Visualizing Search Results

There's quite a few of these alternative search engines now ...quite a lot more than I imagined, actually.

This is an interesting collection of visually based search engines - The crystal one is particularly strange but ingenious somehow at the same time.

Heres a pic of a crystal visual search engine result.

25! :)

Happy Birthday, Smiley

Sept. 19, 1982
"I propose the following character for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways," Fahlman wrote. "Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-( "

And my favorite quote from the article:

"Good writers should have no need to explicitly label their humorous comments."

Steve's First Letter

Now we know where Steve Jobs learned his PR style:

Courtesy of www.geekculture.com

10!

Google, at age 10
On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24 year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of "google.com."

WikiRage

Sort of a Google Zeitgeist for Wikipedia based on edit activity.

WikiRage

(via LifeHacker)

Google In The News

Google Founders’ Ultimate Perk: A NASA Runway
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/technology/13google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The famous founders seem to have acquired landing rights to a runway that NO other civilian planes can land at, and are only a few miles away from Google's headquarters. The articles says that NASA gets to run scientific missions on their planes, and thus the allowance. Hmmm, I want to see the results of those experiments.

In other Google news, it seems that some confidential Google plans to compete with FaceBook were leaked.

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/09/video-leak-goog.html

They're allying some of their platform around the Google Reader. I haven't used the reader yet, but I may have to. And some interesting learnings at the bottom of the article:

• Two thirds of all RSS feeds only have one subscriber
• Google prioritizes more popular feeds polling every hour for updates, while the two thirds mentioned above are polled every 3 hours.
• The Google Reader back-end stores a staggering 10 terebytes of data from 8 million feeds

And of course, there's the Moon Prize they announced. I was at the first prize, so I'll definitely try to be at this one, if someone enters.

Daylight!

Things that make me happy:

MTurk + GEarth = Search and Rescue

Amazon is using their Mechanical Turk service to assist in the search and rescue for missing aviator Steve Fossett.

Got this email from Amazon:


Details of the task to perform are available here:

Steve Fossett Missing: Help find him by searching satellite imagery

I hadn't heard of it before, but TechCrunch has a story on how Amazon did something similar when Jim Gray was lost at sea.

Very interesting and noble use of crowd sourcing.

Nowhere

Great article on the origins of Lost and the Hollywood saga of the original creator.

Cast Away
Every time ABC runs an episode of its hit TV series Lost, Evanston's Jeffrey Lieber gets an onscreen credit and his bank account gets a nice pop. But the twisting tale of his Hollywood triumph has left Lieber feeling a bit ... well, lost.

Apple Adwords Prank

Man buys Google Adwords ad for "iphone price drop" and a comedy of errors ensues.

DYH isn’t funny?

Also interesting in how it shows the lack of basic fact checking when blogs become common news sources.

Bowling and NLP

A couple of random YouTube videos.

First, the winning entry for a guitar-usage competition. I was (and still am a little) a LEGO fanatic.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gkyeFA8bPeU

Second, part of a show about a British NLP expert. Neuro-linguistic programming is what I'd call a minor form of hypnosis used to manipulate people to your desires.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

And instead of worrying about what to get someone for a birthday, wouldn't it be nice if they REALLY wanted exactly what you wanted to get them.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg

Not The Only One...

How I stumbled into this is an odd chain of RSS feeds, blogs, and Googles, but:

Unmatched Sock Wearers Unite

!!!

SMS Turns 15

This article has some neat trivia points and quotes even though it follows the overdone "SMS Speak Is Ruining English" theory. But the fact that our loyal friend the text message is about to turn 15 is borderline amazing.

OMG! TXT MSG turns 15!

Fun Fact:

"The British-based Mobile Data Association dates text messaging to December 1992, when a British engineer sent the message "Merry Christmas" to a colleague from a computer to a mobile handset."

Great Quote:

"There's nothing wrong with flip-flops, worn at the appropriate time in an appropriate way. But soccer players don't wear flip-flops in a game."

360° Light Field Display

A holographic display created using a spinning mirror. Very "Help me Obi-wan Kenobi" sort of feel to it.

Earthquake Lull?

Headline caught my eye, though this quote made me want to post it:

"Nature is very much like a 14-year-old boy; it's sloppy and lazy,"

L.A. in 1,000-year Earthquake Lull

When the hell are we?

So, exactly what time does a guy have to get up to see the lunar eclipse tonight?

SF Gate
For the wide-awake, a partial eclipse will start at 1:51 a.m. Tuesday and become total starting at 2:52 a.m. By 4:22 a.m., the total phase will be over, but then as the moon begins to emerge from Earth's shadow, another partial phase will begin. The eclipse will end at 5:24 a.m., just as the sky lightens at dawn.

Wired
The moon will start getting dimmer around 4am EDT, with peak shadow about an hour and a half later.

SF Examiner
The moon will just after 7:30 p.m. tonight but will not start passing through the weakest part of Earth’s shadow, or penumbra, until 12:52 a.m. Tuesday, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Voice of America
The eclipse will begin at 0851 UTC and end at 1224 UTC.

KSBY
If you want to see the spectacular show, they say it will happen at approximately 1:52 a.m. and end at 4:22 a.m.

National Geographic
The eclipse will be visible in North and South America, Australia, and eastern Asia starting at about 3 a.m. PT on Tuesday...

Chico Enterprise Record
Just before 2 a.m. Tuesday the West Coast will witness an astronomical spectacle...

San Jose Mercury News
If you've got insomnia or the inclination to be awake about 3:37 a.m. - you should be able to see a coppery red hue on a shaded moon.

Canada.com
The partial eclipse begins at 4:51 a.m. ET. The moon edges gradually into Earth's shadow.
Total eclipse begins at 5:52 a.m.

