If you hosted your own Twitter, just like you host your own website, you could put your twitter anywhere. Case scenario: I have a twitter blog at dembot.com/twitter All of the friends I follow? How would we connect? You guessed it: RSS!

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When I post something to Twitter, within a couple of minutes it shows up on FriendFeed. I don’t know for sure, but I bet that it’s calling the Twitter API every few minutes to ask if Dave has posted something over there. Most of the time the answer is no. And it’s asking for each of the thousands of FriendFeed users that have connected their Twitter accounts to their FriendFeed accounts. Wouldn’t it be simpler for FriendFeed to say to Twitter: “Here’s a list of all the FriendFeed users who want to have their twits reflected over here.” Then Twitter could call FriendFeed saying “Yo, Dave just updated and here’s what he said.” Don’t call us we’ll call you. It’s often more efficient. ;-> Permalink to this paragraph

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Back in 2001, when Amazon needed new ways of accommodating its ever-growing online operation, HP convinced Werner Vogels and crew to buy a mainframe-like system. But then Amazon decided that going forward was a better idea than going backward. After 12 months, the company ditched the hulking box and transformed its site – in Vogels words – “from a single app into a platform.”

This meant adopting a unified model for the literally hundreds of software tools that play into each page of Amazon.com. “We had all these shared pieces of software that needed to work together, and these became bottlenecks. Constructing one piece of shared software that needs to interact with all the others is just a nightmare,” Vogels explained. “So we developed a model where Amazon could be way more agile in terms of being able to build and try out new pieces of software without impacting everyone else.”

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For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay … As conventional suburban lifestyles fall out of fashion and walkable urban alternatives proliferate, what will happen to obsolete large-lot houses?

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Ceres’s prime location as well as its gravitational benefits could (like Earth’s moon) help jump start our solar economy, if not give it a second wind. But how would an active mining industry aid a future Martian colony? After all, if Mars has very little to offer our species financially, why even bother colonizing it?

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Christensen noted that they’ve even had a couple of Doktor Sleepless issues stolen from their booth at Chicago. “That’s when you know you’re really cool, when people start stealing your stuff,” he laughed.

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UFC President Dana White was on hand to help promote the game that features more than 80 current fighters in five different weight classes ranging from lightweight (up to 155 lbs.) to heavyweight (205+ lbs.). White admitted that the first attempts at UFC video games were not impressive, but the UFC worked alongside THQ to make sure this game is more realistic than the other games. Based off of a combination of wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing and kickboxing, it’ll be interesting to see how THQ tackles the interesting physics behind taking an opponent down and applying proper techniques without taking excitement out of the game. Lack of proper technique used in the video game will not go down well among hardcore MMA fans, and it seems like THQ took this into consideration when making the game. Gamers will be able to create their own characters in each class, and will be able to go online and download future content THQ will make available. A “Career Mode” gives gamers the opportunity to build up a certain character that can lead to entry in the online UFC Hall of Fame.

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Whether tomorrow is wonderful or horrible may depend on the extent to which persons with good minds and loving hearts become actively involved in shaping the future.

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Twitter itself has made a few changes that has made me work with a little differently. The most notable is that they pulled down the “track” feature which was really my favorite thing they ever did. Honestly I can’t wait for them to bring it back online because without it Twitter is about 10% as functional for me as it was previously

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Recent changes to Facebook have been relatively minor tweaks. While MySpace has designs on being an entertainment destination offering users music and TV content, Facebook appears to be concentrating predominantly on being an efficient communication tool.

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