Disqus - Latest Comments for Mr. Gunn

Re: Disqus releases Beta 2 – New features, lots of bug fixes, improved performance

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:52:38 -0000

So, I signed up for Disqus using my own, personal, OpenID, not from clickpass. Disqus.com says I'm logged in, but any disqus-using site, such as this one, doesn't know that I'm logged in. Checking the "Verify my post" option presents login options consisting only of username and password, no OpenID available. Since I never setup a password, I can't leave a comment anywhere using attached to my disqus profile.

Is this something you're working on, or do I not understand something.

Re: RSS 2.0 comments element (Scripting News)

Mr. Gunn — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:32:53 -0000

I support this, but I'd like to see readers with reading and writing comments as part of the app, not just a link out.

Re: Creating a maintainable and thriving web (Scripting News)

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:03:58 -0000

Thanks so much for saying this. The scientific community is discussing how to get persistent citations in published journal articles, and WebCite was mentioned. It's a central service that proposes to be a mirror of all hyper-linked content from publications, but thankfully many people mentioned that it's a central point of failure.

Keep it up, man!

Re: The End Of hEsc?

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:02:29 -0000

No, it won't put an end to anything. Sorry. Let me quote the last line of the actual paper:

"Human iPS cells, however, are not identical to hES cells: DNA microarray analyses detected differences between the two pluripotent stem cell lines. Further studies are essential to determine whether human iPS cells can replace hES in medical applications."

So, in other words, all the ES restrictions have done is make many smart people waste a tremendous amount of resources to generate something of questionable utility.

Re: Andy Grove blasts the biomedical research establishment

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:34:01 -0000

There's considerably more of a start-up mentality in tech, and there's considerably less FDA regulation of tech. I recently was struck by this when an acquaintance of mine left his tech startup and moved into a biotech/diagnostics startup. He had no idea of the level of regulation in this area and kept bumping into regulatory obstacles of prohibitory complexity for a small startup everywhere he turned.

Also, few people are scared that Intel will create a faster processor, but many people are scared that scientists will create a better brain. That's the root of it. Now if we life scientists were as savvy at marketing ourselves, and if we had the boatloads of money dumped on startups that tech did in the early 90s, we might start getting somewhere.

/says a researcher who'd like one of those boatloads, thanksverymuch

Re: The power of Second Life

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:09:15 -0000

You know what's wrong with SL, though? The same thing that's wrong with podcasting: It's not an efficient nor accessible way to disseminate information.

Information that's on the screen is part of the web and easily accessible. I can easily skim it and see if there's something interesting, actionable, or useful. I can't do that with a podcast, and I certainly can't do that in SL.

Furthermore, I can't link to a conversation in SL or a comment in a podcast. Please, y'all, come back and be a part of the web.

Re: WebCite - Persistent URLs for publishers

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:53:38 -0000

I'm concerned about the way this is being done. For one, using a TinyURL scheme destroys the human readable info in the permalinks we've all worked to create. Second, I doubt that putting everything into one central repository will improve the percent availability of the collection, and if something does happen, there's a central point of failure.

Is the cost of a high-availability web mirror database equal to or below the value of citations that the content owner and citing author don't find important enough to keep updated themselves?

Re: Trying out a new comment system

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:09:59 -0000

I've seen this at VBLS too, and don't see much use for it. Nice that I don't have to re-enter my details, but the comment rating doesn't start to add value until you get up into 50 comments.

Re: Trying out a new comment system

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:07:44 -0000

One extra data point is that it seems to be increasing your page load time by about a half-second or so...which is kinda long, IMO.

Re: WebCite - Persistent URLs for publishers

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:30:17 -0000

The people at CrossRef have weighed in on this, and given their previous experience , I think they merit a listen.

At least CrossRef knows that you can request addition of material to archive.org, one of the raisons d'être given by webcite for the use of its service instead of archive.org

Re: Around the web - November 18, 2007

Mr. Gunn — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:04:11 -0000

You know...screencasts, podcasts and the like are all great, but how about a transcript for those of us who like to quote, link, and skim?

