Being at the forefront of search technology means you never stop tweaking. You never wait until something is broken before you fix it. Yesterday Google launched its newest functionality, "the Search Wiki." This newest addition allows searchers to change the order of results based on their preference. For example, if you Googled "shoe store" and got several irrelevant results or feeder sites, you can move a site that actually has "substance" to the very top. It even allows you to delete search results. There is one catch. You need to be logged in via you Google account. Along with editing the order of your search results, you can also make comments on result items which anyone can see, logged in or not.
The day after launch, it has seemed to have garnered mixed reviews. I happen to believe it's an awesome addition. It's a great focus group for Google to pull from. The results would further help the search engine sift through results with actual content. Theoretically, the online collective can help the Google engine decipher sites with substance from sites artificially optimized. No doubt, that there are still many who will try to cheat the functionality, but the sheer numbers of actual consumers will more likely overpower artificial enhancements. Allowing mere mortal consumers to vote on what they think is relevant is one more step toward a truly democratic search engine.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
New Social Networking Loophole/Discovery
As a marketer, I'm always looking for new opportunities or new ways to utilize existing media. Social networking at this point is the new "it" thing. I recently discovered a way to utilize a functionality of social networking sites to drive more traffic to your company, as well fully utilize your product placement.
I ultimately envision one day commerce will be able to grant us instant gratification. You can be watching TV and see a great dress that Lindsay Lohan is wearing, and you'd be able to buy that exact dress instantly from the TV's interface. Anything we see or even hear on any existing media can be instantly purchased. What is that shirt George Clooney is wearing on TV? Highlight it and you can buy it instantly. The song your currently hearing on the radio can be instantly downloaded.
Social sites like Myspace.com have implemented a functionality in their photo album section that can easily be exploited. You can now tag your photos to identify individuals on that image. For example, in a photo of you and your friends, you can tag each of the individual friends so that it can link back to their individual profiles. As soon as you tag them, the individual friend will get an alert asking them if they would like to add that tagged photo in their own photo albums. The beauty of this functionality is that if they approve, not only will the photos be uploaded in their albums, but also all the other corresponding tags.
I know that this was meant for tagging humans, but what's to stop you from tagging the shirt, jeans or shoes that this individual is wearing on the photo? As long as this product has a corresponding profile on Myspace, you'd be able to link to it, thus driving traffic to that product's myspace site. Let's use a very popular member of Myspace, Tila Tequila for example. If say you got her to wear a hat that you are selling and have a photo, you can upload the photo in your site's photo album. In the photo, you can tag Tila as well as the hat, so that there's a link-back. Upon tagging Tila's pic, she will then get an alert to approve the photo to be uploaded on her own photo album. If you happen to be lucky enough for her to approve, then the photo will be in her album for her and all her millions of friends to see. But guess what? Your tag for your hat will also be included. They can all highlight the hat and know where to purchase it for themselves.
The application for this loophole is endless! In the future we can know exactly where to buy all the gear that our favorite celebrities are rocking all over the internet. All photos on every website will be equipped with a tagging functionality.
I ultimately envision one day commerce will be able to grant us instant gratification. You can be watching TV and see a great dress that Lindsay Lohan is wearing, and you'd be able to buy that exact dress instantly from the TV's interface. Anything we see or even hear on any existing media can be instantly purchased. What is that shirt George Clooney is wearing on TV? Highlight it and you can buy it instantly. The song your currently hearing on the radio can be instantly downloaded.
Social sites like Myspace.com have implemented a functionality in their photo album section that can easily be exploited. You can now tag your photos to identify individuals on that image. For example, in a photo of you and your friends, you can tag each of the individual friends so that it can link back to their individual profiles. As soon as you tag them, the individual friend will get an alert asking them if they would like to add that tagged photo in their own photo albums. The beauty of this functionality is that if they approve, not only will the photos be uploaded in their albums, but also all the other corresponding tags.
