An OS From Google Will Probably Suck
With news breaking today that Google confirmed that it is indeed making “its own OS” that will be called, ‘Goobuntu’. I can’t figure out why everyone is so excited. Let me elaborate…
Of course, they aren’t really making their own OS, they are just tweaking and retrofitting the popular Ubuntu linux distribution to their needs. So although Ubuntu is nice, its still linux and Google would have to do A LOT of work to get any version of linux ready for the masses to use as their desktop OS.
Secondly, whether you believe it or not, at least 50% of what makes an OS useable is the interface. Yeah, we all like features and stability, and you can’t have a good OS without ease of use, a decent features list, and stability, but the GUI interface is a big step to a making widely used OS. The reason I bring this up as “Reason I’m Not Psyched #2″ is because Google tends to make some crappy interfaces. Yes, for the most part GMail works fine, but its interface sucks. We all used to marvel at the simplicity of the Google search page, but can you really give me an example of a good, solid interface that Google has created (Not counting Picasso, because that wasn’t originally Google.)? Stop thinking about it. You can’t.
The third and last reason why this news completely unimpressed me is that the core “computer user group” in the world (I’m talking from Technorati to script kiddies.) sometimes tend to forget that Google is a business. A business that’s goal is to make money. A business that, up till now, has gotten very good at accomplishing that goal. So a “Google OS” isn’t going to be all gum-drops and candy canes. There’s going to be a way to for them to make money off of this. Of course that way will be with ads. Thats all Google does, in case you haven’t noticed, they print ads. So will be the ads be on the desktop? Will the ads be on your file search? Will the video your about to watch be brought to you by Target? Face it. Ads will be in there at some capacity, and if thats the case why would you use their OS as opposed to OS X, or Windows, or any of the hundreds of free, ad-free linux distros?
I know every time Google farts, the IT community stands up and takes a deep breath, but I’m not the least bit excited about this news. Sure they could do something amazing with it, they could change the face of the modern OS, but more than likely, they’ll just revolutionize the advertising business.
Via: The Register
Sleepless In Seattle Scares Me
I try to make it a point to not retread posts from BoingBoing because I assume everyone reads them, but this was just too cool to pass up. Someone remixed the movie Sleepless in Seattle in a trailer so that is looks like a horror movie. Amazing.
Like I said, this is a blatant retread, so I won’t beat it to death with more words. Enjoy
Via: BoingBoing
Jumping Steve Is Very Entertaining
Sometimes its the simple things in life that fully entertain you during every commercial break in American Chopper on another slow Monday night at Hell Yeah Bitch! headquarters. Tonight, that thing was Jumping Steve. Here’s the in depth explanation on what exactly “Jumping Steve” is directly from their website, just in case you can’t figure it out by the picture above.
Jumping Steve is an iTunes visualizer with an animated Jumping Jack of Steve Jobs that will dance to your music.
If anyone downloads and uses this and does not laugh, then they clearly have no soul and they probably spend their time stomping on kittens, kicking old ladies and never using a blinker in his car. Seriously, there is not excuse for not using your blinker.
I should also mention that Jumping Steve will only work on a PowerPC OS X machine.
Via: TUAW
The Best Dirty Little Song Ever
Louis XIV is at the top of my playlists right now. Their songs are loud and fast without being irritating. The best song ever, though, is Pledge of Allegiance.
Ah little Stacy Q
When she doesn’t have a thing to do
She comes to my house
Well, let’s keep that between me and you
She takes off her clothes
She likes to tell this boy what to do
Let’s keep that between me and you, ok
She said oh come on boy aren’t you tired of talking about sex
I said little girl what do you really expect
And then she pledges her allegiance
To the united states of me
She says you’re such a little bitch
(They’ve got pretty decent cover art, too)
Gratuitous Kate Beckinsale Photo #2
Its Friday, and I haven’t forgotten about the current weekly feature Hell Yeah Bitch! .com is sporting so here it is:
I realize that this feature is a little bit out of the blue for this site, so if anyone has any feelings on this new weekly feature (good or bad) leave it in the comments. All comments will be taken into consideration.*
* Execpt for comments from the following people, which will be ignored: My girlfriend, anyone’s mother, and possibly even Kate Beckinsale.
Whats The Deal TechMeme?
