Which search engine do you use?
My answer: Google. Why? Because it's simple, loads quickly and most of the time gives me results that are relevant to what I want. Chances are a good majority of people will also answer Google. As far as I know people use 'Google' as a verb, while other search engines, eg. Yahoo, Bing do not get the same treatment.
To be honest, I just took the use of Google for granted and never really thought much about it until I went to Ignite Sydney last week. One of the awesome talks "Everything I know about you" by Michael Kordahi tested to see if our perceptions to the search results (he comapred Bing, Google, Yahoo) would be the same if the branding was removed. The results of preference (and the search terms people looked for) are indeed very interesting - definitely worth watching!
Interesting thing was after the night I went home and gave it a go myself. For simple/basic searches (which were essentially keyword searches) all three search engines were roughly the same for me - but in picking the preferred one I actually rarely picked Google! Though for more complex searches (eg. ones which I just typed in a question) Google was the clear winner. The other two were nowhere close.
Random footnote - I hear some of you may be asking, what is Ignite Sydney? No, it is not an event where pyromaniacs go and set fire to Sydney landmarks. Ignite Sydney is a series of presentations with one very simple idea behind every presentation:
Make the presenters stick to a rigid format of 20 slides, each of which changes automatically after 15 seconds, giving a guaranteed 5 minute presentation.
This means no death by powerpoint - yay! and generally very interesting, entertaining and well thought out presentations - double yay! If you don't live in Sydney then don't worry - there are Ignite events all around the world. Have a look here for the full list
Sydney Airport Link Fees – Insane! Abusrd!
As you may have guessed from the title, this post is going to be a rant/complaint about the absurd fees we need to pay to use the Sydney Airport Link.
Firstly, a couple of quick facts:
- Sydney Airport is the busiest Airport in Australia
- It costs $15.00 to travel by train between Central Station and the Domestic Airport (6.7km)
- It costs $15.40 to travel by train between Central Station and the International Airport (8.2km)
- The above mentioned train is the only direct method of transport between Sydney Airport and Sydney CBD (excluding taxis, private coaches)
- This train service is not a dedicated Airport Train and therefore there is no dedicated area/space for luggage
- The only real 'pure' public transport that passes through the Airport is the 400 bus that travels between Burwood and Bondi Junction
Blog migration…
Slightly belated Happy Chinese New Year... and a very belated Happy New Year to all 
Hopefully everyone has had an awesome start to 2010 and that new year resolutions are still going strong!
As the subject of this post suggests, I have migrated my blog, from one host to another - simply because the new host is slightly cheaper and offers more! But as with all migrations there is bound to be some things that have been broken 
So, it would be great if the awesome readers of my blog (yes you!) could comment/email me if you notice anything broken.
At the moment I've realised one thing that is broken, and embarrassingly it is my "More link modifier" plugin! Well, it works on the default theme, but doesn't seem to work with the Lightword theme I am using (I swear it worked before the migration, but looking at the code it seems 'impossible' that it would have worked...)
Unfortunately it seems like the WordPress import function doesn't take into account the blogroll nor inform you of what plugins you have installed. So at the moment I've removed blogroll from the sidebar, and trying to remember which plugins I had previously installed and would still need/use.
Update: The not-working more link plugin really annoyed me, so I looked more carefully and indeed with the Lighword theme it is impossible by default for the more link modifier to work! Back when I initially changed the theme I had modified the theme files and forgotten all about it! So now the theme files have been re-modified and all is happy
Musings of a psycho #51
A short musing for the holidays (just because I feel lazy), in fact only one...
Why is the flight attendant call button on the ceiling of the plane?
Flew JetStar few days ago and while reaching up to the ceiling to close the reading light realised that the call button to get the attention of a flight attendant was also there on the ceiling. My understanding is that one of the usages for this call button is when there is possibly some emergency/important matter you need to tell the flight attendant. So is it just me who thinks it is rather silly that this button is up on the ceiling making it rather hard to reach? (It would be quite bad if there was severe turbulence and a kid stands up to try and push this button to get some help...)
Ok, maybe that was a bit too short - but here are two quotes that I've came across in the recent few weeks that I thought are worth sharing:
"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."
- Sir Ken Robinson
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
- Albert Einstein
Musings of a psycho #50
It's been a crazy few days and I know Musing #50 is long overdue - sorry! However, now that I am not doing a musing/thought a day I can foresee myself not religiously updating on Sundays any more, rather I will aim to put up a musing roughly once a week. So, without any more random ramblings, here are some random musings…
Don't forget your weaknesses, but pay more attention to your strengths.
This advice came from a work colleague few days ago. As summarised above, although you should not completely ignore your weaknesses your time is probably better spent concentrating and making your strengths stand out even more. My understanding of the reasoning behind this is if you spend a whole tonne of precious time and effort in building up your weaknesses, it will make you better overall, but you won't stand out. Since you have spent the time working on your weakness (and 'neglecting' your strengths) you will be able to do a good job at most tasks but it'll be harder to do a spectacular job at something.
On the other hand, if you concentrate on your strengths and make them even better you'll be an "expert" at particular tasks and you will be able to stand out in that area. So when someone needs someone to do a job in that area, you will come to mind as the person most suitable to get the job done well.
Of course you can't just not work on your weaknesses at all, for example, there are many 'weaknesses' that you can't just ignore completely - eg communication. If communication is not one of your strengths, I believe you should work on it so you can communicate comfortably and effectively; but there is no need to stress too much that you can't deliver speeches as well as the guy on the stage - after all, public speaking may as well be one of his strengths that he is working hard on improving.