Re: Open EMR standards

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:41:55 -0000

Open standards are great, by the trend now seems to be to not worry about the format and just have everybody use the same third-party data warehouser, which I think is unfortunate because it's both a hacker risk and a central point of failure.

Re: Trying out a new comment system

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:52:28 -0000

BTW, I'm still seeing somewhat long page load times.
I don't think the problem's SezWho, but rather lijit, sphere, blueorganizer, google analytics, feedburner, and SezWho.
Maybe you could move some of the plugins/tracking code to the footer?

/or maybe you could just upgrade from WP 2.ohno!

Re: Trying out a new comment system

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:31:02 -0000

In the meantime, you might consider putting some of the tracking stuff in footer.php so that at least the main content loads before it has to pause for responses from lijit, feedburner, etc.

I get a chuckle out of watching the status bar as 6 or 7 different sites get contacted while the page loads.

Re: Science continues to get more social

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:18:15 -0000

I tried importing a Zotero export and all the tags were stripped. I didn't try importing from Connotea because there was no way to delete the lot and start over using the same profile.

The Scopus intergration is nice, but I couldn't find any of my papers in Scopus, and my library doesn't subscribe to Scopus(subscribes to WoS), so as nice as the automatic forward links are, I don't guess I'll be using it.

Re: Google Scholar is down

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:23:30 -0000

The problem with Google Scholar, as I told them when it came out, is that it needs to know how to handle names in the form Firstname M. Lastname, F.M. Lastname, and Lastname, F.M.

A search for Lastname, F. should return results for Frank Lastname and Frederick Lastname and everybody else with an F starting their first name. Likewise, a search for Firstname Lastname should return results for F. Lastname.

Currently, it can't do this because it doesn't have a operator for firstname or lastname or initials, only for name. This makes it all but useless for academic purposes, where authorship is a major search criteria. The only time I actually use it is when I'm using a index, like ISI "Walled Garden" of Knowledge which doesn't have links to pubmed, display DOIs, or give any other links to non-ISI content. The shortest path to the pubmed entry is sometimes to select the article title and do a right-click google search.

/happy new year
//hope you had a good holiday season

Re: ResearcherID doesn’t seem like all that

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:04:30 -0000

Neil's right. The majority in academia are really clueless. I think OpenID works fairly well for asserting identity already, and it tells you where to go for more info on the person. Why would someone, given that they knew about OpenID, want some random number that depended on Megacorp's resolver and wasn't easily traceable back to the person when the resolver stops working?

Re: Programming and science education

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:38:35 -0000

It's the limitations you bump up against using Excel/Word that teach you why R/LaTeX are important and useful. I think a little course on data hygeine would be a good addition to any science curriculum, but I also think Excel's OK for a once-off or lightweight analysis.

Re: The shadow of Digg

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:17:23 -0000

I got some email from them via the DNA network, but I think I'm going to hold off until things look a little more polished. I'm not quite as early an adopter as you ;-)

Re: Wallstrip on Illumina

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:24:15 -0000

geeky girl talking about next-gen sequencing? I think I'm in love...

Re: Your SNPs are your information

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:50:09 -0000

Well said, but note that many genetic counselors feel threatened by these services, informational or not. Perhaps there should be some outreach to doctor's associations to soothe their worry?

Re: The right to get yourself genotyped

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:08:42 -0000

Steve is so shooting himself in the foot here. Does he really think that the services of a genetic counselor will be needed less , if everyone is getting genotyped?

Of course, the pro-genotyping side made a similar mistake in the GINA legislation. Did it not occur to them that insurance companies would PAY people to get their genotypes read?

Re: Your SNPs are your information

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:08:04 -0000

Doesn't this really hinge on how things are represented? The DTC genetic testing services that the CLIA applies to are explicitly for a medical purpose. 23andme's service is explicitly not for medical purposes. While I agree they should hold themselves to the same standard as a medical testing lab, the fact is they aren't, and go to great lengths to make sure people understand this. If, despite all the warnings to the contrary, someone uses their 23andme information to make a medical decision, that's their own damn fault.

