uncles, aunts, cousins. And don't forget the servants. - Shakeel Mahate
Bret, maybe this pad on sea cliff ave in nw san francisco is more in your price range - its a steal at just $22 million! ha -ok I guess its still better than $2 billion http://apr.com/Default.aspx?pp... ...the views are pretty amazing though - Michael Mayer
There is a term for this style of house. It's called "a fucking hotel." - peter
at this rate, the DNC needs to solidify the party and focus on the general election. i fear that mccain is a few steps ahead because of obama v. hilary. step down, hilary, please? - grant
I doubt either will step down until some financial goal is met or they are ensured some power position. Great publicity for both candidates and the DNC - meanwhile, oopps, McCain wins. The DNC is using poor strategy at their attempt to make this a Democratic race with this backwards competition going on. - Frank Davis
posted a message
“We just pushed a new backend system. Let me know if you see problems.”
"Impressive numbers from Facebook on their architecture: 1,800 MySQL servers (900 pairs of master/slave) holding a heavily partitioned data set managed by just 2 DBAs." - Bret Taylor
"Gunmen assassinated the acting chief of Mexico’s federal police early Thursday morning in the most brazen attack so far in the year-and-a-half-old struggle between the government and organized crime gangs." - Bret Taylor
A 12-month chart of monthly vehicle-miles on U.S. highways from 1983 to today. It has flattened out over the past three years. "Maybe the cure for higher prices is higher prices after all." - Bret Taylor
Maybe we've just already driven everywhere we want to go? ;-) - Brian Johns
"Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate." - Bret Taylor
word is she's dropping out on the 15th - MG Siegler
Having run for Governor of Maine (2006) I am well aware that the roles of the media in regard to advocacy can become complex. On the one hand, in the present situation it can be a tool for the party and others to gently (or not so gently over time) put the reins on Hillary a little bit. On the other hand, sometimes the media can also play kingmaker (or attempt to do so), potentially usurping the will and role of voters. - Alex Hammer
A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words “Hillary will drop out by June 15,” but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, “So, Hillary will drop out by June 15,” and he kept saying, “We will have a nominee by June 15.” He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... - Mike Fruchter
Love the insider information I'm getting on FF! : ) - Carla Thompson
Yeah, but I am disappointed it is June 15, not May 15! - Sheila Taylor
She really is risking an awful lot each and everyday. She is a political joke by June 15th. If she wants to maintain an influential role in the party, she doesn't have that long. - Shellee OBrien
yep sorry, meant june 15, forgot what month it was, what city i'm in... - MG Siegler
"The price of major appliances has been flat over the last year. Furniture is 1 percent less expensive. A decade ago, a basic four-door Toyota Corolla LE cost $16,018, according to the company. The 2009 basic model costs $16,650, and it’s a safer, more powerful, more fuel-efficient car than its predecessor... To top it all off, most people don’t buy any of these items very often. “People tend to remember things they do frequently,” says Stephen Cecchetti, an economist at Brandeis University who studies inflation. “And what do you buy more frequently than gas and food?”" - Bret Taylor
I had a long discussion with the TA of an econ class in college about how CPI actually overstated inflation (because consumers would adjust their basket of goods to favor cheaper items). I remember this mainly because I had a crush on her -- really smart, and hot too! If you're reading this, Miss TA, email me! I'll buy you a basket of goods! - Jim Norris
Jim: A basket of the quality goods, or the cheaper items? - Kevin Fox
Sounds like an a.m. vs. p.m. problem. And if "you" posted it, why does it say Bret? - Louis Gray
They're actually the same person. Paul is the left hand, and Bret is the right. Paul wrote the post, but Bret hit 'enter'. - Kevin Fox
Bret doesn't have the "multi-author" thing set, but in reality we all wrote the post, because it's just a combination of our changelog entries. I just happened to be the one who ran the script that generates the page (and scanned for anything "seekret"). I also authored the oh-so-clever title I suppose :) - Paul Buchheit
I hadn't seen the changelog before. It's awesome that you're publishing your changesets. - Michael C. Harris
interesting that you aim at transparency ... I appreciate it - funkyboy
Thanks for providing this, I wasn't aware of the changelog before either. I also added the users who worked on the change sets as well! - Joe
oh it's censored. boo. it's still way cool though. - Alex Gawley
Alex, the censorship is mostly theoretical. I scan through before publishing, but rarely delete anything (this entry was entirely unedited, for example). - Paul Buchheit
glad the censorship is mild paul. i was only ribbing you. perhaps you could indicate in the published log if a 'removal' took place ;-) - Alex Gawley
