Google in every language

I’m a big techy. I also like Star Trek. And computer games. And the coolness of constructed languages like Esperanto.

What could possibly merge all of these interests? Why, Google of course! (hat tip: Google Operating System). Only at Google can you search in Esperanto, in Klingon, in Swedish Chef/Bork, in Elmer Fudd-speak, in Pig Latin, and 1337 H4x0rz speak.

W00t!

What do Eliot Spitzer and the Credit Crisis have in Common?

I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the article, but it has a lot of good points and a killer opening (Hat tip: L. Xu):

Putting together everything we’ve learned over the past 10 days about high finance in Manhattan, one thing is clear: If Eliot Spitzer had saved all the money he apparently paid “Kristen” and her co-workers at the Emperors Club, he could have bought Bear Stearns.

Animal cruelty + cuteness = Japan YouTube video

(hat tip: J. Zhang)

Deconstruction of Hillary vs Obama 3

Because all “good” movies need to be a trilogy…

In part 1, I analyzed the arguments Hillary and Obama have been throwing at each other. In part 2, I looked for a pop culture representation of the Hillary/Obama dynamic.

This time, I analyze the metaphor which is the Hillary-Obama struggle and cast in its truest and most cosmic form a la the characters from Neil Gaiman’s amazing series The Sandman (hat tip: Blog@Newsarama).

For those of you who have not yet read The Sandman, the series describes a world which is an “upleveling” of the traditional DC comics universe (e.g. Superman, Batman, and the Martian Manhunter all make guest appearances at one point or another) to incorporate cosmic and mythical entities (e.g. the Egyptian pantheon of Gods, the Judeo-Christian God, etc.). In that universe, a set of “beings” called the Endless are anthropomorphic representations of concepts beginning with the letter “D” who preside over those concepts: Destiny, Dream, Desire, Despair, Delirium (who was once Delight), Death, and Destruction. Specifically, The Sandman is about Dream, and the role he, and dreams in general, play in the universe.

In one of the earlier story arcs (issue 4!), Dream goes on a quest into Hell to retrieve his lost helmet. In Hell, he meets the demon Choronzon who has possession of it, and the two challenge each other in what I can only describe as an imagination game where they strive to defeat one another with images. It sounds very hokey, but it is very well done (and the series is definitely on my list of “must reads” for people who want to get into comics). In any event, some Obama-loving comic book reader must have stumbled onto the dialogue as it depicts, in no uncertain terms, the true character of the Obama-Hillary battle:

Can’t you see it? Not only does Hillary being an anthrax bacterium and “anti-life, the beast of judgement, the dark at the end of everything” make sense to me, but look at the graphic representation of Obama, the Dream King, and Hillary, the demon Choronzon of hell:

I think this works quite well. And John McCain?

Hell yeah. Vacation is awesome.

Taiwan and Japan

It is no surprise that many Asian countries are wary of Japan. After all Japan, until 1945, exerted strong military control over much of Eastern Asia. In light of this, what is very surprising is how Taiwan does not share in this negative opinion despite being a colony of Japan for 50 years.

Instead, as this video (complete with cute animations summarizing the Nationalist-Communist rivalry) shows, Taiwan almost seems to embrace the Japanese influence which helped shape its cultural and economic heritage. The video starts with an elderly Taiwanese woman speaking fluently in Japanese about her admiration of Japan to a group of Japanese students and later cuts to clips of various Taiwanese using Japanese sayings and sentences:

Why does Taiwan’s view of Japan clash so much with the views of other Asian countries? The video describes some of it, but in a nutshell, the historical context:

• Japan built Taiwan’s economic infrastructure (roads, hospitals, buildings, etc.)
• Japan imposed mandatory education on all Taiwanese citizens — boosting literacy and education in Taiwan and making it such that, even today, there are some Taiwanese who are better able to speak Japanese than they are able to speak Mandarin (my late Grandmother on my father’s side is one example — who actually tried to teach herself English using Japanese syllables as a guide)
• The Japanese, through a policy called “Three Bad Practices”, helped to reduce Opium addiction, foot binding, and the wearing of the queue (a symbol of Manchu dominance over the “Han Chinese”)
• Although limited, Japan opened Taiwan up to foreign art forms such as Western painting and cinema
• Japan did not practice as heavy-handed a rule over the Taiwanese as they did to other Asian countries and were, instead, hoping to integrate Taiwan and its people into the Japanese empire (my Grandmother on my mother’s side once noted that Japanese soldiers in Taiwan were viewed by many to be effective and reliable deterrents to crime)

The results?

1. Japan’s investments in Taiwan allowed it to become one of the fastest growing economies in the post-War period (a product of the high literacy rate, high quality education, excellent economic infrastructure, in-place banking system, etc.).
2. Japanese influence has produced a Taiwanese culture that is very distinct from that of Mainland China’s in its inclusion of many Japanese and Western influences.
3. The result is that Taiwanese lack the enmity and suspicion towards Japan which is much more characteristic of the Korean and Mainland Chinese people.

The video ends with the narrator noting that it is a shame that, despite the affinity that Taiwan seems to show for Japan, the two countries currently do not have official diplomatic relations. I think it’s a shame too.

The Secrets of Consulting

… have been revealed. Well, sorta (hat tip: A. Phan).

