Is Google Watching You? “Google Alarm” Browser Plugin Lets You Know

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

Google Alarm from Jamie Dubs on Vimeo.

As most intelligent people know, Google dominates in the search field, as well as in online advertising — so they seem to be everywhere: in your search results, their ads on your favourite blogs, and probably 99% of websites that use tracking software use Google Analytics. So, how do we know if the website we’re on is allowing Google to track us?

This plugin, for Firefox and Chrome, helps you do just that. It alerts you every time your “personal info” is sent to Google’s servers. And surprising (or not so surprising) they do or could collect a lot of information about us. But, don’t anyone panic, yet. I don’t think they’re that evil. Or, at least, that’s what their famous informal motto is.

The plugin’s creator, Jamie Wilkinson, says, “Google makes great products and gives them all away for free, which has made them into a ubiquitous and omniscient force on the Internet. Google Alarm and F*ck Google in general are meant to illustrate how this single unregulated company now captures more information about us than any government agency ever could. When I started developing Google Alarm I was blown away to discover that 80+% of websites I visit have some kind of Google tracking bugs on them.”

How does the plugin work, exactly? According to Mr. Wilkinson, “[It] inspects each page you visit for Google-related URLs: googleanalytics.com/ga.js for Google Analytics, doubleclick.net/googlesyndication.com URLs for AdSense, youtube.com/v/ for YouTube embeds, and many more,” Wilkinson says. “Each service triggers an individual visual and audible alert to help you become more aware of when you’re transmitting data to Google.”

However, I know one thing for sure: this plugin’s obnoxiously annoying fire siren beep noise that sounds every time you hit a site that’s sending info, gets very annoying, very fast.

Just waiting on a Facebook Alarm plugin, now. With the gaining popularity of Facebook’s Like button, popping up everyone online, it’s no doubt that Facebook’s getting around like a slut.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The World’s Happiest and Unhappiest Countries [Infographic]

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

My love of infographics has led me to this interesting one. I’m glad to see Canada up in the top 10 happiest. Denmark must be a nice place to live.

Click on the infographic to view a larger image.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

DO THE SPIRIT FINGERS! LOL

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

DO THE SPIRIT FINGERS! LOL.

At least he’s doing what he loves :S. Well, try to think about it from his point of view: he gets to dance around with a bunch of girls with skimpy outfits on.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Voices of The Simpsons [Chart]

Posted on July 11, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

View full-size image.

A nice chart of the voices of The Simpsons. Pretty impressive.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Programmable Self-Folding Origami

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

I found an awesome video on BoingBoing. It was created by researchers at The Harvard Microrobotics Lab. It’s made out of paper edged with actuators that can be programmed to automatically fold the sheet into simple origami forms. Besides being lazy and using it to fold your origami for you, it could be used to automatically adjust the size of, say, a coffee cup, depending on the amount of coffee poured into it. On a large scale, I’m not sure how useful this would be on, but on a smaller scale, we could have swiss army knives, tables, and other tools that could morph into other tools and shapes. Or we could stick it inside people: the medical implications seem promising.

Other potential uses mentioned in the comments include: teaching origami; autobots; books that turn their own pages and stay open when your’re reading; presents that automatically unwrap themselves; full automated toilet paper; combine it with flat screen technology and camera with facial recognition software and create a TV that always bends in a direction to give you the best possible view of the screen; solar panel roof on a house that could bend and shape itself to always face the most sunlight and then repeal water when it rained; a tent that pitches itself; bed that makes itself; business cards that become animated characters; parachutes that turn into rigid airfoils; umbrellas that fold up really small when not in use;  that jacket from Back To the Future 2; self-folding maps to make it much easier to refold them; window blinds; self-constructing geodesic dones; multifunctional transforming furniture

Or, if all fails, use it to automatically roll your joints.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Most Convincing Argument for Atheism: Reject Christ Receive Bacon [Image]

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

I stumbled upon his morning. Ugh, I hate getting up so early. My mom’s going to take me to the optomistrists — I gotta get contacts.

It kinda looks like she’s levitating, so I dunno, maybe she’s Jesus or something. It’s probably Photoshopped: there are no shadows of her or the sign. And I don’t eat red meat. A lot of people would probably would reject Christ just for the bacon, though: bacon actually exists — you can eat it. Can’t say the same about God: can’t eat him.

Actually, the best argument for atheism is the absolute lack of evidence for the existence of any god. There are many other reasons, as well.

