massless

Pegs, an experiment in page layout and interaction.

2008-12-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm thinking harder about page consumption again, I wanted to surface an old experiment from when I was working on Reader. I'm wondering if a better-executed version of this concept could be useful in an era where site navigation and ads are too easily scrolled off-page? (e.g. IMDB, especially)

It seems worth reconsidering ways to optimize content, nowadays.

Demo

The experiment looks like a normal page until the scrollbar is used. Content areas scroll only as high or low as their content.

Try out "pegs" by visiting the demo and scrolling up and down.

ex. Screenshot of demo and concept. Two columns, left column doesn't scroll if small enough.

It's a little...odd. Can't tell if I like using it yet. Needs a trial with real content.

Caveats: It's an early work, still. Watch out for bugs.

How this began

Updated this story because I got it wrong. Crud. Better minds and archived emails now help show the important details I should have included.

All of us working on Google Reader were looking into ways of making navigation and selection state more visually appealing. Mihai Parparita, tech lead of Reader's frontend, suggested we should have two scrolling areas for navigation and viewing but everyone wanted to figure out a better way than to have multiple scrollbars on a page.

It seemed sad that one scrollbar would interrupt selection state by being placed in the middle. I began work on a demo where the scroll bar would be hidden or at least minimized in some way. I wondered if it could work like the way a differential would work in a car. I began experimenting with just controlling both areas with the scrollwheel in one area only. (In my earlier post, I said I'd thought I'd written my "differential scrolling" notes and script after the left-hand-scrollbar experiment. Nope. That came before, it turns out.)

Kevin Fox (who works now at FriendFeed, don'tcha know), also wanted a better way to scroll. While designing things for Reader, and based on other products he'd been working on (e.g. Calendar), he began considering controlling both areas with the scrollbar in one area only. Kevin and I both came up with early implementations of scroll management. (I should've remembered this - my apologies to Kevin - I'm adding it here so that people know that Reader's awesomeness and experimentation has had many sources.) My experiment used an internal scrolling element to control two areas via a fixed area and a header, Kevin's had a single scrollbar over the whole page with no header. Both were incredibly similar as each area scrolled independently of the other.

I'm pretty sure Kevin came up with the name "Pegs", though we're not sure. :)

Kevin's experiment clearly influenced the development of mine. Right after seeing his, I broke out of thinking in terms of an interior set of elements whose scrolling was determined by a master source, and changed my demo to have the master source be at the document level. Much more interesting. Thank you, Kevin.

At the same Nick Baum (among others) had an idea that any "pegged" approach could be smarter about how it managed the other bar, namely that some logic to when each column would scroll should be length-based. This was a huge improvement.

Days later, during a internal launch road map thread, it was Kevin who first mentioned that having the "Scroll bar on the left is a really interesting idea. <div dir="rtl"> :)" and since that sounded intriguing (and given I'd already finished my scroll-managing object that could do this, too) I made a demo of the left-hand-side insanity and sent it for feedback.

ex. Screenshot of the crazy left-hand version.

Whoops. Everyone agreed: It felt weird and alien to use. (Including Kevin and I.) I went back and modified my original demo with improved logic for scrolling. But we'd moved on... only later did I begin to improve the "Pegs" approach for general use.

Santas! (A "shibboleth" service.)

2008-12-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

Since I needed to crack my knuckles and have a warm-up, programming-wise, I made a small service for creating a Secret Santa list.

I've been thinking of web services like these as "shibboleth" services. In my head these are applications where a password is required but identity is de-emphasized, usually meaning users don't need to choose or manage a username or profile.

There's already a better name for this, right? Headless? Non-playered? Assisted authentication? I should know the term by now but I'm a little behind - nevertheless, it seems like they're easy and suitable for lightweight, fun usages.

Possibly true trivia about U.S. Cabinet positions.

2008-11-22T04:06:00.000-08:00

Jefferson, Monroe, and Van Buren were all Secretaries of State who later became President.
^source

Jefferson, Calhoun, and Van Buren were all Secretaries of State who later became Vice-President.
^source

No women have ever served as Secretaries of Treasury, Defense, Veterans Affairs, or Homeland Security.
^source

Frances Perkins was described as an "angel at the Cabinet table" in an article in The Nation from 1933 after she became the first woman in the U.S. Cabinet.
^source

A President is said to have a "kitchen cabinet" when they have private advisors whose counsel they prefer over their actual Cabinet. (Reagan, Kennedy, and Jackson were accused of this.)
^source

More woman have served as Secretaries of Labor then any other Cabinet position.
^source

Elliot Richardson (famous for resigning rather than following Nixon's order to fire the person prosecuting the President for abuse of power) is the only individual to have served in four Cabinet-level positions: Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, and Secretary of Commerce.
^source

The remarkably named Salmon Portland Chase, who was Secretary of Treasury during the Civil War, introduced the first govt-issued-and-mandated paper currency for the U.S. and authorized the use of "In God We Trust" on its design. His name provided inspiration for The Chase National Bank, which is now part of the finance firm of JPMorgan Chase, though Salmon never had any formal connection with his eponymous institution. He later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and his face adorns the $10,000 bill.
^source

Henry C. Wallace and Henry A. Wallace both served as Secretaries of Agriculture. Their names aren't similar coincidentally, they were actually a father and son Cabinet legacy ... and, in stranger notoriety, Henry A. was enraptured by a spiritualist who designed the set for the premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" and whom Wallace sent letters claiming he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla" would create an era of peace and plenty. He then went on to become Vice-President under FDR. Later, he became editor of The New Republic. Then he created a new breed of chicken.
^source

Florida and Campaigning, Little Stories

2008-10-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

The New Volunteer

Just after General Powell's endorsement of Obama for President, a bulldog of a man walks into the office, hands us his business card, and asks what volunteer work he can do for Barack. Casually he tosses out, "I'm a registered Republican and after the endorsement I felt it was time to come in here."

The Three Totals

One afternoon while out talking with voters, a field organizer for our office gets in a auto accident. Neither car involved can be driven anymore, and our organizer is hurt from the impact. An ambulance carries her to a local hospital, worry abounds, and her family is called. Shortly after being checked into the emergency room, our office gets a text message from her asking for status: "So, how many canvassers do I have out?"

Pitching and Catching

It's early evening in Tampa, and only an hour or so before the soon-to-be last game of the American League championship series. I'm suddenly conscripted from my office duties by a co-worker who shoves me in a car with a sign and some pamphlets and tells me I'm to stand in front of Tropicana Field and re-emphasize the start of early voting for Florida.

I'm ill-suited for this. We're at the entrance to the stadium and people are excited about the game, not politics. Despite being non-blocking in presentation (off to the side of the walkway) our voting signs show a picture of Obama, so our partisanship is evident and I'm uncomfortable with even a peripheral interruption.

I'm paired with Linda, in heels and short, she's about ten or fifteen years older than I am, throws a smile my way, pats me on my shoulder, then wades closer to the crowd of attendees.

"Vote early!" she says. "Voting for Obama? You can do so now."

She repeats this many times. Her voice doesn't carry too far, but passersby can see her sign. They glance at the image of Obama. And many of them (many!) turn their heads slightly and reply: "Fuck you."

She must've gotten over fifty "fuck you"s.

