Google Takes Next Step Toward World Dominance

Today I read about Google’s collaboration with Sun with some foggy details about their intention to put out a free version of Office that would reside on the internet, not on your PC. Sounds like a good idea to me if you have a big enough internet pipe going into your house or business.

I applaud Google’s efforts to drive Microsoft crazy any chance they get. I love it, in fact. Microsoft has abused their market dominance for way way too long. It is high time that they got a wake up call.

The concept of remote software has always held some fascination for me actually. I like the idea of the software owner keeping my code up to date automatically and fixing any flaws that might occur because of my own stupidity or because of some asshole virus hacker (There should be a special place in hell for these people).

Truth is, I had that same idea over a year ago, in the very first issue of this blog. My concept was for a revolutionary computer that never suffers from virus problems and never needs a software fix by the user. Imagine a simple computer that automatically logs into the Google mother ship during the night and gets a diagnostic fix for ALL the software on the hard disk. The only thing that would presumably never need fixing is the small kernel of ROM code that directs the diagnostic procedure. Any problem detected would prompt a rewrite of the operating system or the word processor, or whatever software you subscribed to.

This kind of basic computer may not be suitable for everyone, but for the vast majority of home users it would be a dream come true. Every morning you have a perfect system that runs fast, no spyware, no crippling incompatibilities, all your documents backed up in a secure place online.

If Google could ever pull this off, I would be at the front of the line to sign up.

Comments

I'm herewith limiting comments to registered users. Hope that stops all the spam comments I have been receiving over the last week. If not, then I may have resort to something more odious.

My apologies to the few legit commentors.....

Solving Problems We Don't Have

In spite of my attraction to technology and deep seated love of tools and gadgets, I occasionally come across a new item that brings forth the sarcastic alter-ego that I try to suppress.

Apparently there are quite a few people working on boosting the IQ of dumb objects around the house – i.e. making them smarter. One is a light bulb that notifies you when it has burned out by sending an SMS message to your network which then either pops up an annoying message on your computer or calls your cellphone, even more annoying. Another is an idea for a refrigerator that keeps track of what you have in there and reminds you to throw away outdated stuff or to go to the store an restock. Maybe it even re-orders stuff by itself.

Think about it, what will happen to our brains if we no longer have to remember anything? We already have pretty much lost the ability to do multiplication and division. What’s next?

Let’s fast forward 50 years into the future where people don’t make grocery lists anymore, and they don’t have to remember to pay their bills, they don’t have to remember phone numbers and they don’t even have to know their SSN or their anniversary. Everything will be accessible via our personal communicator – no thinking required. We won’t have reference books anymore; pretty much all knowledge will be catalogued and indexed and accessible through some electronic device every where we go 24/7.

50 years ago a person with a great deal of accumulated knowledge was once highly valued. Now, in the year 2055, that knowledge can be fetched by just writing or speaking a query. All that cerebral power that was once constantly expanding will quickly atrophy and the number of ganglia and synapses will wither away, or, in the case of young people, never form in the first place. Administrative personnel will only have to master data entry and retrieval.

I remember Sci-Fi movies where life forms from advanced civilizations were depicted as having huge heads in proportion to their spindly bodies. Now I’m beginning to wonder if the reverse will be true. 50 years from now medical science will keep our bodies very healthy and septuagenarians will no longer be an anomaly. Maybe we will all have great bodies but no brainpower to speak of. The alien with the tiny head played by Tony Shalhoub in Men In Black comes to mind.

I can see it now, I’m cruising down the road in my hovercar and my cellphone beeps. I look over at my data screen, punch a button to retrieve the message and discover to my horror that the third light bulb from the end on my side yard has burned out. Damn! That smart bulb cost me $12. I glance up just in time to see that the guy in front of me has slammed on his brakes and I’m heading right for him! 2.3 seconds later I come to a stop half way up the back of his hovercar and my front fan is chewing up his new AstroBrat something fierce. I’m thinking, “at least I know that I need to stop and get a smart bulb on the way home.”

Search: “human devolution” + “brain size” + causes

Stupid Medical Acronyms

This morning while eating breakfast I was watching the Today show for a few minutes. They were interviewing a doctor who was discussing a disorder called BDD, short for Body Dismorphic Disorder. Apparently it has similar characteristics to OCD and can be treated with either AD drugs or by administering CBT.

Never mind what these terms mean, I’m beginning to think that the medical profession has totally eclipsed the military in the use of acronyms. Long revered as the master chef of acronyms for cooking up 3, 4, even 5-letter acronyms designed to speed up communications, the military may have met their match in the medical industry.

The problem is that the ad agencies are seeing this as a goldmine. When a new commercial comes on that introduces yet another SA (stupid acronym) for some condition that is either so obscure or so common that it doesn’t even warrant an acronym, I just get really annoyed. My instinct is to TOTS (turn off the sound) or SC (switch channels). It also reinforces my respect for my PVR and adds yet another reason to record everything and watch it later BTC (bypassing the commercials).

What happens is that what was meant to be a shorthand form of communication becomes a form of code that burdens the listener with trying to decode the conversation. Miss one acronym and the whole conversation can either get way off track or the listener is forced to interrupt for clarification.

I worked for many years at Mattel where exactly the same thing was happening. In the early days the list of commonly used acronyms was fairly short, maybe 20 or so. By the time I left, there was a ten page book that was informally given to new employees that explained the hundreds and hundreds of different shorthand codes that filled almost every conversation and e-mail. New employees were at a loss to figure out the gist of the conversation, especially when the same acronym was used in different contexts. What was meant to save time quickly became a handicap.

I think this is expecially true of the medical acronyms. Since they are often formed from scientific terms that don’t usually find their way into our spoken vocabulary, people sometimes know what the acronym means without knowing what the letters actually stand for.

More often they are simply interpreted as gibberish, designed to make the speaker seem more educated or more sopisticated. They become a tool for pretentious people and a goldmine for ad agencies.

Of course, they have infiltrated every aspect of our lives; you can’t escape them.

ROM, RAM, USB, DSL, IBS, ED, MS, OCD, ADD, BDD, DDT, SBC, QVC, HP, MS, LAX, OC, LA, JFK, ABC, NBC, CBS, JPG, MP3, TLC, WTF.

In case you are stumped by any of these handy shortcuts that save us so much time, you can simply punch in this website and try to find out what the combinations of letters mean. There are about 2.5 million acronyms in the database so far. Clearly we need some sort of AAT (automatic acronym translator) that lurks in the background of our computers and suggests what the combination of letters might mean, in context of course.

One scary thought: We all know how foreign words quickly get assimilated into our vocabulary. What happens when the acronyms are made up of a combination of English and French or Swahili and Chinese? I seriously need to get on the list for a brain transplant with an AAT feature, among other things.

Best Intentions

Maybe it's the season, or maybe misalignment of the planets, but I obviously have prioritized the writing of this blog somewhere below the threshold of actually getting to it . I have recently gotten deeply involved in a work project and never seem to have any extra time or extra brain power to write.

Not a good admission for someone who claims to be a writer, but then you gotta pay the bills too.

So, with this short post, I hearby resolve to steal some time and try to get back into my routine of criticising stupid ttech things I come across and writing about them.

Honest.