LA Daily News
But the best view will be in the West, where it will be viewable from about 1:30-5:30 a.m.

Ventura County Star
...the total lunar eclipse that will be visible in Southern California in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Aug. 28, from just before 2 a.m. to just shy of 3:30 a.m.

And don't get me started on these next ones. Daylight Time! Daylight Time!

Imperial Valley News
Totality begins at 2:52AM PST, and mid-eclipse occurs at 3:37AM PST.

Orlando Sentinal
The viewing begins shortly before 5 a.m. EST.

Bad Design in Everyday Life

Painfully true...and hilarious.

Bad Designs in Everyday Life

via SvN

Decision Tree

Time Travel Machine Outlined

Former coworker emailed this to me. Love being "time travel guy" in certain circles...

Time Travel Machine Outlined

Internet Knowledge Quiz

I got 82%. BoRyan will probably score better than me...



(Also note how the code to add this widget at the end of the quiz tries to sneak in a secret advertisement. Wonder if it's a bonus question to be smart enough to remove it before posting...)

Is Google Becoming Evil?

This one surprised me:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/20/google-disconnects-grand-central-customers/#comments

"So much for Grand Central’s “one number for life” promise. The company is turning off customer phone numbers and giving them new ones following their acquisition by Google last month...[a user received a notice] advising him that in 8 days his Grand Central number would be canceled and that he would be required to immediately start using a new number allocated to him."

Even worse is the Grand Central posting on their OWN blog on July 12, saying:

"One of the foundations of GrandCentral is the “one number for life” concept. When creating the company we thought about all the pain points of having a new phone number or a number that switches every time your life changes. Go to college? Get a new number. Buy a house? Get a new number. Change jobs? Get a new number. Not only is this a pain for you as you need to now memorize another number for yourself, but its even worse for your friends and family who have to keep up updating their address books to keep track of you. With GrandCentral as your only number, these problems go away."

This follows on the heels of Google removing access to DRM'd videos that one purchased through Google Video. Granted they gave credits to their Google Checkout service, but is that really acceptable given that you purchased the rights to view a video indefinitely?

Is it really impossible to make profits AND be good?

Sound Familiar?

Part of this article on the Netflix call center gave me a bit of a flashback...

At Netflix, Victory for Voices Over Keystrokes
"Ms. Funk, 36, said some people call because they are lonely. Her lengthiest call of that kind lasted 35 minutes. Others need basic help with their computers or with the Internet. Some people do not own a computer and call regularly to have a call center employee rearrange the titles in their queue."

The Truth About DRM-Free music?

Not sure I fully understand this, but interesting. Seems they'd be able to track popularity and how viral something is relative to it's original source, but getting it down to the individual user would be difficult and/or expensive.

Could Audio Watermarking Help Make MP3s Free?
Audio watermarking involves taking a song and manipulating it digitally to create an audio pattern that is unmistakable to the right software -- such as Activated's -- though undetectable by human ears.

The tracking technology allows advertisers to gather information about the consumer and the effectiveness of the ad. Such data, according to Silberstein, is so valuable that advertisers would be willing to pay five to 10 times rate of a regular ad for an watermarked ad. That data works particularly well with "call-to-action" type of ads, in which consumers, after listening to an ad, respond or click on a link to buy something or otherwise opt in to the advertiser's campaign, Silberstein said.

Towformian Tendencies Rewarded?

Both unbelievable and sad but true at the same time. Harkens back to the all too true (but presumably fake) quote: "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Bad bosses get promoted, not punished?
In the study to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways.

"The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable -- remarkably disturbing,"

The authors advocated immediate intervention by industry chiefs to stop fledgling office authoritarians from rising up the ranks.

"The leaders above them who did nothing, who rewarded and promoted bad leaders ... represent an additional problem."

"As with any sort of cancer, the best alternative to prevention is early detection," they wrote.

Power Nap Zap

How to Sleep 4 Hours per Night
Zapping your brain with an electromagnet could do the trick. A good night’s sleep just takes too long. Scientists may soon be able to cut those eight wasted hours down to three or four—by waving a wand, more or less. The technique, transcranial magnetic stimulation, involves an electromagnetic coil that emits pulses of skull-penetrating, neuron-activating magnetic energy.

Off-beat idea for iPhone contact photos

Grab a camera and a plate of glass or just shove someone's face onto the surface of a scanner. Voila! When one of your contacts calls you it looks like they're trying to escape from the prison that is your iPhone, or the prison that is your AT&T contract or maybe more like Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. Regardless, I suggest you stop drinking whatever it is you're drinking before viewing these photos.

4

I'm 3 days late, but Sunday was 4 years...

RIP

Sprint Gives Heisman

Hilarious, brilliant, CSRs dream, and PR nightmare rolled into one. I still can't believe they went through with this, especially given the suspect criteria used.

Sprint breaks up with high-maintenance customers
On June 29, 2007, Sprint sent letters notifying some customers that their service would be canceled by the end of July due to excessive calls to customer service.

"Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information," the letter reads. "While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs."

Part II: Apple vs. AT&T - The Activation

We all love cell phone activations, right?

It seems like in the past I've spent more time than I care to in the store when I purchase a phone.

With iPhone in hand, I went home to complete the activation. I had already downloaded iTunes 7.3 in the morning, so I was ready to go.

Unwrapping new Apple products is always a pleasure. They focus on the design, the packaging and how it feels. And I've always noticed that for 1st generations they put much more effort into it. (If you ever bought a first gen iPod, you'll know what I mean).

I plug the phone into the dock, connect to my computer and I'm off and running in iTunes. 5-6 pages later I arrive at the "Complete Your Activation" screen. I'm told it may take up to 3 minutes.