Hmm, "raise like limit". I didn't know there *was* a limit. Perhaps that's a good thing... - Voyagerfan5761
"The reason you need to care is that gap in the middle. Every day, millions of businesses get stuck in that gap. They either move to the right in search of the masses or move to the left in search of authenticity, but they compromise. And they get stuck with neither.... A delta blues guy who plays for tiny audiences in Memphis is in the sweet spot of the passionate. John Mayer is in the sweet spot of pop. Both are great guitarists, neither is too edgy or too trite. Both made a choice. But there are a thousand guitarists who are neither. They're afraid to embrace one curve or the other and end up with neither." - Bret Taylor
Pound for pound, Seth is the smartest guy on the Internet and a great guy, too. Even though he doesn't allow comments on his blog, he is actually ALL about the conversation... - Robert Seidman
Same could be said about Green Day, I read an article about them in NME and they constantly look for the authenticity. Searching for the passion, the sound that gives them the authenticity. Yes they have their loyal fan base that will buy two million but in going back to rediscover themselves with side projects and groups they come forward with popular sound that appeals to the masses! - Joe
FriendFeed now imports Google Reader notes... Testing it out. - Bret Taylor
Facebook now imports Google execs... - hunter walk
@hunter - comment of the night right there. - MG Siegler
Lots of cool importing going tonight ;-) - Susan Beebe
now that's the power of FF comments. new features appear on-the-fly! well done Bret! - Brian D. Eisenberg
This is agile development folks! i love it!! customer driven design -- sweet! thanks FriendFeed for listening to your "friends" (customers) and for providing lightening fast code (i.e. new features) to satisfy emerging customer needs!! - Susan Beebe
posted a message
“I am writing a new FriendFeed feature, and I am load-testing it with fake data. The fake comments, constructed by randomly string words together, are oddly fascinating.”
It's like YouTube, but with a better vocabulary. - Paul Buchheit
ROFL .. sounds like Jerry Yang's speech the troops come Monday <snicker> - Steven Hodson
Sandosh, I only can tell you one thing: Profounder costarred resolver Pianola's anticyclone's Byelorussia's opiates Cochabamba Gehenna's dolt's genteeler despot's inconsiderable releasing imbibes flatfooting - Bret Taylor
I think you can stress test it right now... You might even get more accurate results. - Gadiel Rivera
"Perhaps the only thing that can destroy the ecosystem here is the U.S. government going out of its way to mess everything up. In particular I’ve been concerned about H1B visa quotas that severely limit the number of foreign workers that can come here legally." - Clare Dibble
The little voice in my head laughs when it hears about illegal immigration because my experience is with talented people taking great pains to be here legally and the government not making it easy. - Clare Dibble
I'd love to hear what people use for watching movies at home. I've switched from the blockbuster store to netflix to blockbuster online to xbox live to amazon unbox through tivo...i think the important factors for me now are 1.) availability of titles 2.) HD 3.) speed from purchase to viewing and of course 4.) cost. - grant
We use Netflix and also play old classic movies (recorded from TV) on our Macs, and we love it. I got my parents to use AppleTV, which I've set up to stream movies from their iTunes library, and they love that. - Raoul Pop
DVD player w/ Netflix. Occasionally I use an old laptop with Windows to watch Netflix streaming. Will be so happy when it comes to the Mac. Not sold on Apple TV yet, although I think internet delivery of HD is the future: http://mathoda.com/archives/16... - Ranjit Mathoda
Downloading movies through Amazon on your TiVo works really well. - RAPatton
If the rumors about Instant-play downloads from Netflix to the XBox 360 are true, then I'm completely sold on that. - Kevin Fox
My husband is constantly streaming movies from netflix through his laptop to our big screen TV - it works pretty well actually - Andromeda Edison
We occasionally download movies from Amazon on our Tivo, but find the download to be slow (usually several hours-- much more than would be expected with our cable internet connection). Also, we don't like the lack of subtitling options. - Shannon Jiménez
I've started using an AppleTV at home, and I really like it for the movies it *does* have, though the choice is pretty anemic at the moment (from the article, it sounds like this is being dealt with -- I'll be completely happy when I can get obscure eastern European movies like "Black Cat, White Cat"). I'm definitely sold on rental over purchase, as my 0.5TB hard drive is rapidly filling up with TV shows from iTunes... - Joel Webber
"In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car." - Bret Taylor
if this spells the end to stretched Hummers, maybe it was worth it. - Gary Fredrick
We should have learned our lesson in the 1970's. - Mike Reynolds
Do you guys get Smart cars there in America? - Joe via Alert Thingy