I know that this was meant for tagging humans, but what's to stop you from tagging the shirt, jeans or shoes that this individual is wearing on the photo? As long as this product has a corresponding profile on Myspace, you'd be able to link to it, thus driving traffic to that product's myspace site. Let's use a very popular member of Myspace, Tila Tequila for example. If say you got her to wear a hat that you are selling and have a photo, you can upload the photo in your site's photo album. In the photo, you can tag Tila as well as the hat, so that there's a link-back. Upon tagging Tila's pic, she will then get an alert to approve the photo to be uploaded on her own photo album. If you happen to be lucky enough for her to approve, then the photo will be in her album for her and all her millions of friends to see. But guess what? Your tag for your hat will also be included. They can all highlight the hat and know where to purchase it for themselves.
The application for this loophole is endless! In the future we can know exactly where to buy all the gear that our favorite celebrities are rocking all over the internet. All photos on every website will be equipped with a tagging functionality.
Monday, March 10, 2008
My Mom's Famous Macaroni Salad
Everytime I make this people ask me for the recipe. Well here it is:
Ingredients:
- 1 chicken breast
- 2 small cans of vienna sausages
- 1 bag of macaroni pasta
- shredded cheese
- ½ large jar of mayonnaise
- 1 apple
- 3-4 small cans of cubed pineapples
- 3 celery stalks
- ½ onion
- ½ green bell pepper
- ½ red bell pepper
- salt
- pepper
Cooking Instructions:
- drain and save liquid from the pineapples with a strainer
- add the pineapple liquid to a pot of water and boil the chicken breast until tender
- in another pot, boil the pasta
- chop the boiled chicken, vienna sausages, cheese, celery, drained pineapples, onion, green and red peppers and apple into corn-sized cubes
- mix all ingredients and add ½ large jar of mayonnaise
- add salt and pepper to taste
- serve hot or cold
Ingredients:
- 1 chicken breast
- 2 small cans of vienna sausages
- 1 bag of macaroni pasta
- shredded cheese
- ½ large jar of mayonnaise
- 1 apple
- 3-4 small cans of cubed pineapples
- 3 celery stalks
- ½ onion
- ½ green bell pepper
- ½ red bell pepper
- salt
- pepper
Cooking Instructions:
- drain and save liquid from the pineapples with a strainer
- add the pineapple liquid to a pot of water and boil the chicken breast until tender
- in another pot, boil the pasta
- chop the boiled chicken, vienna sausages, cheese, celery, drained pineapples, onion, green and red peppers and apple into corn-sized cubes
- mix all ingredients and add ½ large jar of mayonnaise
- add salt and pepper to taste
- serve hot or cold
Sunday, March 2, 2008
High School: The Big Socialization Project
According to one of my psychology professors, high school was never about academic education. It is in fact, society's method of socialization. The simplistic definition of socialization is a type of training for an indivual to function properly within the collective or society. Without this socialization process, we would be ill-equipped to function within modern society. We would not understand social norms, as well as social taboos.
Jails and Schools
If we had the same sensibilities and acted like kids in our adulthood, we would be considered uncivilized, insane and even labeled as a criminal. In fact, there are many similarities between jails and schools, both designed to calm us down and instill compliance. I have no doubt that school and jail systems share similar tactics, if not implement each other’s research findings.
High school is like a mini jail system, designed with the same end-result, to punish the non-compliant and to produce “upstanding members of society.” Doesn’t that just mean that they want to produce individuals who are compliant to government and other social constructs? Both high schools and jails even share common rules and infrastructures. Both have “wardens,” open quad areas, lunch rooms, gyms and common showers.
Both class rooms and jail cells are designed to keep us in a confined area for a finite amount of time, probably a priming method to instill dependence on time. Once the bell rings, both class room and jail cell doors open to herd us to another holding area. Around the same time every day, the population is forced to exercise, no doubt to shed pent up energy that may cause an individual to incite disorder. Then we shed our clothing and shower in common areas. These mundane herding activities are repeated over and over in the span of years to properly solidify learned behavior.
According to color psychology, light green is one of the most calming colors, the typical color of most classroom walls, insane asylums and jail cells. Have you ever been present when cafeteria food was delivered? Guess what? Cafeteria food and jail food come from the same place and are of the same grade! Now, I am not insinuating a form of conspiracy theory that in fact the government puts something in the food to chemically modify behavior. I leave that to individuals more paranoid than myself. The list of similarities are endless.