I wait, and wait. And then receive a messages that says "You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete." WTF?

Now I have to wait for email confirmation. This can't be Apple. So, I call the 800 number on the screen.

I still don't know if it was an Apple rep or AT&T rep, but the phone rings twice and is picked up - no waiting. Clearly those extra 2000 staffers made a difference. And amazingly the woman was very pleasant and easy to understand. I suspect that the rep was from AT&T, but it was a specially staffed iPhone 800 number. It was just too good for a regular carrier.

Apparently, AT&T is backlogged in new activation requests and it may take 24 hours to receive an email. Keep in mind, that NO iTunes syncing can occur until after your phone has been activated. So, basically I can't even use the phone.

Many compulsive email refreshes later, I receive the email, and my phone starts syncing. I had already setup preferences to sync contacts, calendar, personal email account, songs, photos, and a couple tv shows.

In summary, the activation experience (aside from the waiting) was awesome. I did it all in the course of 5 minutes from my computer.

Word on the internet, is that if you were porting a number from another carrier, the WAIT is much longer.

So, it appears that Apple's design experience and server available were top-notch. AT&T needs to figure out how to activate phones quicker.

Apple vs. AT&T

So, did I get an iPhone yesterday? Read and see.

The Logic
I decided to wait in line at the local AT&T rather than the Apple Store. My reasoning was that the lines were a lot longer at the Apple Store. 300 in my neighborhood vs. 100 at AT&T. And Apple was allowing two phone purchases per person while AT&T was allowing only one.

The AT&T Experience
I had a late work meeting, so I didn't get to AT&T until around 5pm. At that point, I was about 95th in line. The mood of the crowd was reasonably happy, no one here had been waiting for days.

Fast forward to 6pm and the doors open. The line moves up a bit as people crowd forward, but from then on moves VERY slowly. We finally get to a window where we can see inside the store and they have 10-12 stations, but the computers are moving VERY slowly, and it seems to take 10-15 minutes just to get one person done. Apparently, they're doing FULL credit checks.

They won't say much about inventory, but say we should get a phone though it may not be 8GB. This continues for around an hour and a half. Then at around 7:30pm, they say that there's a very low chance we'll get the 8s based on where we're at in line. I waiver, and decide to wait a bit more time. At 7:50pm (with 40 people still ahead of me), they say they're out of 8s and MAY not have any 4s available by the time it reaches me.

To hell with that. I resign myself to trying tomorrow, but decide on a lark to walk down to the Apple Store on the Promenade.

The Apple Experience
I get to the Apple Store at around 8pm. The line has about 150 people. But, it would seem to be moving fairly quickly. There are 10x as many police and the mood is much more festive.

Rumor passes through the line, that there's still plenty of iPhones, both 4s and 8s. But, the Apple employees while nice, won't confirm.

Meanwhile, there's free Starbucks coffee samples AND they start passing out water bottles to people in line.

Every 10-15 min. they're letting in groups of 30 people at a time. They're cruising through.

Around 9pm, about 15 Apple employees clap and cheer as I walk through the doors. I'm siked to hear that they still have the 8s in stock. Going through the in-store line, Apple employees are letting us play with iPhones while we wait to get to a register.

I'm up, I want an 8, and they're done in 3 min. I HAVE the iPhone!

The Moral
When faced with a choice to wait in line at an AT&T or Apple Store. Choose the Apple Store if you want free water.

iTunes 7.3

New iTunes update came out today to support iPhone activations. Probably tweaked some other things as well, but the first one I noticed was a bit weird.

Alphabetical sorting now puts artists and albums with numbers after the alphabet rather than before it, so the 22-20s are now near the end of my library, while a-ha has risen to the top.

Flashback

While trying to recall the old Chatsworth address for the Gmaps entry, I stumbed onto this blog post:

when i was staying in hollywood, i took a job at a company called inetnow.com

Gotta love the photo of the pen.

Anyone remember this guy?

New GMaps Feature is the Holy Grail!

Neil sent me a text about this tonight, and I actually left a restaurant early to come home and play with it. (True that double true.)



Hmm, I'd rather take the 405...



Wait, what am I thinking. Surface streets make more sense...



Un-flipping believable!

Play with it here

iPhone Video 2: Activation and Sync

Another iPhone video is up, this one about how to activate and sync.

My thoughts/predictions:

-They seem to have done a great job in allowing you to activate at home yourself via iTunes, as this tends to be a long, tedious, and confusing process that was made extremely simple.

-Based on this in home activation, rumors of no removable battery, and no obvious battery door in the other demo, we may have our answer on the "will it work on other carriers" question. My guess is that the way they "locked" the iPhone was quite literal: they locked the SIM in the phone, making it non-removable. (Or at least not easily removable.)

-Synching is iPod simple, with nice touches of being able to auto-sync a Yahoo address book and have POP mail settings synched to the phone as well if the accounts are already on your computer.

-We also have the billing plan answer from the video: $59.99 for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes, or $99.99 for 1,350 minutes. All plans include unlimited data, visual voicemail, 200 SMS messages, and the usual AT&T rollover and mobile to mobile minutes. (A little steep, but with my limited talking I could probably get away with the low plan and paying extra for an upgrade on SMS.)

iPhone Video: Check out the UI

Neil tipped me off to the video that Apple has on their home page. It's a 25 min. tutorial of how the iPhone works.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/guidedtour_large.html

The demo shows a lot of the contextual power of the UI. You have the right buttons that you need when you're performing certain actions. This seems like to be the biggest problems with most software.

Things I liked from the demo:

- easily adding a caller (conference) to a call - this seems like one of the things that regular phone systems never make easy

- different functionality is accessed depending on the orientation of the phone (vertical or horizontal)

- pinch zooming in and out

- they only mention Google and Yahoo as search options. Poor Microsoft.

