Pito’s Blog

By now if you probably heard about Cuil, the new search engine that claims to be the biggest (since when does size matter when it comes to search engines?) And secondly is being given a PR pass because it was created by ‘ex-Google employees’ - I guess that’s a major element for success?

Anyway, after doing my obvious test searches, like Curacao, Arlington Mass, and BlogBridge, I thought I would try each against an actual useful search I had been doing over the weekend:

ipod cradle wireless sync

See the results for yourself: Google results and Cuil Results.

Anyway it’s just one test, but for me the Cuil results for the ipod cradle produced no results at all!

Give everyone the benefit of the doubt though:

• Why are people making a fuss about the fact that it was down on day one?
• I will check my test search again in coming days because it easily good be a transient condition

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Ok this is a bit irreverent.

There’s been a spat relating to the note that Barack Obama wrote and left in the stones of the Western Wall (the “wailing wall”). This tradition goes way back.

The spat is about the fact that someone pulled it out and photographed it and it’s been all over the papers.

I agree that this was an awful invasion of privacy and inappropriate, which is why I resist the strong temptation of putting a copy of the letter.

But how my weird mind works: the letter was a very nice generous and humble statement. But I found myself looking to the end to see how Mr. Obama ’signed’ the letter. Well it was unsigned, which struck me for some reason as funny.

I mean I guess the intended recipient of the letter would know who wrote it. I guess that’s the difference between a letter and a prayer.

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So I received two new Discover cards, with supposed enhanced security features. I didn’t ask for them, they just sent them to me. I got a new account number which is a pain because various merchants directly bill my credit card and they will have to be updated, by me.

You know the little stickers on the credit cards, call xxx-xxx-xxxx to activate your credit card? Do they actually do anything or add to security? Would the card not work if I didn’t call the number?

Well the nice lady who got on the line to activate my card promptly switched scripts and (after thanking me for being a customer for sooo long) promptly started selling me something.

How annoying. Tricked me into calling them to get their sales pitch.

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Check this post The 7 deadly sins and 10 lessons of a failed startup from Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:

"Building a startup is the most difficult, and most rewarding, thing anyone can do. Sometimes you can even make some money at the end of it all. There are so many things that can go wrong it is a miracle when a startup actually makes it. It is important to celebrate our successes, learn from our failures, and value them equally. Failure is important…because success is a terrible teacher."

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An interesting, quirky, though-provoking — memorable article in Wired about Memory:

“[snip…]SuperMemo is based on the insight that there is an ideal moment to practice what you’ve learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you’ve forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you’re about to forget.” (from Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn?)

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Yeah I know all the reviews have been raving - “Best movie this year” - “Will change your life” - and so on. I saw this new animated film last night. It did have really wonderful “Star Wars”-class visuals but as an overall story and movie experience, well, it was fine. Not even as good as Toy Story. Sorry.

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If you haven’t seen this and you shoot a lot of digital photos, you will love this product; also seems like a great gift: “Upload photos automatically from your digital camera to your computer and favorite photo site with the world’s first wireless memory card.” See Eye-Fi web site.

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The other day I came across this article in the Boston Globe about one of the greats of Computer Science, Seymour Papert, inventor of the seminal Logo programming language and many other important accomplishments.

“He was long a jewel of the MIT faculty. Now, after a devastating brain injury, mathematician Seymour Papert is struggling bravely to learn again how to think like, speak like, be like the man of genius he was.” (from In Search of a Beautiful Mind, The Boston Globe)

Hard to believe that I hadn’t heard of it before. So Sad. Read the whole article, it’s worthwhile.

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I saw this somewhere and I thought I would share as it seems very useful, yet obscure:

Helpful Tip: To quickly reset your iPhone without wiping anything off it or retethering it to iTunes, hold the volume up button, the home button, and the lock button at the same time. Keep holding it even after the “Slide to Power Off” appears, eventually it will flash totally off and then you’ll get the Apple logo. Let go then.

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The true measure of code quality: WTF’s per minute.

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