FeedDemon is a news aggregator being designed by Nick Bradbury who also designed HomeSite. It has some minor yet interesting improvements on news aggregator UI.
I am not quite sure if the second screenshot was generated out of RSS feed or not. If so, I am impressed.
Ray [Ozzie] writes "don't blogs actually increase the value of Sponsored Links?" Unless I misinterpreted his argument, Google makes money by selling control over keywords, control which becomes more important as noise (i.e. blogs) gets louder. As blogs get more popular, everyone will have to pay protection money to stay above the blogging flood.
He has a valid point. But, while the value of Sponsored Links rises, the value of Google as a useful service will go down. Google will have to find a sustainable balance between the two values. I think the solution I outlined yesterday provides that balance because, while most bloggers will choose to implement it, the solution is not under Google's control and allow intentional abuse by, er, evil bloggers. Evil bloggers? Aiya! Mr. Bush has some powerful memes.
I have been living in a waterfront home for more than 15 years now. When you fly into SFO, look out the window on the left and you will see a mile long lagoon shaped liked an arrow. I live where the arrow feather should be. Oracle headquarter buildings shaped like drums are near the arrow head. Its pretty quiet here (except for the small airplanes frequenting nearby airport) because people know water can amplify sound, especially at night, and keep the noise down.
Last night a neighbor two houses down was apparently having a party and was playing music really loudly. The music was amplified by the narrow lagoon and projecting right into my house. Although the sound was the loudest I have ever heard in 15 years of living here, I am not a party-pooper so I let it go until it was around 11pm and my son couldn't sleep due to the noise. So I went over to ask them to lower the volume. What I got in return were verbal abuses from an old lady who lived there and physical abuse from her husband.
Drunk, she yelled she was a lawyer and she knew how to take care of troublesome Chineses. While I was thinking whether to tell her that I am not Chinese, her husband walked over and pushed me hard in front of my house. Oy! That really pissed me off. I came back inside and tried to cool off violent thoughts with reason. Although I was just standing there getting yelled at, I guess the guy was trying to be protective of his wife. And I wasn't hurt (except for a slight whiplash) so it wasn't a big deal. The lady was drunk so I can let her abuses slide, hoping she behaves better in court rooms.
If there is a lesson to be learned here, its this: don't try to reason with people when they are drunk. I should have waited longer and let the police handle it instead of going over myself.