- my Treo has SMS message threading. But the iPhone UI shows both parties in a bubble talk format

- the biggest problem with the demo, is the unbelievable speed that the internet is accessed. I'm sure it'll be much slower in reality

The 38th Parody

They say it's the sincerest form of flattery for a reason. It actually is pretty funny. My favorite is the ad at the top of the fake one. "Your mom is looking for a good developer." LOL

37 Signals
SvN: Sketching with a Sharpie
Ballpoints and fine tips just don’t fill the page like a Sharpie does. Fine tips invite you to draw while Sharpies invite you to just to get your concepts out into big bold shapes and lines. When you sketch with a thin tip you tend to draw at a higher resolution and worry a bit too much about making things look good. Sharpies encourage you to ignore details early on.

The 38th Signal
Wireframing with the blood of your enemies
Ballpoints and fine tips just don’t convey the same sense of malice and dominance as blood. Fine tips invite you to draw while blood invites you to visualize your concept obliterating the competition. When you sketch with a thin tip you tend to spend too much time worrying about making it look good. Using blood encourages you to ignore extraneous details and focus on what matters: the annihilation of your rivals and the subjugation of their people. You can almost hear the women weeping.

UPDATE: Fixed the 38th link above to be a permalink to the referenced article, now that they've started adding parody posts to match some other SvN content. Full site here.

The Sippy Cup Incident

TSA video counts 'sippy cup' allegation

Summary:
Woman stopped by airport security for having water in her son's sippy cup. TSA says she can't take it and has to get rid of the water and go through security again. In her anger she walks out of security through the exit, intentionally dumps out the water onto the floor, and tries to go back into security through the exit. A larger incident follows, and in the process she misses her flight. After the fact she claims she spilled the water by accident and was sorely mistreated in an abuse of power.

Rather than just take the heat, the TSA posts the security video on their website, calling her bluff and proving she spilled the water in an intentional episode of immature rage. (As you can probably guess, I love that the TSA posted the video.)

Moral of the story:
Even if you are put off by an arguably overzealous and unnecessary piece of red tape policy, lying will only make it worse.

And big brother is always watching...

Random Site: Forum Search Engine

I randomly came across this site.

http://www.omgili.com/

From their About section:

"Omgili is a specialized search engine that focuses on "many to many" user generated content platforms, such as, forums, Discussion groups, answer boards and others."

I'm sure there are better examples of sites like this, but I was drawn in by the design more than anything. I don't like the color scheme.

Do a search for "dating" and notice Buzz Meter that shows up on the right side.

I'd love to see Google incorporate historical popularity of search terms next to results, or have it as an option on the Personalized home page. Google already seems a little more cluttered with the new interface.

Browser Wars Revisited?

Does Safari for Windows mean the old browser wars are heating up again?

It's a head scratching move to a degree from a pure web browser standpoint, though it does make sense as an iPhone WebApp development environment, or if the iPhone eventually synchs Safari bookmarks over the air.

Origins of Deja Vu

Vague, but interesting.

Origin of Deja Vu Pinpointed
The brain cranks out memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for “episodic” memories—information that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart.

The finding helps explain where déjà vu originates in the brain, and why it happens more frequently with increasing age.

Buzz

This is pretty neat. I can't hear it, but Arlo can.

A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears
"When I heard about it I didn't believe it at first," said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. "But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could."

The technology, which relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, was developed in Britain but has only recently spread to America — by Internet, of course.

The cellphone ring tone that she heard was the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito, developed last year by a Welsh security company to annoy teenagers and gratify adults, not the other way around.

It was marketed as an ultrasonic teenager repellent, an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer designed to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected.

MP3 here.

Become Famous on Google Streets

So, by now you've already heard of Google Street View that was officially announced at the Where 2.0 conference:

Google Maps Street View and Mapplets

However, what I didn't think about was the potential for Google's cameras to find people and things in weird situations. Here's an article on 10 weird sitings:

10 Bizarre Sights in Google Street View

I like the Borat one.

Now, if I can just find out when the Google van is going to visit my neighborhood.

The Dream...

I know it's probably unlikely to come true, but one can dream...

20-hour work weeks
CIOs need to prepare for the 20-hour working week as social models and technologies change to promote a work-light future, analyst house Gartner predicts.

Simply Google

Its been awhile...but I found something pretty cool.

Check this out...All of Google's features on one page.

Did you know about Mental Plex, Pigeon Rank, and Google Romance?

Banning the bulb?

LEDs emerge to fight fluorescents
"The light bulb, the symbol of bright ideas, doesn't look like such a great idea anymore, as lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad are talking about banning the century-old technology because of its contribution to global warming."

Home, End, Insert

Some classic observational wisdom from SvN.

Home and End: Two of the most useful yet underrated keys on the keyboard

"They’re small and their function isn’t all that clear. You can just press one to see what happens, but I’ve also noticed people don’t experiment with their keyboards. They use the keys they know and avoid the rest."

I'm surprised the comments haven't delved into a debate over the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the Insert Key, which I find to be a total waste of space.

We listened to songs about fire while Griffith Park burned...

Couple of on-topic discoveries related to the Griffith Park fire.

1. The Los Angeles Fire Department has an official blog, and it's well done and pretty damn informative at that. Gotta love seeing new media put to good use in simple yet unsuspecting ways. Can't wait for the day when it's not so unexpected to see something like this.

2. Sitting down to dinner and wanting to drown out the noise of the helicopters, I opened iTunes, typed "fire" into the search box, and assembled a quickie themed playlist. (Some might remember my "Rain" mix CD that I kept in my car during June gloom a few years ago. I so amuse myself...)

