A talk by Richard Dawkins at Google. There isn’t much more to say than “Richard Dawkins is awesome”. That is all.
Can you feel it? The awesome! Can you feel it?
Tag Archive: Google
Something happened today, right here on this blog and I haven’t the foggiest what it was. There was an inexplicable jump in traffic and I would give my left, nay, my RIGHT leg to know what it was that caused it (can’t have an arm, need it for coding).
It’s inexplicable since I haven’t posted anything in almost three weeks. I’ve been busy. In places that didn’t always have internet. And were possibly keeping my attention long enough to not feel the need to write. And jet lag. That’s why.
So, WordPress rocks, this much is clear, I have elaborated on my fanboy status in other posts. What (blogs at) WordPress.com lacks, however, seriously, is the ability to use Google Analytics.
I don’t much care what the piss poor excuses are for WordPress.com blogs having Google Analytics (the main site uses it, blogs aren’t websites, blah blah blah), the built-in stats are rather… how shall I put it… crap. It would be terribly useful, for example, to know where in the world the people who read this blog come from, for example, so that I can write more stuff relevant to their situation.
I bet the Bangkokians™ would love to hear more of my opinion on the issues in Bangkok, just to throw something out there (I don’t really have an opinion, haven’t been paying attention, but you get what I mean right?).
Anyway, WordPress.com, give me Google Analytics, I will give you money. Make sense?
Also, those people who came here for reasons I cannot fathom, come back tomorrow again. Not much will have changed to be sure, but it will make me happier. How could that not be a good thing?
The sound of the llama making groaning noises or going “mwa” is often a sign of fear or anger. If a llama is agitated, it will lay its ears back.
This post was re-posted from the Official Gmail Blog:
Posted by Anna de Paula Hanika, Android Product Marketing Manager
Not only does the just-announced Nexus One have a beautiful display, snappy processor, and five megapixel camera complete with flash and geotagging, but you can also buy it online with or without a service plan. Plus, it runs Android 2.1, which adds a couple of new features to the native Gmail application:
- Quick contact badge: Press the contact status icon within Gmail, and a handy box shows all of the ways you can reply to a contact — including email, chat, SMS, and Facebook.
- Voice input: Swipe the keyboard, then just speak to select contacts or write an email, complete with punctuation. Period!
Nexus One also features the Gmail updates of Android 2.0, including:
- Multiple Gmail accounts: Sync multiple accounts to the same device and switch between them without leaving the app.
- Undo: A handy ‘undo’ link makes it easier to retrieve messages when you hit archive or delete by mistake. (Note: you can’t yet undo send as you can with the desktop version of Gmail).
For more information on Nexus One visit google.com/phone. To learn more about Gmail on this and other Android devices, check out the Gmail page on mobile.google.com/android, or watch this video:
It’s quite amuzing (which is to say, I almost cracked a smile):
Originally from: http://news.nexus-one.co.uk/post/334453516/a-review-of-the-nexus-one-from-an-iphone-user-as
I had an iPhone 3G not too long ago and it was great. I was then forced to part with it and I have missed it sorely since. I have been using a really crappy Sony Eriksson since that sad day and it’s getting to the point now where that has to change.
There are, in my mind, 3 realistic options at moment (or there will be soon anyway): the Apple iPhone 3GS, the Google Nexus One and the Nokia N900.
Since I had an iPhone before, which I loved, quite frankly, I know I won’t be disappointed. I have two gripes with it: it’s insanely expensive here and I don’t have a Mac to develop software for it on. And I have no plans for acquiring a Mac any time soon. It’s not a train smash but I do like the tinker sometimes. The technical specs are pretty good, 844 MHz CPU, 256 Mb RAM, 7.2 Mb HSDPA, 3 mega pixel camera.
I’ve been waiting for proper news on the Google Nexus One for a while now and from what I have seen, it looks to be an excellent phone. I don’t personally know anybody that has one yet, so all I have to go on so far are reviews. The technical specs for it look great, to be honest: 1 GHz CPU, 800 x 480 screen, 5 mega pixel camera, 512 Mb RAM and 7.2 Mb HSDPA. This is all good, all, good.
The Nokia N900 from Nokia is interesting, it has an actual keyboard. My experience with the iPhone was that an on-screen keyboard is passable until you have an SSH terminal open and are trying to work. At that point, it gets a bit painful. I am a bit worried at the quality of Nokia phones lately, my wife has had many issues with her E71. From a spec point of view it seems ok, 800 x 480 display, 256 Mb RAM, 600 MHz CPU with graphics accelerator, 7.2 Mb HSDPA.
What is causing me to think about the situation is that both Nokia’s S60 and Google’s Android have Python support. I have recently started programming in Python and are loving it very much. Objective C, on the other hand, I have had an unpleasant encounter with, which doesn’t matter since I don’t plan on buying a Mac any time soon. If I were to be given one, on the other hand…
The Nexus One isn’t available here yet but I can already see that the price for it will be somewhat lower than the iPhone and will, it seems, be available unlocked by default.
On pure specs then, and programming language support, the Nexus One would beat the iPhone in my books and I am a Google fanboy, no doubt about that. The problem is I don’t know how well the Android OS stacks up against the iPhone OS – which is excellent.
What I really need is to find me somebody who owns an iPhone and now a Nexus One. If you happen to be in that situation, let me know, I would love to know what your experience with them are.
