Life as a GAR - Working at Google Answers

Q: How do I sign up to become a Researcher?

A: Because of an overwhelming response by qualified candidates, we are temporarily not accepting additional applications. Please check back with us again, as we likely will begin accepting applications again in the near future.

- From the Google Answers FAQ

For roughly a year - May 2002 through May 2003 - I was a Google Answers Researcher (known among researchers themselves as "GARs") , working under the handle of "rico-ga." The "ga" stands for "Google Answers", an appendage that Google attached to every member name. The nickname "Rico" has a long history, which, under different variations, I've been using for over three decades.

If you know me or have read my personal blog long enough, you know my story already. The company I had worked for over the preceding 10 years closed its doors in late 2001, leaving me out on the street and with two weeks of severance for those 10 years. After several months of unemployment, I found a new job that I was supremely unhappy in. Fate, or the Muses, or maybe my Fairy Godmother, decided to lend a hand, and that company sacked me - as well as several dozen others, including their CEO - after I had been there just a month. Ironically, between the signing bonus, salary, and severance, I received more parting money for one month's employment there than I had from the other company for 10 years.

That second company went out of business a few months later.

The experience left me with an epiphany, as well as some money, the gist of it being that being a good boy and playing the game wasn't working, and I needed a new game. So, I started exploring alternatives to traditional go-to-work work. Happily, I had a wife who agreed and was willing to back my play.

I did several things until I settled back into contract work. And now I write, podcast, and blog for money. Sometimes I have several clients, sometimes I have lean periods. Occasionally, I end up out of work for awhile. But it's a pretty good life all-in-all.

As I said, while I was building that life, I tried my hand at several things, one of which was being a Google Answers Researcher. Google Answers launched in April 2002, a self-described "... way to get that help from Researchers with expertise in online searching. When you post a question to Google Answers, you specify how much you're willing to pay for an answer. A Researcher will search for the information you want. When they find it, they will post it to Google Answers, and you will be notified via email. You will only be charged for your question if and when an answer is posted to it."

Based on the payment schedule I knew that Google Answers wasn't going to provide me with a living. I think the most I made from it in any one month was $600. But, my life and confidence had been pretty well shattered at that point. I wanted to do something - anything - to prove to myself I could still earn money. And for that, Google Answers was good for me.

Except for helping me get back some self-confidence and a blanket that Google sent as a Christmas gift, and which my wife Peggy still uses, there's little else that I remember fondly about Google Answers. It was one of the first new projects spawned out of the Googleplex, and it was pretty obvious that - except in a technical sense - the anonymous "Google Answers Team," didn't have a clue about what they were doing, especially about how to manage their contractor researchers.

Poorly conceived, poorly executed, and even more poorly managed, much bothered and annoyed me about working for Google Answers. There was the near-paranoid obsession with secrecy to the point that researchers were dismissed if they talked/wrote about their work publicly. There was the management insistence on their anonymity - researchers would get email from management under the blanket "Google Answers Team" title. During the year I worked for Google I never knew the name of one member of the "Google Answers Team."

There was the arbitrary and inconsistent decision-making. You'd have answers pulled, restored, and pulled again dependent on which of the "Google Answers Team" was monitoring the work, sometimes with an explanation, often with only the reply that you had violated some ill-defined policy. One night, frustrated by a monitor who had decided to pull my answer for the third consecutive time with only boiler-plate explanations as to why, I sent an email advising what the entire Google Answers Team could collectively go do and resigned. I never regretted that decision.

There's some good memories too. One of my answers which was pulled by the ever-watchful Google Answers Team was to a question having the memorable and self-explanatory title, "Have Small Cock, Need Small Rubber." I spent an entertaining half-hour searching the Web, learning more about prophylactics both for the over- as well as for the under-endowed than I would probably ever have known otherwise. As I said, Google pulled the question shortly after I answered it, but did email my answer to the customer, who in turn sent a happy acknowledgment.

Of course, I never got paid for that one, although as I remember Google congratulated me on my initiative.

There's some other ones still there I'm proud of. The source of an obscure poem. After dinner toasts for a newly married couple. A murder mystery that bothered me so much that I came back six months after my original answer with more information. A Kennedy assassination question. A sad question about a plane crash in 1958.

