Friday Videos: Star Trek Sitcom, Papa Johns Freakout, Transformers, Google Search 2010

Star Trek: The Sitcom

A few years old, but bumped into it again this week. Brilliant.




Papa John's Freakout

Pizza can never be completed quickly enough for college-age Veruca Salt.




Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Official trailer!




Google Zeitgeist 2010

How the world searched in 2010




Have a great weekend!

Technology & Politics: Ur Doin it Wrong

In the past few years, and specifically the past few months, technology and those with public voices have not merged quite as well as some of us who work in tech think they should.

The Recent Past

Let's hit a couple popular examples of what we're talking about:

Series of Tubes

Classic, Senator Ted Stevens of AK:


(this was an official argument against Net Neutrality)

Internets

The origin of a meme in how politicians understand tech:



Net Neutrality

Aside from the above joy from Sen. Stevens, we've got more on Net Neutrality. In the last few months the American public has been bombarded by radio talk show hosts that have horribly mishandled the reality of the situation. I keep this blog away from politics as often as possible, but when people are not only misinformed but blatantly lying about how technology affects our lives, I get a little fired up (equal opportunity coming 2 sections down).

For the record, Net Neutrality is what we have. Now. Net Neutrality means that as a user, no matter what ISP you're using, internet access to websites - all websites - is equal. As fast as Google or Ebay or YouTube can send, you can receive (as long as you're not - God forbid! - still using dial-up).

But Telecom companies are trying to push the end of Net Neutrality. What if, for instance, Time Warner Cable changed its policy? What if they said "We're purposefully reducing the speed of all internet data transmission by 25%. BUT, if your company wants to write us a big, fat check, we'll let your traffic come through unimpeded."

So Net Neutrality exists now, Telecom companies want it to go away so they can make more money, and somehow it's being twisted into what I've heard on certain talk radio stations: "Net neutrality is going to be passed in Congress to limit your access to websites and control what you see on the internet." And that's not just getting confused or not understanding; it is a deliberately misleading LIE.

Here's a quick video primer on Net Neutrality:



Net Neutrality is a great example of how people are not just misunderstanding technology, but they're misrepresenting technology to those who haven't had the education or haven't done the research. Again: stating that Net Neutrality is a control mechanism is a LIE. The lack of control is the definition of the "neutrality."


Limbaugh on Adwords

You may have seen my post last month on how Rush Limbaugh was twisting the story of Goldmann Sachs and saying that they were controlling Google by purchasing ads on the words.

This is BS. And as an example of concept, I spent a couple hundred dollars purchasing those words to point to that blog post. And my ads were #1 most of the time.

Google Adwords is a very sophisticated system of bidding on keywords or phrases that are linked to ads you create. Anyone with a credit card can choose words, create ads, and have your ad show up at the top of the sponsored results. It does not mean that someone is "buying Google."


Olbermann on Adwords BP

To keep it even in the political spectrum, Keith Olbermann jumped on the same absurd train as Rush Limbaugh to make the claim a couple weeks ago that BP was purchasing the Google search engine.

No, Keith. They are buying Adwords. And anyone can do it. Check out my note above or hire someone who knows something about social media.

And an even worse betrayal of technology on that segment of Olbermann's Countdown was one of his interviewees stating that when they searched for "oil spill," they saw a bunch of stuff on BP. That man said "BP has purchased the algorithm of Google."

I'll allow a minute for you to stare dumbfounded or stop laughing hysterically.

BP is on top of organic searches because they've had years and years to build up relevant content about oil. Simple as that. The Google algorithm is more well protected than the recipe for Coca-Cola or Bush's Baked Beans (argh, save that two-timing talking dog...). Selling "the algorighm of Google" would be akin to selling your own child into slavery. And it's absurd to even suggest such a thing. And if it would ever occur to Google to betray the trust of its dedicated users and fans and "help" someone out, it wouldn't be a pollution-tainted, multi-billion dollar, non-sustainable-energy corporation.


Finally Starbucks is doing Wifi Free

I heard this in passing on a financial radio show last week. The implication was that you always had to pay for Wifi at Starbucks. Actually, if you have one of their rechargeable cards, register it, and have used it in the last 30 days, you get 2 free hours of Wifi every single day.

It wasn't a completely inaccurate statement; you do have to make a purchase in the last 30 days to get the wifi free. However, the inherent ignorance of the statement paired with the speaker's snide commentary made him sound like an uninformed tool. Which, at that moment, he was.


In today's 24-hour media cycle, there are an unfortunate abundance of people who are willing to speak on things that they - and their researchers - know nothing about, especially as it pertains to technology. And they sound silly at best, stupid at most, and lying at worst.

My advice: Hire someone who has a clue; otherwise, you're undermining your own positions. And there are many of us watching. And we will call you out.

Reasons Bing Will not Dominate Google

It looks like Bing is here to stay. For those of you that have somehow made it to this blog post without encountering Bing online or through the media blitz, Bing is Microsoft's new pet search engine - I'm sorry; they call it a decision engine. They also call it a Google Killer.