It is evident that high schools value social education over academic education just by the fact that most people graduate regardless of their academic performance. I can’t believe that some of the dumb asses I knew in high school graduated. Some of these individuals were barely literate, yet they knew how to belong to something. Some even go as far as toning down their capabilities to conform to the standards of the social caste they’re in. Frankly, I don’t even remember if I ever learned anything academically in high school.
The Group Mentality
The first thing we learn in our first year of high school is the significance of group mentality, and how it shapes our position in society. All of a sudden, kids who played together and shared tents and tree houses are no longer part of the same social circle. An elementary caste system is formed that impacts our entire high school career. We either succumb to this proverbial musical chair game or experience loneliness once the music stops. EVERYTHING is dictated by this caste system, where you eat, who you hang out with, what you wear, and how you are perceived. We learn the “us against them,” that promotes herd mentality instead of individualism. As much as we all wanted to be “individuals” or “unique,” we wanted to be unique together. We form a group of “uniques,” and begin to segregate ourselves from the other groups. How can you be truly unique if you belong to a group of people who think, act and look just like you?
This is the beginning of “political correctness”, “majority rules”, and our desire to belong. Your adulthood is basically mirroring lessons of social constructs taught to you by your high school experiences. You think you’re making an individual choice, but years of group mentality priming says otherwise. Remember the whole Clarence Thomas sexual harrassment fiasco? After a newscaster pronounced sexual harassment as (har • ass • ment), rather than what most people originally pronounced as (ha • rass • ment), everyone started saying it that way.
In a UN vote where France did not support the United States’ desire to deploy troops to Iraq, all of a sudden it was politically correct for Americans to make fun of the French. The idiocy went as far as the public wanting to change the term French fries to “Freedom fries.” Was that a conscious decision you made or was it in fact what propaganda spin doctors wanted you to think?
Group Mentality Keeps Order
If you subscribe to the Nietzchian notion that a few are meant to lead and the rest are meant to follow, then one can argue that these social constructs are necessary. Without it, western civilization would plummet. Based on the premise that most people are followers, rules needed to be created to guide the them. A method of teaching the followers how to follow also needed to be weaved into the societal construct in a seamless manner. This is where I believe the theory of the high school education system plays its part.
Jails and Schools
If we had the same sensibilities and acted like kids in our adulthood, we would be considered uncivilized, insane and even labeled as a criminal. In fact, there are many similarities between jails and schools, both designed to calm us down and instill compliance. I have no doubt that school and jail systems share similar tactics, if not implement each other’s research findings.
High school is like a mini jail system, designed with the same end-result, to punish the non-compliant and to produce “upstanding members of society.” Doesn’t that just mean that they want to produce individuals who are compliant to government and other social constructs? Both high schools and jails even share common rules and infrastructures. Both have “wardens,” open quad areas, lunch rooms, gyms and common showers.
Both class rooms and jail cells are designed to keep us in a confined area for a finite amount of time, probably a priming method to instill dependence on time. Once the bell rings, both class room and jail cell doors open to herd us to another holding area. Around the same time every day, the population is forced to exercise, no doubt to shed pent up energy that may cause an individual to incite disorder. Then we shed our clothing and shower in common areas. These mundane herding activities are repeated over and over in the span of years to properly solidify learned behavior.
According to color psychology, light green is one of the most calming colors, the typical color of most classroom walls, insane asylums and jail cells. Have you ever been present when cafeteria food was delivered? Guess what? Cafeteria food and jail food come from the same place and are of the same grade! Now, I am not insinuating a form of conspiracy theory that in fact the government puts something in the food to chemically modify behavior. I leave that to individuals more paranoid than myself. The list of similarities are endless.
It is evident that high schools value social education over academic education just by the fact that most people graduate regardless of their academic performance. I can’t believe that some of the dumb asses I knew in high school graduated. Some of these individuals were barely literate, yet they knew how to belong to something. Some even go as far as toning down their capabilities to conform to the standards of the social caste they’re in. Frankly, I don’t even remember if I ever learned anything academically in high school.