But that last, as some other questions did, also had me questioning what I was doing. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't providing the customer what she really wanted. All I could do was point to resources that might help her find more information. There were too many questions like that; questions that no one could answer.

Some of the customers were clueless about that, as well as apparently clueless about basic search techniques. And some of them were pretty rude and stupid-mean as well as clueless. But generally, they were pretty good, and appreciative of our efforts. The GARs, which officially numbered somewhere between 500-800, although probably less than 100 were actively answering questions at any given time, were also a pretty good group. Super-intelligent as you could expect. Interesting. Funny. A couple of turkeys in that bunch too, but less than your average on-line community.

In early 2002, you could still apply for a researcher position, but within a few months Google would freeze Google Answers hirings and, despite the implication in their FAQ, never re-opened the application process. While it was still possible to become a GAR, the candidate needed a recommendation from one or more established Google Answers researchers to get his or her foot in the door. In fact, someone who would become one of the most popular and prolific GARs - pinkfreud - was unanimously nominated by the Google Answers community because of her delightful and detailed commentary on various questions.

But, back in May 2002 you could zip an application off to Google Answers and, in a few days, get back a link to a group of sample questions that you could try your hand at answering. Pick any three, take your best shot at answering them, send them back to the "Google Answers Team," and maybe you'd get hired.

Here's the three I chose, with my answers:

1) Question: What is the oldest existing film of a professional wrestling match, and where can I find it?

Your question made for a fascinating tour through the somewhat surreal world of professional wrestling web sites. The oldest pro wrestling film known to be in existence shows Earl Caddock wrestling Joe Stecher in front of 14,000 fans at the old Madison Square Garden in New York in 1920.

According to “Wrestling International Newsmagazine” (W.I.N.), Caddock was a former three-time AAU national amateur champion and was the then current world heavyweight professional champion, and Stecher was a former champion. Both had recently returned from World War I.

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Newton, Iowa (about 35 miles from Des Moines), you can view this historic film at the International Wrestling Institute and Museum’s video theatre. It’s one of the museum’s most popular attractions.

http://www.wrestlingmuseum.org/features.html

Securing a personal copy may be a little more problematic, but I did find one site selling a video that includes the match, as well as several other historic bouts ranging from the 1930s through 60s.

Keywords Used:

oldest wrestling film known exist
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=oldest+wrestling+film+known+exist&btnG=Google+Search

Stecher Caddock Wrestling Match
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=Stetcher+Caddock+Wrestling+Match+&btnG=Google+Search

regards, rico-ga

2) Question: I'm trying to find a song with the lyrics "A little too little, a little too late."

If we had been doing this for real, I probably would have asked for some clarification regarding time period/genre. Nevertheless, I’m fairly certainly that the tune still bopping through your brain after all these years is “Little Too Late” written by A. Call and sung by the powerful Pat Benatar on her 1982 release, “Get Nervous”.

The lines you quote are from the song’s chorus:

“It's a little too little
It's a little too late
I'm a little too hurt
And there's nothin' left that I've gotta say
You can cry to me baby
But there's only so much I can take
Ah, it's a little too little
It's a little too late”

Given that the chorus repeats four times, it’s understandable why the lines stuck in your head. You can confirm that I’ve pegged the song by hustling over to Amazon and listening to an excerpt from “Little Too Late,” and then buy the CD for your listening pleasure if I’ve got it right.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000008DDC/qid=1021822277/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-0587863-3450314

Keywords Used:

lyrics "+a little too little"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=lyrics++%22%2Ba+little+too+little%22&btnG=Google+Search

yours in power-pop, rico-ga

3) Question: What is the unit of measure for pain? Distance is miles or km, weight is km or lb. What is pain measured in?

Without getting all Einsteinian on you, unlike distance or weight, pain’s a relative thing and difficult to measure. Having my thumb slammed by a hammer might cause paroxysms of weeping on my part, while the same blow to you might be felt as no more than a “painful” annoyance. But let’s not try.

The term “dol” (from the Latin “dolor” for “pain”) is the generally accepted term in science and medicine for a unit of pain intensity, according to Harcourt’s “Dictionary of Science and Technology”, Princeton University’s online WordNet system, and Dictionary.com.

