BlogMouth

Google ran an ad on Super Bowl XLIV for their search engine. The ad told a romantic story with a series of search queries but it was not as iconic as Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad but to privacy advocates it reminds them of Big Brother.

Google ran an advertisement during Super Bowl XLIV between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. Google ran the Search Stories: Parisian Love on national television during the Super Bowl broadcast. The video received over a millions views on YouTube as of this writing. The ad is part of Google’s Search Stories campaign. You can view other views of the Search Stories campaign on the Google’s searchstories user account on YouTube.

The Parisian Love ad starts off with Google’s iconic search box. Over a series of search queries entered into the search box, the ad pieces together the love story between an American student studying abroad in France with a local Parisian girl. The queries speak volumes of this intimate courtship, but fails to bring up the privacy concerns voiced by privacy advocates.

The first query in the ad reads “study abroad paris france.” The following query reveals that the student is new to the City of Lights, the query reads “cafe near the louve” and this demonstrates how Google search corrects the spelling of the Louvre. The ad also demonstrates Google’s translation feature where you type a expression in a foreign language and have Google translate it into another. Another query, “chocolate shops paris france,” demonstrates Google’s local feature which lists business names, addresses, and phone numbers that match your search query. Another great Google feature in the Super Bowl ad is how if you enter a flight number Google will return the flight status on the search page. The last search query in the ad is “How to assemble a crib.”

The Google Super Bowl ad has inspired a series of parody ads, such as one titled Is Tiger Feeling Lucky Today? which plays makes fun of Tiger Wood’s infidelities. It is important to note that Google does store search queries and can easily piece together the search stories of your life, whether you are searching for a new job or long lost friend.

Here I am reblogging some retweets for the past month that broken down by subject matter. Some of these tweets also cover events that occurred in December 2009. If you like to follow along, befriend xwoop and lolprez and I’ll be sure to follow back.

Obamanation

• Why is Obama a bigger disappointment than Bush? Because Obama promised hope and change and delivered on none, and Bush didn’t.
• Soon Bush’s approval rating will seem high compared to Obama’s.
• @whitehouse does the president pay taxes on all the freebies he gets on the job?
• Zombies want to eat brains, Zombama wants to eat your bonus.

Got Gov?

• Lest we forget, the great democracies in human history were formed while slavery was allowed legally and morally.
• If our pocket constitutions, fourth of July flags, and other patriotic souvenirs are made in China, what stops them from making our laws too?
• In the future, the TSA will force passenger to fly barefoot and with nothing more than a medical examination robe.
• The CIA has renditioned Hope to Gitmo.
• In the future, most laws will be drafted, amended, voted, and enacted in behind closed doors, in private as state secret.
• Which is worse, a mole or a rat?
• The biggest fallacy in politics is that voters have to pick sides between donkeys and elephants. I vote for me, not for some bureaucrat.
• The state will replace free will with fear, ideas with propaganda, love with obedience.
• The state wants to take what nature has given, free will, and replace it with product placements.
• The US constitutions is being rewritten to We the Special Interest Lobbyists…
• If you complain about government, you will need to pay a protest tax.

Econemy

• The law of conservation of matter states that matter can’t be created or destroyed out of nothing, money does not have the same law.
• Capital is another word for money. So capitalism means moneyism. Money is said to be the root of all evil…
• The Copenhagen Summit has been hijacked by multi-national corporations that it should simply be renamed to Corpenhagen.
• The longest standing illusion is that of currency.
• US Treasury’s New Motto: In credit ratings we trust.
• If money talks then credit rating hollers.
• Wall street is playing musical chair with your money.
• Boom or Bust: For every boom there is an equal and opposite bust.
• The book Too Big To Fail looks Too Big To Read.
• There is no better deal than paying what you can actually afford for what you actually need.
• Boom or Bust: For every boom there is an equal and opposite bust.

