Reflections on the Yahoo Time Capsule

Jonathan Harris, the designer for the Yahoo Time Capsule reflects on the response so far to the Time Capsule. From his reflections,

One might expect such broad questions to inspire reflection upon the world at large. But instead, I have found that, overwhelmingly, people have used the ten questions to reflect upon themselves, making quiet personal statements about their own lives.

I promised I was going to put something up on the 10 different themes but I have been unable to do so yet because I have been very busy with school among other things. Hopefully, I will be able to keep my word and will let you know when I do so.

Why do I keep bringing the Time Capsule up? I am not sure but I can give you an insight into what goes on in my head. When I broke my leg last year, I didn't have a camera to record the good and bad times that came with having a broken leg. These pictures are the only evidence I have that I broke my leg. I also noticed that I didn't have too many pictures of my life at different stages and all the stories I had to tell where in my head. And I can be quite loopy, so I wasn't too comfortable depending on that. It was then I decided to get a camera.

The funny thing about all my pictures (Flickr, PicasaWeb, Facebook) is that I am hardly in them. However, there is a story behind each set of pictures and the pictures tend to help in telling that story. Some of them don't even need a story teller. Despite the fact that I may be scarce in some of the pictures, I am part of the story, I may even be the storyteller because they are my pictures.

Another interesting thing is that the pictures currently online are not all the pictures I have. I take pictures and I forget about them in the whirl of activity that is life. I have a bunch of pictures in various media I need to upload for the world to see. As a matter of fact, I am even pressured to put these pictures up from time to time when people need to have their pictures and I am being too slow for their liking. Talking about uploading pictures, I need to upload the TBP pictures from last week Friday....

Another interesting thing about pictures: In Nigeria where I come from, when you go to visit people, they bring out albums of years past to show you. From the albums, you can see the progress in the people's lives from birth through school, marriage, having a family to where they are in their lives.

Back to the Time Capsule...

What makes the Time Capsule different and unique? The limited time in which it's open to express oneself. It gives me the opportunity to really reflect on who I am today and what makes me tick. And I can always look back at this point in my life and the lives of people worldwide and see the struggles we were all going through, what gave us joy, what made us mad, and other such things in this time frame of a month. That exclusivity of that one month is special. It's that exclusivity that made Facebook special. Now, it's just another social networking site albeit one I still very much use.

What are you waiting for? The clock is ticking: you have 12 days left. Share your experiences and thoughts with the world.

Windows Defender available

For all you who have Windows PCs and are always asking me for help regarding your PCs, this is for you. And even if you have not yet asked me for help, take heed.

Yet another beta program I have been using is out of beta. I haven't had any problems on my PC since I have been using Windows Defender although it's not the only antispyware I have on my computer but it will do. You can download it here. [Via LifeHacker].

Firefox 2.0 released

Firefox 2.0 has been released. IE7 was recently released also. I have been using the beta version too and it's pretty good. The thing I like the most about it is the integrated spell checker. Also, there is the ability to restore your browser to the previous session before it crashed or was closed. This means there is no more need for the SessionSaver addon.

You can read more about the latest features in Firefox 2.0 here. You can download it here.

To all Redskins' fans out there...

Did you think I was going to let you off the hook?

After Randle El ran for 87 yards on the punt return, I am sure you believed. When the Colts were unable to score touchdowns on two trips into Redskins' territory in the 2nd quarter, I am sure you believed. Well, it's ok to believe. That's why you're a fan...

Manning was himself in the third quarter and easily dispatched the Redskins with 3 TDs in the quarter. He could even afford to hear things in the 4th quarter that were not there so we had to settle for an Adam Vinatieri FG at one time.

What does the future hold for the Redskins heading into their bye week? None of the heroics of last season where they won five in a row to make the playoffs. With 2 games against the Eagles, and games against the Cowboys, Giants, Panthers, Falcons as well as Tampa Bay, New Orleans and St. Louis left, I don't see the Redskins making the playoffs.

