The World of Google

What’s for lunch at Google today?  Google is open about allowing employees to work on outside projects, or even heavily swayed R&D within the organization.  How many companies do you know would except a failure rate at the expense of a production line?  It is nice to see management thinking in terms of leaps and bounds and not inches.

I have over 15

I have over 15 gigabyes of music ripped onto my hard drive right now in either MP3 or WMA format.  All retail CDs, purchased legally, but now much more efficiently indexed.

Now the problem is having my music with me both at home and at work.  My current player holds only 64 megabytes : not even a full album at 192 Kbps.  I feel proud that my music collection can fit on only the high-end iPod 30 gigabyte model.  MP3.com’s old model of proving you owned the music and then enabling access to it anywhere makes sense to me.  Problem is still that my company’s T1 is constantly taxed and cannot even handle streaming audio. (Even if it did I had to promise our Systems department that I would only listen to local audio, no streaming)

XM Radio came out with a satellite radio for your computer today.  Too bad most of us do not have a window office with a clear view of Rock and Roll.  I have yet to hear anything regarding promised ground repeater stations.

Up to speed

Glad to see so many people concerned that I haven’t updated my Web page in a while!

My new Xbox

I am now the proud owner of an Xbox. Halo is a great game, and so far my only complaint is that I cannot add in my own music tracks to the carnage. I would love to see EA release FIFA for Xbox, but until then I still question selling my PlayStation 2. I think the hot gifts this holiday season will be entertainment related, such as game systems, DVD players, and home theater systems. These items seem like an investment for people spending a lot more time at home, and with their families. A lot of home theater systems offer better sound than my local movie theater. I saw Vanilla Sky in Dolby Stereo last night.

Long day, world in a daze

Today has been a long day to say the least. I woke up this morning in a daze due to lack of sleep, and after I tuned my TV to CNN Headline News as I normally do before stepping into the shower I felt like I was having a bad dream. Must have been an Independence Day induced dream or something. Everywhere is on heightened alert, even my local Home Depot received a bomb threat today. It is so refreshing to see the support our population has contributed in terms of blood donations, medical help, and strangers offering persons stranded away from home a place to stay for the night, or until they are able to get back home to their familes and loved ones. An exhausting day, but worth noting in my own personal Web space. Internet commerce ground to a halt as far as I saw, with sparse message boards and few visitors to my sporting goods site. What does tomorrow hold?

Graduation

I graduated from UCLA yesterday. I attended two ceremonies, with my family watching from the stands. The economics department ceremony was a lot more intimate, with only 650 graduates. The social sciences ceremony was bigger, but officially waving the magic wand and calling me a graduate. Hopefully I can find a good job in the next couple of weeks, and get on the career path before I need to go after my MBA. :)