Beware, Google May Be Hacked
For those who may have used Google in the last 15 minutes, all of their search results are being returned labeled “This Site May Harm Your Computer”. This blocks you from direct access through a query, and apparently there’s no way around it. I wonder if it was an accident by a Google staffer, or a hacker? (I’ve confirmed this with others from various locations around the US, so it’s not localized to my computer or region)
*/ It’s back up fine.
Your Brocolli Stalk Is… So…
Every year the superbowl shows ads ranging from hilarious, to beautiful and sometimes scandalous. Many of you may remember one of the many (NSFW) risqué GoDaddy commercials. Well, this year there was one $3 Million submission that NBC just couldn’t accept (NSFW):
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty sure my past childhood just got retroactively scarred for life. For those that don’t watch the clip because of it’s “not safe for work” status, it’s a submission by Peta (People for the ethical treatment of animals). This is the same group known for throwing blood on real fur that people are wearing as well as numerous other questionable… stunts. This time they thought they’d play it a little safer than some of their more common nudity for a cause displays and instead show a clip of very scantily clad women making very suggestive moves on some vegetables. Following this display is the message that vegetarians have better sex.
Apparently the thought with all of this is that sex sells. If you combine beautiful women with lingerie and vegetables, clearly people will want to buy and eat more of them. Furthermore, people will be so encouraged by seeing half-naked women make out with veggies and a flashy “vegetarians have better sex” message that they’ll forego all meat eating.
It’s curious that this veggie message is targeting men too. There’s clearly little appeal to women except for a very small demographic, and it’s a well-established fact that one of the American virtues of manliness is eating meat (as well as growing beards, watching football and belching). In all seriousness though, I was a vegetarian for two years. In those two years I can’t speak to a sex life, but I can say that I do feel more energetic and healthy after eating some meat again. Who knows? Maybe we should host a “year of veggie sex” study to find out.
Back up and Running
After a brief spat, MakeSeriously is back up and (mostly) running. Hopefully I won’t have any more database problems, but we’ll see how that goes as we move on into the future.
Google’s Googleplex of Googling Goodies
Most people are at least familiar with the now-ubiquitous search engine Google. What does it do exactly? Well, it lets you search for things, right? Yep. You type in a set of words that you think relates to the thing that you want to find, press a button, and hope that the internet gnomes find you agreeable enough to hand deliver you a pile of pages that may or may not have anything to do with what you’re really looking for. Of that group of people that know of Google, a slightly smaller group of people know about another aspect of Google: Gmail. That’s Google’s email hosting site. The same internet gnomes that look on the internet for what you submit also host your email and allow you to store an ever increasing amount of information (I think my account is over 5G of info for the max limit). For those that care, it’s also POPable. So, for the Mail/Outlook/Entourage/Thunderbird/etc. users of the world you can get your private email straight to your mail client, no problem. Of that group of people, there’s a third even smaller group who know about Google Analytics, which helps site hosts keep track of who comes to their site, how long they stay, what screen resolution they’re using…. needless to say, Google Analytics helps me know pretty much everything about you all as you’re reading this (I’m a user and an abuser!). There’s also the famous and entertaining Google Maps helping users around the world stalk people find locations and directions to pretty much anywhere in the world. And for those like me living in the luckiest areas, we get Google Maps Streetview, so you can see what the area looks like from, well, the street.
What many people don’t know about, however, is a nifty place called the Google Labs. This is where the magic happens. The team over at GWO (Google World Order) is constantly coming up with new utilities that will dominate your life. For example, have you ever wished that Google Maps existed for other planets? No? Well, I think it’s pretty awesome. And it does. It’s (appropriately) named Google Mars. Looking for quotes? Try Google InQuotes. Blind? Why not go for Google Accessible. Does Google Maps not meet your stalker needs? Try Google Trends and find out what people are doing. Want to make a website but find yourself completely inept? Why not use Google Sites?