Just checked online and you do so ignore the above question, I personally couldn't see myself driving something that small. Firstly as I have children and I don't think the boot is big enough. Secondly it just looks like an odd car to drive about in! - Joe via Alert Thingy
Woohoo! Bring on that $10 per gallon gas, baby! This is music to my ears. - Piaw Na
as Mike points out the 70's were pretty bad. Long lines to get gas that was supposed to be coming from the last few drops of oil on earth. Suddenly ten thousand dollar Vista Cruiser station wagaons with hoods the size of a tennis court were sold by owners for one thousand dollars. Odd and even plate numbers got gas if they could on their given day. Have a look at the first car Honda sold in the US - Gary Fredrick
@joe My mother uses a smart car. Costs about $17 to fill up and lasts about 500KM. I'm always asking to borrow it now..;). I'm just itching for car from the likes of Tesla motors to become mainstream. - Phil Ashman
And the number one feature you didn't mention? The new "Loading" rectangle. Kevin wants props for that. (EDIT: Looks like the Loading box is gone! Code corrupts. Absolute code corrupts absolutely.) - Louis Gray
Heads up: The mini-profile's likes link to the comments instead. - Michael
Love the mini-profiles, and the loading rectangle is the best use of the loading rectangle I've seen, except the one on my company's Web site, which utilizes the rocket in our logo rising into space.... - Chris Reed
haven't seen the loading rectangle yet, but the mini-profiles are a great addition - Frederic
Hmm... People shouldn't be seeing the loading rectangle... - Kevin Fox
I love the mini profiles! Awesomesauce stamped - Corvida
Like the profile rectangle, too. Makes it way easy to subscribe to people. - Jason Kaneshiro
Mini-profiles are cool but now there's no way to see the link to a user's profile in status bar. That's bad. Can you fix that? Should be possible. - Alex Kapranoff
Also missing: Mute this thread's comments? Where did that go? - Louis Gray
"An amusing WWW 2008 poster by Joshua Blumenstock, "Size Matters: Word Count as a Measure of Quality on Wikipedia" (PDF) found that a very simple measure of "quality" of article on Wikipedia, the number of words in the article, performed nearly as well as much more complicated classifiers. Word count with a simple threshold achieved 96.5% accuracy in the classification task. The other more complicated techniques ranged from 81-98% accuracy." - Bret Taylor
"But the survey found that Mr. Obama, whose lead in the race for the delegates needed to secure the nomination has given him a commanding position over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton since February, is now perceived to be in a much tighter fight. Fifty-one percent of Democratic primary voters say they expect Mr. Obama to win their party’s nomination, down from 69 percent a month ago. Forty-eight percent of Democrats say he is the candidate with the best chance of beating Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, down from 56 percent a month ago." - Bret Taylor
I've noticed people are excerpting part of the link they themselves posted or shared into the first comment on FF. Why should this take another step? Shouldn't posting the link automatically show an excerpt (perhaps of the beginning of the link post text)? - Ranjit Mathoda
Such a shame to see Obama have to "fight" his former pastor rather than focusing on the real issues American care about. As usual, the race comes down to politics as opposed to reality. - Scott Jarkoff
Ranjit: the bookmarklet (http://friendfeed.com/share/bo...) automatically makes a quote from the selected text when you use it. We should do auto-snippeting as you suggest, though. - Bret Taylor
May I also suggest addressed sharing, such as @ tweets or FB's share by message feature. - Daniel Feygin
autosnippeting: eww, please no, because it will suck. The comments, when they're quotes, are good because *people I know* *chose* them. - j1m
also, while you're adding features, if you could get Obama elected already, thx. - ⓞnor
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. TPM said "McCain reintroduces Bush health care plan in effort to show he's his own man." The full piece is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24... -- it just looks like it will result in fewer insured people overall. Not just the poor but also the young who don't see a need for insurance. - Robert Konigsberg
Actually useful way to get political news from FF. - Robert Konigsberg
I'd much rather control my insurance then have my employer do it. - Ranjit Mathoda
Haven't been much a McCain fan, but I must say that plan makes a lot of sense. - Nick Austad
"Person-Centric or Link-Centric?": both? - minus-one
Totally agree with what you have written! - Joe via Alert Thingy
I see advantages for both methods, but a combination would be better and probably could be managed (e.g. "Hutch Carpenter bookmarked this on del.icio.us, shared this on Google Reader, posted this on Twitter" - link-centric UI with one line per person). If I had to go for just one, I'd prefer link-centric, though. - Cyvros/fyc
i see the benefits, but also the problems behind it. (not saying one should not try!) It would also switch intentions. people do not post answers to you if you blog about something, but they will post because famous person X has shared that for example and they answered to *that* person. putting the comments to the 'original' changes the intent. so a listing like that would need to make a tree out of that. - Nicole Simon
