Fail!

Do you crave entertainment but find yourself too lazy (or too good a person) to track down the "right" version of 2 Girls 1 Cup?

Try typing "fail" into Google Image Search.

Stolen from Neatorama.

All Your Data Are Belong to Us

With the Google Drive just around the corner, and 5 GB (and counting) of storage space available for your google/gmail account, I had a horridly wonderful thought this morning:

"Wait a minute, I have 5 gmail accounts (mostly for failed yet-to-succeed business ventures). That's 25GB (and counting). What if I had 500?"

It would be unweildy without a piece of middleware to manage log-ins, passwords, and bin-packing, but none of these should be terribly difficult to address.

For a goober with 1TB (again, and counting) of DVD-rips, ahem, back-ups, this seems like a great alternative to purchasing and maintaining an array of up-to-date back-up drives at home. (Or weeping inconsolably after losing all your episodes of My So-Called Life).

Nate, this sounds like a job for Greasemonkey, correct?

Cocaine prices up more than blue chip stocks...

According to an article at BloggingStocks.com, the average price per gram of cocaine has gone up 24%, from January to June. That average price in June was $118.70 per gram.

Meanwhile, back in the legal markets, the Dow Jones average is up 10.8%, the S&P 500 is up 7.98%, and the Nasdaq is up 14%, over the same time period.

Also according to the article, research shows that the government loses $31.1 billion in taxes due to the fact that marijuana is not legal. It is assumed the loses would be similar for coke.

Oddly enough, one of the few blue chip stocks whose percentage gain is higher doing better than the substance crack is made from is Google (GOOG), which is up 35%.

Moral of the story? If Zach was smart, he would have invested in that "hell of a drug"....

Gmail Countdown Game

I'm not sure about any of you unloyal readers out there, but I know my fellow VwWers use Gmail. As a user, I am fascinated by the gmail storage countdown/count-up. I propose we start a game to see who can guess to see when the storage limit will equal 3000MB.

Yes, there are already other people dorkier than I who have started plotting the 3000MB achievement on graphs, but I trust Google to throw a wrench in that straight line of theirs.

My vote: March 21
AKA: K-Fed's birthday

My calculations came to June 18th 2008 at 2:25pm PDT, but I'm sure I'm off by a bit.

Silicon Alley's take on the Google acquisition of Jaiku...

For those of you still hating on Twitter (ACOM) and thinking that the mini-blogging "Status" space hasn't gone mainstream, please read this article at Silicon Alley:

LINK

Here are the four main points, without the commentary from the article:
1) "Status" space has now gone mainstream.
2) Twitter is still by far the dominant brand.
3) Twitter's value just soared. (dollar value)
4) Twitter's competition just increased exponentially, so the company had better skedaddle.

So, hopefully if Google gets moving with Jaiku, we should see more integration with external sites in both Jaiku and Twitter, and maybe even Pownce (which the article also mentions and I still have invites to). Also note the great use of the word skedaddle...

I feel even more vindicated about using Twitter....haters....

Why Al-Jazeera is good for America

I'll start off with this: I couldn't care less if Google, YouTube, News Corp, GE, or Zamboni Inc. shared profit with Al-Jazeera. No matter what you've been told by any of the talking heads, politicians, or your next door neighbor, think again about what everyone says about Al-Jazeera.



I will probably ramble for about 600 or so words, so if you don't have a few minutes or aren't fully awake, I'd save this one for later.

I believe Al-Jazeera has been misrepresented and its merits overlooked by many in the United States. Over the past few years, Americans have become accustomed to hearing about Osama's latest cave tape or a beheading video on Al-Jazeera or its MSNBC-esque stepchild Al-Arabiya. Unfortunately for us, and for Al-Jazeera, the American public associates these pan-Arab networks with terrorist propaganda. Al-Jazeera, or AJ as I will now call it because I'm already tired of finding the hyphen on the keyboard, is a network with questionable integrity and credibility, I won't argue with anyone on those points. Call them the Middle East version of "Hard Copy" or "A Current Affair" but without the celebrity gossip and much more gore.

