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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Top Ten Disappointing Technologies, Part I
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on June 18, 2009 by admin in Technology
Thursday, June 18th, 2009Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’m not feeling the magic.
| Anti Gravity |
 Stephen Hawking Understands The Gravity of the Situation |
This, for some reason, remains my single greatest disappointment regarding technology. Usually, when scientists develop detailed mathematical descriptions of natural phenomena, they’re able to – in at least some small way – demonstrate the truth of them. Although I once had to explain to an otherwise intelligent friend that the Vomit Comet was not in fact an example of anti-gravity, most of us know that anti-gravity remains a technological chimera. The closest science comes to demonstrating an understanding of anti gravity is to describe its opposite, by saying things like “See that thing that’s falling? I have some amazing math that will tell you how fast it will do so”.
Real Men Don’t Twitter
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on June 10, 2009 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009Is Twitter a vast nation of sheep led by a handful of loud-mouth marketers and celebrities?
Take any large group of people, say, a cocktail party. Inevitably, there will be one or two loudmouths that draw a circle of listeners, while most people wander and mingle, maybe forming small, more civil two-way conversations. In my view, this remains Twitter’s biggest obstacle to broader adoption: it’s a huge herd of sheep. 80 Percent Of Accounts Have Fewer Than 10 Followers, or as this Harvard Business blog puts it, Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets. The article also points out that Twitter reverses the usual social network pattern in which men mostly follow women they don’t know, and women follow women they do know. Additionally, since Twitter is mostly a one-way broadcast medium, it draws a tremendous number of multilevel marketing and tech guru types who spam the system. I’ve been saying for a while that Twitter would max out somewhere around the number of Blackberry users, who number around 21 million users as of May 2009. These numbers seem to indicate Twitter is at least leveling off, and guess what? It’s just under 20 million users. I chose this number a little arbitrarily based on the idea that Twitter is such a perfect fit for mobile device users. I personally have used Twitter as an MLM tool, as mentioned above, but otherwise would only find it useful if I worked with a large, mobile work force of some kind. For personal use, it just has little appeal. Don’t listen to me though, Twitter to your heart’s content. In fact, here are 10 tools to help you do it better. Do you use Twitter? I’d love to hear about how and why.
Google Autocomplete: Sex, Infidelity, Body Parts
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on June 4, 2009 by admin in Technology
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Google helps us ask the important questions, like…why do men have nipples?
Google’s autocomplete function can provide some interesting insights into human thought and interpersonal relations. Below are just a few examples. Have any odd ones of your own to share? I had no idea that the most pressing “Why Do” question in the world was “Why do men have nipples”. And likewise, I’m surprised that neither gender seems to know if the other likes pubic hair. I’m even more surprised that this the number one suggestion for both. I’ve also always thought kissing was a nice simple thing. But no, it’s rife with suspicions of adultery and safety concerns. And c’mon guys. Why so much harsher than the women?
Is There Life After Facebook?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on May 29, 2009 by admin in Technology
Friday, May 29th, 2009And are you tragically un-hip if you keep using it? Don’t worry. We have ideas for you.
Well, apparently not, if you’re over 55. However, there are some interesting things going on out there. For one, Microsoft is launching Bing, their new “Decision Engine”. Make sure you understand the distinction, they’re worried that you’ll think it’s just another search engine. Nope, this one will make decisions for you. Finally. I’ve been waiting for something that does that. Although it’s easy to hate Microsoft, I’m personally looking forward to trying it. Google, for all its warm, fuzzy, Googliness, has become the bane of my existence when it comes to search. And what about Twitter? Well I and many people who are smarter than I am feel it’s already peaking. Which means, in a way, that it has a lot of life left in it, but some users will stay on board, many stop using it quickly, and most importantly, the hip people leave when the masses move in. Maybe the ability to search Tweets with tools like Topsy will broaden the interest. My bet? Back to the awesome Googliness. One of the main things that draws people and retains them with Facebook is the multitude of methods to interact easily. Unfortunately, Facebook fails rather miserably with things like chat functionality and a more versatile “inbox”, both of which should have been a no-brainer, in my opinion. A strong possible contender here is Google Wave, which, if they can bundle it all together flexibly with tools like Google Voice or PhoneVite would be a real winner. I would be ecstatic if a networking tool like Facebook allowed me to easily switch from a chat or inbox dialog to a cellphone voice or text dialog. So the questions arise. Am I pathetically uncool if I keep using Facebook? Where are you going after Facebook?
Why I’ll Never Get Paid To Write For Tech Industry Blogs
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 20, 2009 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009I’m not a failed sports writer Googletard.
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| Ask stupid sports questions and the little circle will twirl forever… | |
As someone who has to do a lot of research online for clients, I miss the early days of Google, not because I like Google so much, but because prior to Google’s monopoly on search, it was actually easier to find a broad variety of content, either by using multiple search engines (anybody remember Lycos? Alta Vista? Northern Lights?) or by letting a metasearch tool like Dogpile do it for you. Between blogs, Twitter, and Google’s monopoly, searching for useful content using Google can become quite a boolean chore. That’s why I’m always excited when a new tool like Wolfram|Aplha or Clusty comes along. And why I become so annoyed once again with Google’s dominance; easily half of the tech industry articles in the few days after Wolfram’s launch compared it unfavorably to Google (which is absurd, comparing the two is like comparing the card file at a library with the librarian), and a fair number of writers compounded their ignorance by testing Wolfram on the basis of its ability to spit out obscure sports facts. So knock it off, tech blog Googletards, Wolfram|Alpha isn’t meant to be Google. And keep your eyes peeled for the next search engine that’s doomed to fail because of being called a “Google Killer”, Microsoft’s Kumo (or will it be “Bing”?), which won’t be as much fun as Ms Dewey, but probably will be a little more useful.