All they have to do if they're worried about something in their 23andme results is to go see a doctor and get themselves an actual genetic test designed and validated for diagnostic use. Then they, with the help of their doctor, can start making medical decisions with no hand-wringing about 23andme's accuracy necessary.

Someone could potentially use one of those personal breathalyzer things to decide whether or not they're safe to drive and get a DUI anyways due to an instrument failure. Does that mean they shouldn't sell them, or do we give people the freedom to have it along with the responsibility to accept the consequences if they put too much trust in its results?

Re: Chris Anderson, you are wrong

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:08:13 -0000

I think the term for this is not even wrong.

Re: JAY PARKINSON + MD + MPH

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:18:49 -0000

SNP analysis reveals non-medical information such as ancestry, so it's nonsensical to make overworked doctors the gatekeepers of that info. As I expected, it's a regulatory dinosaur that is confusing this technology with DTC genetic tests that they've had issues with in the past. Someone will speak to Mrs. Nickels and if she's as sharp as they say she is, she'll realize the difference between the two. Hopefully by then the fraudsters will have moved on, too.

Re: http://jeffmiller.tumblr.com/post/35212390/a-week-later-the-little-white-pills-arrived-in

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:57:46 -0000

He was probably just sleep deprived. Provigil just keeps you awake, it doesn't make you smarter or increase your memory. There are more effective and safer ways of increasing your intelligence, and they're discussed here.

Re: California’s stem-cell management disarray

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:52:31 -0000

In case that last comment doesn't make it through the spam filter, I'd like to point out that Mrs. Darnovsky's group is an anti-regenerative medicine lobbying group mentioned favorably on many pro-life and Catholic websites. As such, her organization may be consider to be nothing more than a proxy for the agenda of the Catholic church.

Does your organization also oppose distribution of condoms in HIV-plagued South Africa, Mrs. Darnovsky?

Re: Biogenerics: The bad arguments just won’t stop

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:22:39 -0000

Well said. Maybe they should release Disney-branded versions of their drugs, then they'd be assured patent protection in perpetuity.

If this is too obscure, as your neighbors at BoingBoing to explain.

Re: Personal genomics and the end of insurance

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:13:00 -0000

I personally think GINA is misguided and can never work. What happens if the insurance companies start offering people cheaper premiums in exchange for a genetic screening? Remember, they don't have to sign up everyone, just a couple people in your family and they can start making predictions about you.

The only two options are health savings accounts or a national single-payer system, and I agree that health savings accounts aren't likely to work without the option for a government bailout for those who get unlucky, in which case you might as well have had the single-payer system anyways.

Re: Personal genomics and the end of insurance

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:51:49 -0000

Oh, man...they won't even have to bribe people. Check out the following list of companies to which you can send your cheek swab in return for a customized trinket. Privacy is impossible.

Re: Biotech's dirty little secret: VCs are heading for the hills -- fast

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:47:40 -0000

I've heard that the subprime market collapse has hit the VCs particularly hard. Could the drop-off just be a reflection of that, and not biotech specific?

Re: I told you so: Eat your Bioheart out

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:46:06 -0000

Interestingly, I just saw two new articles in Pubmed on Adult Stem Cells and cardiac fibrosis. Personally, I think the rush to clinical trials in this area before much of the basic science has been worked out has been a mistake. How many clinical trials do we need to have that show a barely-significant increase in ejection fraction or diastolic volume before people start ignoring them?

(Disclosure of my own: I work in a lab that does research on adult stem cells, but I have no financial interest beyond my paycheck and I haven't been involved with the heart stuff.)

Re: What Andy Grove still gets wrong about the life sciences — and how he could help fix them

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:38:01 -0000

You know, if they were dumping money onto small biotech start-ups like they used to do in web tech back in the 90s, things might very well be different, but the main thing, as JENS, points out, is that the regulatory environment is so different, and rightly so.