> > Light My Fire -- The Doors
> > Fuel for Fire -- M. Ward
> > Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head -- Gorillaz
> > Fire On The Bayou -- The Meters
> > Ring of Fire -- Johnny Cash
> > Firetruck -- Mike Doughty
> > Fire and Rain -- James Taylor
> > Fire -- Jimi Hendrix
> > Ceasefire -- Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
> > Play With Fire -- The Rolling Stones
> > Chinese Firedrill -- Mike Watt
> > Fire In My Head -- Piers Faccini
> > Fire In The Garage -- Papa Grows Funk
> > Fire On The Mountain -- Grateful Dead
> > Fire Tender Red -- Abdoujaparov
> > Firehead -- Devics
> > Fireplace -- R.E.M.
> > Firetruck Remix -- Mike Doughty
> > Friendly Fire -- Citizen Cope
> > I Set The World On Fire -- The Thorns
> > Ring Of Fire -- Social Distortion
> > Lake Of Fire -- Nirvana
> > Playing With Fire -- Stereo MC's
> > This Fire -- Franz Ferdinand
> > The Unforgettable Fire -- U2

As we went through the songs, I realized that some that had fire in the title didn't really fit the theme ("Firehead" by the Devics; "Fire in the Garage" by Papa Grows Funk), and others that had fire in the lyrics should have really been included but weren't due to the nature of the iTunes search function. ("April 29, 1992" by Sublime: "wanna let it burn wanna wanna let it burn"; "Laid" by James: "this bed is on fire...")

And then it hit me how brilliant this rumored deal between Apple and Gracenote to provide lyrics in iTunes could be if done right.

Imagine the mixtape making power of being able to search a music library for words and phrases contained in the lyrics. Or how many more songs you might buy if you could literally search based on "that song that goes..." Filmmakers could import a script into a tool that would spit out suggestions for the soundtrack. Vacation mixes could dig up ditties that reference your destination. The list goes on and on.

It's more than just allowing for an iPod based singalong. This is going to be huge.

Biz 2.Doh!

It happens to everyone...

June Issue Of Business 2.0 Deleted Before Going To Print

via TechCrunch

Maps: Usability vs. Accuracy

Can He Get There From Here?

Great NYT article (via SvN) about one man's quest to revise and simplify the NYC subway maps.

"He wisely recognizes that usability is more important than geographic accuracy here. Subway map readers want to know how to get from A to B a lot more than they want to know the exact curve of the tracks along the way. Sometimes truth is less important than knowledge."

I completely agree. Reminds me of the magic that makes the old MapBlast LineDrive directions so powerful. A clear blueprint of where you're going is far more important that whether or not the map is "to scale" in a traditional sense.

Very Observant

Hey BoRyan: We were right, and it goes even deeper:

Replays of Red Sox’ Homer Feat Tell Different Story

It was the third inning when Manny Ramírez, J. D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek each hit bases-empty homers to put the Red Sox ahead, 4-3. Each one was accompanied by a colorful verbal send-off by ESPN’s Jon Miller.

As ESPN rolled the replay of Drew’s drive, Miller said, “Theo Epstein was watching and was pretty impressed.” In a taped reaction shot, Epstein, the Red Sox’ general manager, appeared to say, “Oh my God.”

A few minutes later, as ESPN replayed Lowell’s shot, Miller said, “Manny Ramírez was watching it from the dugout.” Ramírez jumped off the bench, exultant, and hugged a teammate or a coach.

Then the third inning ended, and ESPN offered a sequence of the four home runs, and this time, Epstein’s reaction no longer came after Drew’s home run, but after Varitek’s, the last in the record-tying run.

In the seventh, the sequence was shown again, and Ramírez’s reaction was shifted to look like he was celebrating Varitek’s shot, not Lowell’s. Epstein’s reaction shot followed, again making him look like he has been stunned by one home run when he was really amazed by another.

In the sequence that ended the broadcast, ESPN shifted Epstein out of his original reality to look like he was reacting to Lowell’s home run, not Drew’s or Varitek’s. He was now unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

Superman?

Gary will appreciate these related random findings in the news today. Maybe Superman is real. First they discover his Achilles, then his home...

I read this in the morning:

'Kryptonite' discovered in mine
"A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia."

And this the same night:

Potentially habitable planet found
"The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun."

DNS Update - blog.towform.com

I setup Towform to use the Custom Domain feature that Google provides. You shouldn't notice any differences, but it technically means that you'll want to set your favorites to go to http://blog.towform.com (that is the official url of the blog now).

For now towform.com and www.towform.com are redirecting to blog.towform.com.

Anyways, just geeky stuff that I was playing with.

Save Internet Radio

I don't usually post things like this, but...

Save Internet Radio Petition

Recent legislation has nearly tripled royalty fees for streaming Internet radio stations such as Pandora and KCRWMusic.com, which could be the death of this industry as the fees prevent them from sustaining a viable business.

Signing the above petition sends a customizable email to your political representatives expressing your objection to this ruling.

Special bonus on topic UI coolness:

Love how filling out the "Your Name" box in the signature section of the petition auto parses and populates the first name/last name boxes on the right hand side. Brilliant, elegant simplicity at its best.

Day 6: 11pm-12am

Um...BEST EPISODE EVER!!!!!!

Even though the message boards think otherwise.

Brilliant all around, and crazy that it's what the rest of this ok season has been setting up all along.

Acoustic Classical Thrash Metal

Rodrigo y Gabriela blew me away at the KCRW Sounds Ecelctic show last night.

Let Her Go And Start Over

Interesting blurb about how to revamp the Internet for more security, speed, and functionality in a mobile age.

Researchers explore scrapping Internet

Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over.

