Google Energy?
I love listening to the Google story: two brilliant Stanford grad students think they can make search better, a decade later and $22 Billion richer, their hypothesis is the underbelly of the digital age. This Cinderella story has fueled the dreams of entrepreneurs worldwide, creating small fortunes for young geeks through steady acquisitions. This isn’t surprising considering the depth of Google’s market reach: Ads, Health, Email, and Mobile just to name a few. But 2010 marks Google’s official entry into the Energy/Electricity business (PowerMeter was part of their non-profit leg).
This past December, Google filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the hopes of selling electricity in the US at market price. Why would Google want to control energy too? Well, according to the bigG, it needs to manage its huge number of data centers across the world and the only way to do that is by being an electricity pimp. With at least 12 centers, that’s a pretty fair argument.
While we won’t be buying our electricity from Google, they want to sell it wholesale, possibly partnering with companies, school and organizations to provide a sustainable energy source for large institutions.
All in all, I’m pretty happy if this comes to fruition as it puts Google in a pivotal role to push renewable energy sources into the backbone of IT structures around the world.
Bark4Beer: A dog collar made for humans
Sometimes you come across an invention that you know will change the game. The lightbulb. Penicilin. The internet. Bark4Beer is definitely not one of these inventions, but it’s pretty cool. Bark4Beer is a dog collar that features a built-in bottle opener. Simple. Useful. Will make your dog cooler. Now if they can figure out how to get dogs to fetch exotic European beers, we’re set.
Google chunking a deuce to ’09
This is the only 2 and 1/2 minute video on the internet that has held my attention for 2 and 1/2 minutes. Props to Google Wave team for making something awesome. Enjoy:
more science haiku
I have been busy starting up another site called sciku. Here are some samples:
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an extra gene on the
chromosome: height they have not
but cute is the weiner!
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swear the four letter words
don’t worry, be happy. the pain will subside
f-word, s-word say it all
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teenage girls need peer
approval, they judge the other.
neural net at work
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when copywriters can’t speak english
An ad for cough medicine gone horribly wrong:
you’re welcome America.
science news in haiku
I felt too much like a scientist today, finding myself getting caught up in minute details that have no real relevance to anything. This feeling of “holy crap, this is might be the rest of my life” syndrome persisted for a good part of the day. As such, I needed something to make me feel a little more human, so I decided to start writing science news as Haikus. Albeit, not the most human thing I could do, but it’s as close as my brain would let me at the time.
New magnet installed
In underground cyclotron
Hopefully this time…
Solar cells costly yes
But Nanopillars make cheap
cells, promise the future
Why Burger King Sucks
Burger King has been pushing some envelopes lately with their controversial ads (read). But a recent ad in Spain is really pushing it over the edge. With the phrase “A snack that is sacred” written above a picture of Lakshmi and a hamburger, Burger Douche is surely offending this Hindu. In a public statement after the exposure of this ad, BK claims a third party ad agency was responsible for this display of moronic disrespect. Despite this stupidity, is this a perfect, nearly free publicity stunt by BK? I mean, the people who are offended (Hindus) aren’t actually customers, so there’s no loss there . . .
Is online journalism turning into one giant ad?
I recently stumbled upon this picture while “writing” essays, and thought it was surprisingly true:
I’m scared to think that the image on the right is becoming the standard web presence of media outlets. But I am confident that journalistic integrity will bring us back to the old days. And who knows, maybe even find an innovative monetization model. . .