Later, we have to walk back to the office. It's many blocks, and there are no cabs or drivers available. She chucks off her heels and walks barefoot. And never stops. The whole way back she mentions to anyone passing, "Did you know you can vote early? And vote for Obama!"

Later, when she tells us she's another registered Republican volunteer, I whistle in appreciation.

Offerings

I've only had one day of canvassing, for the last few weeks, I've mainly worked with documents and computers and gadgets. In this new assignment, I prepare myself to meet with the common responses to a knock at the door: indifference, antagonism, frustration, annoyance.

I head out with a more experienced canvasser. On my first knock I'm nervous. A tall man answers...

He's proudly wearing an Obama baseball cap. And further inside, I can see his wife, who is wearing an Obama t-shirt.

They are very pleased we're at the door.

We're invited inside for cocktails, which I decline as I'm on duty, and because I begin to wonder if they'll be so many offerings that we'll have to weigh our options on their relative quality before choosing one.

I knock on many doors. Goodwill is in force. I'm later told my experience was "atypical." This just tells me that my co-workers are hiding all the good bounty.

I'm the newest member of Obama's Florida for Change office. (C'mon down.)

2008-09-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

I was interested in doing more with my time than research and commentary for the US Presidential Election so in the beginning of October I'll become an in-state volunteer for the Florida for Change office for Barack Obama. Huge thanks to the Border State Director of Florida For Change for allowing me to be involved.

I'll be working primarily in Pinellas county. How swing is Pinellas? In 2004, the difference between Bush and Kerry was less than 500 votes.

Pinellas

49.5%

225,460

49.6%

225,686

0.9%

4,211

I'll be involved in anything the director and staff would like to assign to me as a responsibility. (Data, IT, and voter contact seems a likely group of tasks I'll be assigned, though.)

For those who'd also like to help in Florida, please sign up at the Florida for Change signup on Obama's website. If you know me, please send me an email, SMS, direct twitter, facebook wall message, or catch me on the street and I'd be happy to direct you to the director for volunteering.

I keep wondering if I should list the reasons why I'm willing to put together a more-than-casual effort for a politician. I'd be happy to do so, but I've got a lot more preparation ahead of me and may not get the time.

Past performance isn't always a good indicator of future activity but interesting stats about Florida's voting record in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election are available via Wikipedia, United States presidential election in Florida, 2004. For example, the color-coded county by county breakdown back then...

The Hidden Power: David Addington

2008-09-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

David Addington is Chief of Staff for Vice President Cheney. Here's an excerpt from a profile about him in the New Yorker from a couple of years ago.

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside.

Emphasis mine. According to many sources, he's been the author (or most senior legal support) of many of the most controversial legal policies of the Bush Administration. He was described by U.S. News and World Report as "the most powerful man you've never heard of".

He's the lawyer behind over 750 signing statements that President Bush has added to bills passed by Congress. He seems to have a different understanding of the Constitutional separation of powers, namely, that no one has the right to examine how executive decisions are made and that in times of war (which is always now since the War on Terror doesn't take a break) the President cannot be restrained by Congress nor any law, national or international.

Some results of this interpretation range from the benign and reasonable to the possibly criminal and include Bush and his team refusing requests for information (as in the case of Pat Tillman's death), documents (an F.B.I. and mob scandal), and clarification (the details of Cheney's energy task force), and has included their directly refusing to obey subpeonas in the investigation of the firing of federal prosecutors. In the last example, the executive branch has successfully avoided legal inquiry with the only consequence being two aides held in contempt by the House of Representatives but whose charges won't be pursued by the Justice Department because of executive privilege.

"Our political heritage is to be skeptical of executive power, because, in particular, there was skepticism of King George III." So says Jane Mayer, the author of the New Yorker article. But I can only guess we're no longer inheritors of that concern given the very real reduction of Presidential oversight over the last eight years.

Which leads me to admit - I feel like I can't be an informed voter without knowing what self-imposed limits an Obama or McCain or Biden or Palin presidency would place on their unrestrained and secret power. But even if they promised to restrain themselves...how would we ever know if they had?

Defending against the spin. So frustrating. [Corrections about candidates]

2008-09-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

1) Watch it get thrown.
2) *sigh* Correct it.

I'm trying to sort out the chaff from the messaging wheat about our candidates for the U.S. executive branch...so I'm making another list for myself (maybe useful to you?) so that I can be reminded of the current research about each claim. This is a non-comprehensive list and as a watchmen's watchman I should be fact-checked as well. Please correct me as necessary. (And yes, I know...that I'm publishing another political post annoys me as much as it may annoy you. Please accept my apology.)

Correcting stuff about Sarah Palin that isn't true.

Palin did NOT cut funding for special needs education in Alaska.

Actually, just the opposite - she tripled per-pupil funding.

Palin did NOT demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library.
Though she did inquire about banning, she never, ever banned any books. Ever.
Palin was NEVER a member of the Alaskan Independence Party.
Palin NEVER endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president.
This is just ridiculous. She wore a pin only when he visited and then took it off. More factually, she headed Steve Forbes' campaign efforts in Alaska.
Palin has NOT pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools.
She's said she's open to it being taught alongside evolution, however, she hasn't actually done anything substantive about it. Hopefully, she'll clarify her position. But it's (currently) incorrect to say she's actually made any changes in Alaskan education regarding creationism.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_palin.html

Correcting stuff about Barack Obama that isn't true.

Obama’s health care plan will NOT "force small businesses to cut jobs".
In fact, the plan exempts small businesses.
Obama's health care plan will NOT put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor."
In fact, those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
Obama has NEVER voted for "corporate welfare" for oil companies.
In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
Obama will NOT close markets to trade.
Though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" NAFTA, now he says he wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it. He's not advocating closing any markets.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html

Obama DID NOT vote to teach sex to kindergarten children.
Wow, this is disgustingly wrong. Rather, Obama voted for a bill in the Illinois state Senate that would update the sex education curriculum and make it "medically accurate." It was specifically designed to teach young kids how to recognize inappropriate behavior and avoid pedophiles and also demanded that any instruction be "age-appropriate". It was deemed urgently necessary enough to arm kids with knowledge about predators that it adjusted the year of beginning instruction. (Additionally, Obama was neither a co-sponsor nor a sponsor of the bill and it never got past the Senate.)

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/off_base_on_sex_ed.html

Obama IS OPEN TO DRILLING for oil.
Specifically, he said he's open to "a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage".

Source: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2008/08/01/0801obama1.html

Obama HAS AUTHORED laws and introduced important legislation, including reform, in his political career.

A lot of criticism about whether a law is "major" or whether being "co-sponsor" is relevant is obscuring the fact that Obama was the chief sponsor (and, occasionally, author) of legislation in his career. It's incorrect to assert otherwise. e.g. There's a bunch of bills he sponsored during his time in the Illinois senate... and a bunch of them were bills of which he was chief sponsor... and those include stuff like..
- Keeping pharmacies from over-charging Medicare beneficiaries
- Child-care capital investment
- Bio-terrorism preparedness
- Changes to videotaped interrogations
- Expanding medical information resources for seniors
- Supreme Court Campaign Reform Act
- Changes to Earned Income Tax Credit

...why not instead criticize what he focused on as a legislator and what these bills might mean in terms of an Obama presidency? There's plenty of political meat for anyone to chew on.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html

Obama will NOT INCREASE TAXES for working, middle-class families.
Nope. NO. NO. This is wholly incorrect. Despite a McCain ad claiming otherwise, Obama's plan would cut taxes for the vast majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting a great deal.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_new_stitch_in_a_bad_pattern.html

Correcting stuff about John McCain that isn't true.