The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

GMaps Easter Egg

Funny little hidden "feature" of Google Maps, courtesy of my cousin Adam.

Search for directions from anywhere in the US to anywhere in Europe.

Using this example, read down to step 38 of the directions...

The Kitchen Website

Perfect score on the website creativity meter:

No One Belongs Here More Than You

via SvN

TC + FC?

Not sure if this one is another prank, or just an ill-timed announcement ala the original Gmail launch.

TechCrunch Acquires FuckedCompany

In some regards it makes sense, in others these seem to be two guys who would enjoy an elaborate joke.

In either case, I did like the subtle teaser on the FC landing page:

That time of year...

Logged into Gmail tonight and had a quick WTF moment when I saw this announcement, but quickly realized they must have updated the page early on the West Coast...

Gmail Paper

UPDATE:
Looks like we get two this year:

Google TISP

The ePop Oops

Remember all those times you were talking about someone and accidentally ePopped them something you shouldn't have because they were on your mind?

Microsoft Accidentally Sends Secret File On Journalist, To That Journalist

Useless?

I found this hard to believe, but it speaks a lot to perspective.

Many Americans see little point to Web

A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a survey released on Friday.

PS: I failed miserably at shutdown day, but mainly for work related reasons.

Shutdown Day

Interesting experiment this Saturday. I think I'll give it a try...

Shutdown Day

Once You Go Jack...

No, this isn't a 24 post.

Just a friendly announcement that everyone's favorite computer gameshow has returned in a new online beta.

You Don't Know Jack

Ahhh, memories....

Now Now

Amazon's new iNetNow-esque service. And they sort of stole our name.

NowNow by Amazon

Google Maps Becomes Friendly to Local Businesses

I'm sure you guys will have seen this by the time you're reading.

Google is finally starting to do SiteSearch like things with Google Maps (photos, payment methods, websites, etc.)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/photos-on-google-maps.html

And they've even added the ability for businesses to offer coupons directly in their business entries:

http://google.com/local/add/coupons?hl=en-US&gl=US

TellMe: Is it true?

Reports say TellMe may have been purchased by Microsoft:

TellMe For Sale


Or maybe not:

TellMe not sold to Microsoft


Don't you love getting news by blog?

Back to the Future vs. Bill and Ted

Couldn't resist two "versus" posts in a row:

BTTF vs. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

No argument here on the clear winner...

Gates vs. Jobs

Kinda silly, but still pretty funny.

Black Wednesday

Bah! The only good thing about V-Day is this site.

Be My Anti-Valentine

Some good new ones this year. The social networking one is great.

Precursor to Mr. Fusion?

Hey team!

I found something fascinating today. Researchers are developing a new generator that eats garbage and "poops" out energy. It is initially a military application for soldiers to produce energy and get rid of their garbage at the same time.

More here.

Awesome!

PDT meets Y2K

You already know about my daylight savings time pet peeve.

This year there are 4 more weeks for the PST idiots to be wrong.

At least this article is hilarious.

Clocks' Early Spring Forward May Bring About a Few Falls

Excerpts:

When few people were paying attention in August 2005, Congress lengthened daylight saving time by four weeks in the name of energy efficiency. The change takes effect this year -- on March 11 -- and it has angered airlines, delighted candy makers and sent thousands of technicians scrambling to make sure countless automated systems switch their clocks at the right moment. Unless changed by one method or another, many systems will remain programmed to read the calendar and start daylight saving time on its old date in April, not its new one in March.

"After building bunkers in the desert for Y2K, we're not even talking about this, and it's happening in less than two months," said Matthew Kozak, an information technology specialist at Rutgers University who monitors numerous sites and discussion groups.

Microsoft cautions that some of its older products -- including Windows XP SP1 and Windows NT4 -- will require manual updates. The company's Web site provides detailed instructions on how to update various products, although it is pushing against the deadline in some cases. Updates and tools "are being developed and tested," the Web site says, and some will "be released through early March 2007."

As a fallback, Microsoft urges customers to double-check meetings scheduled during the four weeks being added to daylight saving time this year.

"Users should view any appointments that fall into these date ranges as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees to make sure that the item shows up correctly on everyone's calendar both internally and externally," Microsoft says on its Web site.

If there is a sweet ending to the debate, it will occur Oct. 31. Candy manufacturers lobbied for years to stretch daylight saving time to encompass Halloween. Not only will children have more daylight hours to consume treats, they contend, but they will be safer zipping across streets in their costumes.

Billboards That Talk To You

I wasn't sure how to categorize this, so I'm giving it a new "marketing" tag.

I know we're going to see more of this localized, location-based, Minority Report stuff in the future. For some reason though this makes me uncomfortable. I wouldn't opt in for this type of marketing, but I'd love to see the fool next to me using it...

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/01/talking_billboa.html

"The enthusiastic guinea pigs for the Mini experiment will be more than a thousand Mini owners in New York, Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco who have signed up for what the company calls "an ever-changing array of unique, personal, playful, and unexpected messages."

The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: "Mary, moving at the speed of justice," if Mary is a lawyer, or "Mike, the special of the day is speed," if Mike is a chef."

I especially liked the 4th comment down.

Sincerest Form of Flattery

Bo showed us ChaCha back in this September post.

Small world, eh?

Tech guru’s ChaCha to have human touch

Tim Durham, one of the wealthy individuals Jones approached for investment in his new search engine, said ChaCha’s business model is similar to one he attempted himself half a decade ago with a company called iNetNow. Now defunct, it also employed teams of college students to surf the Net on behalf of others.

“The difference is, we had a call center and you had to man that call center day and night. That was the bulk of your cost,” said Durham, CEO of Indianapolis-based Obsidian Enterprises Inc. “Scott’s unique approach is to have college students be his call center all around the country.”

