Netizen

Friday, February 15, 2013

How I Just Made Two Purchases

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...

Last night in Union Square I met a fellow Ingress player called Omar, Ingress name Slomar. We talked. I griped about "battery life." He suggested I get an external battery.

Today I googled around. Then I gave up. The choices were too confusing. I was gonna wait.

Then I did the near daily thing of visiting TechMeme. From there I ended up at this news story.

Google must act quickly on libellous Blogger posts, says appeal court

At the bottom of the news story was this ad.

It was a near perfect price for a perfect product, something I really needed to get. The ad did what my Google searches were not able to do.

So I proceeded to place the order.

While doing so Amazon said they would give me a free 30 day trial on Amazon Prime, if I accepted, the product would get free two day shipping. I opted in for the two day free shipping.

Then I have been browsing around their movie catalog. It is quite amazing. I think I am going to stay with Amazon Prime after the month long free trial is over. It is $79 per year. I could easily watch 50 movies in one year. And I guess you get to borrow one book a month for free. I am not a frequent Amazon shopper. But free shipping is enticing. I am now more likely to search on Amazon before elsewhere for some future purchases. I am locked in a little I guess, but I am not unhappy about it.

Here Google and Amazon did not compete. They provided me with a seamless experience. This is sound capitalism. The consumer won. I won.

An External Battery As Big As The Phone

I have loved my Nexus 4, but my number one gripe has been the battery. The battery life is almost cosmetic. I am a power user. When I am out and about I am fiddling with my phone. It is my mobile office. I am deep into Ingress. And so I went ahead and plunked 40 bucks into getting me some extra juice. The thing is going to be bigger and heavier than my phone. I guess now on it will be like carrying two phones with me. But would bring a lot of peace of mind. And as for Ingress, see you at Level 8, because that is where I am headed. Now I also have enough juice to make the most of Social Media Week next week.

I just bought: AnkerÃ‚Â® Astro3E 10000mAh Dual 5V 3A USB Output External Battery Pack Charger for Smart... via @amazon amazon.com/dp/B009USAJCC/…
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) February 16, 2013

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Sunday, February 10, 2013

Happy Chinese New Year

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Chess Moves (2)

Chess Moves (1)

Blizzard

Friday, February 08, 2013

So Glad To Be Podcasting

The logo used by Apple to represent Podcasting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If this can be called podcasting.

It started with this post at TechCrunch: Google Integrates Third-Party Web Apps More Deeply Into Google Drive.

I was reading it on my phone this morning, and I got excited. I fired up my laptop, and went to Google Drive and quickly integrated a whole bunch of apps. I created a floor plan using FloorPlanner. And I was feeling good about being able to edit video in Google Drive. Then I happened upon audio.

On second try I was able to use an app that feels like podcasting. I record my talk on the phone, save it over to Google Drive, from there I edited it with TwistedWave, the app on Google Drive, which then allowed me to share it to SoundCloud, which allowed me to embed it to my blog, this blog.

For the longest time video has felt easier than audio. I guess the music industry casts a jaundiced look upon the landscape. And so app developers stay away in fear. But I have just wanted to be able to record and share my own voice with the ease I can share words I type.

Hint: this should be a simple feature in Blogger's mobile app.

And so, welcome to this podcast, if it can be called that: Social Media Week Is Upon Us.

Social Media Week Is Upon Us

Top Influencer During Social Media Week? Moi
Me: Top Internet Week Influencer?

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Chess Moves (1)

Saturday, February 02, 2013

The Viking Lead

It seems like goodness follows once you finally manage to manage your fiscal house.

The Economist: The Nordic countries: The next supermodel

So long as public services work, they do not mind who provides them. Denmark and Norway allow private firms to run public hospitals. Sweden has a universal system of school vouchers, with private for-profit schools competing with public schools. Denmark also has vouchers—but ones that you can top up. ...... The performance of all schools and hospitals is measured. Governments are forced to operate in the harsh light of day: Sweden gives everyone access to official records. Politicians are vilified if they get off their bicycles and into official limousines. The home of Skype and Spotify is also a leader in e-government: you can pay your taxes with an SMS message. ...... they employ 30% of their workforce in the public sector ...... They are stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies: Sweden let Saab go bankrupt and Volvo is now owned by China’s Geeley. ....... focus on the long term—most obviously through Norway’s $600 billion sovereign-wealth fund ..... look for ways to temper capitalism’s harsher effects ..... a system of “flexicurity” that makes it easier for employers to sack people but provides support and training for the unemployed, and Finland organises venture-capital networks. ...... Their levels of taxation still encourage entrepreneurs to move abroad: London is full of clever young Swedes. ..... When Angela Merkel worries that the European Union has 7% of the world’s population but half of its social spending ...... Norway is a particular focus of the Chinese. ..... The state is popular not because it is big but because it works. A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care. The Nordics have pushed far-reaching reforms past unions and business lobbies. .... inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations ...... root out corruption and vested interests ..... abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

An Upswing On The Way

Source: We Could Be Witnessing The Dawn Of A New Stock Market Super Cycle

Long Data Is Still Big Data

Image representing Hadoop as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

You add the time dimension to Big Data and you get Long Data. Long Data is still Big Data.

Stop Hyping Big Data and Start Paying Attention to ‘Long Data’

crunching big numbers can help us learn a lot about ourselves. ..... But no matter how big that data is or what insights we glean from it, it is still just a snapshot: a moment in time. ..... as beautiful as a snapshot is, how much richer is a moving picture, one that allows us to see how processes and interactions unfold over time? ..... many of the thi

Structure of Evolutionary Biology - Blue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ngs that affect us today and will affect us tomorrow have changed slowly over time ...... Datasets of long timescales not only help us understand how the world is changing, but how we, as humans, are changing it — without this awareness, we fall victim to shifting baseline syndrome. This is the tendency to shift our “baseline,” or what is considered “normal” — blinding us to shifts that occur across generations (since the generation we are born into is taken to be the norm). ..... Shifting baselines have been cited, for example, as the reason why cod vanished off the coast of the Newfoundland: overfishing fishermen failed to see the slow, multi-generational loss of cod since the population decrease was too slow to notice in isolation. ..... Fields such as geology and astronomy or evolutionary biology — where data spans millions of years — rely on long timescales to explain the world today. History itself is being given the long data treatment, with scientists attempting to use a quantitative framework to understand social processes through cliodynamics, as part of digital history. Examples range from understanding the lifespans of empires (does the U.S. as an “empire” have a time limit that policy makers should be aware of?) to mathematical equations of how religions spread (it’s not that different from how non-religious ideas spread today). ...... building a clock that can last 10,000 years .... the 26,000-year cycle for the precession of equinoxes ...... Just as big data scientists require skills and tools like Hadoop, long data scientists will need special skillsets. Statistics are essential, but so are subtle, even seemingly arbitrary pieces of knowledge such as how our calendar has changed over time