McCain will NOT fail to support loan guarantees for the auto industry.
Despite what an Obama ad says, McCain is actually in favor of low-cost loans to that industry.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/hit_the_brakes.html

McCain did NOT say we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan.
In 2003, McCain actually said that we "may" muddle through, and he recently also called for more troops there.
McCain does NOT define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year.
He was joking. Seriously. He even said, "but seriously" just after it. C'mon.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html

Correcting stuff about Joe Biden that isn't true.

Biden did NOT get fewer votes as a presidential nominee than Palin as mayor.

Source: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/694/

[What they said] - McCain has said stuff that's wrong, incorrect, or misleading.

McCain FALSELY claimed that his plan will increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy.
His actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html

[What they said] - Obama has said stuff that's wrong, incorrect, or misleading.

Obama's plan currently CANNOT "pay for every dime" of his spending and tax cut proposals "by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens."
This was quite the whopper. His proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals seems crucial. And his plan, like McCain’s, looks likely to leave the U.S. facing big budget deficits.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html

Obama FALSELY accused McCain of saying "no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investment in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels."
In fact, in 2002 McCain not only wanted tougher standards than most of the Senate did, but he was lauded by a Democrat.

Source: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/672/

[What they said] - Biden has said stuff that's wrong, incorrect, or misleading.

Biden FALSELY claimed that "murder and violent crime rates went down eight years in a row" as a result of the Biden Crime Bill.
A peer-reviewed study published in the February 2007 issue of the journal Criminology found that the bill's "spending had little to no effect on crime."

Source: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/158/

[What they said] - Palin has said stuff that's wrong, incorrect, or misleading.

Palin did NOT say "thanks, but no thanks" to the building of the Ketchikan bridge.
She clearly supported it and didn't stand up to Congressional waste - she accepted the money on behalf of Alaska.
Palin FALSELY accused Obama of being more worried about terrorists being read their rights than apprehended.
This is a whopper. Obama seems as committed to apprehending terrorists as the other candidates. But he's a constitutional scholar and law professor and is passionate about the rights of habeus corpus being respected.

Source: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html

Are You Experienced? Palin and Obama. A Comparison.

2008-09-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Y’all, circumstances have induced me to put my hand in the toilet. Now I'm posting about politics.
I'm so disappointed in myself. :( So...

Recently (and especially tonight) there'll be a lot of voices saying the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee has more relevant experience than the Democratic Presidential nominee regarding the executive offices they seek. Is this true? I wouldn't have thought so, but I've been very wrong about so many things that I realized I should spend some time trying to diminish my ignorance.

(I know it might seem that discussing Obama's experience in the context of Palin's is false equivalency. But a lot of people out there really think their qualifications for executive office are nearly equal. They're not crazy, they're putting forth some effort here, so it seems worth a second to see what this is about.)

The debate about who has more experience has included checklists. I started to cobble one together. It definitely could use some improvement...it's just a start.

	Barack Obama	Sarah Palin

Age	47	44
Religion	Christianity. (left Trinity United Church of Christ after condeming his pastor's inflammatory rhetoric, might now worship at Apostolic Church of God)	Christianity. (attends Juneau Christian Center, grew up attending Wasilla Assembly of God)
Current job	Senator of Illinois	Governor of Alaska
Previous jobs	Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago (1985-1988); Summer law associate at Sidley & Austin (1989); Summer law associate at Hopkins & Sutter (1990); Director of Illinois Project Vote (1992); Associate at Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland (1993-1996); Lecturer at University of Chicago Law School (1992-1996); Senior Lecturer at University of Chicago Law School (1996-2004); Illinois State Senator (1997-2004)	Sports Reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage (?-1988); City Council member of Wasilla, AK (1992-1996); Mayor of Wasilla, AK (1996-2002)
Foreign policy experience	Has limited congressional work in foreign policy... He sponsored or introduced several bills with foreign policy implications, including: 109 S. 2125 - the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2005; 110 S. 433 - the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007; 110 S.CON.RES. 25 - Condemning the recent violent actions of the Government of Zimbabwe against peaceful opposition party activists and members of civil society; 110S. 1430 - Iran Sanctions Enabling Act; --- and he's held an assignment on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during which he made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa -- and he became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs, but this barely counts since he hasn't yet called it into session. (It's been stagnant a year!)	Almost none... though she is the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard. But according to Major General Craig E. Campbell, immediate commander of the Alaska National Guard, she hasn't yet played a role in any defense activities relating to the Guard but that she's "extremely responsive and smart" and in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder... [Associate Press cite]
Domestic policy experience	Experienced. Reformed ethics and health care laws in Chicago's South Side. Increased tax credits for low-income voters. Helped reform Chicago welfare. Promoted city-wide childcare subsidies. Supported loan reform before the mortgage meltdown. He was Chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. Helped enact death penalty reforms for Illinois. Sponsored 131 bills since 2005 and has co-sponsored 619 bills during that time.	Experienced. In charge of the Wasilla Police Department and Public Works. Cut her own salary while cutting property taxes. Secured $27 million in earmarked funds for Wasilla. Chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. (Resigned in protest over the ethics violations of colleagues.) Helped pass a tax increase on oil company profits. Signed into law the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA). Signed into law a $6.6 billion operating budget for Alaska. The largest in that state's history.
Military experience	Never served.	Never served. (But her son is in an infantry brigade in the Army. And, as mentioned above, she is nominally the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard despite not doing any commanding yet.)
Education	College degree, law degree, and college professor and lecturer. Occidental college (1979-1981). Columbia University, B.A. in political science with a specialization in international relations (1981-1983). Harvard Law, J.D. and he graduated magna cum laude (1988-1991). While there he was President of the Harvard Law Review (1990). Taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years (1992-2004).	College degree. University of Idaho, degree in journalism, minor in political science (1987). (Previously attended Hawaii Pacific College for a semester and transferred in from North Idaho College.)
Hobbies	Basketball, teaching law, community service, writing (he published a memoir 3 years ago - cheeky!).	Hunting (she's a lifetime member of the NRA), ice fishing, riding snowmobiles, she's also run a marathon and owns a floatplane. (I'm very jealous of the floatplane. Wicked awesome.)

I started with the following premises. I intended them to be non-partisan, however I'm sure a bias has crept in here or there. I'm often a lazy thinker. I've been assuming that...

Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she can face management crises. To many, this is obvious. Just helping to raise five children (I assume Todd helps as well) is an amazing and inspiring feat of management, especially given that Mrs. Palin faced sexism in her professional life despite her talents, and given that one of her sons, Trig, is developmentally disabled. It is churlish and petty to argue that balancing motherhood and professional responsibilities as a public servant is a somehow meager task. How can we dismiss this honestly when viewing Ms. Palin's qualifications? You may disagree with some of her decisions, but she is definitely accomplished at being Governor and being a mother of a large family - which can suggest she has amazing personal discipline and that she could also possibly be excellent at managing other things.