Durham said he considered investing up to $500,000 in Jones’ company, but ultimately passed because his money was tied up elsewhere. He said ChaCha would likely be most useful to cell phone users, who could connect with it when they wanted rapid answers to questions like where to find the nearest Italian restaurant or men’s clothing store.

“I think the concept is a great one. Now, whether or not it becomes economically profitable is another issue,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that are neat ideas that don’t make money. I couldn’t get it to make money, but his model is different.”

SMS: The Novel

Kinda steals my idea of telling the story of iNetNow only in emails...

Text message novel published in Finland

"The Last Messages" tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.

She Came In Through the iTunes Window

Neat NPR story about meeting a wi-fi freeloading neighbor via the shared iTunes folder they left behind.

How I met my neighbor on iTunes

(Click the "listen" link near the top.)

via TUAW

iPhone and the Blind

Couldn't resist...

Does the iPhone shaft the blind?

Comments are an especially fun read, running the full gamut from honest to troll to politically incorrect.

Stock Prices

Here's my obligatory iPhone post:

Check out the hourly stock price comparison for Apple, RIM, and Palm.


Wonder what happened midday today? ;)

Also interesting and amusing:

Note the difference in presentation between the Apple and Cingular websites.

Intended for different audiences maybe, but feels like different planets.

The Expert Mind

As you can guess, I tend to read Scientific American religiously.

It's a very interesting read on how experts process large amounts of information to come to their conclusions.

It talks about "innate talent" vs. "intensive training", and may give hopes to those of us who want to improve our mental abilities in a particular area.

http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945

Google's Hiring Algorithm

This reminds me of taking what we were trying to do with new surfers at iNetNow to the next level (OK, many levels above what we were doing).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/technology/03google.html?_r=1&em&ex=1167973200&en=96e5f90b11ca1594&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

"Google has always wanted to hire people with straight-A report cards and double 800s on their SATs. Now, like an Ivy League school, it is starting to look for more well-rounded candidates, like those who have published books or started their own clubs.

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school."

Bubble?

Interesting post over at TechCrunch theorizing that Web 2.0 isn't actually a bubble, but moreso a return to sanity for venture capitalists.

Bubble, Bubble, Bubble

"Remember that VC’s business models are designed to fail most of the time - the majority of their investments are expected to go belly up, and they hope that just one or two out of ten have a big return. VCs place a bet, and if it fails they move their money and attention elsewhere."

"In Web 1.0 companies didn’t fail (until the crash). They just raised more money, at a higher valuation, and gave it another shot. That isn’t happening today. VCs are letting their startups die, as they should. Things aren’t as exciting as they were in 1999, but it’s a whole lot saner."

Which Superhero Are You?

Gary will love this. I'm Spider-Man:

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.



Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Assault on a Battery

This would have come in handy when we were looking to power the CatchPhrase timer on Xmas.

Why I Never Pay For "AAA" Batteries

(via Lifehacker)

And speaking of CatchPhrase, check out the new electronic version...

2006 Zeitgeist

It's that time of year again...

2006 Year-End Google Zeitgeist

Still blows my mind that people do google searches for things like "myspace" or "wikipedia" rather than just using the URL. Plus the queries with "Who is..." or "Where is..." in front of them.

That said, I will concede the usefulness of "how to" and acknowledge the brilliance of the Google "define" command.

Should I be embarrassed I've never heard of Bebo?

Now with more spam!

Unbelievable. Or, believable that it's true, but unbelievable that it's come to this.

"On average, spam accounted for 87% of e-mail traffic this year, a 30% increase over a year ago. Spam rates, however, varied considerably by user and organization. Some small enterprises had spam rates as low as 45%, while large free e-mail providers got pummeled with rates as high as 98%. In general, business e-mail accounts received a smaller percentage of spam than consumer accounts."

(From InformationWeek, via TUAW)

#6

The annual DVD rip of the 24 "prequel" bridge between seasons is floating around the net. Most of the links I found to it were dead, but this one was still live as of last night:

24 Season 6 Prequel

Agree with most of the Internet chatter that the RAV4 product placement here is pretty lame. Otherwise it's entertaining to get a little sneak peek that's part of the official canon yet not as spoiler-filled as the trailers/commercials that I can't stand to watch, even if it has no "real" bearing on the story other than a couple of minor hints of background and timing.

Happy Tails

Arlo's Christmas present...

Happy Tail Ale

New Version of Blogger Ready...Almost

Psst...Bo. We're ready to upgrade to the new version of Blogger, but you have to initiate the change as the owner/admin. Pretty please?

Money from Home

How flippin' cool is this?

USAA Federal Savings Bank Allows Customers to Send Deposits Electronically from Home

"Starting today, home banking takes on a whole new meaning for members of USAA Federal Savings Bank ("USAA"). USAA is now the largest nationwide bank to offer an easy-to-use, secure new service that enables its customers to deposit checks into their bank accounts using a scanner and an Internet connection."

Philosophy of Google

Never noticed this page on the Google Corporate site before:

Ten things Google has found to be true

"Google has persistently pursued innovation and pushed the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use search service that can be accessed from anywhere. To fully understand Google, it's helpful to understand all the ways in which the company has helped to redefine how individuals, businesses and technologists view the Internet."

Follow link above for a paragraph on each, but the list is:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

Pretty inspirational stuff...

Also amusing (and true) disclaimer on the bottom:

* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded our view of the range of services we can offer –- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -– and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).

No More Answers

Google is shutting down Google Answers.

Adieu to Google Answers

Remember the buzz around iNet when this service was born? We encouraged all of the Surfers to utilize their skills and sign up as a side project (I registered too), but not a single one of us was accepted.

Is this the first Google product to be retired?

