Today Google unveiled Instant Search, which shows results as you type in the search box. I decided to try out a very simple test case to see how it did. I chose the test case “How do I turn off Google Instant Search”, and some shorter versions “Turn off Google Instant Search” and “Google Instant Search Off.” Surprisingly google instant search requires the user type out the entire query for these sure to be popular search terms before returning any useful results. The entire point of Google instant search is to provide results before the user hast to type out the entire query. I’m sure in a few days this fail will be corrected, after some 25% of the internet starts searching for how to make things go back to the way they used to be.
Archive for the ‘From the Internet’ Category
Google Instant Search
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010Targeted Advertisement Fail
Friday, July 16th, 2010
How many people with teen-aged children do they think there are on Ok Cupid?
Certainly there are people with children on the site. Overwhelmingly these children are toddlers from the random sample of profiles I’ve come across. Note, that is not a statistically random sample at all, but still the number can not be that high. Plus, I was logged in; the site knows for sure that I don’t have any children, let alone teen-aged children. Now, acne could be something people using online dating sites in general might worry about, but I think I would use a different angle to target that audience. Maybe this ad was just not tagged correctly and the software is fine, but in any case, showing me that add is a fail.
Yo, Dawg This is Just Great
Thursday, May 20th, 2010I found this on reddit today:
It just makes me so happy to see all this censorship bullshit in a memebrid with the Xzibit Sup Dawg meme. Over the past two days You Tube and Facebook were blocked by Pakistan for hosting images of the Prophet Muhammad. I am completely and totally against censorship, especially this particular instance. Here are some reasons:
- If no pictures of the prophet were ever allowed, how could we know what he looks like. If you draw a picture and claim it is of the prophet, but it is not of the prophet, then you are a liar, but there is no harm, no foul. Based on my understanding of the rules, only actual pictures of the prophet are bared, and if we don’t know what he looks like cause no pictures exist, then all pictures that claim to exist must not be of the prophet.
- Ok, Ok, actual reasons to follow…
- This is sort of like tolerance. The Catholic church teaches tolerance, all Catholics must always be tolerant of other peoples and cultures and respect their laws and customs. But, in carrying out this teaching, the church is failing to tolerate intolerance, which is a culture who’s customs and laws must be respected. Similarly, the Muslims, who I assume also teach tolerance, are being intolerant of our culture, in which images of the prophet are both allowed, and sometimes hilarious. Now, maybe we are breaking our own laws about tolerance by breaking their laws, but we already break our own laws about tolerance, so that must be ok.
I think my real point is that this is all really stupid. We are allowed freedom of speech as a basic right. Anyone who wants to play ball on the world internet stage needs to respect this. If you don’t want to play ball because we say things you don’t like, you are welcome to not play ball with us. That is what Pakistan has done; its fine. But you know, if we don’t want to play ball with you later, I don’t want to hear any complaining. I certainly can’t allow your actions to limit my future free speech through fear or any other mechanism, so don’t waste our time trying.
Just be more tolerant, and maybe we won’t break your cultural laws just for the lols. But as long as you’re intolerant of one of our most basic rights/laws, we’ll be intolerant of yours for no reason other than to point out that you should be more tolerant. Clearly, someone hast to make the first move, but it won’t be us because a more open society is always preferable to a more closed one. That is progress and you are welcome to hop on the bus anytime you like, cause its an open society, that’s the whole idea.
I might start using twitter. I signed up for an account (http://twitter.com/liryon). I originally was planning on having it carbon copy from buzz, and facebook, but it looks like copying from facebook is impossible, which is dumb. It also looked like copying from buzz was possible, but for some reason, until today it didn’t work.
Today I began making preparations to use twitter as the source to copy to buzz and facebook instead. This is pretty standard setup that I know works, and supports open platforms. Despite that I know it works, I haven’t been able to get it to play nice with facebook yet. It was easy to make it play nice with buzz, and magically, making twitter link to buzz seems to have made my buzz to twitter link work. That’s good cause most of what I tweet/buzz/facebook post comes from Google reader. My Google reader has been interfaced with facebook for some time now.
I’ve added a little twitter app to the sidebar, which will hopefully liven up the content on the blog for anyone who regularly polls it for updates (yes you Paul) and isn’t on twitter.