Barack Obama has also demonstrated that he can face management crises. To many, this is obvious. Just studying for and passing the state bar, becoming a professor, guiding students on complex issues of law, volunteering for community service, introducing and supporting national legislation, helping raise two children (I assume Michelle helps as well) while running successive state and national campaigns is an amazing feat of management, especially given that he also had to face racism on many occasions. It is churlish and petty to argue that balancing fatherhood, academia, and professional responsibilities as a public servant is a somehow meager task. How can we dismiss this honestly when viewing Mr. Obama's qualifications? You may disagree with some of his decisions, but he is definitely accomplished as a student, a lawyer, a professor, a Senator, a presidential campaigner, and a father - which can suggest he has amazing personal discipline and that he could also possibly be excellent at managing other things.

Both candidates seem to possess character traits suited to executive management based on the available evidence: they both can manage their time, their emotions, their employees, and their ambition. They both clearly have experience in delegating tasks and power. They both can argue and hold their own in political debates within government. They are both charismatic and attractive.

But there's this non-subtle difference in their pursuit of knowedge - I mean look at all that time Barack completely wasted (they might assume) in studying the law and in school and teaching advanced courses at the University of Chicago. What was that about?

This is the part where I get confused. Are we really doing this again as a country? Y'know, skimming the experience of people with advanced degrees and lifelong interests in academic study and snickering "they think they're so mighty pants" while concluding, well, their education is probably not important? Are we still highlighting skills in management and delegation while downplaying the totally different accomplishments of critical analysis and thinking?

The management experience is helpful stuff, but there's this difference that's compelling to me. Barack has had his ability to analyze critically rigorously tested and challenged for decades.

This isn't a subtle difference, is it? Really? Is experience in middle management all we're striving for in our potential Presidents? C'mon, everyone. Let's let some better light shine here.

To me the debate about experience weighs toward Mr. Obama not because Mrs. Palin is somehow incompetent (this is false and unfair) but because Mr. Obama has great (and greater) breadth and competency.

Just musing about political experience. Arguments about policy differences between them can go over there - you know - right over there, next door, on the many thousands of websites devoted to those arguments. That's not what this post was about. Don't argue about that shit here. I mean it.

A breakdown of what Viacom was granted and denied in the recent ruling in its case against YouTube.

2008-07-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Because I hadn't seen one yet, I thought I'd compile a small breakdown of what Viacom asked the court to order Google to reveal - along with some excerpts of the ruling.

The breakdown:

1) The source code for web search. Denied, protected.

Plaintiffs move jointly pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 to compel YouTube and Google to produce certain electronically stored information and documents, including a critical trade secret: the computer source code which controls both the YouTube.com search function and Google’s internet search tool "Google.com".

Plaintiffs argue that the best way to determine whether those denials are true is to compel production and examination of the search code. Nevertheless, YouTube and Google should not be made to place this vital asset in hazard merely to allay speculation. A plausible showing that YouTube and Google’s denials are false, and that the search function can and has been used to discriminate in favor of infringing content, should be required before disclosure of so valuable and vulnerable an asset is compelled.

2) The code behind YouTube's identification of infringing videos. Denied.

Plaintiffs also move to compel production of another undisputed trade secret, the computer source code for the newly invented "Video ID" program. Using that program, copyright owners may furnish YouTube with video reference samples, which YouTube will use to search for and locate video clips in its library which have characteristics sufficiently matching those of the samples as to suggest infringement.

The notion that examination of the source code might suggest how to make a better method of infringement detection is speculative. Considered against its value and secrecy, plaintiffs have not made a sufficient showing of need for its disclosure.

3) Copies of all removed videos. Granted.

Plaintiffs seek copies of all videos that were once available for public viewing on YouTube.com but later removed for any reason, or such subsets as plaintiffs designate (Pls.’ Reply 41).

While the total number of removed videos is intimidating (millions, according to defendants), the burden of inspection and selection, leading to the ultimate identification of individual “works-in-suit”, is on the plaintiffs who say they can handle it electronically. Under the circumstances, the motion to compel production of copies of all removed videos is granted.

4) Logs data including the "Login ID" and the IP address for each view of a video on YouTube. Granted.

Defendants do not refute that the "login ID is an anonymous pseudonym that users create for themselves when they sign up with YouTube" which without more "cannot identify specific individuals" (Pls.’ Reply 44) , and Google has elsewhere stated:
We . . . are strong supporters of the idea that data protection laws should apply to any data that could identify you. The reality is though that in most cases, an IP address without additional information cannot.
Google Software Engineer Alma Whitten, Are IP addresses personal?, GOOGLE PUBLIC POLICY BLOG (Feb. 22, 2008), http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-ip-addresses-personal.html (Wilkens Decl. Ex. M).

Therefore, the motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted.

5) Metadata for every YouTube video including titles, keywords, comments, flags, poster's username, and other administrative information. Denied.

No sufficiently compelling need is shown to justify the analysis of "millions of pieces of information" sought by this request, at least until the other disclosures have been utilized, and found to be so insufficient that this almost unlimited field should be further explored.

Therefore, the motion to compel production of all those data fields which defendants have agreed to produce for works-in-suit, for all videos that have been posted to the YouTube website is denied.

6) The schema for Google's advertising databases. Denied.

However, given that plaintiffs have already been promised the only relevant data in the database, they do not need its confidential schema (Huchital Decl. ¶ 8), which "itself provides a detailed to roadmap to how Google runs its advertising business" (id. ¶ 9), to show whether defendants were on notice that their advertising revenues were associated with infringing videos, or that defendants decline to exercise their claimed ability to prevent such associations.

7) The schema for Google Video's databases. Granted.

Plaintiffs argue that the schema for that database will reveal "The extent to which Defendants are aware of and can control infringements on Google Video" which "is in turn relevant to whether Defendants had 'reason to know' of infringements, or had the ability to control infringements, on YouTube, which they also own and which features similar content." Id. 52 (plaintiffs’ italics). That states a sufficiently plausible showing that the schema is relevant to require its disclosure, there being no assertion that it is confidential or unduly burdensome to produce. Therefore, the motion to compel production of the Google Video schema is granted.

8) Copies of all of the videos on YouTube marked "private". Denied.

Defendants are prohibited by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("ECPA") (18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.) from disclosing to plaintiffs the private videos and the data which reveal their contents because ECPA § 2702(a)(2) requires that entities such as YouTube who provide "remote computing service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents" of any electronic communication stored on behalf of their subscribers and ECPA § 2702 contains no exception for disclosure of such communications pursuant to civil discovery requests.

8) All non-video data regarding videos on YouTube marked "private" including the number of times watched or embedded. Granted.

Plaintiffs need the requested non-content data so that they can properly argue their construction of the ECPA on the merits and have an opportunity to obtain discovery of allegedly infringing private videos claimed to be public.

There's some things I like about the ruling (of course Google's search source code shouldn't be handed to Viacom) but I'm sad about the concerns about release of user data being considered "speculative." Is this a legal definition separate from the normal usage of the word? Because I can show pretty easily that usernames are often not "anonymous pseudonyms" and that many people use their full names. Linking video habits to a specific person wouldn't be that hard, particularly for those who played by the rules and are content producers that use YouTube promotionally and used their full names and have public profiles linking to websites, blogs, etc.