Propagandon’t

• I’m not so worry about climate change as I am worried about magnetic pole change, which has also happened in the past.
• A world whose climate does not change is a lifeless/dead world.
• Do you believe in climate change? I do, the climate changes throughout the year… We call it seasons.
• Global Warming: An Inconvenient Truth or An Inconvenient Data? #climategate
• A critical step in the scientific method is fudging the data. #climategate

War Racket

• We may not have troops in the ground in Pakistan, but there is a war being fought there.
• The Unreported War: Pakistan
• The hearts and minds are not won with a war on terror, but with a war on apathy.
• We torture extremists by playing pop music. Our culture is terrorism.
• Taylor Swift music is perfect for interrogating the Taliban and other enemy combatants.

Question

• Which was the worst navigator, the captain of the Titanic or the Pilot of the Hindenburg?
• Which is better, win now and lose later or lose now and eventually win?
• Is love a medicine, vitamin, or supplement?
• Who hasn’t even started with holiday gift shopping?
• Do you have nothing to hide or nothing to fear?
• How many man hours go into putting up and then putting down Christmas decorations?
• How much money and trees are wasted each year on gift wrapping paper? Something that lasts 10 seconds before it is ripped up.
• Is it weird if your mother in law gives you mistletoe on Facebook?
• How much data storage capacity was created last year? How much original data was created?
• Why isn’t everything like riding a bike?
• Which is worse, a control freak or clean freak?
• Is it the thought that counts or the cost?
• Which movie was worse, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra or Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen?
• Which do you prefer, white chocolate or dark chocolate?

Randumb

• My new year’s resolution is to come up with a better new year’s resolution next year.
• I don’t understand why I am awake if all the mathematical models in my sleep simulation have me asleep.
• Some people agree to disagree but others just plain out disagree to agree.
• If we are going to agree to disagree why not just agree that I am right.
• Stuff crust is the best thing since sliced bread.
• Big girls love by the pound.
• News: 40% ads, 40% editorial, %10 CIA misinformation, %5 incorrect, 3% gossip, 1% real news.
• I BE AWESOME AND SO IS YOU.
• You can’t hurry up time.
• Life is a numbers game.
• I’m rocking in the rain.
• Rome didn’t burn in a day.
• Listening to what in 100 years will be categorized as Late Period Classical Gangsta Rap.
• Old clowns never die, they just become childrens’ nightmares.
• Love is a whore.
• If you get it you get it if not forget.
• If I was a ghost, I be the shy ghost in the library reading self help books to afraid to booing anyone for fear of being shushed.

Overheard

• OH: You are so much fun when I am drunk.
• OH: the only criticism I have about you is that you don’t take any criticism well.

Craporation

• The only satisfied AT&T customer is the CIA.

There are some funny people on Twitter. Whenever I find a funny, witty, or thought provoking I usually retweet it and favorite it. Here is a small collection of recent tweets that stoop out to me.

• @davenavarro6767: Wearing only black means never having to separate your laundry.
• @Archimage: Someone should invent a Rubics Cube alarm clock that only shuts off when you solve it.
• @joelcomm: Calling someone closed-minded is our way of saying others refuse to think like we do.
• @vl: Work. Life. Sleep. You can only pick two.
• @AndrePang: i feel like even more of a geek busting out the thesaurus when naming functions and variables…
• @alissa: That which I disdained for lunch has now become my dinner.
• @TheDiva: Dear @Twitter : Why haven’t you verified MY Account yet? How will people know it’s the real me!? Step to it please :)
• @Bauart: It takes a village to ignore the idiots.
• @om: OH: "coding without testing is like sex without protection. U pay the price later" only in Palo Alto u hear stuff like that
• @KentBeck: phrase for the day: "steaming pile of opportunity"
• @iMagSJ: iphone, I tweet, ice cream!
• @bdeter: Just ordered a new Macbook Pro. So expect Apple to announce a new model or massive price reduction soon.
• @digitalangel: 140 characters would not even begin to explain how pissed off I am right now.
• @mousewords: According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, you can’t move particles without using extra energy. Even in physics, there’s no get-rich-quick.
• @ponet: “A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.” #Anon
• @karina: OH "the older I get, the more guys just bug me."
• @ruthakers: Damn hotels and their false advertisements. Kids stay free. Apparently that’s just until you check out. Then you have to take them with you
• @davio1962: If great minds think alike, what do feeble minds do? I’m asking for my wife and boss.
• @zeldman: A man can never apologize enough, although he can apologize too much.
• @thebenbrooks: I’m glad they outlawed texting while driving. I can finally get some use out of this calligraphy set.
• @peterc: OH: "First rule of negotiation: the first guy to give a number loses."
• @Kcatz: To the world you could just be that one person, but to one person you could be his/her world :)
• @Encosia: Knowing how to find device drivers and software updates is the modern equivalent of knowing how to change a tire.
• @thebrandbuilder: Having a Social Media presence nowadays is merely the equivalent of what being listed in the yellow pages meant ten years ago.
• @mklopez: I tried to contain myself, but I escaped.
• @rasmus: Persimmon are $2.99 each at Manhattan supermarkets. That would make my tree in my backyard worth about $1M using Valley valuation math.
• @Archimage: If you drink Fosters beer and follow it by Bass it tastes like bananas.
• @PeterSantilli: Homeland Security incompetence is as dangerous to America as terrorists