I have first-hand experience in this, because I worked as a science advisor to a biotech startup(currently in stealth mode). The former company of the founder of this startup was a technology company, and the biggest adjustment they had to make was realizing how much of a difference the regulatory environment makes.

Re: 23andMe lets you search and share your genome — today

Mr. Gunn — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:44:15 -0000

Unsurprisingly, this stuff evokes strong emotions. I'm really tempted to scrape up the money, but I do worry a little about the security of my info.

How long do you think it will be until insurance companies start requiring this at sign-up?

Re: 23andMe: Will the personal-genomics company need Big Pharma to make money?

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:56:06 -0000

Well, Google likes anything that generates massive amounts of data, that much we know.

The first thing I thought of was that this would enable pharma to market those orphan drugs they've all got waiting in the wings, because people would know if they were in the group of responders.

Re: Genomics for the rich: Knome reads your entire genetic code — for the low, low price of $350,000

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:57:58 -0000

Of course, a full genome scan will be able to tell you about multi-base insertions and deletions and poly nucleotide repeats, which are a significant source of disease, but I think it's an open question whether you'll be able to predict more that would be medically relevant to the person scanned from a database of many people containing SNPs only or from a database of few people scanned fully.

Unless Knome has a whole slate of patients lined up already and plans to use the money to immediately acquire a startup(and if they're only taking in 20 people, they won't have enough), they're going to get passed up so fast...

Re: The nitty-gritty on Knome: How it works

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:21:11 -0000

They raise a good point about the subpoenability of the information.

Re: Web of Trust to build site-rating community

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:14:51 -0000

That's it? Just another user-generated site ranking service?

I wish people would spend more time connecting the rating and trust information that's already out there in technorati, del.icio.us, and the socila networking sites, instead of expecting people to contribute their time and attention to yet another site. They should at least find a way to make the rankings portable.

Re: Xobni launches email organizer for Outlook

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:36:51 -0000

I'd kinda be worried about third-party integration opening up security holes. What exactly is their business model again, and how does it involve their use of this info they mine from my inbox?

Re: Monday Links: May 19th, 2008

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:47:39 -0000

You know, I think the article discussing modafinil was a little over-enthusiastic. It's more suited for people who have to say alert and watchful for long periods of time, rather than people who need to make better decisions. It would help night watchmen or troops on combat missions more than it would help a scientist or software developer. Johann took an over-the-top sensationalistic approach to his article, and probably has ended up hurting the overall discussion.

Modafinil won't make you smarter, it won't improve your memory, and it won't raise your IQ. All it does is keep the need for sleep at bay for a little while. If he had such a huge effect, he was probably sleep-deprived during his use. If you read other accounts, they don't speak in such glowing terms.

Not to mention that there are apparently safer, cheaper, and easier-to-get things available. If you'd like to know more, I recommend Smart Drugs and Nutrients.

Re: Monday Links: May 19th, 2008

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:05:27 -0000

Yeah, I worry about abuse too, and accounts like his are basically encouraging abuse. Some senator's kid is going to get his hands on some, stay up for 2 weeks, go absolutely crazy and kill someone or himself, and we'll have some media hysteria and shiny new reactionary laws prohibiting anything vaguely resembling the stuff.

Congrats, Johann, you just set research on intelligence back 20 years. I personally think the time has come for seriously looking into whether or not the functioning of our brains can be augmented, but it's not going to happen by tabloid columnists and bloggers ordering random shit over the internet and writing about how it made them feel.

Seriously now, there are some safe and sane things you can do, today, to help keep your mind young and maybe even to boost your memory or motivation a little. I encourage everyone to at least read about the topic, so they can form an educated opinion.

Re: New FriendFeed Beta: What’s Different

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:35:25 -0000

I don't like it. It places the focus on personalities rather than content, and encourages chattiness rather than discussion around useful content. It also inhibits discussion by merging comments on the same item in different places. The separation sounded like a bug to be fixed, but I actually like the different turn the discussion would take on the same item in different places, so it turned out to be a great, activity-promoting feature.

