And here is my entire “Company Loyalty” point in a nutshell
Google fucked up too, I’m not saying they didn’t. But somehow, their fuck ups seem diminutive compared to other fuck ups. When they introduced Buzz, they had privacy issues which they solved by putting a “Turn off Buzz” button. When they rolled out Events, people were flooded but there worst case was an annoyed Robert Scoble who had to delete events from his calendar one by one. Their worst fuck up I can think of right now is collecting wifi traffic data and not being transparent about it but even that was mostly a moral issue of privacy. Here, in one of Facebook’s fuck ups, they practically erased user data! If I had anything on Facebook besides my name and birthday, I would be seriously pissed right now and on my way out the door. If you’re not, may I please know why? (And I’m sorry, the “Everyone is on Facebook” argument just isn’t good enough anymore).
Posted in IT, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Graphene as a Water Sieve
Graphene is basically a carbon lattice one atom layer thick. It’s been around for only a few years and the guys who made it got a Nobel prize for it. And we’re figuring out how great that material is about once a month. This time, they’re telling us we can use it to desalinate water, to purify it, a thousand times faster than current methods. The explanation goes something like this: because of one interesting property of graphene, we can make a sheet of it with holes at any size we want, like the size of a water molecule. It goes like this, this is a water molecule. This is a salt molecule. (It’s not an actual molecule but stay with me for this) Salt, when it’s in your salt shaker, looks more like this. But when it dissolves in water, it looks like this. The salt compound is made from more massive atoms than water. And with the graphene sheet, we can make holes that let water through and keep salt out. Which basically means that you can pour salt water through a simple filter and get pure water on the other side. Yes, this ideal is still a ways off, there is still work to be done, but this idea is just super cool! Science is awesome! :)
Posted in High-Tech, Less Interesting News by Eran with 7 comments.
Review: The Bartimaeus Trilogy
I didn’t know these books existed before my serious relationship with Maayan. And when I first came over and saw her room, I noted them among her many books. A while later, when I was told of the great meaning of the shelf on which they stood, I filed them away on my list of books to read sometime in the future, maybe. Still later, at one point, she raved about how good they were, how well they were written and about how awesome Bartimaeus’ character is. So I bumped them up my list to the point of to read when I have time. And then she outwardly told me to read them. So what could I do? Say no? One more preface: this is a series of books Maayan keeps in both the original British version (seen to the left) as well as in the Hebrew translation. That’s saying something. The only other books who fit that category are the Neil Gaiman books. So Bear that in Mind. In short, The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye and Ptolemy’s Gate follow Nathaniel, a bright and aspiring young magician in a world that is a sort of urban fantasy where the urban is represented by an early 20th, late 19th century tech level and the fantasy is represented by an elite class of magicians, people with the talent and the know-how to summon spirits to do their bidding. This leads to a Britain ruled by magicians who treat the common-folk like slaves Continue Reading →
Posted in Reviews by Eran with 2 comments.
פיראטיות תלת ממדית
In Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, pretty much every household had their own molecular assembler which they could use to make just about anything, paying only for the raw material the device required. The precursors of that, the 3D printers, are already becoming something that a single person could buy for their home. They are still quite complex, small and expensive but the day in which you could just get one from the store the same way you get a microwave or a toaster oven is not far away. Seeing this coming, the people behind The Pirate Bay have offered a new category which they call Physibles. That is, 3D design files to be fed into a 3D printer to print… well, anything you can design. I just looked at it now and people are offering anything from Mark Zuckerberg’s head through a nerf gun and up to a Warhammer 40K Space Marine. I think this is insanely cool and I hope two things: One, that I would be able to print my own… anything in the near future. And two, that Old Manufacturing (paraphrasing Old Media) companies won’t go bananas with copyright and try to stop the revolution but instead try to follow it and work with it.
Posted in Geekdom, High-Tech, IT, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 1 comment.
Document Writing, Calendar and Sattelite TV
Three thoughts I’ve just had. Well, one is about a week old but still. I’m writing this from the waiting room of our garage in Haifa, waiting for Bessie to get her check up and polish. There’s a TV here showing a movie on Yes1 and it jumps and struggles and jitters a whole heck of a lot more than my two year old computer playing a 1080p movie. And people wonder why we don’t have a television connection, just a monitor for movies and games. Right now, when classes are finally over and I am moving into exam season, my calendar is freeing up and for the first time in several months I can see into next Monday. That’s kinda cool. I know this is always presumptous to say but _I am_ writing a book. For those of you who know it, it’s the one I started here and took down for a serious rewrite – Nathanel’s story, which I think could really work as a full length novel. The point is, I had it on Google Docs because I thought it was comfortable to keep it there where it allows me to write from anywhere. But a while back, with Google Drive and the, to my opinion, quite horrific terms of use, I decided to move it to Dropbox. I know Dropbox isn’t completely secure and I should probably encrypt it but I can access it, with full WSIWYG editing, through my Office application here on my phone. Continue Reading →
Posted in From the Writing Desk, High-Tech, Practice, School, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
What Would a Machine Say?