The Group Mentality
The first thing we learn in our first year of high school is the significance of group mentality, and how it shapes our position in society. All of a sudden, kids who played together and shared tents and tree houses are no longer part of the same social circle. An elementary caste system is formed that impacts our entire high school career. We either succumb to this proverbial musical chair game or experience loneliness once the music stops. EVERYTHING is dictated by this caste system, where you eat, who you hang out with, what you wear, and how you are perceived. We learn the “us against them,” that promotes herd mentality instead of individualism. As much as we all wanted to be “individuals” or “unique,” we wanted to be unique together. We form a group of “uniques,” and begin to segregate ourselves from the other groups. How can you be truly unique if you belong to a group of people who think, act and look just like you?
This is the beginning of “political correctness”, “majority rules”, and our desire to belong. Your adulthood is basically mirroring lessons of social constructs taught to you by your high school experiences. You think you’re making an individual choice, but years of group mentality priming says otherwise. Remember the whole Clarence Thomas sexual harrassment fiasco? After a newscaster pronounced sexual harassment as (har • ass • ment), rather than what most people originally pronounced as (ha • rass • ment), everyone started saying it that way.
In a UN vote where France did not support the United States’ desire to deploy troops to Iraq, all of a sudden it was politically correct for Americans to make fun of the French. The idiocy went as far as the public wanting to change the term French fries to “Freedom fries.” Was that a conscious decision you made or was it in fact what propaganda spin doctors wanted you to think?
Group Mentality Keeps Order
If you subscribe to the Nietzchian notion that a few are meant to lead and the rest are meant to follow, then one can argue that these social constructs are necessary. Without it, western civilization would plummet. Based on the premise that most people are followers, rules needed to be created to guide the them. A method of teaching the followers how to follow also needed to be weaved into the societal construct in a seamless manner. This is where I believe the theory of the high school education system plays its part.
Monday, February 25, 2008
TIME is more important than MONEY
2 people very close to me just passed away this month. The amazing thing is that both are the antithesis of each other.
My uncle Larry lived to work. He was one of the most selfless men I knew. He had never held just one job. He worked multiple shifts at different jobs to provide for his family, and to one day reap the benefits. It's ironic that in his efforts to provide his family of the luxuries he believed they deserved, he denied them of the one most important luxury; TIME with their father and husband. He never got around to enjoy what he worked so hard to provide. Upon approaching his retirement age, he slowly developed a mysterious, debilitating brain disease that rendered him immobile. He died thereafter, never able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Kay was the diametric opposite. She lived her life "in the now." This was a woman who had lived at least 3 lifetimes. She spent the money before she even made it. She enjoyed life, but never thought about the future. She didn't care because she knew she was not taking anything with her. The important thing was that she was able to enjoy the fruits of her labors as she reaped them. Many may argue that she was irresponsible, but are those people not aware of how finite and short life is?
Money seems to be the motivation that drives society and western civilization. Many people are willing to work many hours to obtain the most amount of money possible. Not as many people though are willing to fork over money to obtain more hours. Humanity seems to hold the value of MONEY higher than the value of TIME. I do not understand this mentality. Money lost can always be regained. You can work more hours, get a second job, or find other sources of income. Time lost can never be regained.
We should be striving to utilize more of our time, not money. According to Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, rather than focusing on being rich (acquisition of time), we should be striving to be wealthy (acquisition of time). Most people have TIME and MONEY at an inverse correlation. The working class would have to sacrifice leisure time to obtain the buying power to purchase more things or services.
The deaths of those 2 individuals have taught me a very valuable lesson. TIME is the most valuable resource of all, and I don't want to run out of it before I come to a realization that I can never get it back. I no longer hesitate in embracing my friends and family, and telling them I love them, for that is time well spent. I am now on a journey to learn how to spend TIME wisely rather than MONEY.
My uncle Larry lived to work. He was one of the most selfless men I knew. He had never held just one job. He worked multiple shifts at different jobs to provide for his family, and to one day reap the benefits. It's ironic that in his efforts to provide his family of the luxuries he believed they deserved, he denied them of the one most important luxury; TIME with their father and husband. He never got around to enjoy what he worked so hard to provide. Upon approaching his retirement age, he slowly developed a mysterious, debilitating brain disease that rendered him immobile. He died thereafter, never able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Kay was the diametric opposite. She lived her life "in the now." This was a woman who had lived at least 3 lifetimes. She spent the money before she even made it. She enjoyed life, but never thought about the future. She didn't care because she knew she was not taking anything with her. The important thing was that she was able to enjoy the fruits of her labors as she reaped them. Many may argue that she was irresponsible, but are those people not aware of how finite and short life is?