In other news, the Eagles lose yet another heartbreaking game, this time to the Bucs. And the Falcons edged the Steelers in a thriller in which Michael Vick had his coming out party.

On to Monday Night Football to see TO and the Cowboys host Barber and the Giants.

Happy birthday Arsene Wenger

Happy 57^th.

Failing classes

Senioritis has gone to a whole new level. I think this is just pure laziness. I have been failing too many classes and I frankly haven't cared. Today, I couldn't take it anymore. I got tired of failing. You have no idea how bad this shit was. I have gone for quizzes all semester without having read anything and knowing I was going to fail. Yet, I didn't care. Well, now I do. Today is the last straw.

If you don't see me in the next week or so, I should be studying, should being the operative word here. If I am not, then I am in some really deep shit as I have a ton of exams and homework next week which I am nowhere ready for.

God help me.

Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP available now

IE7 for Windows XP has been released. I have been using the beta version on my computer and it's pretty good. You can download it here. [Via IEBlog].

Bears - Cardinals, Monday Night Football

I am really pissed right now. I wanted the Cardinals to win this game. Why?

• Because I wanted the Colts to be the only undefeated team left.
• The last NFL draft was somehow memorable because it was the first NFL draft I followed hence I have kinda taken it upon myself to support the three main prospects from the draft: Bush, Leinart, and Young. I was really pissed that Leinart dropped to the 10^th pick.

So with these in mind, I set out to watch the game and I was really happy with the way the Cardinals started going 14-0 up in the first quarter. Then, their troubles started. They couldn't take advantage of the mistakes the Bears made and kill the game getting 6 points out of a possible 21 in the second quarter.

But they were 20-0 up at the half and that wasn't so bad.

Then, they started to make mistakes. I am not going to go into the whole game play-by-play. You have SportsCenter and “The Blitz” for that. You can also read more here.

Few questions from the game:

• How do you win when you have six turnovers all from the quarterback? Rex Grossman had 4 interceptions and 2 fumbles.
• What's wrong with Edge? I thought he shouldn't have left the Colts as he had something good going on but I respected his decision. He had 36 carries for only 55 yards and had that fumble. That's an average of 1.5 yards a carry. I think I can do that. And according to the guys on SportsCenter, he's the first player to carry more than 36 times and have fewer than 56 carries.
• What was that offensive lineman who allowed Mark Anderson blow straight past him to sack Leinart which led to the fumble which led to the Bears' first TD doing?
  
• Are the Bears still the best team in football? I have been hearing that all season and it kinda hurts as a Colts fan but I have been giving them the respect that they deserve. But after this game, are they still the best team in football?
  
• What do you do if you were Leinart? Everybody has been doubting you for a while. You put your team in a position to win in your first two games and they conspire to throw it away both times.
  

In other news, the other members of the 2006 draft were on the winning side this weekend. Reggie Bush and the saints were winners in that exciting game on Sunday. As I told all the Redskins fans here who were my friends, Vince Young and the Titans defeated the Redskins.

As I have already told a few Redskins fans, you guys are going 2-5 on Sunday when you come to Indianapolis. I hope I don't have to eat my words. The Colts should join the Bears who have a bye week at 6-0.

My day in court

I finally had a “legitimate” reason to miss class today. It's not like I ever needed one before but I digress.

I was arrested and charged with murder, sexual assault and battery, larceny, and a bunch of other charges. I defended myself and was able to produce alibi to exonerate myself from the charges. Yet, they had enough damning evidence to send me to the pen... How did I manage to wiggle myself out of these problems? I convinced them that it was either my alter ego or my evil twin that they had evidence of committing these crimes and not me. How I was able to get them to believe that is beyond me.

However, there's one catch here: I have been placed under house?? arrest. I cannot leave the earth for the foreseeable future (didn't you know that the world is now a global village?) and I have to report to my parole officer at least once a year in London. This kills any hope I had of working on the moon.

Since I know you don't believe any word I have written either because you think I or anything derived from me is incapable of such crimes or just because the story seems ... unbelievable to you, I have to concoct a believable story for you about what happened in court today.