Re: It's the Community, Stupid

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:32:31 -0000

AJ, I'm sorry Mendeley made a bad impression on you. If I'm reading you right, you want the following (which are pretty much my top three requirements also):

Simply used via browser bookmarklet.
Allows sharing via group libraries.
Free.

You also want it to not bug you to fill out an online profile.

I'll pass your feedback on to the developers, but since all of the things you want to do are already possible with Mendeley, what would you suggest the change to make it less "complicated looking"?

Re: It's the Community, Stupid

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:05:36 -0000

Wow, David and I agree on something! Full-text search is awesome! Based on our our previous discussions, I know that serendipitous discovery and collaboration aren't at the top of his list. The main thing Mendeley is missing, IMO, is an RSS feed of your library or tags, precisely to facilitate such serendipity. Right now, I'm getting by with the real-time sync between Mendeley and Citeulike. Have you played with that yet, AJ?

Re: TweetULike

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:33:28 -0000

That's pretty cool, AJ. I've always just fed my feed into friendfeed, but of course that doesn't work if the cite is in someone else's library.

Re: Pad your resume and hide your risks, little meaty cogs

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:40:26 -0000

I think these are great points. I said the same things to Hsien Hsien and Steve back when it was just proposed legislation. GINA just seems like an entirely impossible to enforce, head-in-the-sand approach to the issue, not to mention how bad it'll screw up any academic research proposed for these impossible to anonymize collections of data.

Won't this allow insurance companies to more accurately determine risk, lowering the cost for everyone immediately, and then still further when medical care improves because of it?

Re: Pad your resume and hide your risks, little meaty cogs

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:45:57 -0000

Well, New Orleans never really was patting themselves on the back. The Army Corps of Engineers (*federal* employees) charged with maintaining the levees were patting themselves on the back for saving so much money cutting corners. But to further the analogy, suppose something like the national flood insurance program(which isn't the best example, I understand) could provide a similar, and more sane example of how to handle insuring things for which risks are reasonably well known. Perhaps a low base rate with a rider for certain specific coverages?

Anyways, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that doesn't think GINA makes any damn sense. Perhaps single-payer health care will moot the whole issue.

Any bets as to whether GINA will be as full of FAIL as the ACOE?

Re: Bit.ly + Google Analytics Campaign Builder Tool

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:56:04 -0000

I do agree better analytics support would be great, but let's not forget that there are people besides marketers who shorten links and use twitter.

Re: Bit.ly + Google Analytics Campaign Builder Tool

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:03:21 -0000

Now this is the kind of discussion I'd like to be having! I'm going to say some stuff you're going to disagree with, and probably some stuff that pisses you off, Terry, but I want as much as you do to get analytics that works well, because I need to measure social media impact for my job, too. So I'm speaking from my perception of reality on how to get analytics that works, with no malice intended.

On a daily basis, I deal with problems and questions about measuring social media activity, and there really is no way to get corporate boards made up of mostly people who remember the Golden Age of radio to get on board with social media unless there's a good way to measure it. Unfortunately, the analytics tools are mostly made by people with a marketing/analytics background, which means most people won't use them, so the very use of them tags the user as a marketer, which means any link shortened with them starts out with a performance penalty. Bit.ly is popular because of the fact it's simple and clean - no frames or heavy tracking overhead, no wonkiness.

As much as I would love better metrics, the non-metric aspects of the shortener must come first if anyone's gonna use the thing. This is what bit.ly does well and ow.ly does really poorly.

Professional marketing and SEO is absolutely necessary for social media to be taken seriously by people with money, but you've got to think of yourselves like trash collectors. You provide a necessary service, but most people would rather you stayed out of sight and out of mind. Now, I understand that sounds really harsh, but I also think it reflects reality. It's a tough job - you're doing something really valuable and important, but you'll never be well-respected except among your own profession.