King Cake
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
I made a King Cake for Mardi Gras with my friend Sarah’s help. It turned out much better than I ever expected, and I would totally make another one if it didn’t take so long. I followed this great King Cake recipe I found on www.mardigrasday.com:
King Cake: Traditional New Orleans Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
3 1/2 – 4 1/2 cups flour unsifted
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest, this is lemon rind, grated
1/2 cup warm milk
5 egg yolks
1 stick butter cut into slices and softened, plus 2 tablespoons more softened butter
1 egg slightly beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1″ plastic baby dollDirections
Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl, and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for three minutes then mix thoroughly. Set bowl in a warm place for ten minutes, or until yeast bubbles up and mixture almost doubles in volume. Combine 3 1/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg and salt, and sift into a large mixing bowl. Stir in lemon zest. Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and, using a wooden spoon, slowly combine dry ingredients into the yeast/milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon at a time) and continue to beat 2 minutes, or until dough can be formed into a medium-soft ball.
Place ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and knead like bread. While kneading, sprinkle up to 1 cup more of flour (1 tablespoon at a time) over the dough. When dough is no longer sticky, knead 10 minutes more until shiny and elastic.
Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a moderately thick kitchen towel and place in a draft-free spot for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the dough doubles in volume. Using a pastry brush, coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside.
Remove dough from bowl and place on lightly floured surface. Using your fist, punch dough down forcefully. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top, pat and shake dough into a cylinder. Twist dough to form a curled cylinder and loop cylinder onto the buttered baking sheet. Pinch the ends together to complete the circle. Cover dough with towel and set it in draft-free spot for 45 minutes, or until the circle of dough doubles in volume. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash and bake on middle rack of oven for 25 to 35 minutes until golden brown. Place cake on wire rack to cool. If desired, you can hide the plastic baby in the cake at this time.
Colored sugars
Green, purple, & yellow paste
12 tablespoons sugarSqueeze a dot of green paste in palm of hand. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over the paste and rub together quickly. Place this mixture on wax paper and wash hands to remove color. Repeat process for other 2 colors. Place aside.
Icing
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 – 6 tablespoons waterCombine sugar, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons water until smooth. If icing is too stiff, add more water until spreadable. Spread icing over top of cake. Immediately sprinkle the colored sugars in individual rows consisting of about 2 rows of green, purple and yellow.
Cake is served in 2″ – 3″ pieces.
Actually, I forgot to do the “Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash” step but it turned out great anyway. Also I used a pecan instead of a plastic baby and blue instead of purple icing because I didn’t feel like going out in the snow to acquire them.
Know Your Meme and More
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009The Internets and I had an excellent evening together tonight. It all started with a need to eat up the most perishable foods in the house before I head home for the holidays. What can you make with eggs and chicken, google of course has the answer. What, it needs spinach, too oh man, there’s a huge bag of it that’ll never get finished before I leave. I was lacking for tomatoes, but with a little salt instead Tuscan Chicken Scramble was a crazy fast meal with all the right ingredients.
While I was trying to eat my dinner, and watch episode of Sliders, my phone interrupted asking for advice on buy it’s girlfriend… rather my friend’s girlfriend a holiday gift. I love turning goals into gifts, especially for significant others, but having always been alone for Christmas, I often just help. He suggested a “cookbook? Not the greatest gift but… it will give us something to do together (and you know that’s something I think we need).” I respond, “Yes, activity book for adults, good deal. Another idea along the same line (something to do) tickets to a show,” eliciting “Ooh. That’s an even better idea. Damn you. I love that idea. I’m already in a bookstore And now I’m going to have to see what shows are going on”. Luckily, “our phones rock.” And he was able to do it all standing right there in the bookstore. All the while discussing the shows, which I was surprised to find I knew a lot about. For instance, earlier today I had in fact read about one of them selling out often. And that was in the same vain as another show I’d heard of. One my other goals, besides not being alone for Christmas, is to know what is going on, apparently I do, and I didn’t need the net for that, strictly speaking in this case. There is still something to be said for knowing facts, even with the net always in my cargo pocket.
So I digress. But yes, that Sliders episode is the one where they did get Sabrina Loyd back to reprise the voice, but not the body of her former regular character.
Following dinner, I started cleaning house, and left the roomba to do it’s job downstairs. I sat down to wrap a gift and finally get to know, Know Your Meme. I really love their style, and there are few memes that I did need to hear an explanation on. But mostly it was an excellent trip to some of the best places on the Internet, without even going, just listening to them being extolled for their virtues. It was like a mini roflcon!
Finally, it came time to but a bow on that gift. I don’t have fake bows, but I do have red ribbon left over from that Halloween costume. So pause that know your meme episode, and head over to google. First result, of course, a ~2 minute you tube video. 5 minutes later, ribbon tied, gift wrapped ready for tomorrow.
Back to more meme history goodness. Via the Three Wolf Moon episode, a quick stop, back by you tube for an actual meme instance, in the form of this amazing Three Wolf Moon music video set to a Disney song. And of course, now I stay up too late considering I’ve got a 9:30 meeting telling the internets about how it fully entertained me for a night.
