Beating Google at its own game

Google Maps/Local have revolutionized my use of online maps: I started using them. As is often the case, I thought they were perfect until Ask.com improved on them this week. Here's what I needed (almost) without knowing it:

- Walking directions. I don't drive so I don't need to avoid one-way streets.

- Clicking to add locations.You know you're going at the corner of Smith and Johnson. Just click on it, no need to find a complete address.

- Multiple destinations. This way, you can ask how to get to the White House through Halliburton for instance.

Also, their aerial pictures seem slightly better than those of Google. That's it - I switch. More details here.

For the record (and make sure you're disappointed too with the state of the technology), here's what I would like to see:

- If I don't mention a different destination city, take for granted that it's in my departure city. I use online maps to find directions within the same city 98% of the time.

- Control over what information is displayed: name of cities, civic numbers, street names, etc.

Straight Shooter (from another angle)

I'm gradually changing my approach to decision-making. I use to look for the best option. I would weight every aspect of a decision twice or thrice before testing my opinion on a decision. It would create long decision-making periods, anxiety and doubt. You should have seen me picking a computer - thank God, I'm limited to a single supplier.

But now, I try to settle more quickly with a choice that satisfies me. I no longer look for "the best", I look for "good enough". I make quicker decision and I'm generally happy with them. I go on with my life and enjoy the choice I made. It means less anxiety and the pleasure that I miss, I'm unaware of it since I don't know all the options. But won't it always be the case anyway?

This article in The Guardian seems to suggest that I'm right.

Advice to jobseekers

Do you want to know why I'm at work on a Saturday?

I'm applying to my own job.

With experience in large organizations, I've come to learn that they have extensive and virtuous hiring policies that stress transparencies and equal opportunity. I've also learned that these policies are seldom implemented the way you would expect it.

The best indicator is the hiring process, the competition for a position. Yes, the job is advertised in websites and wherever else the policy says it has to be posted. Yes, employers call some people for interviews. But often, they have a very good idea of who's gonna have the job: the person who is already employed under a different title. Often, it's someone with no social benefits, a lower salary, but the same responsibility or almost. The employer decides that this person is well-qualified and offers him/her the be "staffed". But this means going with the official procedure mentioned above.

In my particular case, I can't take the job for granted. My boss will seriously review all candidates and will even interview a few of them. But seriously, who doesn't think that I'm a better candidate than average with months of experience in the job and a good name internally?

The problem is not so much the hiring of the consultant for the staff position. It's how you pick the consultant in the first place. That's where the policy's really ignored.

I'll be the Last.fm

Following my post on Pandora, Aidje suggested Last.fm as another way of discovering new music (thanks for taking the time, Aidje). It's a website that keeps track, through a plugin, of the songs you play on your computer. The website then makes suggestions of music you should like by creating your own music station based on your music history.

I've tried to install it unsuccessfully. But I don't mind much. I understand that music is a way to socialize, but I avoid social pressure as a way to chose my music. Last.fm post your music statistics on your profile page from where you can link to friends who, I guess, have similar tastes. What Radiohead/U2/Coldplay fan wants to be caught, like me, with Air Supply and Jann Arden in their top ten? But then again, should I be self-counscious when listening to music, thinking "I don't want this to appear on my Last.fm profile?"

So, it's a good concept, but I'll pass.

MyBook Pro

I'm disappointed with the new MacBook Pro from Apple. It doesn't look as good as my Titanium PowerBook - which remains a piece of ageless beauty to the geek in me. The MacBook Pro just doesn't have that pure elegance, that little something that makes a shape look like it's always been there, as is the case for the TiBook. Also source of grief:

• The screen is noticeably smaller.
• The MacBook Pro is not really thinner, something you'd expect after all those years.
• Battery life is shorter. This is quite disappointing, although probably due to the new processors.
• The standard hard drive is still only 80 Go.
• And I don't like the name, MacBook Pro.
  

But you know what is it to be part of the Apple cult?

I'll probably get one anyway.

(secret: but I might wait for the next revision)

Writely So

I'm not quite an innovator, but I'm an early adopter. It means that I like to be among the first people of the mainstream to adopt or at least try out new technologies. I usually hear about them in the media and will give it a look out of curiosity. For instance, I waited until the iPod came out to buy an MP3 player - which was back in 2002.

It's in that spirit that I'm currently using Writely, an online word processor. The first reason to use it is to collaborate with colleagues and friends on a document. No more single version that goes from one person to another - everybody can contribute at the same time or when they're available (instead of waiting for their turn). It seems simple, but it fosters creativity very much.

The second reason, which I pretend to have invented, is to collaborate with yourself. I created a "Gifts" file where I write ideas of gift. May I be at work, at home or visiting, I can always add an idea. Other ideas of self-contributions are "Health" (I can never remember when was the last time I had this back pain, doctor) and "Profiles" where I work stuff I learn about people I know (Gary doesn't like sushis!). I also suggest opening such a document for "legal" follow-up with an insurance for instance (I called you on the 13th to say this and you told me that, etc.).

Discover and enjoy!

(Don't Go Back to) Rockville

I went on a symbolical trip this week-end: I went to Rockville. Every R.E.M. fan knows "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville", one of the rare songs written by the bassist, Mike Mills. It's typical R.E.M.: rock but pop with a catchy chorus. When I noticed "Rockville" on a map and realized it was only a few miles away from my place, I had to go. "What's in Rockville?" - I had to see it for myself.

Well, now it's your turn.


From what I saw, it's a long line of stores and shopping centers. It's a boulevard full of cars and SUVs. It looks like that even on the most sunny and springish day.

It made clear that the reason the US are so rich is overconsumption. It's increasingly oriented towards selling stuff, no matter the price of it. The price seems quite clear in those pictures.

Conclusion: Don't go back to Rockville.

I forgot to share my opinion on Iraq

I've always been surprised that the left has been so unanimous in criticizing the war in Iraq. After all, it was meant to throw out a dictator and promote democracy in a region that doesn't have too much of it. How come then so little leftists have supported it, despite its flaws? I think no one has better summarized it than Francis Fokuyama in the New York Times on Sunday.

"The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them."

Attacking the left for failing to promote democracy misses this point. They're also all about democracy (representative, that is). But the problem is not that the right fails to understand this: it's that the left itself is about to forget it. I find too many leftists complaining that it's not the job of the US to promote democracy. Actually, it is - just like it is the job of any democratic state, but even more so because it's the most powerful and rich country in the world.

Promoting democracy means respecting it with religious zeal. The scandal of the 2000 election should never happen again - and I don't mean the Florida scandal, but the fact that Bush received less votes than Gore. It means promoting one person-one vote everywhere, even at the World Bank and the United Nations where money and sovereignty are placed above democracy (it's easier to understand at the WB in my opinion). Promoting democracy means to support efforts like those in Haiti and Palestine - including the respect of the election outcome. By all means, it doesn't mean to show up in tanks and F16 and then distribute voting ballots, but let's keep in mind that the end is not the problem with the war in Iraq. It's the means.

A Second Opinion on The White Men's Burden

After my humble comments on Bill Easterly's recent piece in the Washington Post, you might want to read what a Nobel Prize of Economics and current pope of the development scene, Amartya Sen, has to say about it in Foreign Affairs. He's not so enthusiastic and brings his usual cold head to the debate.

(By way of the PSD blog.)

Top 5 Reasons for Running on the Way Back from Shopping

1. It's good exercise.
2. It keeps you warm.
3. It shortens your time in the cold.
   
4. It gets you home sooner.
   
5. With "Exit music (for a film)", it feels dramatic

Readers, this is Leonard

We're news addict, but we wouldn't read anything. So time for me to introduce a personal favourite: Leonard Pitts Jr. from the Miami Herald. I discovered him about a year ago when he won the Pulitzer. After reading his winning columns, I thought that he absolutely deserved it.

He's a gifted writer. He carries original ideas, like his pick on affirmative action: "White men are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action this country has ever seen." He sounds both passionate and reflexive.

Yesterday, he hit the nail on the head once again: Cheney's accident is not about a hunting mistake, it's about the secretive manners of this administration. I've rarely seen such a constant columnist. He himself draws up my respect for the Miami Herald. Apparently, I'm not his only fan (here, here, and even here on the right). Of course, not everybody likes him. I'm sure you will.

Pandora Boom Box

Ah, the feeling when you want everybody to share your discovery. "Hey, read that book - it just turned me upside down!" or "Go see that film - I almost peed in my pants!"

It never works.

For me at least, it doesn't. I systematically fail to transmit the hype that I feel. People respond politely, move on quickly to the next topic, forget to ask me the name of the author, etc.

So here's my latest eureka, my new favorite radio station: Pandora. It builds a radio station based on a song you suggest, finding similar-sounding songs.

That's exactly what I was looking for: old but new music. When I'm on a hunt for something new, I don't have the patience to go through iTunes and randomly try new stuff based on a genre. I want some kind of guidance, a higher success rate. Pandora's the best radio station to play in the background - the music's always good and sometimes you can make discoveries or be surprised.

There's still room for improvement. Songs are sometimes out of place. But you can give Pandora a better idea of your taste by saying wether or not you like the song that's playing. I wish I could pick the criteria myself: piano, acoustic, orchestral arrangements, whatever. But now I have to guess what song will bring me the type of music I want.