Pamela Slim from the blog Escape from Cubicle Nation did a guest post on I Will Teach you to be Rich about the consulting profession and some classic consulting pitfalls to avoid for those who are just starting (like me, I suppose). I picked out three of the most interesting:

1. I have seen consultants swagger in to a new company with the sensitivity of slave traders. They view the existing employees as stupid and “backwards” and do little to hide their disdain. This attitude will guarantee that employees will do whatever they can to sabotage your project. You may disagree with the way the organization is run and get frustrated by the attitudes of resentful and complacent employees. But never think that you are superior by virtue of your role as an outside “expert.” You aren’t.

Pamela makes a very good point. Consultants oftentimes expect that through sheer force of will and brilliance, they will “shock and awe” the client into some magical conception of a perfect business. The reality is very different from this fairy tale. The senior management team probably have their own misgivings over whether or not the expensive consulting fees will be worth it, while the employees are probably nervous at the thought of total newcomers judging and picking apart at their routines, and some may even be resentful at what looks like a lack of faith in the firm’s own employees by senior management. One intern at my firm who was helping out with client interviews was even asked by a senior VP, “Am I about to lose my job?”

Learning to deal with people from the client (and help them put their fears to rest) is not only polite, but very important for the success of a consulting project. If you can’t get the client to be invested in the solution you’re developing, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your solution is, it will neither be implemented nor respected.

2. There is an infectious plague propagated by large consulting firms that compels new consultants to create huge, incomprehensible presentations and reports. Your executive sponsors love them because they justify the huge rates they spend. The problem is that these 400-slide PowerPoint presentations are decks of death for the poor souls who have to view them. Many consultants see the creation of these presentations as their core work output. This misses the point! The key responsibility of a consultant is to offer clear, timely advice and help an organization implement it as quickly and efficiently as possible for the best business results.

You don’t say.

3. My best friend Desiree, who used to work at both IBM and Accenture, would laugh with me at the “uniforms” we saw on young consultants. I don’t know if there was anything explicitly written in corporate policy, but everyone at Accenture seemed to wear the same black pants (or skirt) and purple-blue button-down collared shirt. What the outfit screamed was “no personality” and “member of consultant flock of sheep.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I clearly have lots of personality.

Take that, Che Guevara

I gotta get me one of these… (hat tip: D. Chu)

Si, se puede … evolucionar

Mmm… expensive

Are expensive wines really better? Who knows, but they sure make people happy! From the Boston Globe:

Scientists at Caltech and Stanford recently published the results of a peculiar wine tasting. They provided people with cabernet sauvignons at various price points, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the tasters were told that all the wines were different, the scientists were in fact presenting the same wines at different prices.

The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.

But surely, wine experts would be able to tell the difference, yes? Wrong!

A few years ago, Frederic Brochet, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Bordeaux, conducted a rather mischievous experiment. He invited 54 experienced wine tasters to give their impressions of a red wine and a white wine. Not surprisingly, the experts described the wines with the standard set of adjectives: the red wine was “jammy” and full of “crushed red fruit.” The white wine, meanwhile, tasted of lemon, peaches, and honey. The next day, Brochet invited the wine experts back for another tasting. This time, however, he dyed the white wine with red food coloring, so that it looked as if they were tasting two red wines. The trick worked. The experts described the dyed white wine with the language typically used to describe red wines. The peaches and honey tasted like black currants.

Imagine the business implications of such a finding…

It’s possible to make a product more “effective” by increasing its price. A good marketing campaign can have a similar effect, as it instills consumers with lofty expectations about the quality of the product. For instance, Shiv cites research showing that cars made in the same factory, with the same parts, but sold under different brand names (such as Toyota and Geo) receive markedly different reliability ratings from consumers. When we drive a car with a less exalted brand name, we are more likely to notice minor mechanical problems.

So, does anyone want to buy my… $10 million corolla?

Magneto has arrived

“Magneto man” that is.

From Engadget (hat tip: A. Phan):

A boy named Joe Falciatano III from Pulaski, New York, seems to have simply the worst luck ever — and some think it could be do to an overly magnetized touch. While using PCs at this elementary school, Joe — who dubbed himself “Magneto Man” — found that every system he laid his hands on went totally haywire. Only after a teacher suggested he use a grounded, anti-static wrist strap did the systems experience relief from his Geek Squad-inducing grasp. Apparently, the boy has also disrupted slide show presentations and caused his Xbox to freeze repeatedly.

What do the experts have to say?

Kelly Robinson [who runs Electrostatic Answers] used an electrostatic field meter to measure Joe’s static electricity and determined it was normal. He measured the conductivity of Joe’s sneakers and concluded that they were very insulating, so they might have prevented any static on Joe from passing into the ground; hence, it went to the computer.

Is that the best you got, Mr. “electricity expert”? Psh. We all know he’s going to train an army (or “Brotherhood”) to lash back against the human flatscans who have oppressed his kind for so long.

But, I’m onto you, Joe. I’m onto you.

Deconstructing Hillary vs Obama 2

Last time, I analyzed the arguments Hillary and Obama have been throwing at each other.

This time, I analyze the metaphysical and literary undertones of this titanic struggle between political behemoths caught in an epic battle of [insert more hyperbole here to underscore sense of importance].

My big conclusion: Hillary Clinton is a vampire. Let’s look at the evidence:

• Her campaign is half-dead (having lost 11 primaries)
• You can keep shooting her (more political setbacks and defeats), but she just won’t die.
• She makes people like her by sucking their blood (think negative attack ads)
• She is apparently up at 3 AM

So, what does this make Barack Obama? Well, duh… Blade.

We all know that Barack Obama has to take a serum to prevent himself from going evil.

And this would of course mean that John McCain — the man who also refuses die and is capable of defeating a Mormon and a minister — Deacon Frost:

Yes, it was a slower day at work today.