Verizon + Android Finally
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009Maybe I will take Verizon up on their frequent calls and emails informing me that I am eligible for a new phone upgrade “within a matter of weeks” when they finally “will be launching two Android handsets,” Android handsets being the technical term for a damn phone worth owning! It’ll be exciting to both have coverage and have a cool phone, and it only took 4-5 years of waiting.
Got one! Blogging from it!
It’s a City!
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
It’s a city, where else do you put skyscrapers! The Massachusetts environmental secretary recently decided that two skyscrapers purposed for the Boston waterfront are “too tall.” This ruling supports a bunch of winy brats who are worried about the buildings casting shadows on the greenway in the mornings. Ok, look you dumb people! There is a guy who wants to spend a whole bunch of money and employ a whole bunch of people to build two beautiful new additions to the Boston skyline. All you have to do is let him do it and everybody wins. If you don’t like tall buildings, don’t live in a major city! There are some other concerns the state has, that may be valid, but luckily the developer plans to press on and employ some more lawyers so that the state may eventually let him employ construction workers.
RIP Jeff Goldblum
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Following the tragic death of Jeff Goldblum this past weekend, I feel now is the time to share a small revelation I had this weekend while watching one of his greatest works.
This past weekend I had to work on Saturday. We are trying to get some test flights of a new airplane based radar I’ve been working on in amid the rain showers. Don’t ask me why, but they don’t like to fly in the rain. This has been difficult and no sunny day can be wasted. I was not scheduled to fly originally, but following a flight on Friday in which no data was collected for mysterious reasons, the powers that be decided I should fly, with 2 coworkers because we were the ones who wrote most of the software involved. If we flew we would be there to diagnose and solve the problem on the fly, if needed. Everything worked perfectly on the flight so my presence was not particularly needed, but it could have been. I also did manage to get a little air sick while sitting on the floor, out of my seat, but in a position to see the control screen.
Upon returning home I found my room mate Sriram about ten minutes into the film Independence Day. This film, long one of my favorites, possibly my favorite action film of all time, is an oddity among my usual tastes in movies. Now, it does have, quite possibly, the best speech in a movie by an American president, but the events of last Saturday shed some more personal light on why I enjoy the film so much. I remember seeing it on July 3rd (or 4th) in Louisville, KY with my family the year it came out; I was 12 years old.
That same year, 1996, was also the year in which I first learned how to program, in qbasic with my buddy Greg.
In the movie Jeff Goldblum plays an MIT educated cable/satellite guru who looks into the alien television disturbance and finds something no one else bothered to see. Later, he creates a virus for the alien computer and flies up to the mother ship with the Will Smith character to deliver it, despite chronic air sickness. Why did he have to fly? He explains in the flim, “If anything goes wrong I’ll have to think quickly, adjust the signal, who knows?”
Now, my air sickness was nothing like his, and its all a different scale, but that’s essentially the same reason I was flying. Upon landing, while I helping to preparing for the next flight, some of the binary files used to setup the flight were found to have errors, errors so sever as to crash the program using them. I encounter problems like this, that require manually examining difficult to read binary files on a frequent basis at work. I enjoy it. Despite having a call in to the person who created the files, I couldn’t help but dive in and find the problem myself. Now that was easy, because I had the rubric for how the file was laid out. Goldblum’s character didn’t have that. I really wish there was more of a need to reverse engineer stuff like that at work. It is so much more challenging when one is not provided with a key.
This may also help explain why upon much self analysis, I consistently find myself thinking that if I go back to school, the only place to go, where it would be worth my while, is MIT (or possibly Harvard if I decide to go back for an economics degree). Clearly, everything in my life so far has put me on the path to become Jeff Goldblum’s character in Independence Day. At least, that is one way to interpret the facts.
Wind Power Problem Acknowledgment
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009I have a concern about wind power that I rarely see acknowledged. My concern is what happens to the weather when you remove enough power from the wind to power the country. This arstechnica article is the first one I’ve seen in a while to mention this.
The last issue is that, at some level, putting this many turbines in place will undoubtedly change the dynamics of the lower atmosphere, with results that are probably difficult to predict.
It also provides a key number, which I’ve been lacking. That number is, that the wind power over the US, in the gross sense holds 23 times the current energy use. This ignores issues of efficiency and distribution. Everyone seems to always claim that what we’ll harvest from wind is a drop in the bucket, but even if 1/3 of only our power came from wind, it is still a lot. I don’t consider 1/69th of the energy in the atmosphere above the whole country to be a drop in the bucket. I’m just happy someone is acknowledging this problem.