In practice, the sufferer usually reports dols on a numeric or verbal scale or, in the case of children, often through the use of “Happy Faces” or “Oucher” scale.

If you’re not happy with “dol,” a Dr. Y. Vazharov of the Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology,
Sofia (Bulgaria) has proposed the term “alg.” Given that the doctor outlines a measurement method, “where the patient complaining of pain is exposed to the effect of a second pain produced by electrical current. The secondary pain is gradually increased until both pains become equally distressful …” I have my personal doubts as to whether “alg” has much chance of catching on.

Keywords Used:

Dictionary science medicine
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Dictionary+science+medicine&btnG=Google+Search

unit pain intensity
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=unit+pain+intensity&btnG=Google+Search

online dictionaries
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=online+dictionaries

According to various postings by now-ex-GARs on the Web, things didn't improve over at Google Answers after my departure. In fact, conditions gradually worsened until s portions of the system had broken and were left unrepaired by the "Google Answers Team," who obviously had already moved on to new challenges long before the official shutdown notice. The Google Answers Team, with the same charitable concern for the feelings of contractors that they consistently demonstrated during my tenure, notified researchers through email sent a few hours before the official announcement... although apparently it wasn't a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention.

Google Answers closed its doors in November 2006.

If You Encounter a Bear

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The Moses Tablet is Coming

January 27, 2010

You can take the dog out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the dog

So notes our Washington correspondent about the attached photo (pictured: Gracie the Wonder Pup).

"A bird flew into the kitchen window with great force and died. Gracie graciously retrieved it for me. Unlike what she usually does to my arm or knees, she handled it with a soft mouth. She also left it outside the door, so I could neatly take care of the poor thing."

Kindlized

Portrait of a study in contrasts.  Peggy and I in front of the living room fireplace on a snowy New Hamster day.  Peggy is playing Spider Solitaire on her new iPhone. Fred is reading the New York Times on his Kindle...

So, Santa was overly generous this year and a new Kindle was found under the tree by one super-spoiled Freddy.  First impressions from a new Kindle owner.

I was concerned about how well the Kindle's "Whispernet" connection (Whispernet is the wireless connection either being supplied by Sprint or AT&T, I'm not sure which).  Given that our cell phones barely work unless we stand out in the driveway, I thought Whispernet was going to be a bit problematic.  And indeed, at best I only get two bars of signal strength.  On the one hand, cruising the Web or downloading content from other-than-Amazon through the Kindle ranges from difficult to impossible.  On the other hand, getting content from Amazon is simple and without problem.

Magazines and Newspapers: Kindle may never kill printed books, but I think it (and its various e-Reader brethen) is probably going to be the death-blow to print newspapers and magazines.  Within a few days of adding the New York Times to my Kindle, we had killed the delivery of the print Sunday edition. A telling piece of evidence is that the Kindle subscription is less than half of the price of the Sunday print version... plus I now get the other six days as well, all for $14 a month. It's still an open question about whether I'll move my New Yorker subscription over to the Kindle.  According to various reports the Kindle version is incomplete and lacking cartoons.  Given that those issues get worked out, I may consider subscribing through the Kindle when my print subscription ends in 2011.

There is little as cool as waking up in the morning, switching on the Kindle, and by the time I'm sipping my first cup of coffee, I have the Times ready for my persusal.

I was disappointed to discover that there was no Kindle version of Wired, about the only magazine except the New Yorker and Cigar Aficionado (I know, I know) I read regularly.  According to the rumor mills, Wired's publisher, Conde Nast, is preparing a multimedia version of the mag for the rumored-but-probably-true Apple tablet.

***

Experience.  Pros: The reading experience is ah, "book-like" enough that very quickly you forget that you're looking at a high-tech device rather than paper.  Pluses:  You can change the font size, an important factor for anyone with 50+-old eyes, as we all discover eventually.  The built-in dictionary is way cool.  Move the cursor in front of the word, and see an abbreviated definition.  Click, and call up the full definition.  I think of myself as a fairly literate guy, but I didn't know that maven is from the Yiddish, for example. The controls are simple and relatively easy to use, although I still have a tendency to poke the wrong button at times.

