CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-17 21:36:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Are you going to the +Digital LA Silicon Beach Fest?

Please come to our panel at 10am on June 22nd: Women Developers

Moderating: +Tara Tiger Brown 
Panelists:
+Angie Chang
+Sophia Viklund 
+Shirley Lin 
+Tilly Grangaard 
+amy hee kim 
+Rachel Blum 

2013-06-17 17:22:49 (10 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

I'm without words. Well, not really - this is completely unacceptable. If you have opinions about somebody else's clothing, you damn well keep it to yourself.

2013-06-16 17:13:43 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Every few years, I get this weird curiosity attack. I want to see if maybe I'm missing something, and this whole "graphic novels" thing is actually better than I thought.

Latest episode: "Common Grounds", Vol. 1

Conclusion is the same as always: Not my cup of tea. And I'll continue to avoid calling it "graphic novels", because novels, they're not.

2013-06-14 23:49:42 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Oh brother, this "Hadoop is evil" article -- even in a week of loony articles -- is in the running for the looniest.

2013-06-13 23:49:48 (10 comments, 4 reshares, 7 +1s)

2013-06-12 19:16:42 (11 comments, 7 reshares, 20 +1s)

[Thisiswhyyoureskinny.com (Spoiler Alert: It's Photoshop.)]

Most revealing to me is the way that Jennifer Lawrence's strong, buff arms are whittled down to make her look like a fragile twig--just how we like our wominz, amirite, guise? As a friend said, "These are great examples of how even folks who have all the time, money, and motivation to remove their flaws and look a certain way still fall short of our outrageously unreasonable idealization of what real human bodies look like."

Not that we didn't all already know that, but always a good reminder.

2013-06-12 17:27:55 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

What's trending on Google right now.

How crazy is this?: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends/visualize?nrow=5&ncol=5&pn=p1

Note that this is for the United States only. You can choose a few other countries individually, or look at all of them at once. 

#googletrends  

2013-06-12 17:08:36 (10 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

Dear god, the video games industry actively strives for a cesspit image, it seems.

2013-06-12 00:57:57 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

This image has been making the rounds this morning, shared through various "Funny" (really!?) groups. And of course, as usual, no attribution whatsoever.

Since I really wanted to know how it was done, http://images.google.com to the rescue. The one below is still not the original, but at least we're one step closer.

2013-06-11 17:21:05 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The median pay for women CEOs was higher than it was for men — $11.2 million compared with $9.6 million — although only 3% of the companies analyzed were run by women. Irene Rosenfeld of Mondelez International, the snack giant that was spun off from Kraft Foods last year, was the highest-paid female CEO, taking in $22 million.

2013-06-06 05:18:38 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 32 +1s)

=)

2013-06-05 22:45:07 (32 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Computational Finance. "[I]f markets are efficient, meaning current prices fully reflect all information available in past prices, then P = NP." That's the bold claim of this paper, and I found it an interesting read. It also links two of my favorite topics!

What they are doing is showing that markets can only optimize prices in such a way that they take in all past information if and only if P = NP, by reducing the market problem to a Knapsack problem. Pretty nifty approach, but they are also very adamant about not drawing too many conclusions from this. In particular, markets can still optimize very well if P!=NP, just not perfectly.

The only problem I can see with their argument, having read the paper only once and not actually followed the argument in detail, is that the mapping of concepts and terms they use might differ from the mapping employed otherwise.... more »

2013-06-05 21:08:16 (53 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Anarcho-Capitalism vs Democracy

Part 4 of 4 - Libertarian Capitalist Economy vs Libertarian Socialist Economy

Part 1: http://goo.gl/Qfzw3
Part 2: http://goo.gl/2xL7S
Part 3: http://goo.gl/VJEX2

Libertarian socialists have very little in common with libertarian capitalists since, as stated previously, most libertarian capitalists do not actually desire the complete abolition of the state. Though both libertarian socialists and capitalists talk about abolishing the state the key difference is that libertarian socialists not only want to do away with the state, but are open to doing away with capitalist institutions such as the corporation, as well. Instead of private property (factories, hospitals, other infrastructure, and miscellaneous workplaces/productive equipment, etc. Not to be confused with personal property – homes, toothbrushes, clothing,compu... more »

2013-06-05 16:46:06 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

Just announced: Google CalDAV API will stay open for everyone, and we're making the CardDAV API available too.

http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2013/06/making-googles-caldav-and-carddav-apis.html

2013-06-03 15:00:35 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 43 +1s)

In 2013!!!