Now, how do we get analytics that puts the usability first, but also allows stats to be collected. IOW, without changing how bit.ly looks to the average user, how to we add analytics, invisibly?

Re: Nanosensors: Taking Sensitivity to a New Level

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:32:53 -0000

Aren't nanowires extremely sensitive to ionic concentration? Won't that kill their sensitivity in whole blood?

Re: Nanosensors: Taking Sensitivity to a New Level

Mr. Gunn — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:10:19 -0000

It does seem rather unlikely that there won't be a correlation between pH and ionic concentration in clinically-interesting samples.

I'm sure they can make it work, but I wonder how well they can compete against the other nanosensing technologies using ring resonators or microcantilevers.

Re: Fuck. That. Shit.

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:18:29 -0000

XKCD without alt/hover-text just isn't the same.

Re: Top 10 Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:31:16 -0000

This questions was actually studied in "The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers," by P.A. Paskevich and T.B. Shea.
This study answers two questions: Can a woodchuck in fact chuck
wood, and if so, can the chucked material be quantified?
--see: AIR, vol. 1, no. 4, July/August 1995, pp. 4-9.

Re: Review: Nokia CA-100 Charger Via USB Port

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:11:05 -0000

I have one of the cheap knock-off versions of this from http://cellphoneshop.net. I also have the car ac adapter/cigarette lighter plug to USB plug, so I have a USB plug even in my car. However, you have to have a powered USB port for this to work. Often the USB ports on laptops and the front ports on a dell desktop aren't powered, so you have to sue the ports around the back.

Re: How To: Upload Photos to Flickr From Your Nokia Nseries Phone With Three Clicks

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:41:29 -0000

If they're not supporting tagging in the app it's less than useless. I'll keep uploading via gallery integration, at least that way I can add a title and tags.

Re: Mashup your Library's Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook accounts!

Mr. Gunn — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:22:13 -0000

What about just using the friendfeed stream? That displays pictures and video inline.

Re: This guy just won a “mint”

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:22:06 -0000

Mint is proof either that knowing the right people counts for a lot, or that the other submissions were really lame.

They're using the same software that all the major US financial institutions use. It's called Yodlee, and it's been available for years, for free(as long as you're comfortable using beta software to manage your finances).

The comparing your spending to the average spending of the aggregate of others' accounts is a neat idea, but hardly something that would provide a barrier to entry by a large corp. like Microsoft. I hope the VCs are prepared to take the hit.

Re: Beating the Scraper Caper

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:53:00 -0000

Thanks for putting this up. Hopefully someone at Feedburner will eventually allow a per-feed IP ban.

Mr. Gunns last blog post..I knew it could happen, I’ve seen it happen, I was watching out for it.

Re: How to Improve SEO Ranking

Mr. Gunn — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:33:53 -0000

Nope, you're now second and he's third. Heh.

Re: US 3G Nokia N95 - HSDPA and a Sling Player

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:21:49 -0000

Please, Please, Please shut the fark up about the iphone.

This is a story about the N95, which is a smartphone and entirely different from the iphone, which is not a smartphone, is closed to third-party applications, and makes you go through the ridiculous routine of emailing stuff to yourself(over EDGE, let's not forget) if you want to save the file.

If "most consumers will choose the iphone", which is far from certain, then great for them. They wouldn't know what to do with a real smartphone anyways.

Re: Nokia Hopping In Bed With Joost?

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:09:38 -0000

I got in on the private beta a while back, but I believe it's open to the public now. My first impressions of Joost(link under my name) were that I didn't like the name(but I don't like Ovi, either, so whatever), however, the content, the video quality, and the interface are all pretty slick.

The cool thing is because it uses Mozilla code, many of the same performance tweaks that work for Firefox also work for Joost.

Re: Darla Mack Is Introducing You To Nokia

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:36:29 -0000

I'm so glad it's not a podcast...unlike apparently some people, I still like to read things on the web. I hate podcasts because you can't link to things within them, quote portions of them easily, or skim them.