Minuses: The only button placement I really object to is "Previous," which is midway up the left side of the Kindle.  While it probably works if you're holding a "bare" Kindle (that is, sans cover), I'm holding a beautiful leather cover from Oberon rather than the device.  With cover on, you can't click "Previous" easily. You have to poke it.  I didn't realize how much I refer back to earlier pages until it became difficult to do.

Although text is easier to read on than a computer, the Kindle screen will occasionally reflect light until you find the right angle.  The "page-turn-Flash" that everyone complained about when the Kindle 1 was released is there, but to me barely noticeable, no more distracting than turning a page.

While I keep on reading claims that the Kindle will hold a charge for as long as a week (with the Wireless turned off except when needed), my Kindle seems to be draining the battery much faster than that.  I haven't decided whether that's a problem yet or not.  "Seems" is still the operative word.  Stay tuned on that one.

- Cover:  Believe me, you want a cover, and you want a nice cover.,  You want to be gripping and holding leather rather than plastic. It changes the entire Kindle reading experience.  So, spend the extra cash.  Mine is from Oberon Design in California.  Santa somehow knew that the cover to the left - in blue - was the one I wanted and had it ready for me on Christmas Day.

- And finally, Books.

So far, I have a few free public domain books, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Time Machine on my Kindle.  I'm kind of looking forward to reading old favorites, Dickens, Twain, Wells, Verne, on the Kindle.  I found the links to various archives of free/public domain eContent through one of my first Amazon purchases, The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2 by Stephen Windwalker, which I heartily recommend at its low-cost .99 cents.  It covers Kindle basics, probably nothing you couldn't suss out on your own, but its real value is its links to on-line content, especially free content.

My second purchase was David Grann's The Lost City of Z,  one of those "meaning-to-read" books that got lost in the daily noise and which I ws reminded of when it showed up on one of those "best books of 2009" lists.  In a couple of minutes and $9.99 later, the book was on my Kindle.

And that's both the delight and danger of the Kindle, especially for someone like me.  Read an interesting review and want that book?  No need to wait for the next trip to the bookstore or to be put on the library waiting list. And the chances are good that in a week you'll have forgotten the title, or why you thought it interesting, or will have been distracted by the next, new shiny object and not get the book. But no more of that.  Now you can have it on your Kindle in the time it takes to read this blog post.

So, a couple of house rules are already in effect: one set by Peggy and one set by me.  Peggy has me on an allowance, which is probably a very good idea, knowing me.  Me, I'm going to try the enforce the rule I use for buying physical books.  No new purchases until the books already on the "to-read" list are either abandoned or finished.

Of the two, I think the allowance rule will probably be more effective.

A Kindle Lover Unboxes a Nook

Len Edgerly, host of the great The Kindle Chronicles podcast, unboxes the somewhat unfortunately named Barnes and Noble "Nook." I was at a local B&N over the weekend, and they had a little booth set up directly inside the entrance with two people eager to tell you all about the Nook, even though all they had to offer the curious were two mock-ups.

"We'll have it in the store on Monday," said one of the demo people.

"To buy?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "Just to show."

I like the idea of the Nook, especially the thought of cruising into a B&N with Nook in hand and browsing through books.  And the Nook touch interface looks a lot more elegant and iTouchish than the Kindle.  But, having said that, I'm a scarred enough technophile to be wary of early adoption of anything.  All-in-all, everything I've read or heard indicates that a Kindle 2 is a more realistic eReader choice than a Nook at this stage of the game... especially if you're hoping Santa might put one in your stocking.  But the eREader wars are heating up, and that's likely a good thing for consumers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

fhb is back. Stay tuned.

Too Many Goodbyes

As you've probably gathered, I don't update fhb all that much anymore (I think once every five months would qualify as "not all that much"). I'm still writing regularly over at Dreamtime, which better suits my interests at the moment.

Of course I have the issue that Bob Dylan has apparently ended Theme Time Radio Hour with the "Goodbye" show, but I still have a few more Dreamtime posts, maybe even a podcast or two, and some other plans.