Like humans, llama males and females mature sexually at different rates. Females reach puberty at approximately 12 months.
What is a good idea really worth?
Working as a software developer for just over a decade I have seen my fair share of ideas and execution, dismal failures and (insert interesting adjective) successes.
The basis of this post comes from a post by Derek Sivers (and the comments to that post), the dude who made CDBaby.com ,where he wrote some interesting things about the value of ideas versus the value of the execution of those ideas. Read the entry here.
Which ideas are we talking about here, you are no doubt thinking to yourself. I am distinguishing ‘ideas’ into two broad categories, commercial/business and intellectual. By commercial/business I mean ideas like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Kreepy Krauly; ideas that people came up with that made them money or that were made into a successful businesses. I am not talking about intellectual ideas like those had by Plato, Nietzsche, Galileo or Da Vinci which changed the world (and no doubt could have and did make them some money) but are not currently raking in the cash. Obviously I am also biased towards software/web type ideas, since that is where I have virtually all my experience.
In Derek’s post, he basically states that the ‘idea’ is purely a multiplier to the value that is the ‘execution’. It works like this:
Ideas:
- Awful idea: -1
- Weak idea: 1
- Average idea: 5
- Good idea: 10
- Great idea: 15
- Brilliant idea: 20
Execution:
- No execution: $1
- Weak execution: $1000
- Average execution: $10,000
- Good execution: $100,000
- Great execution: $1,000,000
- Brilliant execution: $10,000,000
To make a business, you multiply the two:
- A brilliant idea with no execution: $20
- A brilliant idea takes brilliant execution to make it worth $200,000,000
Fundamentally, I agree with him. A great idea with no execution is basically worthless but there are some other factors to think about around this concept.
When you consider an entire project/product, how much of the totality of the project is the idea and how much is the execution. From a pure time and effort point of view, the idea may very well end up being a very small fraction (say 0.1%) of the project effort while the execution is the other 99.9%. Sure, some people may put a lot of effort into developing an idea, but I have never seen a project where the idea part of the project was more than the ‘very small fraction’ of the whole project. If you think about it, the idea of Facebook was relatively straightforward and pretty simple and when you compare the initial idea (regardless of the hours spent on developing it at the outset) to just the millions of development hours that have gone into creating the system it is today, it is pretty easy to see that the idea vs. execution effort is hugely skewed towards execution. It works the same for all the big ones like Google and Amazon and most (if not all) of the smaller ones.
Other things that affect that simple ‘idea multiplied by execution’ equation is timing and market saturation. A brilliant idea, brilliantly executed may still end up being worthless if it’s done at the wrong time. You may argue though, that timing is part of the execution. I agree. A lot of the dotcom bubble companies had very good ideas which were executed brilliantly but were premature, the market just wasn’t ready for doing business on the internet to the extent which the start-ups needed. Amazon was nearly one of these casualties but managed to hold on long enough for the timing problem to be worked out. That, in my opinion, is part of the brilliant execution.
As far as market saturation goes, I think Apple in the smart phone market is a prime example of how a brilliant idea, brilliantly executed can succeed even if there are very many players already operating in the same space. Again, I think overcoming market saturation is a function of execution and not a completely separate factor entirely.
In my career as a software developer I have seen some good ideas executed terribly and fail and I have seen some reasonably terrible ideas executed exceedingly well and win, big time. In every single case I can think of, executing the idea was wildly more difficult than developing the idea in the first place and I think that this is where the ‘ideas’ people can learn a lot. Coming up with a reasonably good idea is not that difficult. Many people have good ideas. In fact, I have several. Executing those ideas, however, is a completely different ball game and is what makes the difference and the insanely big bucks in the end.
Having said that, I do believe in protecting ideas. While in the bigger scheme of things, developing the idea may only make up a fraction of a project, that may still and does usually add up to a huge amount of effort and let’s face it, nothing is worse than working your ass off on something just to have it taken away and not get anything for it. There will always be somebody better able to execute an idea than you are (unless you are Google possibly) and so you need some protection against this happening. No protection is complete though and big names like Microsoft have made a business out of crushing ‘the little guy’ reasonably often.
All things considered, I would rather have an average idea executed brilliantly than a brilliant idea executed averagely.
The price for a male llama varies between $200 and $1000 while a female fetches between $400 and $3500+.
Interesting, no?
I still have not bothered to read up on the evils of triplicate content posting but I may, possibly, at some point, in the future.
In the mean time, I’ve set up a nice Google Apps group for myself that forwards emails on to the email posting service at Blogspot, WordPress and Posterous. So now I send one email and the content gets posted on three sites. A revelation? A blogging revolution? Er… perhaps not (but it entertained me for a while and *that* is all that matters).
Anyway, the real point of this post is to get some interlinking going between the sites, so here goes:
One Furious Llama at Blogspot: http://onefuriousllama.blogspot.com/
One Furious Llama at Posterous: http://onefuriousllama.posterous.com/
One Furious Llama at WordPress: https://onefuriousllama.wordpress.com/
Let’s see how this HTML posting thing works.
Respect the Llama.
The short answer is, I don’t actually know for sure and I haven’t bothered to find out either.
The question is sort of redundant since none of these pages have any PageRank what so ever. Assuming though, that one day, they actually get indexed, I have every intention to find out if posting the same stuff in three (at the moment) places affects it.
This post is really to test the distribution though…
Also, respect the Llama.
One Furious Llama 