One commenter, Grant, under the image said:

Haha that is hilarious! I think it’s soooo witty when athiests are openly rude to people who believe something different than them. And I especially like it when they indoctrinate and pressure their kids into acting rude too, just like the Christians they complain about. That is so f-ing awesome! Way to go athiests! YOU WIN!!! You’re so much smarter than Christians!!! Yay… freakin idiots

I’m not even sure how this commenter got this info from this image (perhaps they think bacon is evil?), but it’s ironic how rude they’re being when accusing atheists of being so rude. Well, I would hope the no one was rude to anyone, but some people — atheism or believers — can be rude. In general, I think most people would find that most atheist are quite nice people and are accepting of others — but critical and skeptical — of any religion person primarily because of the base-less and evident-less beliefs they have and claims they make. We know there are reasons that you have your beliefs, whether you mother or father believed it and you learned from them, or you have an emotional attachment perhaps, or whatever the reason may be. But atheists aren’t out to get believers — we attack their beliefs and try not to attack their beliefs personally (just like any proper debater regardless of the debated issue should do). It’s quite common for some believers to preach to others, teach it their children, go door to door and sell Bibles and stuff, try to get their believes taught into schools, etc., so I don’t know how this commenter has the nerve. It’s quite ironic. Reminds me of song by Alanis Morisette’s song.

Another person, Sean, said:

That proves Canadians are athiests…

It’s not nice to talk aboot Canadians like that, eh. Canadians are actually almost identical to Americans in just about every way. Except Newfoundlanders, and some others — they have funny accents. And we don’t try to fight everyone, like Americans do. (See, it’s not nice to stereotype is it? Sorry any American readers.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Paradox] Pinocchio: “My Nose Will Grow Now”

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

Me and a couple friends on Facebook have been trying to figure this paradox out. My explanations from Facebook are below. You can see how my explanation changes a little each time, each time being more fine-tuned (the last explanation being my final and official one) What a brain workout! I’ll update it if/when the other participants reply; and I’ll ask if I can post their replies as well.

The initial paradox that I was presented with was “My nose is about to grow.” Then, down the line, I replied to “My nose is growing now”.

Disclaimer: I’m not claiming my explanation to be the correct explanation, just my own opinion. If anyone disagrees, has a better explanation, or the explanation, please post it in the comments below.

1. Mike:
I don’t think it would grow (sounds dirty lol) because he’s making a prediction and not explicitly lying; he doesn’t know when his nose will grow, he’s just saying “it’s about to” (anytime now…). And predictions can be “wrong” but they’re not a “lie”. A lie is when you know what the truth is, but you give an alternative “truth” that is false, usually with the intention to deceive others. So whether or not his nose grew immediately after stating that or later on in the day or year, he’s still not lying, but making a prediction. Pinocchio doesn’t know exactly when his nose will grow, so he can’t be lying about it, but he can be wrong about it.

2. Mike:
If he said, “It’s about to grow *now*”, then it wouldn’t be a prediction. Actually, I think it might still be one, because he’s still not claiming it *will* for certain, just that it’s “about to” and eventually “going to”. So, I still say when he says “about”, it’s always a prediction, because “about” refers to some uncertainty. If he said “It’s gonna grow right now”…. actually, that’s still a prediction, because he doesn’t know if it will or not. And in order to lie, you have to know the truth and tell an alternative one which is false, or pretend to know the truth when you don’t. Pinocchio would only be wrong, but not lying. If he actually knew for sure his nose was going to grow, he would say, “My nose will grow right now”, instead of having any uncertainty.

If Pinocchio pretended to know that his nose was not going to grow for sure, and he said to me, “My nose will grow right now”, then he would be lying to me, and his nose would then grow. His nose would grow even though he just lied to me about it (which would make you think that he actually told you the truth because he nose is actually growing like he said, and thus creating this paradox), because his nose would be growing as the result of lying to *me*, and not as the result of the actual growth of his nose.

If he pretended to know that his nose would grow, and he told me “My nose will grow right now” — despite his prediction being right or wrong, he would still be lying to me (because he’s pretending to know, when in fact, he cannot know, and he is telling me an alternative truth which is in fact false), and so his nose would grow.

But if he never makes an initial assertion to himself claiming to know, then he’s only making predictions.

