Archive for the 'Google' Category

Monday Links: April 21st, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on April 20, 2008
in Careers, Design, Energy, Environment, Google, Monday Links, Politics, Space and Sustainability
. 1 Comment

Another week closer to Spring…or so we hope.  This week’s links are very heavy on environmental stories.  I apologize for the one-dimensionality, but Jarred has some Web 2.0 stuff planned for this week to even things out a bit.  Links:

  • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. offers three major environmental policies for the next president: a carbon cap-and-trade system (wisely endorsed by Senators Obama, Clinton, and McCain); smart grids and modernizing energy delivery infrastructure; and drastic improvements in energy efficiency for buildings and machines.  Sounds like a start [Hat Tip: Grist].
  • Treehugger features stories on space debris (click through to see the image…pretty unbelievable) and the “Pacific trash vortex“–an area twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that’s entirely covered in garbage (more here).  Further proof of the attitude that out of sight is out of mind…until our children grow up, anyway.
  • The latest version of Google Earth includes a feature that shows users when a satellite image was taken; this is enormously important for conservation efforts aimed at tracking land and water conditions over time.  Also helpful for spies.

You could train a recent college graduate to do your job well in a few days or less - This demonstrates you do not need any experience or knowledge learned over time to complete your tasks, which implies busy work or menial duties.

  • The New Yorker featured a really fascinating article on something I rarely give a second thought: elevators.  The story includes an account of the horrific experience of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours.  The time-lapse video of his ordeal makes me think I’ll be taking the stairs for a few weeks.
  • I keep procrastinating on a green architecture post; in the meantime, this is one of the coolest green building concepts I’ve seen recently: urban skyscraper farming, courtesy of the Dwell Magazine blog.  Check out this design, and follow the link for details:

dwell city farm

  • I’m giving Jarred this raw meat themed iPod case for his birthday, just to send Ashish (and Steve Jobs, for that matter) over the edge.  Fortunately for you, Ashish, it’s way too expensive for a gag gift.

Enjoy those links while I go read the NY Times magazine “green issue.” More to come….

Mapping Our Memories

Published
by
Jarred
on April 14, 2008
in Computing, Google, Health, Humanism and Science
. 4 Comments

We’ve discussed augmented reality a little bit before, but this week’s New York Times Magazine featured an article that got me thinking about a similar concept: human augmentation, which I suppose can be loosely defined as improving human performance through the addition of synthetic or otherwise “unhuman” components.

Of course there are lots of spokes in this wheel: we could easily talk about steroids, for example, and how chemical enhancements are changing athletics. However, Gary Marcus, a psychology professor at NYU, focuses in “Total Recall” on research being done into human memory: how it works, how it compares to computer memory, and how the latter can inform and perhaps improve the former.

As Marcus explains, computer storage is orderly and logical: information is stored in specific locations, and there is an accompanying index or “map” that allows quick and accurate retrieval. When you command your computer to find information, it consults the map, finds the information, and displays it. Nice and simple.  On the other hand, information in the human brain — as far as we know — isn’t mapped to discrete locations. Our memories ebb and flow, often disappear, and sometimes change. When we “search” for information in our brains, it can be a slower and much less accurate or consistent affair as compared to computers. Marcus calls this a “kluge”, the term engineers use for systems that are “clumsy and inelegant but a lot better than nothing.”

With this discrepancy in storage methods in mind, Marcus wonders if one day it will be possible to embed a memory mapping and tracking system in our brains. He predicts the creation of “a system modeled on Google, which combines cue-driven promptings similar to human memory with the location-addressability of computers.” Suggesting that “there’s no reason in principle why a future generation of neural prostheticists couldn’t pick up where nature left off”, he maintains that such a procedure would not turn humans into machines because it would only augment, and not alter, existing abilities. The quality or quantity of our memories would not change, only our ability to find them again.