It's not turning out to be a good year for radio shows we like, as today we heard the news that Jeff Turton's long-running Jazz Brunch has ended after 26 years on WFNX, which parallels the time that Peggy and I have been together. We started listening to the Jazz Brunch shortly after Peggy moved in with me during that brief (but enjoyable) period we were living together in sin. We listened to the Jazz Brunch after we married; after a move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire; after we bought our first home, a condo, and then after we bought our first house and home, the one I'm writing in today and where we heard Jeff's announcement.

A lot of Sundays. We went to see Jeff and have brunch when he was doing the live Jazz Brunches in Cambridge. We bought a lot of wonderful wine thanks to Howie Rubin at Bauer Wine's recommendations. I even went to Bauer Wine after missing Howie's regular appearances on the show. "How come you don't do Jazz Brunch anymore?" I asked. "Because they won't pay me," he answered.

We listened to Jeff's son Ben grow up over the years through his annual appearances. We learned how much Jeff hated winter and Christmas music, especially jazz Christmas music. We ate at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge because we heard about it on the Jazz Brunch. Jeff introduced us to more artists and their music than I can name now, but included Debra Henson-Conant, Madeline Peyroux, Nancy Wilson's Guess Who I Saw Today, and Sarah Vaughan's Just A Little Lovin' to acknowledge a few singers and songs we first heard on the Jazz Brunch. I spent years tracking both Wilson's and Vaughn's cuts down, and in fact only found the album containing the live version of Guess Who I Saw Today last October in San Francisco, triumphantly bringing it home to Peggy after 20-odd years of looking for it. Jeff Turton is probably directly responsible for several hundred dollars worth of CDs residing on my shelves.

In other words, Jeff Turton and the Jazz Brunch have been a big part of our lives as long as we've been together. It was evident that the end was nearing. Jeff's on-air time was cut from six hours - from 6 a.m. to noon - down to four a couple of years ago, the Jazz Brunch apparently only remaining on at all because WFNX's owner liked jazz. In the past year Peggy and I started looking for other alternatives to listen to on Sundays as Jeff fiddled with the programming to try to attract a more contemporary audience. Instead, I think he probably alienated his core listeners, like us. There are only so many jazz covers of pop tunes or weird "world music" you can listen to until you start longing for some straight-ahead Thelonius Monk or Abby Lincoln, which had all but disappeared on the Jazz Brunch in recent months.

But we still checked it out regularly, hoping that we'd hear the older programming that had made us Jazz Brunch fans, and we were listening to it today, and were at least happy to be there at the end, as we were at the beginning. We'll miss the Jazz Brunch, and Jeff Turton. Jeff you have our thanks for being part of our Sundays over the last 26 years.

As you get older, you find that few changes are good.

And Daily Deer

And, continuing the Double-D theme of the day, here's a pic of "Daily Deer," so named because of his habit of showing up almost every day and grazing on fallen bird seeds, as well as our yews, which I wish he wouldn't.

But, I have a soft spot for DD, because he's got a bum hind leg. We first thought he had dislocated it, or had been hit by a car, but have now concluded it's a birth defect. He gets along quite well on three, thank you very much, even through the snow.

On the other hand, he looks like he's expending a lot of energy doing with three legs what other deers do with four, so I put out a feed block for him (you can see it behind DD), and he seems to be enjoying chawing on that. After consulting with our vet, I've now also expanded the DD menu to apples, carrots, and a hay bale and Peggy has taken to calling me "Farmer John."

DD may have put out the word that I'm a soft touch, as a few days ago, a posse of four new deers, including a Fall fawn, showed up behind him. Although DD is too slow-moving to keep up with them, they all seemed used to hanging out together, and I suspect they all share some bedding place in the woods behind us.

I dithered about "nature taking its course" and all that, but again, after a frank discussion with our vet, who I trust, we figured that as long as DD nether looked like he was suffering or starving I'd at least give him a fighting chance. As the vet said, if he can make it through the Winter, the chances are he'll do fine come Spring. Interestingly, she says deers with only three good legs are quite usual, and many of them live a deer's normal allotted time.

And, I have this nagging thought that DD is a sign to an often-morose Farmer John that " you have to farm in the weather you are given, you can't be waiting for the sun to shine."