Mike’s Final and Official Explanation

3. Mike:
Another variation is “My nose will grow now” and “My penis will grow now” (wishful thinking). These statements are all predictions. He’s making a prediction. And failing to predict accurately is not lying. But, it’s not about the prediction; the lying comes from his initial beliefs and what he already knows.

I liar has to have the correct information and decide not to tell that information, or just state that he knows the information when he really does not. If I told you that tomorrow I’ll be elected PM of Canada, I’m not lying to you. I’m making a claim of a future event — a prediction. The chances are that I won’t be, but it’s not impossible. For me to have lied to you, I would have to know for a fact whether or not I was elected or not (the truth), and then tell you the opposite (the lie). But there is no way that I could know. Even if I asserted for a 100% fact that I would be elected, it’s still a prediction, because I just cannot know for sure if I will be or not. It really does sound like lie, but it’s not.

BUT, he does know if his nose will grow or not, and he makes the claim that it will grow that very instant. But his nose won’t grow like he said because he didn’t lie for it to grow before he made the statement (unless he did in the movie, or whatever, and I’m not aware of it), thus making him a liar, and resulting in his nose growing — and he knows all of this, so he’s lying for sure. But if he is a little insane and actually believes that it will or will not grow, then he’s telling the truth — since you can’t lie if you truly 100% believe it (maybe he’s a little delusional lol, but I doubt it).

So, unless we knew his thoughts, we can’t be 100% if it’s a lie. But, since he likely wasn’t insane, and knew that his nose only grows when he lies, and he claimed that it will grow this instant for no reason his lying first, then he’s lying because he already knows the outcome, and he’s telling us something different, that it will grow.

Although his prediction would be correct afterwards, it wasn’t initially when he lied to me; so his prediction becoming true afterwards wouldn’t render him truthful — because he still lied to me; the lie is for his initial knowledge of the outcome of his nose and telling me different, and not because of his accurate predictions afterwards.

Then again, maybe’s is just a rhetorical statement lol. Then it wouldn’t grow lol. Or, since Pinocchio /probably/ doesn’t exist, this problem/paradox probably doesn’t exist either lol.

Here’s a programmer’s view of the situation.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Google Me: Google Working On Facebook-Like Social Network (Unoriginal Bastards)

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

GoogleGoogle is apparently working on a social networking website similar to Facebook called “Google Me”. Digg‘s founder Kevin Rose began the rumour via a tweet which has since been deleted. Adam D’Angelo (involved with Facebook early on, but founder of Quora now) confirmed that it will be modelled off of Facebook (unoriginal bastards). So, it will probably have a similar user interface and features (news feed,  core applications, developer platform, etc.) It may incorporate their other properties such as Buzz, Profiles, and Docs, too; but I hope their careful about that: we don’t want another Orkut.

Adam D’Angelo also said that Google realized that Buzz didn’t quite take off as much as they’ve hoped for, and as a result, are going to build a full, first-class social network. Well, they’re very right about Buzz — Buzz is horrible — just a Twitter copy they used to try to get back in the social game.

Google will really have to do something amazing to win over people who are already used to and on Facebook. I for one, will not change my primary social network from Facebook because all my friend and family are on it, and I suspect that most people will have the same attitude. It will also be a pain in the ass to have yet another profile to maintain and login information to remember. But, I would consider using it if it was integrated well with Docs and had a very nice and clean user interface. I just hope it’s nothing like their Orkut.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Microsoft’s Impressive Numbers: Apple Fanboys Can Suck On This

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Mike Kennedy

Microsoft isn’t going anywhere! And Apple and its fanboys can shove their iTampons and their overly-hyped, overly expensive and locked-in products, up their asses. Microsoft released some impressive numbers, but Techcrunch done a better “analysis” on them. Just so you don’t have to click on those links, I’ve pasted the numbers and Techcrunch’s “analysis below. Disclaimer: I am not a Microsoft fanboy, I simple don’t like Apple’s/Steve Jobs’ arrogance and (most of) their extremely over-priced products.

150,000,000
Number of Windows 7 licenses sold, making Windows 7 by far the fastest growing operating system in history.

What he really means: While our rivals are getting all the hype in the press, and people keep blogging about us “dying”, we’re selling 7 copies of our OS every second. Keep this number in mind when you read the next group of stats.

7.1 million
Projected iPad sales for 2010.

58 million
Projected netbook sales in 2010.

355 million
Projected PC sales in 2010.