Continue reading ‘Mapping Our Memories’

On(line) and Off Again

Published
by
Jarred
on April 1, 2008
in Computing and Google
. 2 Comments

What with recent distractions in my life lately, I’ve had little time to keep up with my Google Reader feeds.  You know it’s bad when the unread item number just says “1000+” and stops counting.  Yikes.  However, this afternoon while I was separating some of the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, a little sum’in-sum’in caught my attenton.

This weekend, Google Docs became offline-ready.  “Offline-ready?!”, you ask in eager bewilderment, “But how can an online service be used offline, Jarred?!”  Lucky for you, I have the answers.

Continue reading ‘On(line) and Off Again’

Monday Links (a little late): March 24, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on March 24, 2008
in Blogging, Business, Culture, Google, Monday Links, Social Entrepreneurship and Web 2.0
. 2 Comments

Sorry for the posting delay. Here are a few Monday links…still nice and fresh for a Tuesday morning:

  • If Tropophilia makes you want to branch out and explore more of the blogosphere, but you’re not sure how or where to find good blogs, I recommend you check out Alltop. Tropophilia fans might particularly enjoy the Green, Venture Capital, and the Social Media categories. Take a look and get hooked on a few more blogs (it’s a healthy habit, I swear).
  • Russ Quackenbush, the head of Google’s engineering department, brags to Fast Company about his employees:

“Google is investing in brains. And that’s a pretty good investment, because that way, you don’t have to know what the next thing is. Those people are going to figure it out. [...] The odds are pretty good that if you bump into someone in the cafeteria, they are way better than you at something. They are world-class at something.”

  • Social Innovation Camp brings software developers and social entrepreneurs together “to find ways that easy-to-build web 2.0 tools can be used to develop solutions to social challenges” in 48 hours. The projects for London on April 4-6 range from Barcode Wikipedia (”A site for storing user-generated information–such as carbon footprint, manufacturing conditions and reviews–against a product, identified by its barcode number”) to Prison Visits (”A tool to support the families of prisoners coping with the experience of being apart from a loved one”).
  • This business card that grows seems like a pretty cool way to make an impression…as long as your business contacts save your email address on their computer before the roots sprout.
  • Finally, in light of the happy distraction that occupies the minds of Davidson alums across the globe (and fans of those other schools too…), Mental Floss offers NCAA Tournament Pitfalls to Avoid.

Sorry again for the delay–on the positive side, it’s one day closer to Friday.

“…and nothing but the truth, so help me Google” [Guest Post]

Published
by
a Guest
on March 18, 2008
in Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, News, Privacy, Social Networks and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

It’s a pleasure for me to present a guest post submitted by Jarry Taylor, a partner with Maynard, Cooper & Gale PC — one of Alabama’s leading law firms located in scenic Birmingham.  And… he’s my dad!  Thanks to Jarry/Dad for contributing to Tropophilia!

The American Bar Association’s Litigation News reports on a recent phenomenon many of us law types have been talking about, namely the change in the way investigations are performed and how to get information about people involved in legal cases.  Forget the old style gum shoe black cloak, long-lens photographer investigator (although they do still come in handy sometimes).  We’re now talking about finding out all sorts of neat and interesting stuff from MySpace, Facebook and even Match.com.

Have a witness you’re about to depose in a case coming to trial next month?  Worried you might not know all there is to know about him?  Think you should fork out money for an investigator to dig up information about him?  Nah, it’s all right there on the internet and in the social networking world where nothing is sacred.

“They” tell you to be careful what you post as a student because colleges, grad schools and employers will check out those crazy photos you thought it would be fun to share with your buds.  But, those beyond those years or the witless still include information that, sometimes, can be very helpful to the inquiring lawyer on the other side of a case.  Courts are now having to deal with evidentiary questions, and report decisions on whether such information is admissible in court or not.  Even if it’s not substantive information relevant to your case, it can always go to the credibility of that witness.

“I solemly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Google.”  Oh, and that applies to lawyers, too!