I think it is important to look at the Middle East as a whole to better understand the benefits of AJ. Born in Doha, Qatar and funded by the ridiculously rich Emir, AJ was the first network in the entire Arab world whose chief doesn't worry about being dragged into the desert and tortured. This is otherwise known as freedom of the press. Think of what our hemisphere would be like if a free press had reached our shores in 1996. Opening up the presses in a neighborhood of the world home to the most brutal dictators, the largest earnings discrepancies between rich and poor, and the most intolerant strain of religion (Wahhabism, NOT Islam in general) gaining wide acceptance in the world today is a wonderful thing. AJ's greatest measure of success is the fact that nobody in the Arab world likes them. They've been thrown out of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Bahrain at various times for reporting stories that those in power didn't find pleasing.

The fact of the matter is, AJ is getting news and divergent opinions out to millions of people who might never have gotten them otherwise. I'm not just speaking about the Arab/Muslim world either. If everyone got AJ in their homes and watched half an hour a day, wouldn't we as a culture be more educated about the geopolitics of the Middle East? I could use that argument for many areas of the world. I don't know jack about many of the pressing issues of Sub-Saharan Africa. If the world's poorest people had a voice, do you think that we would be allowing Darfur to happen? Our country would also be better prepared to fight the war on terror if we had a warrior class who knew less about Paris Hilton and more about Mohammed.

If any of you would like to see a different perspective, I would highly suggest that you check out Frontline's News War series. Frontline is awesome, and not just because you can watch all their episodes free online forever. There is also a great interview with Thomas Friedman for all of you neo-cons to read about how much he likes AJ.

AJ has obvious problems. They have suspected terrorists work for them (check the wikipedia page and look at the Spain header). They show footage that would make me sick. We could all add a couple more. But really, is it really worth it for the US to try to stifle a free voice in the position we're currently in?

Google bought Jaiku...

LINK TO BLOG POST ABOUT ACQUISITION

Why is this important?
This may change my opinion on mini-blogging sites. I haven't done a comparison of the major mini-blogging sites in this blog (Twitter, Pownce, Tumbler, Jaiku), but I am signed up for all four of them and have been trying them out. Here's an article with a side by side comparison.

I did have a post on how everyone should use Twitter. You can even follow villager with wheel on Twitter.

But, I love Google. I try to use everything Google. I am a Google fanboy (as if that wasn't obvious by my last two statements). I don't care that they have and will have years of info on me.

So, now I have to seriously consider Jaiku as my main mini-blogging tool.
But, I have feeds from my favorite blogs in Twitter. I can automatically update my facebook status via Twitter. There are Twitter Firefox extensions (TwitterFox, TwitBin). There are many other uses and tools...

There are ways to update all four of the previously mentioned mini-blogging sites, example in this LINK, but Twitter is the key to making that happen.


I actually saw the news about Google buying Jaiku in my Twitter feed...how ironic...Google is complicating my life....I am perplexed...

Hopefully, this isn't an acquisition that Google ignores. They could seriously blow Twitter away with some key integration to gmail, gcal, gtalk, etc...


P.S. Sorry for the link overload.

Google shares revenue with Al Jazeera...

Ok, so my title is slightly misleading, but it is true.
According to TechCrunch, last week, YouTube signed an agreement with Al Jazeera to share advertising revenue from the Al Jazeera YouTube channel.

Interestingly enough, other than YouTube or obscure satellite TV, there are only two other ways to get the Al Jazeera Arabic news network, famous for broadcasting video statements from Osama Bin Laden:

1) Move to Toledo, Ohio and sign up for cable with Buckeye CableSystem
2) Move to Burlington, Vermont and sign up for cable with the municipal supplier

So, Google supports Al Jazeera while cable networks don't. Personally, I've never watched it. I love Google. Does this mean I should check out Al Jazeera? That may be some faulty logic...