What he really means: Remember that 150 million number? Yeah, the iPad can suck it. And about the iPad and netbooks killing the PC — I have 355 million reasons why that’s not happening anytime soon. Did I mention we’ve sold 150 million licenses for those PCs?

<10
Percentage of US netbooks running Windows in 2008.

96
Percentage of US netbooks running Windows in 2009.

What he really means: And if netbooks do kill the PC, we’re set there too. Chrome OS? That’s vaporware so far. Come talk to me when they have one tenth of our 96% share. Or any share, for that matter.

0
Number of paying customers running on Windows Azure in November 2009.

10,000
Number of paying customers running on Windows Azure in June 2010.

700,000
Number of students, teachers and staff using Microsoft’s cloud productivity tools in Kentucky public schools, the largest cloud deployment in the US.

What he really means: Google and Salesforce get all the cloud hype, but look what we’ve done in a short amount of time. And and all those stats you read about Google making inroads in school with their cloud office stuff? We’re the ones gettin lucky in Kentucky.

16 million
Total subscribers to largest 25 US daily newspapers.

14 Million
Total number of Netflix subscribers.

23 million
Total number of Xbox Live subscribers.

What he really means: Netflix is great, people love them and we love them too (CEO Reed Hastings is our favorite Board member) — but we’re bigger. Sure, these are two totally different things, but who cares? And while everyone is busy talking about the death of newspapers, we’re actually bigger than they are — combined. Again, that doesn’t really mean anything, but still: bigger.

9,000,000
Number of customer downloads of the Office 2010 beta prior to launch, the largest Microsoft beta program in history.

What he really means: Office dying? Yeah…

21.4 million
Number of new Bing search users in one year.

What he really means: We took a risk jumping into a business dominated by one player and have grabbed a lot of people over to our side. Sure, what we were doing before wasn’t working, but this is proof we can pivot. Percentages, schmurcentages: 21.4 million. One year.

24%
Linux Server market share in 2005.

33%
Predicted Linux Server market share for 2007 (made in 2005).

21.2%
Actual Linux Server market share, Q4 2009.

What he really means: Remember when everyone was saying Linux was going to take over the market? They’re going the wrong way.

8.8 million
Global iPhone sales in Q1 2010.

21.5 million
Nokia smartphone sales in Q1 2010.

55 million
Total smartphone sales globally in Q1 2010.

439 million
Projected global smartphone sales in 2014.

What he really means: iPhone this, iPhone that — shut up. That phone has a small percentage of the overall market. Why don’t you yap about Nokia?At least they’re big time. I don’t even have anything to say here about Microsoft, just shut up about the iPhone already.

9
Number of years it took Salesforce.com to reach 1 million paid user milestone.

6
Number of years it took Microsoft Dynamics CRM to reach 1 million paid user milestone.

100%
Percent chance that Salesforce.com CEO will mention Microsoft in a speech, panel, interview, or blog post.

What he really means: Salesforce talks more shit about us than anyone. With all that shit-talking, you’d think they were kicking our ass, right? Not exactly. It took us much less time to build up a massive user base doing what they do. Benioff is obsessed with us, but we’re not losing any sleep over him.

173 million
Global Gmail users.

284 million
Global Yahoo! Mail users.

360 million
Global Windows Live Mail users.

299 million
Active Windows Live Messenger Accounts worldwide.

1
Rank of Windows Live Messenger globally compared to all other instant messaging services.

What he really means: Gmail? Oh, that online email service with half the users that we have? Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. We have more Live Messenger users than they have email users. And here’s a Yahoo stat too just so you don’t think I only care about comparing us to Google.

$5.7 Billion
Apple Net income for fiscal year ending Sep 2009.

$6.5 Billion
Google Net income for fiscal year ending Dec 2009.

$14.5 Billion
Microsoft Net Income for fiscal year ending June 2009.

$23.0 billion
Total Microsoft revenue, FY2000.

$58.4 billion
Total Microsoft revenue, FY2009.

What he really means: Sure, Apple passed us in market cap. That means nothing. You know what matters? Making money. You know what matter even more than that? The money you can keep. Income. Apple and Google are doing great — we have more income than they docombined. That’s not 5 years ago, that’s not 10 years ago. That’s right now.

And you know how everyone is bashing our CEO, saying that he has to go? Look at the numbers when he started versus where we are now. Yep, he’s more than doubled revenue. Other companies can only dream of being so “stagnant.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment