Month: July 2008

Friendfeed and the Hong Kong effect

Friendfeed is the newest new thing out in Silicon Valley that has hockey stick growth in only a few weeks. Seen by many as a refuge from Twitter and the constant ‘fail whale’, Friendfeed’s growth is just going out of control. (Friendfeed, for those not in the know, is a micro-blogging platform that lets you put up quick notes to your ‘core regular’ followers, i.e. friends. Twitter was the original, but simply cannot keep up with the growth, leading to a fail message of a big whale picture).

Anyway, I’m following a few tech luminaries and that shows me what their friends are posting, but I’m starting to notice something that I call the ‘Hong Kong effect’ with postings.

When I was living in Hong Kong, the Internet, quite frankly, was pretty boring. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it until I thought about it for a bit and realized I was accessing all of my normal sites each day (Washington Post, NY Times, Silicon Valley sites, etc) at what turned out to be night time in the USA. Websites don’t really get updated at 1 in the morning, and in fact many go into maintenance mode at say 4 am (i.e. slower, etc). So the page I saw at the Washington Post when I woke up in Hong Kong (8am HK/8pm DC) was pretty much the same page I saw when I was having dinner later that night (6pm HK/6am DC).

The same sort of thing is happening with Friendfeed. With its userbase primarily in Silicon Valley, it seems that I’ll wake up in the morning in DC (7am) and there will be a few stories posted from after I went to bed, but I won’t really see any new content until about 1 or 2 pm this afternoon, when most of the Silicon Valley crowd gets up and starts chatting.

I guess I should start following more folks in Europe (I have a few) but the heavy users (and their friends) still seem to be living and posting on West Coast time.

We’ll see if I can change that in the next few days. It’s an interesting site (though I don’t like visually how the comment section appears) and I suspect it will have a very good future, so long as we don’t see the big whale appear on the homepage.

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Is the best guy on the Orioles groundskeeper Mike Palulis?

He is a fan favorite, and he runs with an energy (and speed) that actually gets the crowd standing up and cheering. Did a quick search and there is no video on Youtube yet. There is a general one of the crew doing a ‘drag’ of the base lines but not sure if he is in it. There is also a picture on the homepage but not sure how long it will be there. We’ll see what the other bloggers come up with over the day. ]]>

Russians to deploy nuclear bombers to Cuba

Nope, it’s not a 1962 headline, but one you might read shortly.

Leaks are dripping out of a Kremlin-friendly news organizations in Europe that are suggesting Russia may soon stage nuclear-capable bombers in Cuba, so reports the Washington Post.

Some Russian experts dismissed the possibility of a new Cuban crisis. “It’s very silly psychological warfare,” said Alexander Golts, an independent military analyst, in a telephone interview. “Putin and Medvedev are very militant in words but very cautious in practical issues. They have not taken any step that can be seen as a real threat to the West, and I cannot see any reason to raise this threat against the U.S.”

But “if it’s true, it looks like a repetition of the Caribbean crisis” he said, using the common Russian term for the Cuban missile crisis.

Maybe the Russians are just doing this to make Obama look more like JFK.

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Time to Watch the Tour de France is now.

Ok, if you’ve been uninterested or unmotivated to watch the Tour de France up to this point, the time is now to tune in. Coverage starts most days at about 8:30am on the Versus channel, which was formerly known as Outdoor Life Nework.

Yesterday the Tour started up in the Alps, where it will be for the next two days. The three top leaders are separated by all of about 10 seconds, and it is in the mountains that time shifts are the most vast. Tuesday and Wednesday see them up in the Alps, and this is probably where we’ll see the winner come forth, eventhough there is about a week of racing before Paris.

Or course there is now the annual drug issue confronting some teams, but there is also some criticism of the current Yellow Jersey holder Frank Schleck from his own team coach.

”I told Frank, if he wants to win, it’s going to hurt,” he said.

Tune in and watch the battle….

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Radovan Karadzic finally captured by Serbian police

It only took a decade…

You may remember this guy from the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Governments have been ‘looking for him’ (more or less, kind of) since the wars ended and the atrocities were discovered, but despite his unique hair do, it seems no one has ever been able to find him.

Supporters of him will quickly point to ‘other atrocities’ that were committed by the other side, but his arrest might soon help put an end to an ugly chapter in European history.

The BBC is reporting the details on his arrest:

The Bosnian Serb wartime political leader disappeared in 1996.

He had been indicted by the UN tribunal for war crimes and genocide over the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.

His wartime military leader, Ratko Mladic, remains at large.

“Radovan Karadzic was located and arrested tonight” by Serbian security officers, a statement by the office of President Boris Tadic said, without giving details.

“Karadzic was brought to the investigative judge of the War Crimes Court in Belgrade, in accordance with the law on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”

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Movie Review–The Bank Job

“The Bank Job” On DVD last weekend (I no longer get to the theater).

True story? To some extent. In 1971 £4 million robbed from a British Bank, including pictures of a ‘royal person’ in a compromising sexual position, several cabinet ministers photographed in a brothel, and a spreadsheet of corrupt policeman at Scotland Yard. Mi-5, Scotland Yard (both clean and corrupt coppers), and various London mafia types all chased down the robbers who really didn’t know what they had gotten into.

Now, is it true? No idea–the file was “D-Noticed” meaning it was headlines one day and illegal to write about it the next. Papers just stopped covering it for ‘National Security Reasons”. Some of the files are still classified (until 2054!). Movie was based on leaks and guesses….

But a pretty good movie nonetheless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bank_Job

NOTE: Plot disclosed above (if you want to rent it you’ll spoil the ending)

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Why I upgraded to the new 3g iPhone

Because it was free.

I mean basically, that’s it. My old iPhone is making its way on Ebay right now and the current prices they are fetching are incredibly similar to the price of buying a new iPhone (which I did earlier today).

I’m not one to rush and get the newest of the new simply because it is the newest, but with a chance like this to pay $0 and get a new phone I had to jump.

I was in Annapolis on another matter and called the Apple store, which the apple.com computer said was sold out. I spoke to the woman and she said ‘call back in 30 minutes’. The UPS guy at the Annapolis Apple store usually arrives about 10:30 and sure enough, he had a batch of new iPhones with him. The Apple folks told me it took about ‘10 minutes to ‘check-in’ the delivery’ and then they would be on sale.

I got to the store just as the UPS man walked out, and they made an announcement in the store that any customer looking to buy a phone should leave the store and get in line. I was 4th in line.

Unfortunately the people in front of me took a bit of time or had credit problems or whatever. Since I already had an iPhone and ATT account my upgrade and purchase took all of about 10 minutes. Others who were in line before me were still in the store.

The old iPhone went offline about 15 minutes after I left the store. The new one started working shortly thereafter. I’m now in the process of restoring from backup the contents of my original iPhone to the new one. The original is also being cleaned up for sale (note: if you ever buy Apple products, save the original box for resale purposes. Apple products get premium resale value vs. other electronics, and the original box helps).

So the upgrade is going on now and I’m off to get some lunch.

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Millions to march against FARC and kidnappings

Millions of folks are on the move around the world to protest against Colombia’s FARC rebels and their policy of hostage taking and drug dealing. Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian hostage freed in a daring military rescue earlier this month, will lead protests in Paris. Protests are planned in over 40 cities.

Of course it may fall on deaf ears. So many groups and organizations hear only what they want to hear, and continue to receive support from those of an ideological bent or with a financial interest (drug dealers). These enablers are the ones that need to be ferreted out if FARC is to ever be disbanded and peace return.

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