Money seems to be the motivation that drives society and western civilization. Many people are willing to work many hours to obtain the most amount of money possible. Not as many people though are willing to fork over money to obtain more hours. Humanity seems to hold the value of MONEY higher than the value of TIME. I do not understand this mentality. Money lost can always be regained. You can work more hours, get a second job, or find other sources of income. Time lost can never be regained.
We should be striving to utilize more of our time, not money. According to Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, rather than focusing on being rich (acquisition of time), we should be striving to be wealthy (acquisition of time). Most people have TIME and MONEY at an inverse correlation. The working class would have to sacrifice leisure time to obtain the buying power to purchase more things or services.
The deaths of those 2 individuals have taught me a very valuable lesson. TIME is the most valuable resource of all, and I don't want to run out of it before I come to a realization that I can never get it back. I no longer hesitate in embracing my friends and family, and telling them I love them, for that is time well spent. I am now on a journey to learn how to spend TIME wisely rather than MONEY.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
My Gold Digger Test
As a single male, I understand that the women I date play a certain degree of games or administer some type of "test" to determine whether or not she deems me worthy of the next date or as a potential mate. It used to perplex me because I always thought that dating would be immensely more enjoyable if people just acted themselves. I always believed that I did.
I do understand though the motivation of such tests, having experienced the weeding out system we call dating. Bad experiences definitely is a source of these defense mechanisms.
I too, after thinking about it, realized that I started developing a set of heuristics after having gone through numerous dates, a test I call "the reach." I unknowingly devised criteria to help me determine whether the current person I'm dining with at a restaurant is a gold digger. I'm sure most men innately know this, but I've never really heard it analyzed.
As an old-school male, it is a given to me that I will ultimately pay for dinner, regardless of who asked who out. Whether or not the woman is a liberated person, I'm sure that it is still a nice gesture for someone to pay for your meal. I have no problem with this. For the most part, I oblige as long as I know that the girl is not out for a free meal. How do I know? "The reach."
Most decent women know that even though they don't expect to pay for the meal, it is a pleasant gesture for them to "fake offer" to pay at least half. Most guys have seen this move. It's the same move time and time again. As soon as the check comes, the woman reaches for her purse "in slow motion" so that I get to my wallet before she even gets to the zipper of her purse. After seeing "the reach" I know that she's not a gold digger. I acknowledge that she doesn't really intend to pay for it, but I appreciate the effort. It's my part to then to continue the song and dance and to say, "no, I got this" or "don't be silly! I'm paying." Hell, she probably doesn't even have any money in that thing. Plus, her motion toward her purse is soooo slow, that she never really intended to pay. I mean c'mon. If she really intended to pay, she'd be in that purse sooo fast. It's right next to you! I have to get up to pull my wallet out. If that was a piece of chocolate in that purse she would've had it unwrapped and taken a bite before I even got the chance to blink.
I went out with this girl after she had asked me out. This was one of my longer dates. We went to lunch, did some shopping, had drinks, went to dinner, then to a movie, then coffee after the movie, all in the span of 8 hours. Not once in any of those meals did she even give me the courtesy of "the reach", nor did she allow me the opportunity to say, "oh I got this babe."
In neon lights flashed, "gold digger!" She couldn't even "fake offer" to pay for tip, or the 3 dollar valet parking. God forbid I call her bluff and she's out 3 bucks! Geez, put a quarter in the meter for me, it's something! Tsk tsk tsk....some people...
In this instance, my little test came in handy...
I do understand though the motivation of such tests, having experienced the weeding out system we call dating. Bad experiences definitely is a source of these defense mechanisms.
I too, after thinking about it, realized that I started developing a set of heuristics after having gone through numerous dates, a test I call "the reach." I unknowingly devised criteria to help me determine whether the current person I'm dining with at a restaurant is a gold digger. I'm sure most men innately know this, but I've never really heard it analyzed.
