Bret Taylor

"The problem for Mr. Burris, of course, is that he was named to the seat by the embattled Illinois governor, Rod R. Blagojevich. Ms. Erickson had already said that the appointment letter forwarded by the governor’s office did not comply with Rule II of the Senate’s standing rules, which requires signatures of both the governor and the secretary of state. The Illinois secretary of state, Jesse White, has refused to sign, saying the appointment is invalid because of a federal corruption investigation surrounding the governor and what prosecutors describe as his efforts to sell the Senate seat, vacated by Mr. Obama." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

I like that. Another example on how we function far better with the particular. If we can put names and faces on our competitors, it is more real to us than if we have a large mass of them. Although rationally it is easier to be in the top 20 percent in a large group than a small group, but that's not what our emotions perceive. - Joelle Nebbe

Hola Bret - I just relocated to Guatemala from California and am working on a model leveraging Friendfeed like features to empower the common citizen to combat the major violence/insecurity problems that we are facing - any chance to meet while you are down here to get your thoughts/recommendations? Thanks! Gabriel (gabriel@amigolatino.com) - Gabriel Biguria

Enjoy your trip Bret! Hope the weather and travels are perfect :) Time with Family is nice, Cheers!! - Susan Beebe

Happy New Year! Say hi to the fam and have a great trip! - Emily Miller

"Pakistan is moving some troops away from its western border with Afghanistan, where the United States has pressed it to combat Taliban militants, and stopping many soldiers from going on leave amid rising tensions with India, senior Pakistani officials said Friday. A senior military official said in an interview that the decision to sharply restrict leave for soldiers was taken “in view of the prevailing environment,” namely the deteriorating relations with India since the Mumbai terrorist attacks last month. He added that the Pakistani air force was “vigilant” and “alert” for the same reason. A second Pakistani security official would not say where the forces were being sent, but confirmed the troop movements and the restrictions on leave, saying “there’s an obvious reason for that.”" - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

Participants in ethnic and religious conflicts damage themselves as much as they damage each other. It's a totally no-win deal. - Sean McBride

help GAZA http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WO... - anahita

Yeah, I don't either. :p - Helen Somethingorothersky

Lindsay, it was a feature from last year. - Rochelle

I didn't even know what Festivus was until yesterday. - mathew, keynote not lame

Thanks to Kevin for another great logo... - Bret Taylor

Thanks! Happy Holidarys! Merry Christmas! - Bill Romanos

happy christmas, chanukah and kwanzaa. - Deniz Eda Göze

Good thinking. - Roberto Bonini

LOL I was helping someone once. Step one: Did you know your desktop computer was unplugged? - Mitchell Tsai

Bret - duck tape it to the wall ...er UPS! - Susan Beebe

And the car sprinkles look like... bigger-than-normal sprinkles. But it was a grand experiment :) - Bret Taylor via mail2ff

Aha! The FriendFeed Bakery? ;) - Tyson Key

@Bret: see http://friendfeed.com/e/4dc846... - Jess Lee

Because I care... - Bret Taylor

My son lave that - shizhao

I love the bonus star on the sleeve. - Tom Stocky

Karen and I were having fun with our sugar cookie press today... - Bret Taylor

Shannon please get us pictures of these "Christmas" screaming cookies! :D - Susan Beebe

We had cookie bags made for different guests at a party. The Christians had a cross cookie in the collection, the Jews got a dreidl, and the secular humanists got dinosaurs. We gave the choice to some kids and saw temporary conversion events. - Chris Pounds

I love this blog... An overview of the best and worst logo updates of the past year. - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

wow that Animal Planet one is sux! - Susan Beebe

Absolutely Susan, horrible - Shey

+1 for the Oklahoma Thunder LOL - Shey

"Last year, he did three films — ‘The Savages,’ ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ and ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’ — and in each one he was a distinct and entirely different human. It’s that humanity that is so striking — when you watch Phil work, his entire constitution seems to change. He may look like Phil, but there’s something different in his eyes. And that means he’s reconstituted himself from within, willfully rearranging his molecules to become another human being." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