I live in a nice quite neighborhood near a prestigious university and home to many vice presidents and top engineers of the local search giant and many other high technology companies. According wikipedia, the city has a nice demographic with 95% of the population being white or Asian, 4% Hispanic, and everything else fall under 1%. The median home sale price in the area is $1.4 million. So generally speaking, this is a great opportunity for little ghouls and goblins trick and treating. We have been tricking and treating here for the past four years, but we grew up here, went to school here, and trick and treated here when we where kids.

With one kid under five, dressed as a ferocious lion we scored 7.5 pounds of candy in about 2.5 hours just from walking around the equivalent of 3-4 blocks in our neighborhood. We started off by driving 3 blocks down the street since we live across a park and a school and we wanted to position ourselves surrounded completely by homes. By driving just a few blocks down the street we where able to maximize the time we had trick and treating. Generally, the best trick and treating window is the three hours between 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

The best payoff was at a home of a pacific islander/Hispanic man that gave us four normal size snickers bars. This is huge because the average size of snicker bars used on Halloween are the fun size or minis. Each snicker bar costs about $0.75 to $1.00 so that is a retail value of $3-4.00. Even though we generally did well, we had a few bad payouts two from Asian and one from a Southeast Asian which gave the equivalent of a single mini size snicker. Some other notables treats are a toy car, a large box of goobers, oatmeal raisin breakfast cookies, and Dagoba organic chocolate.

Nice is a piece of advice when giving out candy for Halloween. Don’t give kids too much choice. We had one lady give us the choice between books, crayons, toy cars, candy, etc. That is to much choice. What helps keep the kids moving is to give them a handful of candies. Don’t give trick and treaters a single, mini size candy, that is just cheap and tacky. Give them four or five. If you are running short on candy and want kids to have just one, instead of giving them just one, give them a bowl and say ‘want to pick one.’ Small kids will usually pick just one candy, it is better to have them picking the one candy that they want instead of you seeming cheap and handing them a single one candy when you got a new BMW 3 series convertible in the drive way. The key of making the stream of kids flowing is to have a small number of treats that the kids can pick themselves.

Here are tips on choosing the best candy for Halloween. The best candy is those that are seal as opposed to wrapped. For example, Tootsie Roll and Smarties are wrapped at the ends, not sealed, and can be easily tampered. When inspecting the candies before they are consumed, I generally pass on any candy that has wrappers that are twisted instead of sealed shut. Candies like Starbursts and sealed with some amount of air so if you feel the pressure of the air, you can easily assume they have not been tampered with. Candies that are packed in little boxes, such as Junior Minds make it easy for parents inspect.

Here are some tips for trick and treaters, don’t run and step on people’s flowerbeds. Walk to and from people yards, preferably use the walkway when available. Don’t cross or zigzag the street, go down one side of the street and then at the crosswalk cross the street and then do the other side. Always be gracious, say thank you or Happy Halloween.

Halloween is a secular holiday that brings all the little ghouls and goblins from all ethnic backgrounds once a year to ransom the neighborhood for candy. It is a special event for kids who just love to dress up as their favorite comic book heroes and heroines. The most memorable homes are those whose residents have the Halloween spirit and put out decorations and are generally nice to the kids and are complimentary to them on their costumes.