I'm sad about the IP address arguments as well. I understand Google's in a tricky spot here but the argument they made that IP addresses are "in most cases" not identifiable has been conflated by the court to mean that IP data "cannot identify specific individuals." That's false. People hosting web sites from static IP addresses where they also use the internet (e.g. some small businesses) can be identified by their IP data. Because there's fewer of these cases means that the data can be handed over?

Also, getting all logs data just because a claimant suspects infringement seems too broad. Why not just number of times viewed during various time periods? Does this mean I should ask MTV Networks for demographic data they've collected for all of their content since they've used songs from one of the bands I've been in and I suspect they haven't told me about all the times it was used and aired? Was it just that one time on the Ashlee Simpson show? Really? How can I be sure unless they hand over all usage data, related or not? Also, I'd like all of their advertising data so I can see if I was treated fairly in terms of compensation. I would love that data! I promise I wouldn't use it as an advantage in creating a new business.

Leaving Google

2008-06-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

How can I accurately summarize such a cardinal set of events? It may take me years.

An intense era of personal sacrifice and accomplishment is about to give way to something new. After about four and a half years at Google working with amazing people and ground-breaking products, I've decided that this Friday, June 20th, will be my last day at Google.

Describing the decision as difficult would be weak understatement. Google has been the most fun and fulfilling work experience I've ever had. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have been given. I have loved being at Google and I'm lucky to have helped build things that seem to be useful and fun.

Mostly, I will miss working with people whose skills I'll only achieve as aspirations. People like the Google Reader team members (and I'm including those volunteering their help) who are each incredibly, jaw-droppingly talented. They deserve all of Google's support and help. They take considerable risks personally and professionally and without their leadership and effort, Reader wouldn't exist.

My Dad and I have been talking about posts like these as part of the obsequies of leaving a job and about how to talk about the obvious bits often un-spoken e.g. difficult personal decisions or financial windfalls or wanderlust and desire. Yes, all of those apply here, too. Mainly though, I've often been frustratingly more curious than careful and this decision is made in the hope that I find a better balance.

You know... I really struggled with making the title of this post "Unsubscribed" but I've apparently managed to quell that impulse.

Here's some answers to questions that I suspect might be common.

What will you do next?
For my next trick, I will be thinking about what to do next.

What will happen to Reader?
Fewer bugs will be created as a result of my not coding. :) Seriously though, Mihai Parparita and Ben Darnell have always been the technical leads for Reader and each is a genius. My only (slight) concern is that this leaves a team smaller that's already small for the scale that Reader requires. But Reader's future is likely to be intense and I'm really excited to follow its development knowing what's ahead. More importantly, the team is happy to await my inevitable bug reports! (Update: "Happy" is a not entirely accurate way to express their feelings about that.)

Man, this seems abrupt. Is there a problem at Google? Dork fights?
Heh. No. Everything's ok. Don't go looking for conflict where none exists. I'm grateful to have been at Google.

Are you going to travel?
Not right away.

Are you going to make a film?
...

Are you going to be present online?
Sure. I'm still actively involved in various sharing services. I wonder if I should spend time doing a few more posts about things I learned at Google, like the previous post about my musing about first principles for building a feed reader? If, by some crazy chance, someone has a suggestion about they'd like to know more about, please let me know.

Thanks for listening. Reminder: you may want to move my feed out of your "googler" folder now.

Four Firsts for Feeds

2008-06-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

For the last few years or so, I've been fortunate enough to have my day job involve thinking critically about reading feeds. As a result, I've been musing about first principles.

When Google Reader was first pitched, we had only one guiding principle for building software that would deal with feed reading and that's mostly worked well. But after years of development I think it'd be nice to have a more developed set of principles to help understand feed reading. I've had some in my head and while they're not perfect (not even close) our live experiment gathers a lot of supporting data so I've become more comfortable with sharing these thoughts. Maybe they're correct? Maybe they'll even be useful to someone? Dunno.

So here's my current Four Firsts for Feeds...

Feed reading is inherently polymorphic.
Attention data changes attention.
Reading styles for feeds are pre-established and generally inflexible.
Content that is perceived to be most valuable is not currently available in feeds.

And here's a little more detail about each one...

1. Feed reading is inherently polymorphic.

This is the half-baked line I used in the first meeting about Reader. I believed a feed reader's interface might have to be athletically flexible to match a wide variety of reading styles. At first I was thinking mainly about data types (e.g. calendars, photos, videos, news headlines, essays, polls, games) whose best presentations might have differing experiences. But obviously feed use is broader than content differences. For example, Reader's "frontend" currently delivers the following views of your data: an expanded view, a list view, a search results view, an all items view, an "only new items" view, an offline view, a "no-left-pane" view, Mobile-classic, Mobile-scrolling, Clips, Atom, JSON, Wii, Shared pages, an iGoogle Gadget, and rendering of video and audio. (Whew. Probably missing some.)

Based only partly on user growth after each view launched it's my opinion that Reader's frontend flexibility has been crucial to its success.

On Reader's launch I told a friend to "look at the URL" with the ridiculous hope that I could imply our forethought about delivering different views. (It was "google.com/reader/lens" and the specificity of the last word implied that there were other kinds of designs in the wings.) The point being is that we began Reader by thinking this flexibility was central to building it. If asked, I suppose I'd encourage feed reader developers to think about whether or not their own applications need to be as flexible.

2. Attention data changes attention.

This is already obvious to technologists interested in feeds. So for those who don't know... the kind of data that tracks what we pay attention to and how and why we paid attention to it is currently used by all kinds of media consumption but seems fundamental to feed reading. This information often changes how people read so what's important is that the person reading feeds can see this stuff to help refine their experience. Currently Reader shows unread counts, trends, and annotations but we still have a long way to go in getting all of this kind of information into your hands.

One of the most important developments for Reader has clearly been marking items as read when scrolling, most notably by using the scrollwheel of a mouse. (Dragging is imprecise.) Starring items has been a crucial part of the Reader experience as well. I'm noting this because having flexible and fast means to alter attention data has been crucial to many, many people.

Side note: One of Reader's usage growth spikes occurred after its Trends feature was released. Other little-known fact: Mihai Parparita engineered the entire feature himself in his spare time and we got design help from the wonderful people at MeasureMap that Google had recently acquired/conscripted/enslaved.

3. Reading styles for feeds are pre-established and generally inflexible.

On this point I'm relying on data that is attainable at Google because of size and market dominance as well as having routine user studies and follow-up. So because of this data I'm making an assertion that there is something inherently different about the inflexibility of feed reading styles than compared with other software. It's something borne out in every user test we've ever had and by Reader's development and seems worth academic inquiry at some point.*

People of all stripes including those who've used feed readers, those who haven't, as well as those who understand the underlying architecture and those who don't all seem to have a pre-determined reading style that they find incredibly difficult to change.

The persistence of inflexibility is a little strange. There are many times when people can adapt to software experiences that don't match their expectation so long as they're still strongly identified as useful. You can probably imagine some personal examples.