The bottom line is this: Google has an ever expanding library of appendages that range from completely useless to the Golden Child that will deliver you from boredom or anonymity. I, for one, use Google’s products pretty much every day. I wake up and POP my Gmail account, check Analytics to find out how site traffic has been going, search for random subjects throughout the day to satisfy my need for useless knowledge, and then find directions to the million and a half places I need to be throughout the week (or try to see if it will give me directions to swim somewhere… try San Diego to Diamond Head Honalulu and check turn #336 “Kayak across the Pacific Ocean“) I’ve used Google Scholar to look up articles, Google News to sift through more reliable news updates and Google Video to watch random funny things (until they bought YouTube…)
If you don’t think there’s something out there for you, I definitely recommend checking Google Labs out to see if it might have something that interests you or can help you take your work another step further.
Think: Modernist Lincoln Logs…
Home prices are falling, builders have perhaps the worst new-home market in a very long time and consumers are trying to find ways to build custom homes that suit their needs without breaking the bank. If only Lincoln logs were enormous… Well, there may be just that kind of thing. Architectural designer Rocio Romero has an interesting product on the market: prefab homes. No, it’s not like the Sears catalogue homes. Not exactly. This is more like prefab home design meets Ikea pieces-parts builing meets modern minimalism. The LV Series, as it’s called, offers the homebuyer a chance for a great amount of customization and the ability to strip the home down to it’s basic parts. Adding a garage or a guest house is no issue at all. And these homes are well built and designed too. For those living in the gulf coast or mid-Atlantic coast, the LV150 can take 150 mph winds and meet the stingiest Hurricane codes (as prefabs!).
Design-wise there are some pretty cool features. First, the walls provide the structural support, allowing for some really cool customization ability. The walls also have sheet metal (galvanized steel, available in a lot of great colors) applied to the exterior to cover the fasteners and provide a clean surface. The walls are designed with double the typical insulating ability, and are super energy efficient. The roof has a similarly high insulation value, stopping energy loss from one of the greatest contributors. She also is willing to work with her clients to take the houses as energy-efficient as possible using solar and green options to reduce grid load. The design of the homes also allows for huge amounts of glass to the exterior.
Really, there’s way too much for me to describe. It’s super cool, and very reasonably priced, so check it out.
YouTube Socks are Sagging…
So, there’s this nifty thing on the web, used by millions, perused by millions more. It’s called YouTube, and when used well it could be your next best friend. Besides being almost as entertaining as the “Stumble” button that takes you to random websites on the internet, it provides a chance to be creative and get noticed. (For reasons both good and bad)
First a little background information. Youtube’s primary use is to allow users to upload and share videos they’ve created with others. These videos can be seen online on websites, sent via email, embedded on blogs, or viewed on a mobile phone. Currently, YouTube is owned by Google, which pretty much owns everything. Despite a long history of copyright controversy in YouTube’s relatively short life-span, they’ve signed partnership deals with companies like CBS, Sony Music Group, an Sundance to provide viewers with the ability to watch proprietary content and listen to proprietary music.
Now that you know a little background, it’s time to get started. You can upload video content straight to YouTube via the website, or you can also upload content via an MMS from your phone. This means you can, for example, record Barack Obama’s Inauguration speech and upload it to YouTube without ever leaving the mall. (unless, of course, security shuts down all of the cell towers in the area. In that case, you’re hosed) You can also connect your videos to your Google AdSense account. This allows you to generate revenue from viewers watching your video. And, if you’ve done a great job of getting noticed, users can also subscribe to a feed you set up. Every-time you post new content, they’ll know about it and will be able to follow your updates.
Once you’re really in the groove, Google being the creative innovators they are have set up “TestTube” to experiment with new user experience software. Right now they have up four. First are video annotations. They’re kind of annoying if you ask me, but they basically allow users to add annotations right into their video content. They can be used super creatively. They just normally aren’t.
And Google being what it is, they’re always up for some creativity. And they never frown on creative reqruitment.…
So check it out.