Live long and prosper, DD.

Demolition Days

For those asking for news of how bad the flooding in our basement was... it was this bad. Or more accurately, this was the aftermath.

About the only thing that we didn't have to take down was the ceiling, but at that point it seemed ridiculous to renovate the basement office and leave the funky, old, ill-lit, mouse-infested ceiling in. So it went too.

As did the dark, old, `60s-era wall paneling, pleasing Peggy to no end. We found that the walls had been incorrectly studded and most of the paneling wasn't anchored to anything. Hence the reason behind the walls bulging out from the pressure of the water behind them.

As did all the insulation , which was still soaked six inches up after three weeks. We were going to cut the wet insulation out, saving what we could, but the insulation was so inefficient compared to modern standards that we had it all pulled.

As did all the studding. We were going to add new wall studding in, but found that the floor studs - after repeated soaking over the years, were sodden, rotted so badly that they were crumbling, and covered with black mold. So we pulled it all out.

The rug, an indoor/outdoor, has been pulled, but is salvageable.  The pad wasn't.  We probably won't replace the pad - "once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

 I lost about 30 years of books, happily not all of them.  Mostly the paperbacks.  Peggy lost Christmas decorations, books, boxes of memories. Probably other things that we won't know about until we try to find them.

Yes, we know, We appreciate the sentiment.  We're getting over it. 

What was the finished basement is now an empty shell.  Actually, it isn't an empty shell.  As I write this, new studding and wallboard have arrived and are being loaded downstairs.

As that frosty poet, Robert Frost, once said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned in life: It goes on."

And it does.  And so will we.

Into `09

I have a semi-policy not to talk problems on fhb, mostly because I could easily turn the blog into a forum about nothing except my problems.  Occasionally, like we all do I run into a string of bad luck where there seems to be nothing to talk about except problems... and that's been pretty much true since mid-October, and is partially the reason I stopped blogging at fhb.

But y'know, writing that brings to light that the statement isn't entirely true.  Yeah, we've had some tough times in recent months, and we're not out of the woods yet.

But up to October, it was a pretty good year, although the last three months overshadowed the preceding nine.  But we had a great trip up at my ancestral watering hole in Moosehead Lake, Maine. 

I did some work - both for clients and for myself - that were as good as anything I've ever done, and of which I'm still exceedingly proud.

We had one of the best Thanksgivings ever with our family.  Thanks to their generosity, we also have access to a beautiful house on Martha's Vineyard whenever we want it.

Dreamtime continues to keep me sane and whole.

I have two cats who love me unconditionally, because they don't know any better. 

And I have Peggy - who certainly does know better, but who still loves me, too.

I'm not sure at this point how much I'll continue blogging at fhb, although the fact that I wrote the word "continue" without thinking about it indicates to me that I'm not quite ready to shut it down altogether.  As I've said, most of my writing is over at Dreamtime now, and posts here will probably continue to be sporadic at best.

But 2008 is over. Let's see what 2009 brings.

Use iGoogle? Hate the Look & Feel Changes? Here's How to Revert

Google, with it's usual arrogance, foisted off a new version of the iGoogle look and feel with zippo warning to users.  I left my iGoogle page yesterday, opened it another tab a few minutes later, and had a classic "WTF" moment, thinking somehow I had chaged my page settings accidently.  I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to revert to my old settings, until finally realizing today that it wasn't me, but that great big Goog in the sky.

I'm going to leave aside the arguments about whether the changes are good or bad.  Personally I think they suck, especially moving the tabs to the left side of the page and the mail preview that can no longer be turned off.  But opinions of suckiness aside, the point is that I was/am familiar with how my iGoogle page works.  I don't want to have to adapt to some new way of working because some Google engineer thinks it's "better" for me.Maybe eventually I will, but at my own speed and inclination, Google, not yours.

Hidden on the "Google Operating System" blog are these instructions to get the old interface back - at least temporarily:

If you have the new version, but you prefer the previous interface, go to the settings page and select English (UK) from the list of languages. Please note that this is just a temporary fix.

