I installed it mostly for kicks and curiosity, and I suppose actually using it makes me more qualified to talk about it. Major features in it that I like:
With that said, here’s what I’d like to see in the next version:
Five word review? It’s good; I’ll keep it.
Google put out a toolbar for Firefox. I’m sticking with the Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox. For now.
The kicker is that the Yahoo! toolbar includes my Yahoo! bookmarks. It’s also very nice that the Yahoo! toolbar also tells me if I have new mail in my Yahoo! mail account, and it allows me to put in two custom links right on the bar itself (although I’d like more).
Google doesn’t have any bookmark system. However, Google does have the notification icon, which is better than the mail button on the Yahoo! toolbar in some ways, but why not have both?
I think that users who run Firefox are probably more aware of features and in turn more picky about them. Therefore, because both Yahoo! and Google have put out toolbars for Firefox, I’m hoping that they will put more thought into features. Basically what I want is that first, both companies will steal the best features from the other, and then they will come up with some stuff that no one has ever thought of but once they use it they want it all the time.
Additionally, the Yahoo! toolbar is what is keeping me from switching over to Gmail. I love the bookmarks feature.
Google’s homepage feature allows you to put a privew of your Gmail inbox right on your Google page. I have to admit, that’s pretty nice. Still, I’m on dial-up, and I use Google as my start page because it loads so quickly. The new homepage features eschews images (except for in the weather box), but when it comes to loading speed, less is always more. I can’t help but compliment the drag-and-drop rearranging feature on Google’s homepage. Never seen anything like it on a website.
So … if Google adds an online bookmarks system, and integrates it into their toolbar … I’ll probably switch.
Within the last four days, I saw both War of the Worlds and Batman Begins with Steph. Four words.
Batman. Begins. Was. Awesome.
Now I’m not gonna rip on War of the Worlds (necessarily). It was good. But I just didn’t think it was great. For one, I think it was missing basic plot elements, like a climax.
Batman Begins, however … I loved it. Halfway through the movie, I was watching one particularly good sequence, thinking, “This movie is awesome.”
The sequence I speak of was when Batman was driving the batmobile (with a passenger) back to the batcave, and he had to go through a tunnel. The sequence through the tunnel … made me want to play the tunnel level in Halo 2. I have never before watched a scene in a movie that made me want to play a video game. One sequence in Batman Begins made me want to play one level in Halo 2. All I can say is … awesome.
I actually have no complaints about Batman Begins. I have questions about the ending, which I believe was the filmmakers’ intent. I don’t want to spoil it, which may lead me to create a Batman Begins discussion page on par with my Star Wars discussion page. (I may do the same for War of the Worlds, but for fewer reasons and with less enthusiasm.)
So … if you’ve seen Batman Begins, go see War of the Worlds. If you’re choosing between the two … go see Batman Begins.
Take a look at this article, or even just its title: 40 million credit cards exposed. What is this — the fourth article in the last year about millions of credit card numbers compromised?
I just came across an article on News.com titled the red herring of data protection, and I read it eagerly, but I feel that author Eric Norlin misses the mark. He suggests that web sites should store only the data that we as users allow them to store.
Personally, I think that it’s time to change the model. I think retailers (and web sites) should stop storing any credit card numbers. Why? They can’t handle the security requirements. Let’s leave that responsibility entirely up to credit card companies.
A Google search brought me to an MSNBC.com article titled The credit card system’s weak link?, which quotes Gartner Inc. analyst Avivah Litan as saying about the view credit card companies have of payment processors, they “just sort of wait for them to have a breach.”
On the June 20, 2005 edition of NPR’s All Things Considered, I heard a story titled Mastercard: Customers’ Data Was at Risk that started me thinking about this post. In that story, NPR reported that CardSystems passed a recent audit by Mastercard and Visa. I could go on an entertaining diatribe about why this security breach is CardSystems’ fault or Mastercard’s and Visa’s fault, but that’s off my point.
My point is, if certain parties involved are unable or unwilling to properly secure consumers’ data, then they should no longer possess the data.
Look at this model: I type my credit card number into a form at Amazon.com. I tell Amazon.com that I want to purchase a new DVD. Amazon.com sends my credit card number, my name and address, and a dollar amount to Mastercard. Mastercard then tells Amazon.com, “okay.”
I’m not saying Amazon.com practices risky behavior with my data, but the trust given to Amazon is also given to thousands, if not millions of retailers around the world. So let’s take the security burden — and the credit card numbers — out of the retailers’ hands. In other words, instead of Amazon.com telling Mastercard what my credit card number is, how about Amazon gives me a special code, then I give that code to Mastercard, along with the name of the retailer (Amazon.com), and a dollar amount? Then Mastercard can give Amazon the okay.
In this system, retailers would own the oft-exchanged, cryptic numerical code, instead of consumers. (Perhaps the code would be unique to the transaction, but I feel like there would just be too many.) Amazon might be interested in securing that code, but it would be available to anyone who ever uses Amazon.com to buy something. The beauty of it is, this code is used to credit Amazon’s account with Mastercard, whereas credit card numbers are used to charge consumers. I could use the code for something other than its intended purpose, but I wouldn’t get any financial gain out of it.
Of course, the inverse of this transaction would be a merchandise return, where Amazon would be required to return money to Mastercard, who would therefore credit the consumer’s account. If a malicious hacker could exploit the return system, you might have a problem. But again, I feel retailers would mind their own account information at least as doggedly as they mind their customers’ data, and third party transaction processors would likely face graver consequences if they exposed secret codes of retailers such as Amazon, McDonald’s, and Sony than if they exposed millions of secret codes belonging to lowly consumers.