Re: Nokia Leaks the N82 24hrs Early

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:47:05 -0000

"1050MAh battery"

Really? That makes me sad. You won't even be able to get a full day out of it!

Re: AllAboutSymbian ‘Insight’ Podcast

Mr. Gunn — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:04:18 -0000

What if we'd like to check it out, but aren't able to listen. Is there a transcript available?

Re: New Firmware for N95-1 Finally Out

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:10:22 -0000

Yeah, and the rest of us N75 users get to consume feces…no firmware for us! innit great?

ATT's been texting me about an firmware update for my N75, but I'm not wanting to do it since I've already debranded. It would be cool if the added demand paging to the N75.

Re: Google Maps Mobile Updated for Symbian - Includes Virtual GPS

Mr. Gunn — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:20:27 -0000

I mostly keep getting locations unavailable on my N75, but I think it's a tower issue.

Re: Nokia Internet Radio Grows Up

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:03:46 -0000

Ricky, will either http://somafm.com/play/groovesalad or http://scfire-dll-aa01.stream.aol.com:80/stream... work?

The internet radio doesn't work on the N75, but that address will play just fine in RrealPlayer.

Re: Day 5 - Main Letdown Of The N95 8GB Leb Ambassador: Gaming

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:50:04 -0000

Definitely the battery life is the main thing that needs to improve with Nokia's 3G devices. I only get an hour of 3G browsing on a fully charged battery on my N75, which leaves me phoneless if I don't charge it every single day.

Re: Nokia's 2007-2008 Under The Magnifier

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:14:26 -0000

I agree with your perspective. I like to think of my attention as an investment, and the processing, analyzing, or condensing of the sources I pay attention to as the value added to my investment of attention, and hence the value my readers can get from my posts.

Would you agree?

Re: Nokia: Go Play (With What?)

Mr. Gunn — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:06:19 -0000

The "release" of Ovi was premature. I ascribe most of the discord between ATT and Nokia to ATT feeling like Ovi is treading on their turf. Pure speculation on my part.

Mosh is useful, though....

Re: New Firmware For N95, N95 8GB Coming Soon

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:09:31 -0000

Well, how come the N95 8GB and the N95-1 are getting updates, and the -3 isn't? The phones aren't all that different.

The branded firmware for the N75 is more like cripple-ware, too, but that's more ATT's fault than Nokia's.

I get the feeling that Nokia and ATT are going to have to come to an understanding, because Nokia keeps making faster, better, and more data-intensive phones, and ATT keeps trying to screw them up, limit bandwidth, and so on.

Re: Nokia N96 - King Of The Mobiles

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:02:10 -0000

Why do they keep making these things with too small batteries? Do they expect that everyone wants their phone to be as tethered to a power source as a laptop?

Re: Charge Your Nokia Via USB For $6

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:48:42 -0000

Compatible, in the language of mobile accessory salesmen, means "theoretically should be within spec". Just look at all the idiots selling crappy 500 mAh batteries as BL-5BT compatible.

That said, I have a little gizmo similar to this, and it works OK. In combo with the USB cigarette lighter adapters for your car, it removes the need for separate car and home chargers.

However, it's a little loose, so I have to brace the phone just right in order for it to completely charge. I don't know if this is a problem of my phone or the charger, though.

Re: iPhone App Store Is Everything Download! Should Be

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:32:54 -0000

Well, I don't know if you want to hold up the "itunes only" model as any kind of example to follow. First of all, only a few applications, that are blessed by both Apple and ATT, will be allowed to be sold, and then only after paying a $99 fee, and only through itunes. Not only does that effectively exclude freeware, but since it's exclusively through itunes, that gives them a distribution monopoly, which they use to take a whopping 30% of all sales, leaving the developer the choices of:

A. Sell through itunes and accept the deal they give you.
B. Go suck eggs.

This also means that there will be no 3G VOIP app, because ATT doesn't like it, there will be no standalone IM app because Apple insists any application must be terminated when a call is received. Running in the background, like we've all got used to on S60, is expressly prohibited. I guess nobody needs to look up anything using their browser while in a call, or resume listening to the song they were playing when the call came in, and everybody would love to have the navigation program they were using as they cruised around a foreign city abruptly terminate when someone called them.