However, in Reader changing a reading style is often very difficult. People can see the usefulness of opposing views ("Oh, I can see how a list view makes sense") and not change whatsoever ("Yeah, I could NEVER EVER use that") Generally, I've come to believe that people will not use a feed reader if it does not exactly accommodate their reading style. I readily concede that inflexibility in reading styles may only be a problem local to Reader though I suspect a new feed reader may encounter the same behavior. This is possibly due to the ease of switching to services which highlight the specific style the user prefers. Subscription data is portable and there are many simple instructions on how to move from service to service.

Additionally, it's my suspicion that secondary markets for re-feeding may not encounter this limitation. If the emphasis is on communication or collaboration in a re-feeder then what's normative for consumption might (very happily) be unrelated to a person's feed reading style. Dunno yet. It's an exciting time to find out, though.

I'm really hoping that someday an ethnographer studies feed reading styles. There's something very interesting happening here.

4. Content that is perceived to be most valuable is not currently available in feeds.

This problem keeps me awake at nights.

In every user study involving people who've never used a feed reader the lack of full information for the feed they attempted to look at first was a big turnoff for them using a feed reader.

What concerns me is this: people often want the results of well-known media but much of this is still either firewalled or put behind partial feeds which make the feed reading experience less compelling generally. I can understand why publishers feel they should do this since the expenses for a lot of journalism and media creation aren't small and they can't perceive how this would help them make money. They need a solution to this right now - their industry is facing tough challenges.

I don't want the enterprise of efficient, elegant syndication on the web to sit on the sidelines while good resources in investigative journalism bleed out. (Seriously, it looks like they're bleeding out.) And the feed reading space is growing rapidly. There has to be a way for all of us in the feed community to help.

One view of Reader user growth from inception, anonymized. You shouldn't draw too much from this other than "oh, that space is still growing a lot."

5. Just one more thing

Just wanted to mention that none of the above principles explicitly mention using a social network to help filter feed information. It's obviously important. We've always thought so - Shellen especially - and so our earliest demos of Reader years ago all included sharing with friends. Maybe that should graduate to be a core principle of making feed-consumptive software. Five firsts?

* All of the following seem true generally but have been especially true for Google Reader:
- Many people need to see all of an item's content to determine whether to read it in a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people need to only be shown an item's title to determine whether to read it in a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require being able to see unread counts by source when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require sorting items by newest when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require sorting items by oldest when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require tagging of items when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require offline access when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require keyboard shortcuts when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require excellent mouse targets for common tasks when using a feed reader. If they can't they won't use it.

- Many people require content available on their phone via their feed reader. If they can't have it they won't use it.

Starred to Shared in Reader.

2008-03-25T10:46:00.001-07:00

From to

A couple of years ago we made an option in Reader to share tags. Back then, there wasn't yet a dedicated page to shared items, or a "Share" button, or services aggregating shared items. e.g. FriendFeed, Linkriver, RSSMeme, Readburner [about to re-launch]

Things are certainly different now. It's past time for me to use starring for a different non-public purpose. So this'll be the last item I share via starred items. I'll star this post in Reader to remind people that this'll be going away later this week...if you're reading this via my starred items and you're at all interested in the things I'm sharing - why not unsubscribe from the starred and subscribe to my shared feed?

Early adoption always seems to introduce a sort of Brownian motion, doesn't it? Sorry 'bout that.

Not everything's different now, of course. For example, my shared items page in Reader, as well as yours, looks similar to Dealership's page, doesn't it? Yeah, that. Well...we were pressed for time and inspiration at Reader when we made sharing live, however we're keen on updating that styling.

The streets of San Francisco and Fashionist.

2008-03-12T05:12:00.000-07:00

Mai rules. Check these out.

The pictures below are from Mai's site, Fashionist. At Fashionist, she's been posting hundreds of photos of people she sees on San Francisco's streets and asks them what made 'em wear what they were wearing. I'm a heads-down kind of moron and I sometimes forget that our city has such a constant, interesting stream of styles whirling by.

I actually can't pick favorites. And the whole accomplishment is one item on a big list of things she can do that I couldn't even dream of doing (e.g. asking strangers to pose for a fashion site).

There's a ton of stuff up already. I recommend checking it out by clicking through these to see more details for each passer(s)by.

I know very little about bags. Accordingly, here's a picture of hers I really like...of a little bag.

I seem to have made a short film.

2007-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Later, when I've moved back to the topics of feeds, Google, and the birth of a software product, well this digression might seem a bit weird. But on my weeknights and a couple of weekends I made a short movie. A small, funny mystery running less than ten minutes.

It's about Lukas, a man who is having a day he'd probably rather forget. I'm sure you can sympathize...we've all been there, haven't we?...

Filmed using a Panasonic HD camera (if you like the tech details, it's the AG-HVX200) in a single location over the course of 3 weeks. Editing took around 4 days total. The script took 3 days to write which I did mainly while riding the shuttle to work. I read about cameras, lenses, and various guerilla-level introductions to filmmaking at the excellent HD for Indies blog.

I have a higher resolution QuickTime version available at http://massless.org/films/hung but it's still of small resolution even though its file size is around 60MB.

The film features songs by Saturday Looks Good To Me and Citizens Here and Abroad, and The Small Hours. Ok, I'm in two of those bands. But Saturday Looks Good To Me to is an amazing, gotta-love-em fever dream led by Fred Thomas that drive my hands to clap whenever I hear them and I believe they'd do the same for you if only you'd listen. So, go listen.

They're also about to tour in October with one of my favorites ever, The Blow, mainly comprised of Khaela Maricich, whose talent sparks my envy and devotion every few minutes as I press repeat. Details are on the SLGTM website.

Regarding filmmaking (and acting in particular): I think it's useful to know I'm generally ignorant about how this stuff works. I'm just glad I figured out how to remove the lens cap.

About Google Reader's Birth: Part 2.

2007-05-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

This story isn't just about me. But for a long, bad while it was, as described in Part 1 of the lore of Google Reader's birth. This is Part 2, however, where smarter people help limit my ability to totally destroy a good idea...

Watching TV.

I placed some code on the Google intranet that was originally a feed parser in Javascript but that had mutated into an unholy ur-product. I wasn't concerned about code quality - it wouldn't ever be a real thing.

Besides, I knew that preparing for constructive iterative feedback on the not-really-a-parser project would take time and a lot of careful design and preperation and reflection.

"Lemme tell you why your thing sucks," Aaron Boodman helpfully offered before I'd barely begun.

Aaron and I sat near each other in Google, feet apart actually, and after seeing some early development he wanted to talk about the design I'd thrown together.

He let me know (I'm paraphrasing) that I was missing the big picture and that a reading tool would be more useful if its model started with the item (not the source) as a building block and allowed items to be interleaved and maybe even ranked and recommended to other people. Our conversation meandered into comparing certain views to television as TV channels are important but not as important to viewers as the shows themselves.

Aaron's a good coach. Not only did I buy into this model, I found his advocacy infectious. I added a feed reader as my 20% project later that day.

A speeding car without brakes.

With code quality reminiscent of Ariane 5, I strung together a prototype using Apache, MySQL, and PHP. (aka LAMP) Except I didn't use Linux. I had a Mac running Panther. So, technically it was PAMP.

