Y. Karp? Why Not!

A number of years ago, I scoured the Internet looking for a good, free replacement to Outlook Express. I tried a few programs until I hit on one that took my fancy. I think it was an early version of Foxmail . The layout was Outlook Express-ish, but in a more cartoony sort of way, which, for some reason, was appealing. Written by a Chinese developer, the email client's Help was in Cantonese. Thankfully, the UI was in English and the program was quite straightforward so I could figure out most things on my own. I used this email client on my family computer for a number of months and grew to love its quirks and foibles. The UI was decent enough, but the programmer had made a glaring typo and it became customary in our house to SNED an email, instead of SEND it. Although we have moved on to a different email client, from time-to-time we still say SNED, just because. As amusing as it may be, I think that the world has enough experience with software to no longer have to tolerate S...

The other day I was traveling to work and the conversation on the bus was more animated than usual, which means that there was conversation on the bus. One of my colleagues joked that although he is 40, he has a mental age of 17. In other words, he still thinks he's Superboy when he's actually more like the father from the Wonder Years. This got me thinking about what my mental age is. I also sometimes feel like I'm still a teenager. In fact, I cracked a joke the other day and my daughter's friend remarked that my jokes are just as good as Eitan's. Who'se Eitan? Her nearly-thirteen-year-old brother. The phrase "act your age, not your shoe size" would not really apply in this situation because using the  Australian shoe size chart , my joke was almost spot on, give or take 2.5 years. There are a number of ways I can measure my mental age: Self assessment Friend Psychologist I decided that none of these options would be accurate enough. For st...

I once referred to the Internet as a "fountain of wisdom". I was immediately corrected - the Internet is a "fountain of information, with some wisdom in it". The good thing about the Internet is that all opinions are out there for everyone to see - some you agree with, and some make you quite uncomfortable, to say the least. However, it's all there - a digital representation of what the world thinks. On 1 January 2012 at 12.01AM I was returning home from a family get-together, thinking about why the powers-that-be decided not to install street lights on a particularly dark and dangerous road. What were you thinking about on 1/1/2012? Don't worry if you don't remember, Google knows. The thing about Google is that their core business is collecting data, organizing it into meaningful bits, and using it to generate income. In an act of generosity, benevolence and magnanimity, Google has given us a nice little tool called " Google Trends ", wh...