Tag: google

One trillion dollars

Being a supervillain and making demands for ransom ala Dr Evil is much easier now thanks to Google. You’ll be able to make realistic cash demands in proportion to your schemes knowing how much space you’ll need to store the payment just by using Google Sketchup. Google’s 3D modelling software doesn’t look quite as cool as Lego’s – but only because it’s not defaulted to using lego. I’m sure you could. You can provide a visualisation of one trillion dollars with ease (the little speck on the bottom left is a person). I haven’t used it yet, but it looks cool.

March 12, 2009

Google sets, lets you match stuff on the net, I love it

So many pieces of tennis terminology. Somewhat ironically I could have used Google Sets to generate them if I wasn’t already using it to generate me a list of movies similar to the Godfather, Goodfellas and Scarface. Which it did.

You can make really big lists. It’s fun. And a nice way to find lists of similar stuff.

March 9, 2009

Atlantisn’t

There’s been oohing and ahhing over the weekend as some Google Earth watchers thought they might have found Atlantis. The blogosphere went crazy over the idea. Chris just posted a link to the googleblog today. Sunken mythical cities don’t really excite me. But this idea from the googleblog does. And google would be one company with the resources to make it happen.

“But we could map the whole ocean using ships. A published U.S. Navy study found that it would take about 200 ship-years, meaning we’d need one ship for 200 years, or 10 ships for 20 years, or 100 ships for two years. It costs about $25,000 per day to operate a ship with the right mapping capability, so 200 ship-years would cost nearly two billion dollars. That may seem like a lot of money, but it’s not that far off from the price tag of, say, a new sports stadium.”

That would be cool. And cheaper than building a real life, working, death star or Enterprise – or whatever was in those links I posted for calculating the cost of unrealistic science fiction technology a few weeks ago.

February 24, 2009

Autocomplete this sentence…

Autocomplete based on popular google searches is a pretty dangerous thing. Don’t type random vowels into YouTube – you’re likely to be shocked by what other people are looking for. 

I don’t know if this is a photoshop job – I haven’t tested it yet. But I will.

Update – I tested these phrases in the autocomplete searchbar in Chrome. It seems they’re legit.

Gizmodo has shared a couple of pretty funny stories about Google autocomplete this week. Pictures below. Click them for a link to the full sized image if you can’t see the hilarious autocomplete results. 

February 13, 2009

Daily bread

Having just posted about a weird medical condition yesterday I feel a bit silly doing it again today. 

We’re tucking in to some freshly baked bread, fresh from the breadmaker, and I’m sure it has given me crazy hiccups. A quick google reveals I’m not alone. 

How should I cure my hiccups?

February 3, 2009

The Internet is out to get you…

So says Google. Who today, for a brief moment, applied their “content may harm your computer” disclaimer to every result. Even Google, as noted in the Flickr image below…

It’s the ultimate catch all disclaimer. Any website may harm your computer. It’s not surprising that Google have made this strategic decision to avoid law suits. The Bureau of Meteorology has been doing the same thing for years – issuing severe storm warnings at the drop of a hat, just to avoid liability when a storm hits and people weren’t ready.

Incidentally, there’s a category one cyclone bearing down on North Queensland. Batten the hatches. It’s a big one. Maybe. It will hit sometime tomorrow. Maybe. It will intensify. Maybe. You have been warned.

Now is an appropriate time to panic. It’s what everyone else is doing. The mob mentality means massive queues have formed at local shops as people stock up on supplies. Tropical Cyclone Ellie is not even predicted to come that close to Townsville and it’s not particularly likely that flooding will cut of access here at this point in time. Unlike in Cairns. They should panic buy. Who’d want to live there.

Now that I’ve said all this the cyclone will either hit Townsville directly, or by some quirk all the rain it brings will cut off road access and we’ll run out of milk by Tuesday. Better hit the shops. Just in case. And remember. You have been warned. This site may harm your computer.

February 1, 2009

Ego-Surfing USA

A long long time ago I wrote about egosurfing – the act of googling oneself. Have you ever done that? I have. About once every three years  – whenever I want to blog about egosurfing. It’s depressing. My first unique appearance is for a Media Release I wrote about the Magnetic Island crocodile – it’s on the second page of the results.  Other Nathan Campbells seem so much more accomplished. There’s a triathlete (certainly not me), an artist, a second grade player at the Parramatta Eels, a scout,  and someone who has been sentenced for a crime on YouTube. I do slightly better on the pages from Australia – I’m on the first page.

The reason I write this is because US author David Baldacci, writer of fiction thrillers that are borderline “airport thrillers”, has a bad case of egosurfingitis.  I must confess that I enjoy his work. I have purchased many of his novels for many a flight. But this page is pure ego stroking/search engine optimisation. And I made it, for referring to “The Whole Truth” in my “I Spy” post. My review wasn’t even that flattering… here’s the quote they’ve used:

“I’ve also managed to plow through a David Baldacci thriller. I don’t know about you – but I like my holiday reading to be pretty mindless. So “The Whole Truth” appealed to me much more than it did to the reviewer quoted on the Amazon page”

The worst bit is that the process doesn’t appear to be automated – it’s posted by “staff writers”. Now the reason I know this isn’t down to egosurfing – WordPress automatically tracks linkbacks to the blog from around the web. I can only hope that David Baldacci will link to me again if I mention his book “The Whole Truth” a couple more times. And perhaps put a link in to the Amazon page for The Whole Truth – which I did actually enjoy.  That’s the whole truth. I probably enjoyed the Robert Ludlum (of Bourne series fame) The Icarus Agenda more. It was superior as far as political conspiracy theory thrillers go. The Whole Truth seemed like a Wag the Dog derivative only instigated from the corporate rather than political sector.

