Google trends revealed

Google just announced a new service/website called google trends, and its been an interesting ride. I tried out some searches just for the heck of it, not really expecting anything very interesting, but boy, was I wrong.

Here are some interesting searches/comparisons:

India vs. China (surprising result though)

Bangalore vs. Hyderabad (I wish I could say Bangalore rocks...)

Google vs. Yahoo (this one's a bit misrepresentative, remember you are already on Google searching and no, its not really a search engine popularity comparison either. )

Bush vs. Kerry (from the US presidential election 2 years ago, notice how Kerry tapers after the election frezy was over)

PC vs. Mac vs. Linux vs. Unix (a bit hard to interpret)

Manmohan Singh vs. Sonia Gandhi

MIT vs. Stanford vs. Harvard (apparently MIT rules)

Ubuntu vs. Redhat (notice how Ubuntu comes out of nowhere in 2004, coinciding with the release of the first major version of Ubuntu then)

And now for some interesting ones (I'll explain why..):
Red Sox vs. Yankees (the spike you see in 2004 corresponds to when the redsox won the baseball world series after a 100 year gap)

The Olympics (the 2004 peak corresponds to the olympics held in greece, the 2006 peak corresponds to the 2006 winder olympics, the small 2005 peak is a mystery, if anyone figures it out, please comment)

Coke vs. Pepsi (here's whats strange about this one, look below at the countries with the most searches, new zealand has the most searches for Coke?!!!?!? Apparently the country with 70 sheep per person also does 70 times (pure underestimate) more searches for coke, but not pepsi per capita than the rest of us)

Cricket vs. Soccer vs. Baseball vs. Football (this one's pretty complicated, notice the cyclical search pattern for football and baseball corresponding to peak seasons for the games. The peaks for football are not for any american version of football but are really for the real football aka soccer as the most searches come from the UK, figure it out :)

If you have gotten this far, I guess you have tried many if not most of the searches above, and hopefully many of your own. Its really interesting how certain searches/trends peak at certain times, when some significant event has occured. Its also very interesting looking at the regional split of the searches, to see who was searching for these terms when and and (if you can figure it out) why. Its like looking at some form of global consciousness on the wolrd wide web over a period of time, scary and wierd..

Microsoft and Google Grapple for Supremacy - New York Times

What do you get when you have a goliath in software grappling with an upstart, a damn interesting fight. A New York Times article illustrates very well whats at stake and what may decide the final outcome. Whether their take on it, that "Historically, the company that won the war for talent, won the war" is correct only time will tell, but the ideas in the article are interesting.

Anyways, irrespective of who wins (maybe they both will or maybe for a change, we the consumers will), it will be a damn interesting fight.

Philly rocks :)

The news reads "Philadelphia City Council Clears Way for Citywide Wi-Fi Network" finally... Philadelphia was the first major urban center to plan a city-wide wifi network. This has been in the works for a while now, the plan was to unwire 135 square miles of the city, using WiFi mesh networking hardware :) From those intial plans of providing free wifi to its poorer residents, the city had faced numerous regulatory issues that had threatened to scuttle these plans.

Anyways, to cut the long story short (if you want the long story read the generous dollops of links in this post), at least the city council in Philly has approved these plans, Earthlink was chosen earlier in the year to build and run the network. Its all supposed to be up and ruerizonnning by fall 2007.

Just in time for when my Verizon contract runs out :) :)

ps. I have really begun to like Philly, more about that in another post

The first issue of Superman

The first issue of superman is now available online. Its almost certainly not online legally, and its sure to be pulled down sometime soon, so take a look while it lasts. Even if you are not a superman fan (like me), do take a look as its really interesting. It's a little bit of history on this icon of American pop-culture.

The blog problem

So here's my problem, do you blog about people you know. Common sense tells you that you don't write your opinions about people you know (well or otherwise) into a blog. First of all blogs are too public, everyone can read stuff you put on, I mean everyone. Worse still, if you are opinionated and stubborn like I am, it can get you into all sorts of trouble.

There have been many occasions when something or someone has bothered me enough for me to vent steam publicly, like on a blog. But I never have, and I have always wondered what the consequences of something like that would be. For any of my friends reading this, you'll know this better than anyone, if you want to know what I think (for better or for worse), you only have to ask and often it doesn't even take that.

Sitting by myself in the US over the past few months has given me a certain sense of social isolation, I don't have too many people to crib about, as I don't know too many people :) It's been a welcome break for people, but it has also made me value my friendships and relationships all the more. But I'm digressing. I wish I had a larger audience or at least a more responsive one (hint hint) so I could get a broader perspective on this one.

ps. this is what happens if you spend 4 months away from your family in an alien country, you treat the wwweb as your dinner discussion area

A game of darts (with cars) anyone?

So you want to play? Well, this one's a bit different.... its not what you might expect. Check out this topgear video and you will know what I mean, it's one of the most insane crazy things I have ever seen, and you really have to see those cars fly :)

Make water go uphill?

Maybe Escher got it right after all, you can make water run uphill. Watch the video too, its interesting but not a great watch, you'll see what I mean :)

I guess the other thing to keep in mind is that you are putting energy into the system (the underside of the water droplet is heated), so its not really the same as water running downhill.