Tuesday, July 03, 2007

playing it safe

I was going to write a really funny post about electronics I find over-hyped, and how I'm taking a stand by ordering a blackberry.

But with the recent shitstorm over a Googler badmouthing a media darling, I decided to stay out of the way of potential controversy.

Lé sigh, as they say in France.

You might accuse me of over-worrying, but I know Google Blogoscoped reads this (hello Phillipp!), and Valleywag did in the past and may still (hello Nick!).

I wouldn't want to stir up a controversy of backlinks. Because then I would have to monitor them instead of fiddling with my new blackberry, which I like better than the over-hyped --

Right. Since I can't write about that, instead I'll have to just put up photos. Here are some, from my life in June.


My brother learned this month how to cook.


A culinary masterpiece. Tom is like an Iron Chef competition, where the secret ingredient is awesomeness.


The master chef himself. We have a mutual non-blog-reading pact, so he won't see this photo.


A leftover photo of the two of us, from his graduation last month.

...

So, you readers who complain that my blog is too superficial, without enough discourse on technical topics? Now you know why.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Plus, that product, assuming it's the thing everyone's talking about 24/7, is currently part of a high profile partnership with your employer...

Also, I doubt your Blackberry can play widescreen video on a 3.5" screen, which is by far the feature I want the most. (Though I have my heart set on the clone version that'll play divx files.)

Anyways, congrats to your brother's cooking skills. It all looks pretty good. Did he never have to cook while in college, though?

N said...

Tom did cook in college, but it didn't go so well.

Philipp Lenssen said...

> You might accuse me of over-worrying,
> but I know Google Blogoscoped reads this (hello Phillipp!),
> and Valleywag did in the past
> and may still (hello Nick!).

As I wrote elsewhere before, I think there's 3 different types of blogs where Google employees post...

1) official ones, like the "Google AdSense Blog"
2) semi-official ones that nevertheless have a real impact on the industry and that also announce official early product stage "call for comments"
3) non-official ones like yours

In an official blog, the person usually delivers a "Google message", not a personal message, in fact, there likely is a team preparing the message in the first place, with a draft going through a review stage (as happened with Lauren's post, albeit as we know the review missed something, fair enough). It would be quite ridiculous for a Google watcher to post something like "Sep Kamvar just blogged that he will fund successful gadget developers $5,000. Wonder where he got all the money? Wonder if Google approves of all this, there wasn't any press release? Sep is a cool guy anyway! Google Inc should fund people too!".
For instance, Lauren in her post said "We can place text ads, video ads" etc., she said "Google can act as a platform for educating the public," and "We help you connect your company's assets ...", and she did so in an official Google blog.

So, in my opinion you can't compare your posts here with a post in an official Google blog, because it's a different world. Does all that mean a Google watcher shouldn't blog about something you say here? Nope, I don't think so. It means when doing so, that post should be presented very differently from blog type 1 and 2, and with a completely different focus. And of course, if you'd start talking about Google products on a regular basis (e.g. more than "my new product launched and I'm happy about it"), writing "call for comments" posts, or announcing things, then your blog would shift into category 2 after a while (because quiet approval from "Google HQ" is approval too -- you can see what happened with Mark Jen's "category 2" blog when Google *doesn't* approve). So far, all you did was post Google-related pictures or associate yourself with the company in e.g. Wired, but that is another dimension -- it doesn't affect Google politics, it affects Google culture and lifestyle, and would only fit in such posts discussing Google lifestyle (let's say the "fun" side of it, like party pictures, which you decide to make public, and so those shouldn't be treated like something private).

Anonymous said...

Though I personally do not like mobile devices with a fixed keyboard, Blackberry is still a great choice if you are really worried about mobile internet access speeds. And as lot of people are saying you should wait till the next avatar of the 'other' phone. If you still feel the same next year then there is something to worry :)

By the way you should also checkout the new mobile devices from HP (iPAQ 510), they are great.

Sesh

ishkabubba said...

well, i'm glad you decided to go against the tide of geek-lemmings and got a blackberry instead. i almost *caved* and got one too but i decided to wait till the 3rd or 4th generation is released with all the features it currently lacks like recording videos, faster network, etc...

btw, you shouldn't worry about *valleywag* everyone knows it's full of *disinformation* and *half-truths*. no body takes them seriously or reads that blog. :P

tell your bother that guys who can *cook* are *hawt*! ^^

Anonymous said...

Nature, the journal, had this to say: "Yes it's beautiful. Yes it's multifunctional. But ultimately it's only a telephone, and therefore not worth camping out for days on end to get your hands on." (I would link, but it's behind a subscription wall- it's in this week's issue's Sidelines.) I think Nature is a bit more high-profile than you are.

Anonymous said...

I agree it is over-hyped, which is a shame, because it deserves at least some of the hype.

Anonymous said...

"The truth shall set you free." -- Ibid

N said...

> "The truth shall set you free." -- Ibid

LOL. Nice.

Anonymous said...

Ya, but people don't read the blog of an attractive young female millionaire engineer because they're interested in your thoughts on technology!

People are lookin' for relationship gossip and bikini pics. Especially of Eva.