New Scientist had a contest, asking people what a conscious machine’s first words would be. My first thought: “Feed me…” What do you think?
Posted in High-Tech, Humanity, Less Interesting News, Thinking Out Loud, Weird by Eran with 7 comments.
Review: The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight is the story of a high school teacher with retrograde amnesia who, upon meeting a scamming private detective, starts to discover her hidden past and find that there are very bad men out to get her. That is because she is an ex-government assassin and not a chef like she thought she was. I remembered The Long Kiss Goodnight as another one of those great action movies that are not as appreciated as it should be. So before I even started rewatching it, I looked it up. And I found this guy, Shane Black. He’s the screenwriter. He wrote this movie. And he wrote The Last Boyscout. And he wrote the Lethal Weapon series. And the Last Action Hero. All awesome action movies. Because they are written as action movies and not just action scenes with a semblance of plot or movies with some action in them. And the most important thing, they had awesome dialogue. Here are some examples: Mitch Henessey: [singing] Putting the keys in my left pocket. Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm. Gun in the right-hand side. Samantha Caine: It makes a bulge, people can see. Mitch Henessey: Ya want me to stick it in my pants and shoot my damn dick off? Samantha Caine: Now you’re a sharpshooter? Mitch Henessey: What I’m saying is, back when we first met, you were all like “Oh phooey, I burned the darn muffins.” Now, you go into a bar, ten minutes later, sailors come runnin’ out. Continue Reading →
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
Sustainability Model
After watching a specific TED talk, I got myself thinking. I wasn’t thinking about rebuilding the health infrastructure, thought that is admirable, I was thinking about The Model. Whenever people talk about starting up, about building a company, they talk about their business model. And when they don’t, I’m always interested. But I find that I don’t care about how they make money. I care about how they sustain their vision. Because I don’t believe in aiming for a lot of money. Me… I’m thinking about making enough money to stop worrying about it. But mostly, I want to make enough money to sustain myself, my family and my vision. So I think that it shouldn’t be called a Business Model. We should redesign this idea to be a Sustainability Model: Not how to make as much money as possible and whatever or whoever’s expense but to make money to finance the ability to support this vision and more to come.
Posted in Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Review: We Bought a Zoo
“It’s a zoo.” Is not something you would expect to hear when looking for a new place to live. But that is one Benjamin Mee hears when he thinks he’s found the perfect place to start a new, six months after his wife dies. His little girl Rosie is thrilled. His son Dylan, not so much. His new staff is skeptical and especially his new Zoo Keeper Kelly. But he is determined to make it work. For his family, for the grounds, for the crew and for the animals. That is how We Bought a Zoo stars. And if you’re as movie-savvy as me you might be quick to classify it in the “Getting back on your feet after a tragedy” set of journey movies under the umbrella of light-drama. And you’ll be right. It is that kind of movie. And it’s a stellar example of its kind. The first thing you probably don’t really need to know is that We Bought a Zoo is based on a book, a memoir actually, written by Benjamin Mee who actually lived the story portrayed in this movie. Obviously certain dramatizations occurred but the basic story is true. This happened. And if you know this, I think the movie will be more powerful for you. Matt Damon is a capable actor in many respects and as he gets older, he allows himself more serious, emotional roles. Scarlett Johanssen shows us again why she is a very sought out actress. Their building relationship is subtle, not Continue Reading →
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
The Right to Complain Isn’t Free
We tend to take the right to complain for granted. It’s usually considered a basic human right. Sometimes it is referred to as the IDF soldier’s first prerogative. But it’s not that easy. Sometimes, you lose the right to complain. Basically, when you get free stuff. If someone gives you a gift, you can’t really complain. They didn’t have to give you anything. They did it out of the kindness of their heart. And if you complain you might discourage further gift giving in the future. And that is something you definitely don’t want to do. Let’s take Louis C.K.’s example (of a somewhat unrelated issue) of a guy sitting in an airplane complaining that the wifi is unavailable. Yes, you can tell him to shut up because he’s hurtling through the air swiftly and safely (Something unheard of slightly more than a hundred years ago) and he is getting an internet connection while flying on a plane (something quite inconceivable just a few years ago) but he is paying for that right, paying quite a lot actually, and thus has earned the right to complain. Though, I would argue, that his right to complain is reduced if he’s not actually paying and not getting his service. It especially irks me when I hear people complaining about pirated games. I mean, crying about a game not working when it is a cracked version. Dude, you didn’t pay for it, you don’t have the right to complain about its faults. You got Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, No Category, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 4 comments.