Shellen and I met to review my progress. After seeing the something instead of a parser he swept us into a conference room and sketched user models and personas and lightspeed business analysis. "We'll need to get onto the release calendar," he remarked. "How's next Friday?"

I knew he was kidding. Especially funny was an appointment that floated onto my calendar to meet a team that was making a sort of homepage for Google. The agenda noted plans for actually launching the thingamajig.

At home the joke deflated. The appointment remained scheduled.

The Hudsucker Moxie.

All of the following is true. I can understand if you don't believe it.

The prototype wasn't well-defined, though it clearly had potential. Desperate for definition I decided to try something I'd half-remembered about the actor Jim Carrey. Something about getting out of L.A. and going to Las Vegas, searching deep within himself, and finding his first principles - whatever he was destined to express.

Ok, except I couldn't actually go to Vegas. I used the nearby conference room as a Vegas proxy and sketched madly on whiteboards, thinking deeply about feeds for days.

I arrived at a meeting with a simple pitch - a first principle for a feed reader. On a whiteboard I drew a circle, you know, like that Coen brothers movie. Beneath it I wrote the following:

Feed reading is inherently polymorphic.

Clumsily articulated, that phrase nevertheless became my focus. If true, it would follow that a feed reader's interface might have to be athletically flexible to match a wide variety of reading styles. I then drew spokes along the circle's edge to highlight various related but differing uses that Shellen and I had outlined over a series of intense discussions.

I heard the team's response as another Coen brothers reference. Simply: "Ok, then."

A ninja bowl filled with ninja sauce.

When bad software is made, ninja coders can hear it moving even while they're sleeping.

Steve Goldberg was working on the Google homepage and offered to help with finding ninja-level engineers. I asked how I should help. "Show 'em", he said. This meant the prototype resembled an abused puppy and that an innate sense of duty would compel expert coders to rescue it from its cruel master.

In Google when ninja-coding apprentices need to go to ninja school and ask a question that stymies the ninja instructors ... the board of supervisory ninjas will, when they need ultimate wisdom, ask the advice of Ben Darnell, Laurence Gonsalves, and Mihai Parparita. So I was shocked they expressed an interest in the project. I then discovered that Laurence had already begun a project that dealt with feeds and ranking items, like the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down feature in TiVo, I thought, "yikes, I just have a Atom parser in pancake clown makeup, what will he say about the prototype..."

When I showed them code for the prototype, I observed the same response. Each of them sagged in pain as if millions of variables cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

I will be forever grateful they believed the puppy could be saved. Serious plans appeared and real work could start, so with steely resolve ...

I fled the country.

End Part 2.

About Google Reader's Birth: Part 1.

2007-05-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

This story of Google Reader's birth isn't just about me. But for a long, bad while it is. So here's how it started...

It's Kottke's Fault.

Sometime around early 2001, while not working at work, I was reading a post on Jason Kottke's blog where he mentioned a company named Moreover. Moreover had a pitch about putting free headlines on your site. At the time, Moreover's pitch sounded like tin-toned boilerplate barkery with a voice about as authentic as a "sale" at Guitar Center. But I trust Jason, and, besides, could I write marketing copy any better? (Answer: no.)

I followed the instructions and put headlines on my site. It was easily accomplished.

I realized that instead of this neat solution, someone should replace it with something tedious and lame and less re-usable. I was clearly that someone.

All the choices of a Model T.

I decided I wanted a site with headlines from many different sites. In the irrational exuberance days, these were sometimes referred to as "web directories" or "web portals" if they were customizable.

I made a poorly-written, open-sourced Java library to get headlines based on Moreover's "webfeeds." Then I made a mini-portal. It got the "mini" qualification because the customization was narrow since users could only choose headlines from sites I liked because I was too lazy to build the customization engine. Naturally, I included my own weblog, so my hand would have been raised high in a "raise your hand if you're a jerk" contest.

I finished and sent a link to friends. The site was alive and browsers could see it, so I was satisfied. Except CNN didn't have a feed, so I modified the code to scrape the lead story and some other links. Later that year, on September 11th, that would turn out to be a surreal snapshot on a bandwidth-choked day as the cache contained information from sites that remained inaccessible.

There are many copies.

The mini-portal puttered along on a server in my apartment throughout the next couple of years as my professional life was significantly changed by joining Google. I remain grateful for this; I am exceedingly lucky this occurred.

I was working on Blogger, for whom syndication was an important and contentious topic. I'll elide over the technical details and specific history of the evolution of feeds and instead give you my bird's-eye first impression as a developer wading into the food fight over standards and implementation. My first impression?

Blogger had Moreover's webfeeds, except they were calling them just "feeds." And other people before Moreover had originally called them RDF for a while but simplified them to RSS. Except then they called them Echo. Which stopped after a while and they called them Atom though they planned several versions. Except there was still RSS. Also with several versions. And everyone hated each other. Weird, huh?

(If you're mad about the preceding paragraph, please know I think you are a beautiful person. And sexy. You are loved, it is presumed.)

The mini-portal kept breaking and friends kept telling me they relied on it, so I kept updating it. I was surprised anyone relied on it, especially as it wasn't very powerful. They seemed addicted.

Parser.

At Google one day, like every day, I was really busy.

Turns out that with Jason Shellen that wasn't really much of a deterrent. "Why don't you make an Atom parser in Javascript?", he asked.

Which, for the non-geeks, is his asking me to make something that turns something into something else which could be used to represent data that was basically about cat photos. Generally the people who appreciate this kind of thing have been given a Lego-based Millenium Falcon as a birthday present.

So, okay. That sounded fun (kinda). And I was only doing several thousand things at the time, so it seemed a reasonable request.

Normalization.

After writing an Atom parser and getting a way to run unit tests automatically for a group of Atom feeds I went back to the thousands of things I was supposed to be doing and rested with some contentment.

"You suck," mentioned Steve Jenson.

"Having a normalizer could fit every kind of feed content into your model," he continued while watching me review the unit tests in shame. "Then you would suck less. And I could write that in ten minutes. Nine, if I don't take time to blink."

Steve whipped together a Python-based normalizer based on the Universal Feed Parser and made me watch. He agreed to let me use it if I danced a jig which I performed mio gusto as requested. I'd already abandoned my dignity earlier in life so the joke was on him.

A moment of clarity.

Normally, programmers are supposed to minimize duplication of effort so I wasn't thinking about making a feed reader, there were plenty of those - I was just making a web page that tested the parser. I narrowed the parser effort to just one bug that concerned me, and one night I finally discovered a workaround, posted about it, and ran the tests again to review the content.

Oh. Well, would you look at that.

See, that night a little wheel reinvention occurred ... as a square. The parser became a reader by accident.

It's difficult to describe my excitement at that moment.

For the non-geeks, I mostly work on the stuff you can actually see when you use software: the layout, forms, graphics, the logic behind what happens when you click on something.

Each time I'd want to do something useful that was also complex, I'd have to create a layer which described data in a way that I could easily transform. It almost never came out from a database that way.

But in this moment, I reviewed the tests and was reminded that a layer had been bypassed. Feeds were already describing data in a way that I could easily transform. This was more convenient than any other confluence of data and language than I'd seen. I could work less and take naps and just be lazier and that's all I'd really wanted anyways.