Anyone tempted to try it at least?

Google Goes Beta (for real)

Google Video has disappointed me. It was off to a bad start a few months ago with many criticizing its appearance. It's ironic that many couldn't find what they were looking for, so that the interface had to be changed to feature the premium content from television.

But I'm not in the market for videos. So, what I'm interested in is more the procrastination content - hence the "popular" videos. Here comes the disappointment. The page rarely changes. If you click the link "Another 15 popular videos" 3-4 times, you'll quickly have seen them all. If you come back a few weeks later, don't expect too many changes. If ever you've been on Google Video, chances are that you've seen this Octopus Vs. Shark video. Not bad, but if you got terabytes of content, I guess you could move on faster than that. It must be that too many people rely on this "popular" function - like I do - so the solution is to push more content to the users. That's probably why they added new functions such as "more videos from this user". Practice makes perfect.

Also, the service must be used largely by male college students eager to impress their friends with a good laugh. See the selection of Superbowl ads that quickly showed up in the popular section. That being said, there are also hilarious examples like Brokeback to the Future or Top Gun Brokeback Squadron.

And of course, there are gems that you have to uncover yourself. As a Mac user for more than a decade by now, I was very pleased with this historic video taken at the 1984 shareholders meeting of Apple. Steve Jobs with a bow tie? It's only matched by Bill Gates on stage (not in this video). It's interesting to see the 5 ads, who forever stayed in the shadow of the infinitely famous 1984 ad. I must say that it's not intellectually very honest to say that all you need to learn to use a Mac is how to click a button. All you need to learn to program in C++ is typing on a keyboard?

Overall, Google Video has a steeper learning curve than the other services - probably because they come in a market were Apple has set the standard, rather than Microsoft (Hotmail vs. Gmail). So, for once, this is a Google service that's really a beta.

And then they leave you

This morning, I was walking to work when I had this illuminating idea for a blog post. I was pleased with it but immediately thought that I should avoid blogging it during my work day. Enjoying the exceptionally warm air of the morning and the music in my ears, I was a poker face on the outside but internally happy to have something to feed the beast one more day. So at the end of the work day, I opened my blog and started my entry.

And this is what came up.

I had forgotten my idea.

The Snowman's Last Word

Maybe defenseless, but some resilient snowman.

Straight Shooter

I knew we'd have fun with this. Here's my favourite reaction to Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend.

"'The CIA assured Cheney that Harry Whittington was actually a pheasant,' added Democratic speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum."

It's worth reading the Washington Post article to get the whole sample.

Save the World: Do Nothing

William Easterly is the author of one of the most entertaining book on international development, The Elusive Quest for Growth. He's witty and has an original opinion in this milieu: aid doesn't work. In terms of name recongnition, he must be second only to Peter Bauer in defending this opinion. Easterly is Jeffrey Sachs' nemesis.

Easterly, preparing the release of a new book, makes his point in the Washington Post today: The West Can't Save Africa. Here's the sentence that says it all:

Economic development in Africa will depend -- as it has elsewhere and throughout the history of the modern world -- on the success of private-sector entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and African political reformers. It will not depend on the activities of patronizing, bureaucratic, unaccountable and poorly informed outsiders.

He's convincing: decades of foreign aid later, Africa (and many other countries) is still in a poor state. It's about to take them longer than the West to lift out of poverty, despite all our good intentions. There has to be a better way and maybe it's to leave them alone.

The problem is that Easterly's doesn't address the fundamental questions for Westerners: What can we do to help? How is it that our wealth can't be of any help in this war on poverty? Are we suppose to look at wars, diseases that can be cured and lifelong poverty without lifting a finger?

Our rich nations have multiple social nets for their own poor: we subsidize education, many offer healthcare, there's unemployment insurance. Despite - or thanks to - all of those subsidies, rich nations have developed roundly in the last centuries. If we consider the world as one large country where the rich is obliged to the poor - be it for the morals or the economic value - we might draw lessons on how to help the poor without removing the incentives to get out of poverty.

(Thanks to the PSD Blog for drawing my attention to the Washington Post article)

Forbes and Me

I knew I wasn't the only one! Forbes places the Capital Beltway as one of the top 10 worst places in the US for commuting. I'll take pictures and comment on the whole issue.

Snow storm in DC Leads to Sordid Affair

These pictures were taken two hours apart today.


What's more defenseless than a snowman? This is the work of cowards.

Let It Snow, Let It Show

It snowed in Washington last night. For the first time, it stayed overnight. I had not realized how much I missed snow. It changes the air. It creates excitement. you say to your friends outside of town: "It snowed today!" and they go "Wow!"