2013-06-03 03:09:47 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Sigh. Software that comes preinstalled on phones continues to be a cesspit of incompetence. I've spent the better part of the afternoon trying to transfer a file from the phone to the desktop machine.

In the process, the "installer" written by a clearly brilliant team tries to run every single other installer it can find on the main hard drive.

Manually removing all of them sort of fixes that,  but then it desperately tries to trick me into giving root access so it can futz with my network settings. (Hah. As if. Even if it's not a malicious intent, given the skill level encountered so far, who knows what it'll break). And after clicking cancel roughly 250 times, it directs me to Verizon's Backup Assistant web site. Yo, VZW? I don't want your crap. Really.

Sometimes, I hate technology. And it usually involves wireless carriers or cable... more »

2013-06-02 18:41:58 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Time for a lazy Sunday, I think. Coffee, cookies, and a re-reading of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" sounds about right.

Unless I actually get motivated to do something, that is :)

2013-06-02 04:17:55 (22 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

"It is hard to imagine a day when the ideas championed by Mr. Itskov, 32, a Russian multimillionaire and former online media magnate, will not seem strange, or at least far-fetched and unfeasible. His project, called the 2045 Initiative, for the year he hopes it is completed, envisions the mass production of lifelike, low-cost avatars that can be uploaded with the contents of a human brain, complete with all the particulars of consciousness and personality.

What Mr. Itskov is striving for makes wearable computers, like Google Glass, seem as about as futuristic as Lincoln Logs. This would be a digital copy of your mind in a nonbiological carrier, a version of a fully sentient person that could live for hundreds or thousands of years. Or longer. Mr. Itskov unabashedly drops the word “immortality” into conversation."

#cyborg   #immortality  

2013-06-01 18:47:10 (2 comments, 9 reshares, 61 +1s)

Brave & cute fmly :-)

2013-06-01 18:37:49 (19 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Ridiculous what is going on in #Turkey   right now, #occupygezi #occupyistanbul #occupytaksim

http://imgur.com/q3XfOFf

http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/turkey-protests/?hpt=hp_t2

2013-05-31 21:34:09 (46 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Reportedly, Google is eager to hire more female computer engineers to reduce the gender gap that prevails in the industry. Sounds a bit unreasonable. What say?

2013-05-30 18:47:44 (6 comments, 7 reshares, 25 +1s)

#spockeyebrow  

2013-05-29 22:12:56 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Yes, yes she is. Can't wait.

2013-05-29 20:23:53 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Anyone know if the tea kettle designer is the same Michael Graves from The Misfits? I feel that would make sense. In any case, #facepalm .

2013-05-29 18:28:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

As usual, the KPCB internet trends by Mary Meeker are well worth reading if you care about the tech industry at all.

2013-05-29 15:41:12 (26 comments, 4 reshares, 24 +1s)

My favorite comes at 3:17 - "Millions of years for a monkey to turn into a man? Monkeys don't live that long!"

Touché, my friend. I can't refute that point. (Mostly because I couldn't possibly stop laughing when trying to do that)

h/t to +Lionel Lauer for finding this gem. 

I still hope it's a hoax. Please, please let this be an elaborate troll.

Also, siding with the top commenter: WHY DID I CLICK ON THIS, I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO. AND I STILL FUCKING CLICKED ON IT. :)

2013-05-28 17:48:33 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Today I learned about in rem jurisdiction. Fascinating. 

Now wondering if I should sue my fridge, for making me gain weight ;)

2013-05-28 17:29:10 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

In related news, Pentagon officials still have a hard time understanding what them there newfangled thingamajigs are all about.

“This isn’t, like, fully functioning,” he says. “This is just to get those big ideas we have in Plan X out for folks to think about and consider."

Yep. I think somebody just got sold a bill of goods.

2013-05-27 02:26:25 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Brilliant advice.

2013-05-21 07:04:40 (65 comments, 2 reshares, 23 +1s)

2013-05-21 03:37:38 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

In lieu of a longer write-up that's still pending: Has there been any significant reporting on/thinking about secure data storage for the #quantifiedself  idea?

Anybody got pointers to articles, white papers, etc...?

2013-05-20 21:24:18 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

Each time Chromium code is updated, powerful bots run tests to make sure there is no regression. When all tests succeed, Last Known Good Revision aka LKGR is updated at http://chromium-status.appspot.com/lkgr

To have a better understanding of where and when some tests fail, you may want to have a look at the Status Dashboard at http://build.chromium.org/p/chromium/lkgr-status/

2013-05-18 19:44:24 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Excuse me while I do a little bit of math in my stream. It's trivial math, so nobody will be harmed - you can keep looking. In fact, it might be interesting.