As an old-school male, it is a given to me that I will ultimately pay for dinner, regardless of who asked who out. Whether or not the woman is a liberated person, I'm sure that it is still a nice gesture for someone to pay for your meal. I have no problem with this. For the most part, I oblige as long as I know that the girl is not out for a free meal. How do I know? "The reach."
Most decent women know that even though they don't expect to pay for the meal, it is a pleasant gesture for them to "fake offer" to pay at least half. Most guys have seen this move. It's the same move time and time again. As soon as the check comes, the woman reaches for her purse "in slow motion" so that I get to my wallet before she even gets to the zipper of her purse. After seeing "the reach" I know that she's not a gold digger. I acknowledge that she doesn't really intend to pay for it, but I appreciate the effort. It's my part to then to continue the song and dance and to say, "no, I got this" or "don't be silly! I'm paying." Hell, she probably doesn't even have any money in that thing. Plus, her motion toward her purse is soooo slow, that she never really intended to pay. I mean c'mon. If she really intended to pay, she'd be in that purse sooo fast. It's right next to you! I have to get up to pull my wallet out. If that was a piece of chocolate in that purse she would've had it unwrapped and taken a bite before I even got the chance to blink.
I went out with this girl after she had asked me out. This was one of my longer dates. We went to lunch, did some shopping, had drinks, went to dinner, then to a movie, then coffee after the movie, all in the span of 8 hours. Not once in any of those meals did she even give me the courtesy of "the reach", nor did she allow me the opportunity to say, "oh I got this babe."
In neon lights flashed, "gold digger!" She couldn't even "fake offer" to pay for tip, or the 3 dollar valet parking. God forbid I call her bluff and she's out 3 bucks! Geez, put a quarter in the meter for me, it's something! Tsk tsk tsk....some people...
In this instance, my little test came in handy...
Atomic Theory
This is a theory that i have been thinking about since junior high school.
We've all seen drawings or renderings of what an atom looks like. There's usually a central sphere, the nucleus, and smaller spheres revolving around it, namely protons and electrons. Looking at those drawings, something always looked familiar to me, like I've seen this schematic before.
Imagine this microverse expanded into a macroverse. Doesn't the atom look like an exact replica of a planet, where the nucleus is a planet, and the charged particles revolving around it being its moons? What the hell is the relevance of this?
Well, if we know that a planet like earth is inhabited with organisms, like human beings, isn't it rational to believe that a smaller version of planet may also be inhabited? Since all matter is comprised of atoms, wouldn't it be conceivable that our bodies are in fact universes? And in this universe, there are planets, which may or may not contain sentient beings...maybe even tiny little humans.
Maybe those theories of inner well-being, chi, miticlorians, etc. may actually be scientifically valid. Kinda like, if we make those little people happy inside those planets, maybe they'll take better care of the planet and thus, taking better care of us.
Now let's blow that up into a macroverse. What if our planet is just one atom that makes up the a gigantic organism? In fact, someone might be looking at our planet right now through a microscope and saying, "look at this atom!" Wouldn't that make you truly feel infinitesimal?
We've all seen drawings or renderings of what an atom looks like. There's usually a central sphere, the nucleus, and smaller spheres revolving around it, namely protons and electrons. Looking at those drawings, something always looked familiar to me, like I've seen this schematic before.
Imagine this microverse expanded into a macroverse. Doesn't the atom look like an exact replica of a planet, where the nucleus is a planet, and the charged particles revolving around it being its moons? What the hell is the relevance of this?
Well, if we know that a planet like earth is inhabited with organisms, like human beings, isn't it rational to believe that a smaller version of planet may also be inhabited? Since all matter is comprised of atoms, wouldn't it be conceivable that our bodies are in fact universes? And in this universe, there are planets, which may or may not contain sentient beings...maybe even tiny little humans.
Maybe those theories of inner well-being, chi, miticlorians, etc. may actually be scientifically valid. Kinda like, if we make those little people happy inside those planets, maybe they'll take better care of the planet and thus, taking better care of us.
Now let's blow that up into a macroverse. What if our planet is just one atom that makes up the a gigantic organism? In fact, someone might be looking at our planet right now through a microscope and saying, "look at this atom!" Wouldn't that make you truly feel infinitesimal?
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