(I mean actually retired, rather than never graduating from the lab or being banished from the front page.)

Deja Vu (and Internet too)

Saw Deja Vu on Friday. Eagerly anticipated after the teaser trailer due to my well known time travel fascination, but went in skeptical based on the big budget blockbuster vibe and a feeling that the full trailer gave it all away. (Both trailers are here.)

My thought process during and after went something like this:

-Loved the movie while I was watching it, but thought the ending was lame, too Hollywood, and obviously a rewrite.

-Started to deconstruct the time travel in my head and felt it started to fall apart and not make any sense.

-Picked apart the time travel a little bit further and suddenly realized the underlying story and plotting was absolutely brilliant (including the ending, but excluding the laser pointer), and especially impressive given the big budgetness of it.

-Probably the best non-indie time travel flick since 12 Monkeys and BTTF, and even holds it's own against Primer and Donnie Darko.

The other tangential thought I kept having during the movie was this:

How the heck did Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives end up as part of the same government agency? Wikipedia to the rescue.

Slippery Ships On Air

This is a more scientific article than usual, but it does have implications for energy conservation and global commerce.

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=mg18925391.600&print=true

"YOSHIAKI KODAMA is weaving a magic carpet large enough to carry a ship. Conjured up from thin air at the flick of a switch, this slippery blanket will help transport a fully laden tanker or container ship across the ocean at higher speed, and using far less fuel, than ever before."

Choices = Headaches

I read this blog frequently, and I liked this particular article.

The fellow runs a software shop, but they get other aspects such as UI, marketing, etc. Maybe a little like 37 Signals.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

The article discusses the many choices in turning off a computer using Windows Vista.

My New Movie

I'm Gonna Kill You Saturday Night is a short film I shot in September. It's a dark comedy described as follows:
"When Jimbo and Stu, two stoner roommates, receive a threatening card in the mail all hell breaks loose as the clock ticks down to Saturday Night."

Check out the website and trailer, linked above. You can get to the trailer quickly by mousing over and clicking on the remote.

We're having a premier in Hollywood on December 5th in the evening (time TBA) so please keep that free - you are all invited!

Yes, shameless plug. BTW, my director designed the website as well -- pretty slick, huh?

Features: "A Collection of Hacks"

Great article about the creator of Firefox's next project -- untangling the loose alliance of applications and hacks that hold the web/desktop interface together to create a more unified system.

Thought this was appropo and similar to Google's approach of making what they have work together better.

Parakey


The answer, he and his programming partner, Joe Hewitt, decided, resided in the gap between the desktop and the Web. “Right now, people want to shuffle around content,” he says, “but the world’s fused together by a collection of hacks.” Something that should be simple, say, getting photos from a digital camera onto the Web, is a Sisyphean task for most people. “Step back and ask, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’” Ross says.

The problem, according to Ross, is there’s no simple, cohesive tool to help people store and share their creations online. Currently, the steps involved depend on the medium. If you want to upload photos, for example, you have to dump your images into one folder, then transfer them to an image-sharing site such as Flickr. The process for moving videos to YouTube or a similar site is completely different. If you want to make a personal Web page within an online community, you have to join a social network, say, MySpace or Friendster. If you intend to rant about politics or movies, you launch a blog and link up to it from your other pages. The mess of the Web, in other words, leaves you trapped in one big tangle of actions, service ­providers, and applications.

Ross’s answer is named Parakey. As he describes it, from a user’s point of view, Parakey is “a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do.”

Features, not products

Wake up call over at Google? Though a little saddened that the quick surprise releases of new cool things will slow down or stop for now, I do agree that some fine tuning and improving of their core will be very welcome.

Interesting how it somewhat mirrors the old Surfboard strategy too. At first it was more sites, more categories, more sections. But later it turned to more automation, tighter Zuma integration, better usability.

Google Puts Lid on New Products

In another sign of Google Inc.'s growth from start-up to corporate behemoth, the company's top executives said Thursday that they had begun telling engineers to stop launching so many new services and instead focus on making existing ones work together better.

The initiative's primary goal is to make Google products easier to use, especially by packaging disparate products. For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications.

The company does not plan to tell engineers to halt all new products, Google said, nor does it plan to kill little-used services.

Rather, the effort is more focused on future development. After launching the initiative this summer, Schmidt said, Google canceled several services in development — which he would not describe — and instructed their creators to instead make them features in other products.

Networking and LinkedIn

Newest episode of Venture Voice is an interview with the founder of LinkedIn. I found most interesting the discussion on what I feel is the biggest problem to the legitimacy of LinkedIn: Mediocre workers with glowing testimonials bringing down the value of a referral by mis-using the networking concept.

It goes into some interesting ideas on how they plan to handle it in the future and how they intend for it to be handled today if people utilize the tool properly.

(If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, this part starts around the 33 minute mark).

Venture Voice #40: Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn

Simple Organizing: Scrybe

G. and I were just talking about organizer type applications the other day.

I came across this one, which seems like it's in closed beta currently.

http://iscrybe.com/main/index.php

They're doing a cool marketing campaign, where they're using YouTube to do different product demonstrations before they launch it to the public.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/21/scrybe-could-set-a-new-standard-in-office-apps/

I like the PaperSync towards the end.

Time Machine Video

Found a great (though somewhat cheesy)time machine documentary on google video.

The theory is that time travel into the past on very small particles is now feasible. If we could encode information onto said particles, then we could technically send information into the past, but only so far back as the "time machine" has been invented.

Thus, when it is finally created, it may suddenly be flooded with messages from the future. This scientist's theory is that Einstein was correct about black holes - but that laser light itself is actually much more effective at twisting space/time.

Thought Jake of All Trades might really appreciate this. The video is 45 minutes.


Time Machine