Flickr Adds New "Geofences" Feature

As you may know, Flickr is my photo-sharing site of choice due to its institutional community among geeks going back for more than 5 years. However, many of us geeks are often disappointed in Flickr's inability to evolve ever since Yahoo took over, with the site stagnating in design and features for years. Due to this, I'm always hopeful when I do see them add new features because I become optimistic that perhaps Yahoo is putting more focus on development at Flickr. Today's announcement from Flickr introduces a new feature they're calling "Geofences". From their annoucnement:

Geofences are special locations that deserve their own geo privacy settings. For example, you might want to create a geofence around the your “home” or “school” that only allows “Friends and Family” to see the location of the photos you geotag in that area. So the next time you upload a photo with a geotag in the radius of a geofence, it will follow the default geo privacy you’ve designated for that hotspot. That way, you can easily make sure that only people you trust can see the location of photos taken inside your house or any other sensitive areas while still showing the world exactly where you had those amazing cheese covered duck fat fries. If Flickr can continue to hold onto their community as it stands today, and with the further proliferation of cameras with GPS capabilities, I think features like this could be very powerful for users.

Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison Prank Email Computer Consultant in 1998

A very old article on CNN.com, circa 1998. This is priceless:

The newspaper reported Wednesday that Jobs and Ellison, who is also chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., both sent e-mail messages to Michael Murdock, a Burlingame, California-based computer consultant, two days before Christmas, telling him he had the job. "OK. You can have the job. -- Larry," was one message sent to Murdock, who has been conducting an e-mail campaign for the top job, the Chronicle reported. Jobs reportedly wrote, "Yep, Mike, it's all yours. When can you start?"

The Rules

Merlin Mann, writing on Kung Fu Grippe:

The Two key Rules of the Grocery Store

It's really very simple: 1. if you're in the way, keep moving 2. if you stop moving, get out of the way. This is Ape Law, and we must teach it to our young.

I wish this were required reading. I wish that all people must first pass a test in which they're required to prove that they've memorized these two rules before acquiring their Grocery Store Shopping License™ and being allowed to buy food.

HP's One-Year Plan

Al Lewis, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

Let's say you were given a year to kill Hewlett-Packard. Here's how you do it. Scathing criticism of HP's management over the past few years.

Republicans Against Science

Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times:

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

Hurricane Irene Forms Two New Inlets at the Outer Banks

I tooted about this earlier, but I couldn't help but writing a post here as well. I'm very familiar with the Outer Banks. My family and friends vacation there a lot, and it's one of my favorite places in the world (especially Ocracoke Island). Because of the familiarly of OBX, I guess this piece of news feels the most real to me out of all of the other damage that Hurrican Irene caused. So check this out: Source: MSNBC & Steve Helber, Associated Press MSNBC added this caption to these photos:

Officials survey the damage to Route 12 on Hatteras Island, N.C., on Aug. 28. Hurricane Irene swept through the area Saturday cutting the roadway in five locations. Irene caused more than 4.5 million homes and businesses along the East Coast to reportedly lose power over the weekend, and at least 11 deaths were blamed on the storm. A local North Carolina TV station had this video on their site: An article accompanied this video which contains more specific information. I was curious, however, about where exactly the two inlets are. Based on the lone building in the first photo and about 10 minutes searching Google Maps' Satellite View, I think I found the location. Check the Street View as well. See the small structure next to it? Now look at the satellite view ago and the photo above. Fairly certain they're the same. Now for the second photo. This is the most interesting of the two, I think, because it shows that there was a house that was destroyed and was washed out to sea. I think the second photo was at this location. See the northernmost house on the left side of the road? See the circular feature on the right side of it? See how those western-most houses are arranged in a semi-circle?. Now, notice the northern-most house on the right? See how its almost in-line with the northern most house on the left? Now check out the street view. You can see the large square brown sign on the left side of the road with white lettering. Its on both the Google Maps link and the MSNBC photo. Now look for the northernmost eastern house? Instead of the house, the new inlet is there. The house no longer exists, at least in constructed, house-form - I'm sure it exists, but in many parts, all floating in the ocean or washed up along the beach elsewhere. Stunning, for me at least.

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently.

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." – Think Different

Thank you Steve

I was late coming to the Mac, getting my first one in 2006. I don't think I've ever been happier with my technology every since. I'm not worried about Apple as a company, because in 2011 it's entirely centered around Steve's ethos. What I'm saddened by is the implications of Steve Jobs having to resign his post as CEO. Still though, he's now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Apple. That's something, I guess. I hope he continues to be able to do what he loves. There are two quotes from the articles that have been written since Steve's announcement that I thought were eloquently written. The first comes from John Gruber. John Gruber, in a piece called "Resigned":

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself. Today’s announcement is just one more step, albeit a big and sad one, in a long-planned orderly transition — a transition that no one wanted but which could not, alas, be avoided. And as ever, he’s doing it his way. So it goes. And the second comes from Seth Godin in a piece called "A little empty": I guess this is how a sports fan felt when Joe DiMaggio retired. Business didn't used to be personal. Now it is. Computers didn't used to make us smile. Now they do. We didn't used to care about whether a CEO made one decision or another, or whether or not he was healthy. I do now. Sure, there was baseball after joltin Joe stopped playing. But it was never quite the same. Thank you, Steve, for giving us all something to talk about and a way to talk about it with beauty (and fonts). We owe you more than we can say.

Stop Coddling The Super-Rich

Warren Buffet, writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times says that we need to raise taxes on all income over $1 million per year:

I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.