News You Can't Make Up - Part the Nth

via William Gibson:

A US Illuminati black op to seek, locate and disarm a Soviet nuke disguised as a blue plastic cow sculpture ended in failure when the special agent charged with the task got stuck in an air duct in Knoxville Museum of Art, and was obliged to call for traditional law enforcement assistance.

According to Knoxville's WBIR, 25-year-old Richard Anthony Smith rang 911 at around 4.30am on Wednesday to alert the authorities to his predicament. When officers arrived, they found him trapped in said duct about 45 feet below the roof, having "repelled [sic] from a CH2 Huey"* onto the museum. Smith simply said: "Mission failed."

Once extricated, the spook - dressed in "camo top and bottom, black shirt and green hat" - elaborated that he was in fact a "special agent with the United States Illuminati, badge number 0931" ordered by "Director Womack" to "defuse and confiscate a Soviet-made MERV6SS-22AN warhead, with 14.5 kg of enriched uranium and a plutonium trigger, capable of delivering a 40-kiloton yield".

Full story here which also includes my favorite part - that after becoming stuck in the duct, Gibson received another call from "Director Womack" advising that he had made a mistake, and the cow sculpture was actually in Memphis.

City By the Bay

Another podcast series, as Leo LaPorte likes to say, is in the can, this one from Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) in San Francisco, which is where I've spent my last week.

OOW surprised me by its size - over 43,000 in attendance, according to reports. It was kind of like a Comdex, the super-technology show in Las Vegas which I used to work regularly in the `90s.  Blocked-off streets, packed sidewalks, hotel lobbies so crowded that it was hard to move through them.  This all in San Francisco, so outside of the influx of the 43K technophiles, you also had the early Fall turistas on the streets.  San Francisco is probably one of the best cities in the world to visit in the Fall if it isn't raining, and nary a drop did we see that week.  Weather was mild and in the mid-70s during the day, mid-60s at night.

I haven't been in the City for the past eight years.  In fact, I haven't been much of anywhere in the past eight years.  I've traveled more in 2008 than I have in the previous eight combined.  I was pleased to find that few of the personal landmarks I remembered had changed.  I was able to hit Napa Valley Wines and take care of our holiday wine needs in one fell - albeit expensive - swoop.  Vy's Jewelry was still in the same location in Chinatown, so Peggy got a present for being abandoned with two unhappy cats as I worked and played out west.  I went back to one of my all-time favorite sushi places, Sanraku on Sutter, and found a new favorite, Colibri Mexican Bistro on Geary, which I highly recommend - I had one of the best meals of my life there, undoubtedly oiled by two margaritas with blue agave tequila.

I didn't get to Kayo Books or Hunan Home, or John's Grill, which would have pretty much rounded up Fred's Cooks Tour of S.F., but given I produced and engineered a dozen podcasts over a four-day period, I was pretty pleased that I got in as much personal time in as I did.

I have a love/hate relationship with San Francisco.  It's one of the great cities of the world.  If you like walking around as much as I do, it's a perfect place to visit.  But, the armies of street people/homeless/bums/winos/panhandlers can get me down, especially when San Francisco is on the tolerant side of the pendulum, as it seems to be now, and essentially leaves them alone just as long as they're not aggressively scaring away the tourists. So walking can become similar to running a gantlet.  You shake the head and stare straight ahead, and hurt inside, trying not to wonder about their stories.

But that's the down side.  The up side was that it was a great trip - a good job done well in a beautiful, intriguing city.

How Heinlein Responded to Fan Mail

Click on the image for a readable version.  Not a problem that I have, although I do get the occasional cranky email asking why I didn't answer someone's earlier email, and most of my responses to Dreamtime email are a canned version of "Thanks for the kind words."  But it's interesting to see how RAH handled the situation.  Harlan Ellison used to send a pre-printed postcard, as I remember, which said in a florid pseudo-Chinese style something to the effect of  "if I spent the time replying to how much you enjoyed [insert title here], I'd have less time to write the stuff you enjoy. So forgive this canned response."

I think my favorite of the group is the terse, "Please do not write to me again."

via Kevin Kelly

Not Vetting Sarah

From the usual gang of idiots over at Mad magazine.  I was (almost) willing to forgive Palin anything until the polar bears.