.Philip Seymour Hoffman: some key movies by date [items] Scent of a Woman 1992 | Boogie Nights 1997 | The Big Lebowski 1998 | Magnolia 1999 | The Talented Mr. Ripley 1999 | State and Main 2000 | Almost Famous 2000 | Owning Mahowny 2003 | Capote 2005 | Mission: Impossible III 2006 | Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 2007 | Charlie Wilson's War 2007 | Synecdoche, New York 2008 | Doubt 2008 - Sean McBride

He and Don Cheadle are the best today, IMO. - Peter Simard

"Digg Director David Sze, a partner with venture capital firm Greylock Partners, acknowledges the value of his firm's Digg investment has likely dropped even since the September venture investment. "If I had to sell Digg today, I would probably not be getting the valuation I got earlier this year," he says. One reason may be that Digg's public profile is much larger than its financial might. Last year the company lost $2.8 million on $4.8 million in revenue, according to Digg financial statements reviewed by BusinessWeek. In the first three quarters of 2008, Digg lost $4 million on $6.4 million in revenue. Adelson declined to comment on the figures." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

This comment was interesting: "As someone who knows folks inside Google who looked at the Digg acquisition details, it appears that more than 50% of Digg's front-page link submissions are coming from roughly 27 users! There's a tremendous crowdhacking problem over there." - Private Sanjeev

Didn't Digg ditch Google and pick MSFT as their ad network? Perhaps their revenues would be higher if they had chosen more wisely. :) - Ray Cromwell

I've always wished they had something like this, this is great! - Amber

Agreed, this is very cool. - Jay

i love the direction harbaugh is taking the team. this year they were tougher and more competitive. now they have to learn how to close out games. a big play or two in the closing minutes of, say, the oregon and ucla games, a few tds at the end of those early long drives in the big game at cal, and you're looking at a 7-5 or 8-4 bowl team right now. - .LAG

I agree. The team is actually competitive and fun to watch now. I am disappointed we didn't close out 6 wins this year though - there were so many games we should have won that we didn't. - Bret Taylor

Do you think Harbaugh is going to get an offer from an NFL team? I think at least a couple of teams will try and tempt him away. - Cains

@cains: stanford extended harbaugh's contract through 2014...so hopefully he'll stay, but there's always a "buyout" clause in these deals and money talks. not just because i'm an alum, but i think football success at Stanford is a great sports story, because, with all respect to the USCs, Ohio States, and Floridas of the world, our guys are actually STUDENT-athletes, not semi-pros hanging out on campus. .LOLz - .LAG

"Feb 24: Kid brother receives hand-me-down Cuban dictatorship... June 27: Robert Mugabe re-elected with massive grassroots violence campaign... August 7th: Cheney is outraged over invasion of smaller country by Superpower" - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

Ahhahah. Great photos. - Arda Çetin

Bret is one of the co-founders of FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble

Skip ahead to 3:30 - Pat Hawks

Making my first iPhone app tonight since Karen's out of town. I like this tutorial because it contains more code than words. - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

Gary, thanks. I guess I never tried opening it up, and was assuming it was still nib from the NeXT days. Does the x in xib stand for xml? Does anyone ever create these files by hand in a text editor? - Chris White

Please Bret, make a ff app on the iPhone. I just can't stand the browser. - David Wu

"Web entrepreneurs who refer to their start-ups as their second family, take note: Friday is the second annual Spouse 2.0 Day, dedicated to the significant others of start-up founders. To celebrate, founders are asked to buy their significant others a gift, then post to their blogs or Twitter streams about it, using the “Spouse 2.0″ tag. The stories will be collected on the project’s Web site. “Because of the long hours that traditionally come with running an Internet start-up business, everything else seems to get pushed aside, like friends, family,” said Ashley Angell, one of the event’s organizers. “When you’re sending e-mails from bed at 2 in the morning, which invariably all start-up founders do, they get neglected and put up with an awful lot of stuff.” Leaving the BlackBerry outside the bedroom is an option on Spouse 2.0 Day." - Bret Taylor via Bookmarklet

@bruce - heh. - Ivan Kirigin