An anecdote for the geeks: I'd also realized it could be neat to attach events processing to individual items in a feed. I hoped that could be useful. (As Mihai has shown all of us in abundance: it has been. More on that later.)

The pages looked reasonably pretty.

I put it on the Google intranet to show Steve even though the reading interface had lots of bugs. Code quality seemed unimportant since, I thought, this is just a little thing. It's not like it's going to be something real.

End Part 1.

Considering Google Reader lore.

2007-05-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm very lucky. Let's start with that.

Partly I'm lucky because I get to share thoughts and work with developers all over the world thanks to my day job. My co-workers can be shy, though, so this year's Google Developer Day seems like a great opportunity for like minds to figuratively cross the dance floor and do the Hora.

I love sharing stories with developers I meet. We should share stories more often. Matt Cutts mentioned something similar a while back. The meet and greet at Google on May 31st is all about our serious stuff - APIs, debugging, templating, project hosting - which is also showcased at Google Code. But what about our silly stuff? What about our lore?

A lot of interesting developments on the web don't have a folklore.org. Do the following have collected stories/wisdom? Metafilter, Blogger, Flickr, Etsy, YouTube, Gmail, Wordpress, Winamp, MSIE? If they don't they should.

Recently I've been inspired to contribute a little lore over the next few posts about the birth of Google Reader, a project I inadvertently started though I'm not sure I should be considered its mother or godfather or even town elder. Saying I'm responsible for Reader would be like saying the hardening of the earth's crust is responsible for directing Raging Bull. One event gave way to the other but I think the credit of creative genius should read "Martin Scorsese" and not "ball of ferrous material."

The excellent parts of Reader are due to a team of people much smarter than myself. They're the Scorseses. In any Reader lore, I'd prefer to be considered more of a ferrous ball.

Tech lore can also be useful and informative, particularly for other developers, though I'm hoping I can also relate something my non-tech friends and family can appreciate. I'm also hoping I can at least be a little funny, especially since Justin and I recently discussed how it would be challenging to make a story about an Atom parser interesting.

Now about that Atom parser...

(First anecdote: I made this image for the login screen a mere day before the launch of the redesign for Reader. Wanted it to suggest a folded newspaper. Funny, it doesn't come close.)

The Wifi nodes are trying to tell us something. Anything.

2007-04-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

Expression is leaky - it seems to fill nearly any text input available. Here's a sample list of SSIDs I've noticed while riding to work.

iPeedInThePool
Bachelorette Pad
touch_it_or_die
VioxxDeaths=50,000
Figity
BriggsyAir
CanYouHearMeNow
pravda
RUBY LOVER
MadDog
Cheese and Crackers
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I like torturing Firefox.

2007-03-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Poor little browsers.

At work we often approach, and occasionally shove past, the limits of what browsers can handle. On my home laptop it appears that Firefox has crashed around 220 times and that 37 of these crashes occured in March of this year alone. I've had several different OSes and machines while at Google (including, thankfully, a new Macbook Pro as of yesterday) so the number of crashes that occur during my normal work day aren't easily retrievable, which is too bad since that'd likely be a higher total.

Mihai pointed out to me that the crash log is just a text file, so the following command with the correct username used should retrieve the number of Firefox crashes for most Macs:

grep "Command: " /Users/[your username]/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/firefox-bin.crash.log | wc -l

I'm thinking of starting an advocacy and protection group: People for the Ethical Treatment of Browsers. It would decry the inhumane level of browser testing that results in the deaths of millions of processes and threads every year. Of course, the other side (our side, really) will haughtily note good intentions, a desire to prevent further surf stoppage, and the benefits that You People enjoy thanks to the sacrifices made by software in cubicle farms all across the world.

Little-known fact: If you lean in close to your computer's speaker when a browser crashes you can hear its reedy last breath. Some say it's like a little scream.

I say it's like music. Sing!

Me and The Merlin Show.

2007-03-05T15:23:00.001-08:00

Recently, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders asked me some questions in an interview about how I manage the information gorilla in my life that is email. It's about 15 minutes long (Merlin is inspiring) and I had a long-winded answer to how I manage a communcation deluge that is best summarized as: poorly.

When I somehow manage email well, Mihai's helpful Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail are an essential factor.

Look at me working that smoothie. Dork. Merlin was nice enough to ignore my classlessness.

Google Reader Optimized Keyboard.

2007-03-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

Image created by Flickr user, paolovalde

Lovely. Though I feel a little sorry for "k."

For those who don't know, pressing "j" moves to the next item to read in Google Reader.

Single-source feed readers can be improved.

2007-02-25T19:39:00.000-08:00

There's been some recent developments in single-vendor or limited-vendor reading software and I wonder if this is the best direction for vendors with highly-desirable content, particularly when there's clear and widespread interest in creating software that helps people overcome information overload from multiple sources.

Screenshot of the TimesReader, a single-source collaboration between Micrsoft and The New York Times. Image captured by Flickr user, sdk

I sympathize with content vendors, they must be frustrated by what appears to be a devaluing of their product, especially due to feed syndication. But why not leverage the popularity of others' content alongside their own? If they feel they have to attempt a branded strategy I suspect they could improve their success in a competitive market and address the needs of their readers by creating a feed reader that can read any public feed from any site and whose added value is that of delivering, as full content, stuff previously only released as snippets or partial feeds.

Except that, as I can attest to personally, creating a world-class feed reader that can compete in this space is very, very difficult.

The New York Times has partnered with Microsoft to help create an offline reader, so I wonder if we'll see vendor relationships with web software companies that can scale to world readership. If so, would these efforts be about creating extended-single-source readers or would they explore some other kind of partnerships?

I'm not exactly wondering idly.

Subscriber counts for massless

2007-02-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

So, thanks for the statistics, Justin! Until very recently, we weren't able to show subscriber counts for Google Reader but Justin and the team were able to change that, so now we're serving some stats to make analysis easier for publishers and feed redistributors. The image above shows the subscriber counts for various feed readers for this blog.

If you're wondering to what "zhuaxia" refers, it's a Chinese feed reader and aggregator. Wish I could read Chinese, as I'm a fan of any design that features a pig in the logo. (see below) Doing a fly-by of Zhuaxia and can't read Chinese? Click on the leftmost, blue icon just below the logo to enter. Then click on the link that's just left of the word "OPML" to do a search for your favorite feed by keyword, feed URL, or site URL.

Enaville.

2007-01-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

Dad (the tan, handsome gent in the middle) somewhere near Enaville, Idaho. Possibly along the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. Dad, is that right? (Incidentally the city of Coeur d'Alene is listed as one of the places to visit in Patricia Schultz's book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.)

Sundancing around films, a beginner's plea.

2007-01-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

In a few days, some friends and I are heading to Park City, where the Sundance Film Festival recurs. It's exciting. We're newbies, however, and know little about how best to enjoy the festival, though California has been kind enough to prepare us for Utah's less-than-tropical experience by slowly moving the average temperature range down to highs of Oh-Shit(F) and lows of Omigod-Its-Like-Cold-Holy-F*ckin-Crap(F).

Maybe you've been to Sundance before? We could really use your advice if you have any to impart. You can email me at chris [at] this domain name. Or maybe leave a comment?