It’s a new world. Electronic commerce will no doubt become orders of magnitude more popular than it is today. Under the current system, I don’t see much reason why large scale security breaches would be eliminated. So let’s change the system, put more power in the hands of consumers, and place more onus on corporations and the firms to which they outsource the dirty work.
Did Google Desktop Search auto-update recently? The systray icon looks different to me.
A couple years ago at a party at Pam’s place (not her current place), someone was trying to figure out how to split 53, four ways. (I think four girls had thrown a party … you fill in the blanks.) Pretty quickly I determined it to be 13 and a quarter, because 53 is really close to 52, which is the number of cards in a deck, and there are 13 cards of each suit, and then you take that extra dollar and split it four ways.
What’s the point? It’s useful math. Here’s another example.
Ever have trouble converting percentages to fractions, or vice versa? I remember being a kid, thinking that 10% was the same as 1/10, so 14% must be 1/14. Sitting down with a pencil and paper took care of that. So how do you calculate this stuff quickly? Long division in your head is a pain in the ass, especially if you’re like, eight.
Remember multiplication tables? 3×1=3. 3×2=6. 3×3=9. 3×4=12. Etc. Well I developed a sort of fuzzy Product-100 Table. With this table, we’re talking about conversational, estimated, seat-of-your pants calculation. It’s useful if you’re talking about sports or foods or a lot of different “close enough” topics.
Just like in a multiplication table, we’ve got three columns. The first column is the percentage number. It’s the number out of a hundred. The second column is the closest whole number to the quotient you get when you divide 100 by the number in the first column. The third column is the product of the numbers in the first to columns, in case you want to know just how close you are. Let’s take a look. If you’re starting with 4 percent, and you want to know what that translates to as a fraction, the second column shows you that it’s 1/25, and the third column tells you that it’s exact. If you’re starting with 7 percent, the second column shows you that it’s 1/14, and the third column tells you that it’s close, but not exact.
| Percent | ~Quotient | (Percent * ~Quotient) |
| 1 | 100 | 100 |
| 2 | 50 | 100 |
| 3 | 33 | 99 |
| 4 | 25 | 100 |
| 5 | 20 | 100 |
| 6 | 17 | 102 |
| 7 | 14 | 98 |
| 8 | 13 | 104 |
| 9 | 11 | 99 |
| 10 | 10 | 100 |
| 11 | 9 | 99 |
| 12 | 8 | 96 |
| 13 | 8 | 104 |
| 14 | 7 | 98 |
| 15 | 7 | 105 |
| 16 | 6 | 96 |
| 17 | 6 | 102 |
| 18 | 6 | 108 |
| 19 | 5 | 95 |
| 20 | 5 | 100 |
| 21 | 5 | 105 |
| 22 | 5 | 110 |
| 23 | 4 | 92 |
| 24 | 4 | 96 |
| 25 | 4 | 100 |
I only spell out the chart to 25, because that’s where its usefulness starts to break down. If you examine the lower portion you’ll see why — The whole number which, when multiplied by 18, gets you closest to 100 is 5, as it is for 19, 20, 21, and 22 (5 results). You get 4 all the way from 23 to 28 (6 results), 3 all the way from 29 to 40 (12 results), and so on. I’ll post a comment with a more complete chart.
So, I think they should teach both the card stuff and the Product-100 Table. Maybe some schools already do.
Another site post today — Urban Dictionary. I love this site. I use it mostly for slang, mostly of the vulgar and acronym varieties. I ran across UD (again) today because I didn’t know what NSFW meant — now I do. For added entertainment, try typing in vulgar names for things you learned in college but have no knowledge of anyone ever attempting.
I’ve been working on a post called “ESPN Hardcore” for days. It’s so long and it’s taking so much thought that I’m thinking about breaking it up.
It’s occurred to me that the Trifecta may be an attempt to address some of the issues I have with ESPN, but I don’t really like the Trifecta. So I’m stuck in the mega-post on the “solution” part. Right now my solution sounds suspiciously like Trifecta, but I dont’ like how that’s turned out, so …
I’m still working on it.
I enjoy browsing t-shirt vendors’ web sites, but this might be the best I’ve seen.
On Tuesday, I bought StarCraft Battle Chest. The box includes StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War, and Prima strategy guides for both.
StarCraft was released in (April?) 1998 and its expansion pack, Brood War, was released later (November?) that year. It became the best-selling PC game of all time. It has currently sold 9 million copies, which must be more than Myst but less than The Sims.
My major influence for getting StarCraft is Dan Brown. I don’t even remember how or when I first learned that Brown likes StarCraft. Sure, there was the time I was with him when he bought Civilization III in a tin case, so I probably either knew it then or learned it then.
I was expecting more from the graphics, but let’s face it — we’re in 2005 and this game was released in 1998. It doesn’t even require a 3D accelerator. All the graphics are done with sprites. I was surprised that there isn’t even an option to zoom out. I bought Dungeon Keeper when it came out, which must have been between late 1995 and summer 1998, and although its environments were very plain and static, there was a 3D aspect that allowed the user to zoom in and out and rotate the camera. As in StarCraft, all the characters were made up of sprites.
I never got particularly deep into Dungeon Keeper, so although I can’t make the best comparison there, I assume it shares many elements with StarCraft. I did play a lot of SimCity on the Super NES, however. I find a lot of similarities — multiple crisis management and resource geography, to name a few.
Like I said, I got it Tuesday and I’ve played it every day since then — at the expense of further breaking in my glove. I’m not quite a third of the way through the first game and I haven’t touched the expansion pack — but like I said, I just got it.