A few months ago tech.memeorandum.com and hellyeahbitch.com were the best of friends. Someone over at Hell Yeah Bitch! .com would write articles just like now, and if one of those articles had to do with a current tech topic, we would be spidered by our buddy and we would appear on their site, usually under the “discussion” sub-heading. This went on for quite a while, all was good for the two friends. Every time a nice little link would appear I would imagine each site a screen shot with little cartoon hands and feet running through a dewy meadow holding hands. Beautiful. But then one day, Hell Yeah Bitch! .com noticed that the article about a current tech issue didn’t get spidered and subsequently added to our friend’s site. “Oh, must have been some little mistake” thought Hell Yeah Bitch! .com and he went a long his merry way. Then a few days later, another article that was commenting on a recent tech issue was posted by Hell Yeah Bitch! .com, and again, no spidering, no link. Both articles had many links to the issue each was discussing and both were the same type of writing and length as all those articles before them that did get links on Memeorandum. Odd. “Maybe they are getting a lot of traffic due to their feature in main stream media as of late…” Hell Yeah Bitch! .com said to himself to make the situation better. Since then Hell Yeah Bitch! has written several articles that are directly related to some of the topics on Memeorandum’s page, but none have gotten a mention. Why the change? What happened? Hell Yeah Bitch! .com and his buddy Memorandum don’t run through dewy meadows any more, and Memeorandum never even left a reason why he stop being friends with his old pal.
Wow, what a sad story. I don’t know if you picked up on the hidden meaning in there, but that little story is based on true events! [Gasp!] One day, after many many links to the happenings on this site, tech.memeorandum.com just stopped spidering us. I’m not sure what changed, because I’m pretty sure nothing has changed on our end. I tried to throw an email at them last night, but I have yet to get a reply. We would love to have our buddy back, but if not, at least a reason on why we seem to be cut out of the picture. Its not that we’re losing sleep over this, but it is a bit odd and we would just like to know what happened.
If someone at tech.memeorandum.com happens to read, or catch wind of this, we would love to get a hold of you to see what happened and if there is anything we can do to get back to the dewy meadow with you.
Newsvine
Is it me, or do 99% of news sites suck? You know my thoughts on Digg, I’ve never been that into Slashdot, and I’m always leery of MSNBC. So when I heard that work on a site called Newsvine was getting close to beta a few months ago I was very interested to see what they had going on. A cross between Digg and a regular news site plus the ability to have users write news on their own was intriguing so when I heard beta invitations were being sent out, I worked to grab one.
I’ve been using Newsvine for a few weeks now and I have to say it is now my favorite news site. New news gets posted quickly and the user-added items are kept separate and out of the way if you don’t chose to read them and just stick with the AP stories. (Which is a good way to keep Newsvine from the sad current state of Digg) Its not all roses though, Newsvine might have more “features” than it really needs. There’s a lot going on at that site and I worry that too much going on for users at the launch of a site might have an adverse effect: People not using the site or people only using the site at its most basic level and ignoring the rest. I would suggest a slower roll out of new features once you gage how people are really using the site first. The good news is that unlike with the other popular social
news sites user work and feedback are required to have the site do anything. AP stories will still pour in even if nothing is happening on the user level other than reading. Of course, there will be plenty of users that will work and help the site, there always is, but its nice to see a site that didn’t put the users up on a pedestal and hope that they do their job. Live by users, and you will die by the users.
Of course, I really didn’t scratch the surface of the whole Newsvine scene, but there is no question Newsvine is gearing up to be the next “hip site”. The buzz is growing, and it will no doubt continue to grow, until its too much buzz and then it will shrink down to a lower level of buzz which will be just about right. Hopefully the Newsvine will make it through and continue to be as strong as it is now.
If you are interested in checking out Newsvine for yourself, I happen to have some invites to hand out. If you would like one drop a line in the comments (be sure to fill out the email field) or email me: mike [at] hellyeahbitch.com
James Lipton Reads “PopoZao”
If you missed the video floating around the web yesterday of Kevin “I turned Britney into a troll” Federline head-bopping to his new single “PopoZao” (Which I believe in this case means, it will only sell a single copy.), your day yesterday sucked. Yeah, it may have seemed good, but if you missed this wonderful web-video gem, it actually sucked. Trust me.
There is hope though. If you just found out your day yesterday sucked, you can redeem today by watching a clip hosted on GorrillaMask of James Lipton reading the lyrics of K-Fed’s now infamous song on Conan O’Brien.
Enjoy the rest of your day. Tomorrow laugh at everyone that missed today’s clip. You’ve earned it.
Link:
James Lipton on Conan O’Brien
Kevin Federline jams to PopoZao
Via: CityRag
UPDATE:
The ante has just been raised in the currently “PopoZao” crazed world: What is K-Fed? ( I would turn down your speakers a little bit first.)
How To: Call A Business And Get A Human
Someone has posted up a big table with the keystrokes needed to get a live person on the phone at many major businesses. For instance: To call Apple, dial 800-275-2273, and then: 000; if virtual rep answers, say “operator”
Cool.
Link: IVR Cheat Sheet
Via: Kottke