Brian White

The posts are starting to trickle out of the time zones that are ~ 9 hours ahead of Mountain View, and into the feedreader.

Here’s one I spotted on Google Operating System:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/opengoogle.html

You’ll be able to select from a list of approximately 100 ranking signals like: the page’s self-importance, the number of original ideas, the IQs of their authors, the number of links from Wikipedia, and decide their importance.

Heh, nice…

Looking forward to more.

Update:

Waxy and Anil have (will have) this covered in spades.

I asked on Twitter the other day, if “Rickrolling” was reaching an inflection point of popularity. I have been Rickrolled three times in the past couple of weeks.

I’m thinking I’m correct, as the New York Times has written up the meme. Also, some Google Trends data supports it:

Well, that’s more of a hammock than a hockey stick, but it’s growth nonetheless…

Wow. Were episodes one and two of John Adams good or what? I’m digging around for history books…

April Update: I was moved by the Declaration of Independence scenes in Episode 2, but I haven’t thought much of the following episodes. Current rating: “Meh.”

I’m reading around about the iPhone SDK announcement, and I see people making a big deal about ActiveSync and ‘Exchange Push.’

My web-based mail client pings home frequently (a couple of times a minute, perhaps) via AJAX techniques. Phone apps have the same HTTP connection available. If you’re curious, keep Gmail open with the LiveHTTPHeaders addon installed and watch the request/responses stream by. Isn’t frequent pull the same as “push?” I’m having an acid flashback of the Wired hype about Push in the mid-90s…and the PointCast screensaver, which “pushed” a bunch of information to you while you were away from your computer…

I guess I’m just annoyed that “Push Technology,” in 2008, is still being called out as something customers need…

Update: Since Third-party apps appear to be limited in that they have to terminate when the user switches apps, this probably makes a daemon harder to run on the iPhone. I’m starting to understand the announcement.

Over at GigaOM, Android’s ‘web-like application’ functionality is covered. I believe there are reasons that a web browser in the phone isn’t the answer to everything-apps for a while (read: Flash on the iPhone), so this wonderful new era of competing phone UIs and functionality is great and long overdue. If one is unsatisfied with a web app in phone-based browser, it’s good that Android (and, I’m presuming, the soon-to-be-revealed-in-detail iPhone SDK) will allow lively parallel apps that work much better in the phone operating stack. And all-you-can-eat phone plans are becoming the norm (the iPhone plan already has unlimited data).

Good times, good times.

Lucky you, because you’ve got five seasons waiting to be watched!

The Wire is now my favorite show, maybe all-time. The series concludes with this Sunday’s finale. I’m bummed about that, as it’s been a torrid affair with the show in the last few months. Despite having been an HBO subscriber for years, the ads for the show never compelled me to watch. I think my mistake was mixing up Oz with The Wire adverts, and I remember thinking that Oz looked interesting but was probably too gritty. Also, I can only have a certain number of shows in rotation, as time is limited. The buzz caught up with me in December, and my girlfriend and I got immediately hooked. We binged on four seasons in eight weeks.

The good news is that you probably haven’t seen The Wire, according to USA Today, as it had a peak viewership of only 4 million.

One thing the falling numbers can tell you is that The Wire simply went on too long, outrunning its audience’s interest. It’s wonderful to have the luxury and ability to structure your series like a novel, and then stretch it out over a six-year span. But if Simon wanted viewers to get to the end of the story, he clearly needed to get there faster himself.

This won’t matter to you if you compress your viewing into months instead of six years by watching seasons back-to-back, like we did.

I’m guessing that a cult following for the show only grows over the years, not unlike Firefly.

The third season (Hamsterdam) was probably my favorite, but the fifth is equally compelling. I won’t spoil anything for you, head over to NetFlix and queue it up.