And while I have been tweaking this post for a few days now, and today a deal was sealed between Yahoo and Microsoft, I believe the argument still stands. Here are a couple reasons that Bing/Yahoo will not overrun Google.

The Raw Numbers
The last Neilsen Online numbers for search engine usage (May 2009), Google was over 63%. Yahoo and MSN/Live together were less than 27%. And while Google and Yahoo (and even AOL and Ask) total users had increased from last year, MSN dropped by almost 15%.

Familiarity
We all know Google. The simplicity of its home page is a beautiful thing and a psychological comfort to many of us. People are creatures of habit and while novelty may lead some to seek out Bing, most will go back to what they're used to.

Mystery Meat Home Page



What the hell?

One of the reasons that Google is successful is the simplicity of it: one box, two buttons. The Bing home page is variable. There is an image of some sort littered with invisible boxes with information mildly relevant to the image. (note the one on the American Flag in the image above.)

This is mystery meat in the worst way: not only do you have to mouse over the boxes to see information that may or may not relate to the piece of the picture you are mousing over, you actually have to hunt for the boxes because they do not appear until you mouse over (or near) them.

Why is this bad? A large part of good design is abundant clarity that allows visitors to intuitively navigate to or use your page to gain the information they are looking for. Without distraction. On the contrary, Microsoft is employing design elements that are tried and true examples of worst practice.

Microsoft's MSN/Live Debacle History
First it was MSN. Then it was Live, but MSN was still there, bumming around with its hands in its pockets. Then MSN was still there but running the Live engine. And now it's calling itself Bing. Oh, MSN is still there, just running the Bing engine. And Live is still there linking you to Hotmail and Spaces (hehe, yes the MySpace wannabe is still extant).

Microsoft is already a target for being The Evil Empire. Toss in a history of confusion and failure as the basis of continuing confusion in branding and that's just untrustworthy business.


I'm guessing Bing will be around for a while - at least until MS takes a different tack. And I will work with it as a web developer because that's just good business practice. But even with this new Yahoo/Microsoft marriage of internet nobility, they are going to have a hard time getting their numbers to stabilize, let alone rise, let alone creep up on Google as a search engine.

But there's also that: Bing will always be the #1 decision engine.

Luddites ISO Copulation with New Media

What fantastic timing. I just wrote a post on how Twitter can be quite useful in the real world, if you take the time to learn and appreciate its nuances.

And then Columbia Journalism School professor Ari Goldman, on the first day teaching Research and Writing 1 says "Fuck new media." (please note: not a huge fan of profanity, but not afraid of it when appropriate):

"F*ck new media," the coordinator of the RW1 program, Ari Goldman, said to his RW1 students on their first day of class, according to one student. Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor, described new-media training as “playing with toys,” according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”

This would be the technology equivalent of an SEO Expert saying that Twitter is stupid and not worth the time. Why would someone say that? Because they never took the time to understand it.

At our core, while many of us embrace it, many more of us fear change. Change is something different, is something new and foreign and if we don't understand it at a glance, it is something to be feared.

Ari's problem is his perception of media as a whole. He does not want to acknowledge that the internet is changing the way we look at media even though the unemployment and ad dollars and circulation figures of industries like newspapers are staring him in the face. Why? Ari's a media expert - or was. He's got a good bead on things - or did. People get complacent and when something shifts, they grumble. If it gets pulled out from under them, they become fearful. In order to protect their psyche, they do not show fear but exhibit anger, puffing and beating on their chest. And they scream "Fuck new media!" while shaking their fist at God.

But everything changes. You can shake your fist at written language, at the printing press, at radio, at television, at recorded music, at internet...everything, but it'll keep on coming, faster and faster. Everybody knows this Ari. Even you, at some level.

Especially in media and technology, especially in our ever-accelerating present, embracing change is necessity, and cursing it only exposes you as a fool. Get a foothold, take the time, and take it in. Otherwise, perhaps in ten years, someone will dust you off, point, and say "That's how NOT to relate to reality."

Alarmism Over Google Search Tech - And a Snap Back

Yesterday saw the release by the Times Online that Google Searches are bad for the environment.

BS Alarm #1: The premise seems a bit absurd.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

BS Alarm #2: Does this guy have an innate understanding of how the internet works? Where is he getting his source data?

Truth is, there is no source data. The very next paragraph discusses how secretive Google is in its power consumption and server count and even locations of server banks. So what does this amount to? BS Alarmism over nothing, another attempt by someone to say "If X company says they care about the environment and they plug in a toaster then they hate the environment" and generally added as subtext: "so why should I care?"

Google was quick to respond to the foolishness:

In fact, in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query.

Recently, though, others have used much higher estimates, claiming that a typical search uses "half the energy as boiling a kettle of water" and produces 7 grams of CO2. We thought it would be helpful to explain why this number is *many* times too high. Google is fast — a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree of difficulty, but for the average query, the servers it touches each work on it for just a few thousandths of a second. Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.

In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.

So there you go. Stop it already. When it comes to environmental impact, there are very few of us - individuals or companies - who are not living in glass houses.