words, words, words

As you may or may not know, I am a huge fan of the google engedu videos on youtube.

This is one that I thought was awesome. It is about giant squids and the Undersea Voyager Project.

I’m packing to go to Buenos Aires in a few moment, putting some last minute text files on my iPod.  But that reminds me, I have a problem with my iPod on airplanes.  As soon as the cabin pressurizes, my iPod freezes.  I did a cursory search on the Internet and can’t find anyone else with the same problem.  The whole device makes this terrible grinding sound and the display stops working.  There is a little flashing broken iPod.  Then as soon as the cabin pressurizes, when we land thank god, the things starts working again.  It is really weird.

This is classic, obviously the Google London headquarters was not consulted on this one.

As more publishers are being asked to complete the phone verification process, we’ve received a number of puzzled emails from our international community asking about the prompt to ‘press the pound key’. To clarify, the ‘pound key’ refers to the ‘#’ symbol (also known as the hash key), and not the ‘£’ symbol. The pound/hash key can typically be found below the ‘9′ key.

We’re working on perfecting our non-US English, and we apologise for any confusion caused

From here: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-for-penny-in-for-pound-key.html

This also falls under the category of the ultimate support call: “I can’t find the ‘any’ key.”

Radio Lab, which is my favorite podcast, is coming back online for the next season soon.

I really enjoy it, it makes you think about stuff.

*Sniff. *

For a while, I have been harping about how email should have an “Oh Shit” button.

Or also called UnDo or UnSend.

If you have ever sent an email to the wrong person, for example a client instead of your boss, or vice versa, or hit “reply to all” when you meant to only “reply to sender”, then you have had that brief but intense moment of panic when you wish you could “UnSend” the email. Actually, I would be impressed to find anyone who uses email and hadn’t needed this button at some point.

All you need is a lag of a few seconds, time to scan over the email after you hit “Send” and realize that you you had made a colossal mistake. (* You wouldn’t be able to unsend anything, but delay sending the email for a bit. Technologically there is no “unsend” but that is what goes through your mind when you realize that you screwed up. It happens in sequence, first “Oh Shit!” then “UnSend!”)

I think this feature will be coming in Gmail soon, and then when I am an old man I can bore my grandchildren with the story about how I had this idea… and you can ask so-and-so at such-and-such company and they will corraborate my story.

“I coulda been a contenda!”

And now the Wayback machine will hopefully bear witness…

Some recent events… (I’ve not updated the blog in a while)

So I am taking a full course load at Berkeley.

Well, sort of… I’m not going to get any actual credit. But I don’t particularly need a gold star by my name. One of the really interesting courses is called Geog 110 - Fall 2007: Economic Geography of the Industrial World. If you like that type of thing.  One of the interesting points that he makes is about China, and how they flex their muscles as a threat to the to the dominant hegemon, the United States. It is interesting to think about with regards to their current hacking enterprises.

This week in Porto Alegre is CONCURSO: Experiências em Inovação Social na America Latina e o Caribe sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) (Comisión Económica para América Latina (CEPAL) in Spanish)

Oh, and I broke my finger.
Rats.

Like a lot of people I am watching the meteoric rise of Google stock.

This latest rise is partly because of the hinting that they are nearing fruition to predictions that I made over a year ago. (ed: I’m not bitter, just tired of slapping my forehead) Google is going to become a telecommunications company. I think that most reporters and stock watchers are being shortsighted about the whole thing. I think that the physical mobile “phone” isn’t that big of a deal.

When they become a telecom, that will fundamentally change the world. They can give free phone calls to anyone, anywhere. This has the potential to lower barriers to entries of people in developing economies.  In return, this will both “do no evil” and eventually help to light up the dark spots of the world that can’t click on AdWords.

I think the talking heads are more concerned with whether it will be as “cool” as the iPhone. That point is moot. They can hire designers  make it cool. Plus, people will buy it because it is a Google phone. What I’m interested in is this… how are they going to give an inexpensive phone long battery life while  running CPU intensive voip software? What type of WiFi capability are they going to build into it and how will it scan for open networks?

With this in mind… should I buy Google stock? Well, they are entering a space that has lower barriers to entry. A Chinese company could make a device that had the capacity to make mobile VOIP calls for relatively cheap. But the real thing holding me back: The dollar.

Paul Saffo has a great post about the topic. In a nutshell, the dollar is cratering as the market sloughs higher. It is impossible to ignore. The rise in oil, gold, basically all commodities, and global instability have created a situation where the dollar isn’t worth very much.  Then why is it a bull market?

To me, this creates a situation where people are waiting for the next newsworthy event as a sell signal. There are storm clouds on the horizon and I’m not going to push the boat out.

I’ve been thinking today about the data collection that is happening.   Luke and I briefly emailed about the Facebook valuation.  He had some interesting insights.  Specifically about Super-Node type people that Facebook could serve special ads, or even free mp3s to.  People who influence their peers.  I think this is a valid point.  One that is a gamble, but valid.  I guess we have all had a friend that has acted like the glue keeping your peer group on the same page.

I just wonder if all this data is ever going to be really useful.  I’m sure my browsing history is generating lots and lots of cookies.  Creating an online profile that will be able to tell that, like today, I searched Goggle for the following terms:

judo red and white belt
brasileiro judo federacao
Vo et Vat
gyaku jujime
neil degrass tyson
ghandi
facebook
quote:Flex

Now how is that worth anything?  [I once had a program that would just randomly search google with a random word, so that your profile would be skewed.]  I guess you could draw some conclusions from my searches.  But if presented with ads based on Indian judoka who practice astronomy and investing, I wouldn’t really be that keen to click.  It is all just digital landfill.  I’m populating the servers of the world with garbage.  We all are.

I listened to a radio story about someone finding a bunch of letters by the side of the highway.  Data won’t ever get strewn around like that and create a bonanza for someone.  It doesn’t take up space.   In fact, the amount you can store on media is getting larger everyday as the media grows physically smaller.  I run the risk of sounding like a Luddite, but I don’t really want to leave a data footprint.  I’ll try to write some more letters. (He wrote ironically on his computer.)

Amazon just came out with DRM-free music downloads for .89 each

This comic made me laugh out loud.