Websites I probably shouldn't have visited, at work, while researching this post:

1) All of the above

In a not so related, but I think its similar website, visit:
Jihad On You

Todoist is the Truth

Over the last month or so, I've played with a few online productivity/task list tools (Tracks, GTDTracks, Vitalist) and they all have come up a little short for me.

I've used Todoist for the last 2 weeks or so and, like Jordan Bratman, I don't think I'm going to do much better than this.

A few of the things I like about it:

Clean Interface
After hiding the info page with one click, all you see are your tasks, projects, and a minmalist search window. No clutter on the screen.

Dates/Times
Maybe the coolest feature. Tired of clicking around in Outlook, setting a deadline for something that has to be done tomorrow by noon? I'm not going to check (it takes too long), but I'd guess it takes at least 12 clicks in several different date, time, scheduling boxes. In todoist you just type "tomorrow @ 12", "friday @ 12", or even "tom @ 12". Schedule recurring tasks by putting an "every" or "ev" in front of the date. I defy you to set up a recurring task in any other system with fewer key strokes than "ev 15" (Every 15th of the month) or "ev mon" (every Monday).

Contexts
If you're practicing your GTD mantra, or just sorting things out, you can add contexts to your tasks by simply adding "@home", "@work", etc... to the task description. Unlike GTDTracks and Vitalist you can add multiple contexts to tasks you can get done either at home or in the car, or wherever.

Prioritization
Similar to adding contexts, adding priorities is simple. "!p1" makes the task a top level priority, "!p2" a second level priority, and so on. There are 4 levels, each color coded.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Along with dates, the keyboard shortcuts are what really make Todoist stand out. Adding tasks, promoting and demoting tasks and projects, sorting, and much more can be done with shortcuts.

Launchy/iGoogle/Integration
Adding the Todoist DLL to your Launchy program folder allows you to add tasks to todoist using Launchy. 'Nuf said. I haven't used the iGoogle widget yet, but I imagine it works wonderfully. A Firefox extension for g-mail lets you send e-mails directly to your task list. And so on. There are Quicksilver and Mac Dashboard plug-ins and widgets, but, like Pony Parties (definately not linking to that, look it up yourself), I won't admit to knowing anything about how they work.

Chaining
I haven't done much chaining (a la Seinfeld), but it is equally easy to implement.

Price
It's $3 per month for the premium level. That gets you SSL, reminders (MSN, Jabber, Twitter, chaining, and other labeling capabilities. You probably spend at least $3/month on plastic silverware, replacement earring backs, and contraception. Todoist is more important than any of those things. Just think how quick it will be to type "[Ctrl-A] Go to planned parenthood, take care of it [Tab] tom @ 8".

What's Missing

There is not (or I have not found) iCal or RSS functionality.

Anyways, I've enjoyed using it, sign up, get your act together, then comment and tell me how smart I am.

GoogleFight

I love Google, but this site isn't actually associated with Google. googlefight.com merely uses Google search and compares the results of two criteria that the user enters. There is a quick stick figure fight and then it shows the results of both words or phrases to proclaim a winner.

For example, between this blog and a blog we link to (Through the Eyes of RWPACE), we won.
Between another blog we link to, (Frank M Owen), we lost big time.

I read about this site on a few different blogs and thought it would be a quick time waster...enjoy!

More Google usefulness...

Google now has an area for "Shared Stuff".

You need to add a bookmarklet to your toolbar and then you can share links through your Shared Stuff page. You can view other people's Shared Stuff. People can subscribe to your Shared Stuff in an RSS feed.

This kinda falls in line with my post about how I wish Google Reader allowed users to add comments to shared articles. This is close, except it is posted to your Shared Stuff page as opposed to your shared Google Reader feed.

There is currently a "Share" button in Google Video, but I'm sure they will expand it to other areas...