When traveling to Nigeria last Christmas, I wanted to go through England because I had a British visa which I had not yet used so when trying to book my ticket, I specifically told the travel agent I wanted to go through the UK. I was traveling with my aunt and uncle back home and since they are permanent residents and could go through most countries with just their green card, they didn't mind going through the UK. We got a printout for the itinerary to go through the UK and everybody was happy.

My aunt and uncle kept calling the travel agent for the e-ticket confirmation but he wasn't forthcoming. Well, I wasn't worried and didn't think too much about the situation like I do about most situations but that's a different story altogether. Finally, on December 19, three days before our flight, I got a call from my aunt telling me that we were no longer going through the UK but we were going through France. She said that the agent had changed our airline from BA to AirFrance. I was perplexed but I didn't think too much of it. I think I had an exam the next day and I also forgot about the transit visa thingy. I think I also asked her about the price changes with the new ticket but the agent didn't mention anything and since we were trying to just get our way and deal with the situation when we got back, we didn't pursue anything.

When we got to the airport, we had to pay excess luggage. What? This is when dates become important. On 9/16/2005, I transferred $1,775.00 (which was the price of one ticket) to my uncle's account and he wrote a check for $3,550.00 to the agent (price of 2 tickets). On 9/20/2005, this check was cashed. Also, I believe my aunt's credit card information was given to the agent on the 16th. When she noticed that her credit card hadn't been charged for the ticket after a while, that's when she became suspicious and started calling the travel agent regarding the ticket confirmation. Back to the airport....

We were told the reason we had to pay for excess luggage was because our ticket was paid for after November 1st. The tickets weren't bought till I think December. (My aunt's card wasn't charged till December). Didn't we pay the agent in September? What did the agent do with our money for more than 3 months? The limit on checked luggage was reduced from to 50lbs per bag instead of the regular 70lbs for international flights. I think we were supposed to pay $50 per bag but the agent was kind to us and reduced it to $25 so we ended up paying $150 for the six bags.

Moving on, as we were boarding the plane, we had to show proof that we could enter French soil. My aunt and uncle showed their green cards. I showed them my passport without a French visa and I was not allowed to board the plane. I was told I had to go to the French embassy to get a visa and my ticket was cancelled. We agreed that my uncle and aunt would continue their journey while I would sort myself out.

I went to the French embassy the next day and got a transit visa. Since one of the reasons I was going back to Nigeria was to renew my student visa, the transit visa that was given to me was only valid one-way because I didn't yet have the right to return to this country. Hence, I had to go to the French embassy in Nigeria to get a transit visa for my return journey after going to the US embassy in Nigeria to renew my student visa. arrgh!!!

I was speaking with the travel agency all day regarding getting a new ticket to travel the same day (12/23). I tried contacting AirFrance directly to change it but since I didn't buy it from them, I couldn't. So, after finally speaking with the travel agency a couple of times, I was able to get my flight scheduled for the 23rd: at a price. I had to pay $250 to the travel agency. I went to their bank and deposited it into their account.

I was finally able to fly home. A few other things of note happened but they are inconsequential to this blog post so I am going to leave them out.

Back to court...



So we sued the travel agency and made claims for the money lost in all the above said transactions plus the difference in the amount given to the agent and the price of the ticket if it was bought at the right time. That's why I was in court today.

Well, so what happened? Actually, not much. Since the defendant did not show up, we just had to prove our case and present the facts as we saw fit for the judge to rule on. After the judge heard our case and asked a few questions, he gave us an amount that was close to what we asked for. And that was it.

What? so if you actually read all this, you must be riled up because you might have been expecting something much more juicy. Well, that was why my first story was way better and you didn't believe it so it's your loss.