A while ago, there was an interesting discussion on the risk of terrorist attacks in my stream. [1]

And the discussion turned to what is more likely, winning the lottery, or being killed by terrorists. 

It was brought up that the number of terror deaths in the last 10 years was about 150 total. That would mean 15/year. Of course, that ignores the elephant of 9/11. The problem is, we simply don't know the frequency of large-scale attacks like 9/11 yet, so attaching any number is difficult. The only thing we can reasonably say is that so far, ~3,000/year is an upper bound. Let's go with that.

Now to winning the lottery. The CA lottery seems to produce about 10 millionaires per year, Iowa about 4.... more »

2013-05-18 06:30:42 (28 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

I accidentally jumped over to "What's Hot". (I know, my own fault). To find a post from +Robert Scoble with this quote:

"Sick!"
Translation for those who don't understand youth language: "can I try them on pretty please?"

Uh, Robert? "Sick" was "youth language" sometime in the 80's, when hammer pants were rad, and you pulled gnarly tricks with your skateboard ;)

2013-05-17 19:18:16 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

This is interesting. Amnesty International accesses your Facebook information, and determines what types of crimes you could be convicted of around the globe.

http://www.trialbytimeline.org.nz/

(H/T +Alison Marlowe)

2013-05-17 18:28:58 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

#io13   #morethanabrowser  

Curious to learn Chrome packaged apps? Tomorrow we will have a great (:-)) Codelab session at I/O 2013. I know it will be Friday, lunch time, but I would love to have you in the room.

I will be guiding you through converting the famous +Addy Osmani's ToDoMVC benchmark app into a fully fledged Chrome packaged app. At the end you will have an ToDo app that actually executes your tasks for you.. oh wait, that's not ready yet...

A good part of the packaged app engineering and devrel team will be there to answer your questions while you learn the platform.

Ah, one last information: we will have some really cool swags raffled during the codelab! (see? I told you would want to come :-))
 

2013-05-17 05:30:51 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

"Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers took a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. "

That is about as close to unanimity as you will get in the scientific community.

#AGW #globalwarming

2013-05-17 02:15:44 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 22 +1s)

The Internet. Where private means entirely different things than you would think it would :)

2013-05-16 17:11:00 (30 comments, 4 reshares, 17 +1s)

We have obviously been wrong this whole time. How can you argue with such clever use of science by creationists?

2013-05-16 05:35:50 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

It's amazing to actually take a look what motivates my actions. Depending on my mood, the rationale I give myself shifts in a way that makes me feel better given the current mood I'm in. 

And as I keep looking, it becomes harder and harder to tell which, if any, of the reasons I give myself is why I really do things. It's fascinating.

And disquieting - because really, if I can't identify the true reason, who says it's really me making that decision, and not just habit, instinct, or hormones?

2013-05-15 19:53:21 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

Using Gmail and Google Wallet, you can quickly and securely send money to friends and family within the U.S. 

2013-05-15 19:05:06 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Blog post by Randy Blythe from Lamb of God. A really good read, even if you're not into metal.

2013-05-15 18:03:34 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Chromebooks deploying in every school in Malaysia. Stories like this is why I come to work every day. #io2013 #googleio

2013-05-14 23:32:35 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's serious business, but I swear, this could be an Onion headline in itself.

2013-05-13 16:58:33 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

I'm giving you the highlight headline of the day here... :)

(Yeah, I don't really have any deep comments here. I just liked the headline.)

2013-05-11 05:18:31 (9 comments, 5 reshares, 22 +1s)

Ahem....

2013-05-10 22:02:48 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 19 +1s)

LOL 

2013-05-10 19:43:55 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

"Climate-change contrarians, who have little scientific credibility but are politically influential in Washington, point out that carbon dioxide represents only a tiny fraction of the air — as of Thursday’s reading, exactly .04 percent. “The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rather undramatic,” a Republican congressman from California, Dana Rohrabacher, said in a Congressional hearing several years ago."

If you are ignorant or otherwise lack the necessary domain expertise, then please don't say anything that just exposes your ignorance especially if you are a public official. If you can prevent a potential global catastrophe, then you are obligated to replace your ignorance with knowledge http://goo.gl/rj0uU

2013-05-10 19:24:31 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

How about this one for a more depressing map... Deforestation in the Amazon basin over the last 20 years, as seen from LANDSAT.

Also there - glacier shrinkage, drying out of the Aral sea, you name it.

But then again, the tool itself is amazingly cool. Quoth: We sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year

2013-05-10 19:19:39 (29 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

I'd call it "the most depressing map of the week", but really, there are more...