Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Canadians Apologize for Women Winning
In true Canadian fashion I heard two Canadian radio talk-show hosts discuss the Canadian Women Hockey team. What was Canadian about it was a) the fact that they discussed hockey (and I was of course listening to a hockey discussion), and b) the fact that they criticized the winning.
So far the Canadian Women Hockey team rocked. They're 3-0, winning their last three games by scoring a total of 36 goals and allowing one in.
Canada-Italy 16-0
Russia-Canada 0-12
Canada-Sweden 8-1
Naturally, my reaction was - what happened? Why did they let in that one goal? Best humoured of course. However, these talk-show hosts' reaction was very different from mine. They asked whether the team should stop trying when the score reaches 7-0.
I, for one, can't believe they even mentioned that.
It would be the equivalent of telling a runner to slow down if he has a big margin. I mean, why strive for the best when one can have an easy win?
Besides, the total scores count in the overall standing and give the team with the higher points some sort of advantage.
I'm not sure why exactly these talk-show hosts talked like that.
I get the distinct feeling it was a combination of two things:
The first was because it is the women's hockey team. I'm not sure they would have talked the same if it were the men who reached such results.
The second is being Canadian. What? Are we feeling bad for winning? Are we feeling sorry for the losing teams? What is wrong with us?
So far the Canadian Women Hockey team rocked. They're 3-0, winning their last three games by scoring a total of 36 goals and allowing one in.
Canada-Italy 16-0
Russia-Canada 0-12
Canada-Sweden 8-1
Naturally, my reaction was - what happened? Why did they let in that one goal? Best humoured of course. However, these talk-show hosts' reaction was very different from mine. They asked whether the team should stop trying when the score reaches 7-0.
I, for one, can't believe they even mentioned that.
It would be the equivalent of telling a runner to slow down if he has a big margin. I mean, why strive for the best when one can have an easy win?
Besides, the total scores count in the overall standing and give the team with the higher points some sort of advantage.
I'm not sure why exactly these talk-show hosts talked like that.
I get the distinct feeling it was a combination of two things:
The first was because it is the women's hockey team. I'm not sure they would have talked the same if it were the men who reached such results.
The second is being Canadian. What? Are we feeling bad for winning? Are we feeling sorry for the losing teams? What is wrong with us?
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Google's Monopoly - Will we witness the end?
For many years Google could do no wrong. Everything it touched turned into gold and whatever services it offered, in addition to the search, were always better than the competition's services.
More than that, back then Google represented the little guy who made it, the one with the values, one we felt we could trust to maintain a start-up mentality rather than embrace corporate values as it grew.
The first time I was disillusioned with Google was just over two years ago when the Google Trademark Enforcement Team decided to get involved in (ridiculous) trademark disputes.
Then we found out that Google saves all our searches and that it abides to court orders and surrenders our search history. Then there was the whole gmail fiasco - scanning private emails to better direct ads at us - yeah, whatever you say.
The latest sour note was Google's collaboration with the Chinese government.
But what is one to do? Google is still the best darn search engine. A monopoly indeed!
Well, there seems to be some hope. A few new search engines that may become serious competitors:
More than that, back then Google represented the little guy who made it, the one with the values, one we felt we could trust to maintain a start-up mentality rather than embrace corporate values as it grew.
The first time I was disillusioned with Google was just over two years ago when the Google Trademark Enforcement Team decided to get involved in (ridiculous) trademark disputes.
Then we found out that Google saves all our searches and that it abides to court orders and surrenders our search history. Then there was the whole gmail fiasco - scanning private emails to better direct ads at us - yeah, whatever you say.
The latest sour note was Google's collaboration with the Chinese government.
But what is one to do? Google is still the best darn search engine. A monopoly indeed!
Well, there seems to be some hope. A few new search engines that may become serious competitors:
- New Ones:
- Lexxe - "a third generation Internet search engine with advanced Natural Language Processing technologies." That is, Lexxe tries to answer your questions directly from web pages. From Business Pundit.com - Lexxe Beats Google
- Hakia - "hakia is building the Web's first "meaning-based" search engine, one that will bring answers and meaningful results to questions on any topic."
- Meta search engines such as MetaCrawler used to be the "in" thing but faded with time. However, gada.be is offering an rss output for searches allowing users to be updated on their search items. Google doesn't provide that. (Yet?)
- Using the surfers to find better results:
- Wink, for example, is "a different search engine that determines relevance by what people indicate are the best links." Problem is that not many people have indicated yet.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Re-instating This Blog
After nearly six months in which I abandoned this blog in favour of my other blog All Kinds of Writing, I decided to reinstate it.
I have more to say than just about writing, in fact, I'm quite an opinionated little [insert your favourite 4-6 letter word here].
There's all this science and health news I want to cover, all these cultural issues that bug the hell out of me, not to mention corporate wrath, commercials' idiocy and social dissonance.
Of course the template needs work too, but I'll get to that in no time.
For now, I'm just happy to be back here too :)
I have more to say than just about writing, in fact, I'm quite an opinionated little [insert your favourite 4-6 letter word here].
There's all this science and health news I want to cover, all these cultural issues that bug the hell out of me, not to mention corporate wrath, commercials' idiocy and social dissonance.
Of course the template needs work too, but I'll get to that in no time.
For now, I'm just happy to be back here too :)