Musings of a psycho #49
This week's musings will take a different format! Partly because the previous format took too long and partly because it sometimes felt like I was stretching myself to find a musing for each day. Or maybe I'm just lazy So here are some musings from the 49th week of the year.
Something as simple as "fun" can change people's behaviour for the better.
When I saw "Piano Stairs" on YouTube it made me smile It was great to see that by adding some 'fun' to something ordinary like stairs can change people's behaviour. It was quite interesting to see the range of people that chose to take the stairs over the escalator because the stairs had been converted into a piano - seems like everyone likes a bit of change and fun! If you're wondering who would spend so much effort transforming ordinary stairs into piano stairs, go and take a look at the people behind it - The Fun Theory.
Get feedback on your work - even if it is crap!
As some may be aware, I can be quite obsessed in making sure things are perfect. There is something in me that wants to go over every single detail to make sure nothing is out of place. This is all well and good for small projects/tasks (though I probably still spend too much time perfecting things that most people will not even notice) but when it comes to slightly larger projects this obsessiveness is a curse. So when I read "Version 1 Sucks, But Ship It Anyway" on Coding Horror, although not exactly related to obsessiveness, it still jumped out at me.
One of the reasons for my obsessiveness (I prefer to see it as attention to detail) is most likely because I want to know that I have thought of everything and checked everything. But realistically this is impossible. There is bound to be something I've forgotten, didn't think of or didn't know existed at all. Which brings me back to the article - no matter how much you try to polish something there is bound to be something you left out simply because you didn't know about it.
So it is important to get feedback as soon as possible - obviously you shouldn't ask for feedback on something that is totally hopelessly crap but neither should you wait until it has been fully polished and super shiny. In my opinion, the key is being able to identify when you have something good enough, stop being obsessed and get some feedback.
Here's a nice little poem by Donald Rumsfield about knowns and unknowns
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
Musings of a psycho #48
Another hot week in Sydney and another week closer to the end of 2009!
Sunday, 22 November 2009
#326 - Hot weather makes me feel lazy.
Today was a super hot and humid day in Sydney and I just simply felt like doing nothing at all. The day was indeed a very lazy day, just sat at my desk doing not much at all. In fact halfway through the day I just decided to lie down and sleep, though not much longer afterwards I woke up because it was too hot. Tried googling to see if there was any explanations to why hot weather makes people sleepy or lazy, but unfortunately didn't come up with anything useful other than a random comment on a forum saying "Cold weather makes me sleepy too. Being awake makes me feel sleepy."
Musings of a psycho #47
This week has come and gone, and somehow I don't feel as productive as I would have wanted to be. Maybe it is the stinky hot weather or maybe the time just slipped away, but either way yet another week has passed by. Hopefully I'll be able to use my time more effectively this coming week. As for the the Week 47 musings...
Sunday, 15 November 2009
#319 - Two things: Fast decision making can be critical at times and people can sometimes think very irrationally...
I was standing at the train station today waiting for the train and looking at a group of three people who were just talking to each other. Suddenly one of them accidentally drops their phone (an old Nokia 3315), all three look down at the phone, then one of them stepped forward to pick the phone up. Except when he stepped forward he kicked the phone down onto the train tracks. Now all three were staring at the train tracks. At the same time the announcement overhead starts "The train arriving at platform three...", the group looks to their right and indeed a train is coming.
So what do they do? One of them is just standing there seemingly still deciding whether he should go and grab the phone or not; the other jumps down to grab the phone while the other is yelling "leave the phone!". Luckily the guy that jumped down to grab the phone jumped back up before the train passed - he had probably only 1 or 2 seconds to spare. The fast decision made by the guy that jumped down meant that he was able to get the phone and be safe (had he hesitated he would not have made it in time), but on the other hand, I feel that it was a rather silly decision to make - risk your life for a phone.
Musings of a psycho #46
Yet another week has flown by and we find ourselves already halfway through November! This post is a day late due to my lack of Internet/computer use over the weekend. For those who are curious as to why it is Musing #46...read on
Sunday, 8 November 2009
#312 - There is actually a ISO standard (ISO 8601) that covers the "representation of dates and times"
In my attempt to give my weekly musings a bit more structure, I looked up what day and week of the year we were in. The day of the year was simple enough, but the week was actually more complicated that I thought it was! I always assumed that 1st January will be Week 1..but then thinking about it, if 1st January is a Friday, will it still be Week 1? According to ISO 8601, if 1st January is a Friday, Saturday or Sunday it is actually Week 52 or Week 53 of the previous year (ISO 8601 week starts on Monday). To confuse things even further, the system followed by USA is different to ISO 8601 - weeks start Monday, and there are partial weeks at the start/end of the year. If you're wondering, 09/11/2009 is Week 46 and the reason I start on Sundays for these posts is so I can have Sunday to write them up, and it's no fun to come up with the musing for the day and write about it on the same day.
Musings of a psycho
My second instalment of my daily thoughts/random discoveries. If you're wondering, the reason for starting at #305 is because November 1st is the 305th day of the year.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
#305 - It's amazing/interesting to think about what you have learnt during the day and find one thing that you feel is worthy to share.
This obviously comes from the post from last week as it was the first time I really sat down at the end of each day and thought about what to write about. In the past I have probably casually just thought about the day that has just passed, but never in much depth. It definitely takes some time to pick out the thing to write about, but I feel it is worth it - especially at the end of the week when I read through my notes I've jotted down for each day. Admittedly at the end of some days it felt like nothing special enough happened that day to write about - after all I can't expect all days to be exciting - just have to make sure there aren't too many of them