friendship

When Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen published his book "Idea Man" last year, he surprised many people by tearing into his longtime friend and business partner Bill Gates.

In a new epilogue published for the paperback version of this book, which comes out this week, Allen writes that after a yearlong rift, the two men have repaired their friendship, according to GeekWire.

"Not everyone loved everything I wrote," Allen writes. "Some of my Microsoft friends were piqued that I'd cast the company's recent history in 'not the most favorable light,' as one of them … Read more

It's Friday and therefore time to muse about friendship.

Here's one thought: If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then my friend may, in fact, be more troubling and irrelevant than Ann Taylor separates.

Here's another: People appear to suddenly be realizing that their Facebook friends are not--and will never be--real friends. Oddly, though, they are finally doing something about it.

I am grateful to my nonfriends at ReadWriteWeb, who have unearthed a new Pew study that says defriending is trending on Facebook.

People are finally wandering around their Facebook garden and, perhaps stimulated by … Read more

Fifty years ago Monday, a young Marine Corps fighter pilot shoe-horned himself into a cramped Mercury capsule blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas rocket to become the first American in orbit -- and one of the nation's enduring heroes.

John Glenn went on to a distinguished career in the U.S. Senate before making history again in 1998, blasting off aboard the shuttle Discovery to become, at 77, the oldest human to fly in space.

Now 90, Glenn's memories of his historic Feb. 20, 1962, flight aboard Friendship 7 remain razor sharp, "indelibly" etched … Read more

As far as the United States was concerned, John Glenn's Feb. 20, 1962, flight aboard Friendship 7 could not have been more important.

Less than a year earlier, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space, and by the time of Glenn's launch, Americans Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom had already made their way into the heavens, if only briefly.

But with his 4 hour, 56 minute flight, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, doing so three times at an altitude of up to 162 statute miles and speeds of up to … Read more

Here's just the latest reported evidence that the late Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had a strong relationship at the time of the Apple icon's death.

Microsoft's co-founder told The Telegraph that yes, the two had some stormy days as fierce competitors. But things changed around 2007 when Gates left Microsoft to set up his foundation and the two did an event together (presumably referring to the D Conference in 2007, pictured right). Before Jobs' death in October, Gates said he paid the Apple co-founder a long visit. "We spent literally hours reminiscing and talking about … Read more

Some people are desperate to have friends.

Or, rather, they're desperate to feel as if they have friends. They therefore spend endless and painful hours on Facebook trawling, staring, begging, and waiting.

I find that a bottle of wine, a home-cooked spaghetti bolognese, and a credit card normally do the trick, but too many seem to discount such apparently painless methods.

For them, Brazilian security expert Nelson Novaes Neto has another answer: the foolproof, but perhaps somewhat dubious, route to guaranteed Facebook friendship.

Ars Technica was friendly enough to report that Neto is a man confident of his friending … Read more

Of course you love Facebook. You love the way it makes you feel to have so many friends. Yes, thousands of them. You love the fact that you can have open, personal interactions with all of those who mean something to you.

And then there's what you really think about them. Which, should you be human, can be something a little more critical, a little more personal.

A new site called AboutEveryone.com understands your feelings. It purports to offer you the opportunity to vent your real feelings about your Facebook friends, with a security that Facebook cannot possibly … Read more

Are your friends obese? Is the burden of too many Facebook friends weighing you down? Do you spend your days so concerned about those hundreds who hang on your every word that you can no longer function as, say, the CEO of a major tech company?

Jimmy Kimmel, the talk show host who isn't Jimmy Fallon, has a solution. He would like you to observe National Unfriend Day.

On November 17, he encourages you to remove some of the friend fat in your life. William Shatner helped Kimmel in his announcement by philosophizing: "These people on Facebook..they'… Read more

Facebook today launched a feature called "Friendship Pages," which lets users load up the interactions between themselves and individual friends, or between any two friends, on the social network. You'll see their posts on one another's walls, events to which both RSVP'd, photos in which both are tagged, and other interactions that you would otherwise be able to access on either friend's profile (i.e. nothing that wouldn't otherwise be public).

Friendship Pages are live as of Thursday but are not yet accessible to all members.

It's another feature, like the redesigned Facebook Groups, … Read more