Few things that came up today:

• Anytime you are served with a motion in court, respond to it or else you might be in big trouble. From what I garnered today, the travel agency cannot revert the judge's decision. The only thing they can do is dispute the amount. This happened to some other defendant in court who failed to respond to the original court date and came today when there was something else regarding the case that was going to be discussed. The judge told him that it was too late since he didn't respond when he was supposed to.
• Law, like any other profession, is not as glamorous as TVs, books make it seem. At the lower levels, the courts have to deal with petty cases and such. There were even more ridiculous cases than ours on display.
• A lot of people actually don't show up for these cases making it a walk in the park if you turn up. Of all the cases that were presided upon in my presence, there was only one that had both the plaintiff and the defendant present.
• You can eat your cake and have it... Where did this come from? If all these hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met Arsene Wenger at Charles de Gaulle. After I met him, I was telling people that all these issues were worth it. Now, I might even get my money back.
• Why did I say might? I am not sure what would happen if the travel agency refuses to pay. That's a different story for another day.

So, I might be having about $500+ when the travel agency finally pays. What do I do with it? get an Xbox 360? (I have a PS2 and I said I am not getting a PS3 because of the price) an Ipod (yep, I don't have one)? a Zune? a TV with HDTV? the origami?

Colts launch a social network

Apart from being a Gunner, I am also a Colts' fan (We are one of two teams still 5-0).

You can check it out here. [via Pete Cashmore].

Yahoo Time Capsule

Yahoo has a new project: the Yahoo Time Capsule.

From Yodel Anecdotal, the time capsule is a digital mosaic of Yahoo users' lives in one of five forms: video, images, words, drawing, or sound.

Users can express themselves in 10 different themes: love, anger, fun, sorrow, faith, beauty, past, now, hope, and "you".

Explore it and share your experiences with the world. Be a part of this amazing project.

When exploring the site, I put something there about me. I plan to put something up on the 10 different themes soon. The clock is ticking: you have less than a month left.

Retiring at 40

Over the summer, Jeff and I decided that we were going to retire on or before 40. I am not sure if he was serious or not but I have decided that I am serious about doing this. Alex thought this was incredulous especially as a Software Engineer.

What do I mean by retirement?

• This means I want to have enough money in cash and in income generating assets not to work (if I decide to) for the rest of my life and still be able to live comfortably if not affluently.
• This means I will be in a position to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life and anything is fair game.
  
• This doesn't mean I will go to one island and just lounge there for the rest of my existence.

Why do I want to retire so early?

• Why not?
• I am not sure but I am interested in a lot of things and I am also very inquisitive by nature. Retiring early affords me the opportunity to spend time on these different interests and explore the world and its wonders.
• It takes me out of the rat race.

Why am I telling you this?

• I don't know.
  
• It makes me accountable. Having this written down somewhere where the whole world can see it makes it more real and there is evidence of it out there so I have to at least try and do it.

How am I going to do this?

• I have no idea. But I am still young and have a little less than 20 years to accomplish this.

Update(11/24/06) : I spoke with Jeff and he said he already said he was retiring at 30 and told me the day we decided to retire early. Since I wasn't listening, I “stole” his idea. I am giving him credit for the idea and we'll both try to retire earlier :)

I have decided to make it more interesting. Instead of aiming for 40, I am gunning for 30. Now, you think I have gone completely mad: I have to agree with you, I might have just lost my mind here. However, I am doing this for a reason: it forces me to start thinking of how exactly I plan to do this. It also makes it more challenging as I have 10 years instead of 20 to figure this out.

On the other hand if I am unable to retire by 30, I have the opportunity for a halftime talk to reflect on what I have been doing wrong, what I have failed to do, what I need to improve on, which opportunities I have closed and all that good stuff that managers/coaches discuss with their teams during intervals. And with the experience gained from the previous 10 years, I will be in a better position to achieve my goal.

When I retire at 40 30, what do I really want to do with the rest of my life and how am I not sure I wouldn't just go to an island and waste the rest of my life doing nothing?

I don't know what I want to do. It's still a long time away and things happen so I am not committing to anything.

I am quite sure I wouldn't waste my time lazing off. Why? Because I am quite a restless person. I always want to be doing something useful. I am also quite rebellious. One of the reasons I liked my internships at Microsoft and Google was the flexibility they afforded me to come to work anytime I liked. I know I will have difficulty in a traditional company that expects me to come to work 9-5 everyday. Why? because I am not a morning person. Despite this fact, I am pretty sure I was at work latest 10am at least 95% of the time at both companies. The 1 hour difference is not that significant. Yet, if I was at a traditional company that required me to be there at 9am, I might have been rebellious and been in trouble with management a few times for tardiness.

The only difference between both situations is the flexibility inherent at both Microsoft and Google. Because of the fact that I wasn't required to come to work at a specific time, I was free to do what I wanted to do and I reported for duty at a reasonable time.

The same thing applies to my retirement situation. Retiring early just gives me the flexibility to do whatever I want to do.

One thing I want to clarify is that retirement here is not about the money. It's about removing the distraction of the money from the scheme of things and introducing the flexibility of whatever I want to do into the situation at an early stage in my life.

Google acquires YouTube

Google has acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion [via Pete Cashmore]. You can also read Techcrunch's take on the deal.

The weird thing is that it's an all stock transaction. No cash.

This is Google's biggest acquisition to date, bigger than its dMarc acquisition.

Google Video and YouTube remain separate entities.

Update: Mark Cuban still thinks Google is crazy.

This is why I don't use PHP

PHP programmers swear the most [via Philipp Lenssen].

Seriously though, I have never been as comfortable in writing PHP as I have been in writing C++, Java, or C#. This is just my opinion and experience. PHP has always felt kinda weird to me.

The fact that Python was as low as C# and Java for "fucks per programming language" is the sign I have been waiting for to learn Python (and Ruby).

Which one of Python and Ruby I'll learn first is topic for discussion for another day.

To read my first thoughts on PHP, see here.

Google to buy YouTube?

The WSJ is reporting that Google is in talks to buy YouTube for $1.6 billion [via Techcrunch].

If this actually goes through, what does this mean for Google Video? Will they merge into one service?

Will Google be able to handle all the problems that come with YouTube and the supposed coming decline of YouTube? Is Google "a moron"?

We'll see.

Update: Mark Cuban has some thoughts on YouTube and Google.
Update2: Google acquires YouTube.

Google recommends Live Search?

This is funny. Typing "search" into Google and pressing the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button takes you to Live Search.

I got it from PC Pro via Sanaz Ahari.

From that article, PC Pro states In a touching piece of symmetry, if you type 'search' into Windows Live then the site topping its list is... Google. However, I was unable to reproduce this on Live Search. The top result for Google was search.org.

You know why Google is not the #1 result, right?

I cleared my feeds

I went through my feeds and decided to mark all as read, read the feed or unsubscribe from them. Over the next few days, I am going to try and look at the way I react to new blog posts from a particular feed. If I realize that the fact that you have a new article doesn't make me interested in reading what you have, I'll note the offending feed. If I see that the number of unread items in a particular feed keeps on piling up without being read, I will know that I have almost no interest in that feed and I will unsubscribe from it.

Why am I doing this? I spend a lot of my time managing and sifting feeds and I am trying to cut down on that and be more productive with my time. Also, I have noticed that a lot of blogs I subscribe to tend to repeat the same information over and over again. I will also be on the lookout for that in deciding which blogs to keep reading and which ones not to.

One thing I have noticed is that I tend to read blog posts from my friends immediately and also blogs that cover a niche topic or I feel are an authority in their space (No names here. The different areas I read are technology, sports, and business). This presents a problem for me: I don't cover a niche topic and I decided to blog everything under the sun in one place yet I still expect people to read my blog. I came up with a solution for this which I will deal with in another blog post sometime in the near future.

I have an exam at 9:40AM I should be studying for. Ciao.

New Google Groups experience

Google has launched a beta version of Google Groups. Coupled with the redesign of Google Reader, it seems Google is trying to provide a unified experience across different products and trying to integrate the different verticals together. That's really cool.

Congrats Audrey

Audrey was part of a team to win top prize at Yahoo's Hack Day.

Happy Independence day

To all Nigerians in Africa and the diaspora, Happy Independence day.