Yeah, it should be easier to get an app listed in the download folder, but the itunes model is NOTHING that Nokia should want to imitate.

Re: iPhone App Store Is Everything Download! Should Be

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:06:57 -0000

Thanks for directing me to Michael Mace's blog. Turns out he loves everything Apple, and doesn't seem to know that much about anything related to Nokia. It also turns out he's either the current or former "director of Mac Platform Marketing at Apple", which explains, I think, a lot. I get enough myopic mac-praising during my day, I don't need to seek it out, thanks.

Re: R.I.P Pen Key, You Will Be Missed

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:15:22 -0000

It's a classical problem, making your UI simple enough for first time users but not too dumbed down that power users get annoyed. I think this is a move in the wrong direction, especially for the high-end devices that are mostly bought by experienced users anyways.

Ahhh...at least Nokia isn't as prone to branding disasters as ATT! "Tab Top?" Gimme a break, losers!

Re: I Like T9, How About You?

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:08:53 -0000

T9 FTW!

Re: S60 Browser & Opera Mini In Harmony

Mr. Gunn — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:40:54 -0000

For a long time, companies would simply advertise their mobile sites, and now they're advertising iphone compatible, which is a mistake.

What irritates me about the "iphone-compatible" sites is that it's the whole "best viewed in IE/Netscape/Firefox" nonsense all over again. They should be "webkit-compatible" sites, so they work on as wide a variety of devices as possible.

Please tell me developers have learned something over the past decade of web development.

Re: Why Don't Nokia Apps Work On Samsung S60 Devices?

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:24:57 -0000

Nokia should start signing the apps with a cross-platform cert and see if the problem goes away. They should be doing that anyways, right?

Re: USB Host Mode On S60 Devices

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:16:49 -0000

If the port is already there, there's no reason to not support it. Just the simple ability to plug in a flash drive would be awesome, but USB-based accesory hardware like GPS would be nice too, or anything else you'd like to give its own battery,

Re: Gmail On S60 – What’s The Best Way?

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:11:51 -0000

The disabling of automatic checks after a check with no signal is what caused me to stop using the built-in client. It was also annoying that the application would occasionally freeze after replying to an email.

After my institution started offering Exchange, I switched to Mail for Exchange, and I think this is by far the best solution. You set it up just like your desktop version, there's a variety of options for periodic checking, and as a bonus, your calendar and contacts are synced too.

If you don't have Exchange through your employer, there are some companies which will provide hosted exchange. It's an extra level of setup, but it only has to be done once, and makes things far more useable.

Re: Nokia Talks, N95-3 Firmware Update Coming In June

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:02:14 -0000

Now the question is, "Will ATT thoroughly fuck this one up like they did with the updated N75 firmware?" You're probably better off sticking with the euro version if you care at all about active standby.

Re: iPhone to N95: 5 - Multimedia Computer or Feature Phone?

Mr. Gunn — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:47:21 -0000

There's nothing surprising about this. Compare the advertising budgets of the two companies, especially the US AD spending.

I'll never understand why Nokia didn't take the opportunity to point out all these differences and just let Apple steadily gain marketshare.

The iphone is talked about because it's so heavily marketed, and every time I have to jump in and mention the superiority of Nokia, but I can't do all their marketing for them.

Re: Embryonic Stem Cells? Never Mind! Bush was Right

Mr. Gunn — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:56:00 -0000

Let me quote the last line of the actual paper for you:

Human iPS cells, however, are not identical to hES cells: DNA microarray analyses detected differences between the two pluripotent stem cell lines. Further studies are essential to determine whether human iPS cells can replace hES in medical applications.

So, no, he wasn't. He's made lots of very smart people waste great amounts of time, energy, and money for something of questionable utility.