I hear that Washington isn't used to snow, despite getting some every year. A few centimeters can block the whole city - schools and offices are closed. Funny enough. In December, some regions in Canada got their biggest snow storm in 30 years. A total of 40 cm in 12 hours, I think. A young friend of mine who lives in the area wrote me: "I had school anyway". I wonder if mindsets don't change more than temperatures when you cross the 49th parallel.

Green by Default

Following my entry on my daily commute, I've realized that it's a topic I'm quite concerned with. I detest commuting - I've never had any patience for it. In the past, I've even moved within the same small city to be closer to my new job. I'm also very critical of the way people commute. One day, I'll post about urban gridlocks.

When I searched for "commuting" on Technorati, I had the surprise to see the Private Sector Development blog from the World Bank, a personal favourite of mine that I've previously quoted, as the first result. It points to a lovely tool from BP to calculate one's carbon footprint. I'm proud to report that I only use 5 tons of CO2 per year, way below the national average of 19 tons. But the real reason is that I live in a brand new apartment and that I've no car. Yes, I have a few energy efficient lighbulbs and I try to turn off the lights when I leave a room, but I'm taking 15-20 minutes shower...

Bird Skin

At long last, I've personalized the appearance of my blog.

I am grateful to...
- A woman wandering for posting comments and waking me up
- Desperately Wandering for showing me how to change my banner
- Jennifer for the overall inspiration
- Image After for the free picture of a bird
- ImageShack.us for hosting my pictures
- Susannah Gardner for making me realize that I'm probably not using the right blogging tool
- Myself, for spending 4 hours setting up this tiny graphic update

So, what did I do?
- Created the banner, keeping the same name for my blog, but changing the tag line (felt ridiculous to write that birds can't see tiny details when I use a bird of prey)
- Enlarged the template - never understood why the default version was so narrow
- Changed the size of the date - previously way too big

Snake Skin

Yes, I changed the template once again. I messed up the previous one myself to a point of no return. I'm no so in love with this one, so I'll be looking into creating my own .

As a note to myself, here are some of the tools I'll use.

Are you using the right blogging tool?
Tips for blog templates

But that might mean finding a theme for this blog. Hum... What am I interested in (blogging about) and that is not already too covered by wittier blogger?

The War of the Words

What to do of these Muhammad caricatures that are inflaming Europe and the Middle East but so far miraculously spared America? Charles Krauthammer makes a good point when he says "The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricature." Like most Westerners, I can't accept this and I shout, from the top of my lungs, "Free speech!"

My fear, however, is that we fail to grasp the meaning of those caricatures in the cultural context of the Middle East. The sense of outrage is of astronomical proportions. Will the protestors really understand the value of free speech in this context where we defend it for our own advantage, at their expense? Should it be promoted in such a conflictual context? I don't think the free speech message will make any inroads in the Middle East thanks to these caricatures.I think we should drop the issue altogether and find other ways to promote free speech in the Muslim world.

The Empress has no clothes

Japaneses are considering allowing women to become empresses. To a Westerner used to Elisabeth 2 since the early 50s (and many others before), the only surprise is that it is not yet the case. But to a Japanese conservative, it's burning matter.

"If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may be the emperor," Takeo Hiranuma, a top member of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and head of a block of politicians opposed to female monarchs, said last week. "We should never let that happen."

(Princess Kiko Shocks Japan with Pregnancy, Washington Post, February 7th, 2006)

So, a male emperor couldn't fall in love abroad and marry a blue-eyed gaijin? I take this as a very derogatory comment on Western women. Ladies, don't let yourself be tossed around by those conservatives who doubt your virtue and qualities. Show them how to seduce an emperor.

Commuting in Washington

I live only 10 minutes by bike from work. I am nevertheless fed up with the commute. I know it by heart: this traffic light is always red, Dupont Circle is always dangerous, one day my life will end on this broken piece of concrete at the corner of 18th and P, etc. Traffic is notable for three things in Washington. First, they're a bunch of honkers. I'm a zealot about honks: only use them to signal a danger. But here, it's India: you're not fast enough, your traffic light was almost red, go back into your lane, I don't like your tie, etc. So I give at least 2 angry looks to aggressive drivers per commute. Second thing about Washington traffic is that people have no respect for the yellow light. If they can see the yellow light up there on the horizon, it means to them that they have time to catch it. No matter if it turned red 1-2 seconds ago when they finally arrive at the crossroads. Third thing: sirens. It's like the whole city is constantly on fire or being robbed or whatnot. Today, 16th was even blocked for the presidential motorcade. Now, that's a phat way to commute.

I've tried walking, but then it takes me three times as long. The bus doesn't get close enough to my work, plus I just can't understand its schedule. So I have to bike day in and day out and face noisy drivers, dangerous corners and stubborn traffic lights. It's only 10 minutes.