I was a big fan of “the show” with ze frank way back in 2006. I’m excited to see ze bring it back (it’ll obviously be different than the original). Using Kickstarter you can help get involved with the production by making a donation.
(if you recall, back in my “viral days”, my brother and I appeared at the end of an episode)
Rachel introduced me to this magnificent blog: T-Rex Trying (hint: his arms are too short!)
If you’re fed up with Google (qualms may include: Search Plus Your World providing useless results, changing privacy so you’re tracked across products, weird executives, etc.) it’s really easy to start using DuckDuckGo as your default search engine on your computer:
184.72.115.86 search.yahoo.com and change your default search engine to YahooEdit Search Engines..., find “DuckDuckGo”, click “Make Default”I’ve been using it for a full day now and haven’t found any issue…
…well, truthfully, since the results are centered horizontally on the page I find myself having to move my mouse to the right a lot more. My muscle memory to immediately hover down and to the left once submitting a search query is surprisingly strong. Illustrated:
And why would you use DuckDuckGo? Well, they don’t track you (privacy) and don’t bubble you (relevance). And their logo is cute.
Has anyone started to measure the effectiveness (attention, awareness, change) of the Occupy movement versus blackout SOPA/PIPA?
On one hand, Occupy Wall Street and the movements across the country gained plenty of media attention. With people physically taking over public spaces, standing on street corners, and getting pepper-sprayed, it was hard to miss. But was the point well received by the public at-large? Or congress? Or business? Was there a clear goal reached?
On the other hand, by “turning off” websites in order to protest the ability for organizations to… “turn off” websites, did the public miss the point? Did it turn people against Wikipedia (see @herpderpedia)? Did it confuse visitors to Google? Or did it immediately capture the attention of millions of individuals with a few simple lines of code? Congresspeople have already started distancing themselves.
I wonder this because the two approaches appear to go about the same thing: protesting a government full of corporate mouthpieces with no real appreciation for what “real people” need. Police are trained to quash demonstrations and pepper-spray people, yet nobody but “the internet” can mess with the internet (yet..).
Recorded yesterday and worth a watch today as the internet goes on strike.
(Here’s a direct download link if you don’t have Flash Player installed.)
I’ve been a bit bearish on Google lately and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Not to join in on any kind of pile-on, but I think I’ve figured out my unease: the awkward, stupid things the people over at Google say (and how they say it).
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
— Andy Rubin (@Arubin) October 19, 2010
The guy behind Android itself tweets that the ‘definition of open source’ is a command to create and build the Android source code. While this is no longer the case, at the time it came across as pompous, inaccessible, and pretty smug for a group that has become less and less open (while still touting it as their mantra).
As one of the more prominent presenters from Google, Vic has continued to lead us through the Google I/O keynotes and make snide jabs at Apple. In addition to coming across as petty and immature, the first time I really remember Vic’s “presentation style” was when he awkwardly hosted Conan O’Brien at Google. Conan himself (around 5:30) asks “why are you running this?!”
“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” he says. He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.
Is someone recommending to the Wall Street Journal we change our name if we have information available on social networks we no longer want known? That someone is the former CEO, now Chairman of Google. And he certainly has a record of saying weird, stupid stuff. The latest gaff is around the Google+ integration and how Google is unfairly promoting its own content (from Google+) within search results. Danny Sullivan talks to Schmidt who says, essentially: “for competitors to be part of this integration, we need to talk”, and did you guys talk?, “I won’t talk about specifics.” Well, the data is already there in Google’s index; it knows about millions of Twitter profiles and Facebook profiles. What is there to talk about? What are you really saying, Eric?! What the hell is going on over there…
Sure, Steve Jobs wrote a letter all about how Flash sucks. Some pundits thought it was inappropriate and a sign of weakness, but in actuality: it was well written, made fair points, explained a company’s position succinctly and candidly and seemed genuine. These bozos with their “candor” actually seem anti-social, awkward, and out of touch with reality. They make me nervous.
Maybe these examples are good reason why some tech companies keep their employees quiet and behind rehearsed presentations and prepared press releases. I hope that filtering, restraint, and preparation start to be viewed more as virtues. Because, without them, I hear things and read things and worry about what these personalities behind these companies are really thinking…
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. —Abraham Lincoln
I’m super impressed with this season’s latest holiday wallpaper from the folks over at Automattic. Kudos to Caroline Hadilaksono for being able to get me to change my iPhone and desktop wallpaper for the first time in half a year (from a wedding photo… don’t tell Rachel).
If you become an EFF member today your donation will get a 4x Power Up (donor matched contribution). If you’ve never heard of the EFF, they’re the leading organization defending civil liberties in the digital world.
There’s no way to overstate how much these guys and gals are “fighting the good fight”, especially this year (like preventing SOPA, enabling ISP freedoms, allowing jail breaking, etc.).
I support that.
Alex and I are headed to the warm land of Florida this Friday to attend and participate in WordCamp Orlando. The sessions look great and the folks organizing it have done a good job in the past. I’m looking forward to the conference.
Today Google announced some “out of season” spring cleaning: they will be closing Google Knol next May. Knol was originally created “to help improve web content by enabling experts to collaborate on in-depth articles”.
Because of this, we at Crowd Favorite worked closely with Solvitor to create an open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress that could serve as a new home for Knol users. Personally, I’ve been involved with this by leading, in conjunction with Solvitor, the design and development efforts around the new WordPress theme available today: Annotum.
This theme is unlike any other I’ve seen, it’s a sophisticated authoring and publishing platform with numerous features baked in. Originally designed with scientific and scholarly journals in mind, this is a great all-around theme for any publishers.
Knol users can now download their existing content via Google Takeout and take it wherever they’d like and/or set up a Annotum-based WordPress.com blog with a one-click(ish) process.
I’m excited to see the theme in the wild and proud to have worked with the excellent teams at Crowd Favorite, Solvitor, Google, and Automattic. Here’s a bit more about the project where you can learn more about it: