The SuperHero Quiz

Looks like I’m a Super Ironman…(coincidently two of my favourite superheroes growing up), this seems to be the popular thing to post lately, which one are you?

Sharing Non-Feed Items Through Google Reader

With the recent talk about Google perhaps replacing Digg as a social news/link site, a lot of people made the point that you can’t share non-feed items through Reader. While it’s true that you can’t click on a URL and add it to Reader, there is a work around. Admittedly it’s technically a feed…but it’s your own personal feed of links.

Google vs Digg?

Steve Mermelstein of /usr/bin/geek asks what would happen if Google started using some of the stats in their Google Reader app to pull up the most popular stories of the blogosphere (ie techmeme, technorati, et. al.). A couple of others have also picked up on it now. Google Reader’s shared items and starred items certainly seem ripe for the picking, I’m surprised there’s not already a “Most Starred” and/or “Most Shared” story page. Could Google Reader really be a stealth entry into the user-generated news business? With Blogger recently adding an easy way to put AdSense on their user’s sites, you can definitely see Google wanting an easy way to draw people to their user’s blogs. Remember, Google’s primary business is Advertising, a site ala Digg, using blogs from their Blogger Service has the potential to draw a lot of revenue. Of course not everyone uses Blogger, but how many people use AdSense? It’s really in Google’s best interest to be driving as many people to as many blogs as possible, and putting a user-generated news aggregation service on their front page would sure do that, and nobody would even have to work that hard! No more “digging” just hit “s” or “shift-s” as you’re going through your feeds. And there’d be no overhead for Google, everyone is responsible for their own blog! It’s a win-win.

Post-Christmas Report

Christmas was very enjoyable.  Since Marissa doesn't have to be on the [apnea monitor](http://smartmonitor2.respironics.com/) 24/7 any more we got to take her out an about.  The resulting activity caused her to sleep very well over the night!  I also got my first chance to play the [Nintendo Wii](http://us.wii.com/) first hand, it really is a different experince.  [Wii Sports](http://us.wii.com/soft_wii_sports.jsp) shows off the console and control schemes very well I think.  It's also quite a work out in the end!  [Twillight Princess](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FQBPCQ) is enjoyable, but not quite as revolutionary as Wii Sports I think.  The channels show real promise, but there's not alot there, browsing with the [Opera browser (trial edition)](http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/12/22/) is suprisingly enjoyable and functional ([Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/) on the TV is a sight to behold).

RSS Patent Controversy: Microsoft Responds, Sorta.

Sean Lyndersay, Program Manager Lead for RSS at Microsoft, has [responded](http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/archive/2006/12/23/patent-applications-in-the-rss-space.aspx) to the [RSS Patent Flap.](http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/microsoft_tries.html) Microsoft is essentially saying: "We only patented what we feel is some cool additions we invented, we promise not to try and take over RSS." [Niall Kennedy](http://www.niallkennedy.com/) has a good [in-depth analysis of the patent application](http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2006/12/microsoft-feed-platform-patent-review.html) which essentially says "Most of this stuff is all obvious prior art, there's a few new ideas, but not many." He also asks the scary question of "What other "inventions" are yet to be unveiled as the patent system's 18-month privacy rolls forward?". > >