January 27, 2009

Word up

I’m seriously considering moving this blog to wordpress. So, my five loyal readers, I am humbly seeking your advice.

While I enjoy being part of the google family (ie blogger, gmail, picasa, reader etc…) WordPress just seems so much nicer, cleaner, more functional… but to get some of the real functionality I’m after I may have to pay some money.

Incidently, I have been playing with WordPress and imported this blog to a WordPress account – I average about 4 comments per post – I seem to be pretty down on comments in the last six months though, I guess that’s what a long lay off will do. Or maybe I’m now boring.

Here are my pros and cons so far:
Blogger:
Pros
1. Allows me to email posts to my blog using a special, secret email address – but from anywhere – this is handy because it means I can appear to be working but actually blogging.
2. Allows Ben to receive my posts by email – I’m not sure he’d be able to get them so passively if I made the switch.
3. It’s what I’ve always known so the status quo bias probably plays some part in making me stay here.
4. It allows me to easily edit the layout CSS – which gives me freedom to significantly change things up if I so desired.
Cons
1. (Big one) Blogger doesn’t have all the functionality that I like in WordPress (ie creating pages that aren’t posts, other nice layout things, the ability to post delicious bookmark lists as a post quickly and easily)

WordPress
Pros
1. It looks nicer
2. It has a better user interface
3. It’s a properly dedicated blogging service – not part of a huge, all powerful global conglomerate.
4. It has developed some really nice little tools – and the third party plug in developments don’t all look like stupid games created by stupid people – seriously, check out the list of add ons for Blogger some time…
5. You can have extra pages, better tag sorting (not that I use tags much, but I think I should), it is very functional while still being stylish.
6. I only have about 5 readers anyway – I reckon most of you would make the move with me (other than Ben).

Cons
1. I’m scared of/resistant to change.
2. Ben would have to use a browser or RSS reader to access my rambling posts.

So there you have it. Comments? Here’s the wordpress version with a default template that I’d play with…

November 5, 2008

Chroming

Google launched a browser today – Chrome. Pretty exciting. I’m using it right now. To type this email in my gmail to send it to my google blog.

Should I be concerned? So much of my life is tied to google – what if that “don’t be evil” maxim they celebrate actually is just a facade. Maybe Google is the precursor to the robots that took over the world in the Matrix… 
If this worst case scenario does end up being true – then at least I’ll go down in a blaze of blue and white efficiency blended with usability, utility and usefulness. It’s worth checking out. Just google it.   

 

September 3, 2008

Ego tripping at the gates of (goog)hell

Once again, the uncultured should go here to find out what on earth that title is talking about. Actually, that title was pretty much for the benefit of Dan Saunders who knows who the Flaming Lips are.

Ego Surfing is the act of typing one’s own name into an Internet Search Engine such as Google just to see how often you appear online. There are apparently lots of athletic Nathan Campbells out there – including a triathlete in Queensland who I guarantee is not me. However, my Internet recognisability index is on the increase. If you type “Nathan Campbell” into google and hit pages from Australia – I’m now number 2. I’ve lost my shoes. I knew being an illustration in one of dad’s sermons was going to be my downfall. Although I’m glad it’s not the bath tub story. I tried to find a link to the bath tub story but thankfully the keywords “Nathan” and “bath tub” don’t bring up the sermon on the MPC website. I’m happy to be the guy who lost his shoes. Anyway, the point of this story is that I was once number 16 in the results for the above search. Due to a concerted effort on my part I’ve moved up the ladder. If you search for Nathan Townsville blog I’m like number one. I’m so excited. Almost famous. Or not – given that you’d have to be looking for me specifically to actually find me. But I guess that’s the point of Ego surfing.

The Ego Surfing phenomona fascinates me – there are companies you can pay to protect your google image. Here is a site that makes the egosurfing process a whole lot easier.

So for those of you who want to actually read stuff about my life in Townsville rather than all this very interesting other stuff…

We had the first night of Focus the other night – Focus is the young adult ministry here at Willows that I’m now coordinating. I pretty much imported the latechurch bible study model – it’s hard to be enthuisiastic about something that just seems like common sense to me – I’ve never done anything different, but it’s all new for people here which is kind of nice. Somehow I managed to volunteer to write the studies as well so if anyone out there has hints on 1 Peter I’m all ears. Luckilly we’re past the bit about preaching to the spirits of those people killed in Noah’s day.

I’m also leading a grade 12 boys bible study group – I had my first official meeting with the 2 guys in my group tonight. They seem nice enough.

I have to go to Magnetic Island again tomorrow – which would be nice if I wasn’t going on the samne tour I’ve already been on twice and if it wasn’t raining so much outside. But I do have the work digital camera this time so there may be photos on my blog next week.

Tim and I are home alone this week – Dave, our conscience, has gone on a week’s jaunt to the Sunshine Coast. We’ve decided to have the house freakishly clean by the time he gets back just to freak him out. We’re hoping he’ll start to question whether he is in fact the messy one.

In other news – I bought the new Gomez album – this post is therefore brought to you by Gomez – How we operate. I think it’s my favourite Gomez album.

While I’m on the subject of CD’s – DVD’s are kind of CD like – I’m trying to track down my Godfather box set (last seen with either Chris Lindsay or Sam Jagoe), My Shaun of the dead DVD – last seen with Garnet and the first DVD of the Office Box set (I know you’ve got it Jo)

If people continue to comment as anonymous I’m going to have to make this a subscription only site – I want to know who you are or I don’t get that warm feeling inside. Bob on the other hand is trying a little too hard to create that warm feeling.

May 5, 2006