I think additional aggregation would be nice, but you'd open up a can of worms. For example, I often click like on the first one I see it, then may add it to my SU or other services. who get's the top spot? the one where it first hit Friendfeed which in some cases may be through twitter because they are pulled more often? - Nicole Simon
www.friendfeedmachine.com goes some way towards alleviating this problem, with some more features due in a few days, especially around aggregation - via FriendFeedMachine - Scott Goldie
Both :) IMO link-centric presentation is preferable, assuming of course UI and work flow related issues at the point of adding a link to FF directly are nicely resolved. - Eugene
I think I'd prefer person-centric but link-centric is interesting too. I see link centric as a personalised memetracker... - Andy Davies
+1 for person centric filtering first - Alex Gawley
i prefer link-centric since it would clean up FF.. but thinking that rather than accumulating events like 'Shared on Google Reader' or 'bookmarked on Delicious', it should be shown as 'Likes' on the original feed. If there is some value add, like Comments or Tweets, only then, show it as an event. - Vishal M
@shakeel - i think the purpose of 'person centric' is to group all of a single person's activities as they relate to a specific URL into a single entry. As such FF doesn't do that right now. - Alex Gawley
I prefer link-centric. it would be great to centralize the conversation. There should be a priority tree, though. Blog>Google Reader>Delicious...etc. The item with the higher priority goes first. - Alejandro S.
Person-centric could be used in the user's own list of activities. - Alejandro S.
Whatever you call it, I want to be able to see what the content is about. Just don't tell me Person X has bookmarked a page on Site Y. I need to know the title. - Mike Reynolds
I think link-centric is intriguing. An organic techmeme, built directly on users' actions and transparent. Biggest concern with centralizing activity under one link is the echo-chamber effect that could result. I suspect that can be managed - e.g. the meme is set up in a separate tab, away from the flow of friends' updates. - Hutch Carpenter
I would always vote for link-centric. If somebody else shares it...add it into the comments. - Chris Nixon
Person-centric is probably a better user experience, but link-centric is very attractive to content producers. Especially if they can search for links to their domain. - engtech
One thing I would *love* is if FF unrolled tinyurls, feedburner links, etc. That would be necessary for link-centric - engtech
I like the exploration of ideas. However, I echo @HutchCarpenter's concern regarding the echo-chamber. Would my friendfeed be cluttered? Woulid I have to wade through gigantic posts such as this one where a ton of people have shared, liked, or commenting on the same link? Would I lose my current feeling of community if I was sucked into a massive conversation? Would interesting tid-bits get lost and scrolled by to fast by these compilations of linking behaviour? - Seek Ground
I have concerns about the merging of different comment streams (in the link-centric model). The same item from different people will have different subsets of people commenting, depending on the poster's friends. Different people will see different comments depending on their friend graph, their hiding preferences, etc., thus it would be hard to maintain a coherent conversation. - Mihai Parparita
Great idea - and it should be user-configurable all over the place. I post links to every article I write for InformationWeek in at least three places that FriendFeed picks up. As a FriendFeed producer, I should be able to configure my FriendFeed to designate which item is authoritative for duplicate links. And as a consumer I should be able to designate which source is authoritative for *others'* FriendFeeds, as well as whether to filter on a per-user or per-link basis (i.e. do I see same link from 2+ ppl) - Mitch Wagner
To the FriendFeed folks. While you do listen to us, please also feel free to ignore us. Overall, I'm quite happy with the FF UI. I also trust that you're smarter than me and I look forward to the FFFuture. - Mike Reynolds
"'The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,' said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public." - Bret Taylor
Big deal, I take my mac charger with me _everywhere_! :) - Robert Konigsberg
posted a message
“Made profiteroles with chocolate sauce for Jim and my wife tonight based on yesterday's cooking class. Puffs were a bit burnt on the bottom, but the chocolate sauce cured all. Soooo full.”
Ohhhh....profiteroles...mmm...You know who makes really good profiteroles? Bucca di Beppo. It's so good! Unfortunately, they only make them once every other, other full moon. - April Buchheit
Next time you're in New York, I'll take you on a profiterole tour. Or, if a romantic profiterole tour with Mike Yang is not how you would spend your time in NYC, I can just give you recommendations and you can go with Karen. - Mike Yang
