Category: Miscellaneous

For a cool 2.7 billion dollars you too could buy Google. Actually google hasn’t released a price per share but that is the amount of money Google is hoping to raise in its initial public offering which is slated for availability on the stock market in another seven months. The announcement also let the cat out of the bag as to how much money google is actually making (via informationweek.com):

The Mountain View-based company earned $105.6 million, or 41 cents per share, on revenue of $962 million last year. Google got off to a fast start this year, with a first-quarter profit of $64 million, or 24 cents per share–more than doubling its earnings of $25.8 million, or 10 cents per share, at the same time last year.

I’ll bet founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are having a party tonight, aside from all the profit their company is making they have another $2.7 billion heading their way – They’ve got a lot to be happy about, I know I would be.

If you are interested related information can be found in Google’s SEC Filing. Highlights (as determined by John Battelle):

The letter states, among other things, that 1. We don’t need to do this for the money; 2. We have no plans to run our business to satisfy Wall Street’s need for smooth earnings predictability; 3. We plan to give no earnings guidance, not at least as it’s understood on Wall St.; 4. Don’t ask us to do so, we’ll simply decline the request; 5. We’ll do odd things that you won’ t understand; 6. We will make big bets on things that may not work out; 7. We run the company as a triumvirate, so there will not be clear leadership from one person like most other companies; 8. We bridge the media and tech industries (interesting), which are in flux, so we’ve chosen a two-class stock structure similar to the NYT, WashPost, and NYT that helps us avoid being taken over by those forces; 9. We plan using an auction model, as it feels fairer and we understand auctions from AdWords; 10. Don’t invest in us if this scares you at all, or the price feels too high; 11. Don’t even think about asking us to cut expenses with regard to our employees; 12. We believe in the idea of Don’t Be Evil; 13. It’s evil to pay for placement or inclusion (a swipe at Yahoo); 14. We hope to bridge the digital divide through Gmail type free services and a foundation with at least 1% of profits and equity to help make the world a better place; 17. Betting on Google is a bet on Sergey and Larry (this was said multiple times, making me wonder if there wasn’t some odd future blame being assigned here by the VCs or bankers); 18. This letter is our way of answering the questions we can’t answer in the coming months due to the IPO quiet period.

I loved this movie. Ok, it’s a sappy chic flick – but it’s so good. A family comes to the United States seeking a better life and their story is retold in this great film, “In Amerca”. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 89% fresh rating. It definitely gets a high ranking in my book, but don’t take my word for it, see “In America” for yourself. I’m not sure but I think having been to New York allowed the movie to bring back that overwhelming feeling that the Big Apple has on small town folk like myself. Oh and if you are at all like my mom you’ll need about a box and a half of Kleenex, but I think you’ll like the movie anyway.

It looks as though Jerry Orbach has filmed his last scene in the series Law & Order. Don’t worry though – a friend of mine discovered that a new Law & Order series is in the works. It’s going to be called Law & Order: Trial by Jury and will star Jerry Orbach.

This new drama will feature a kind of ripped-from-the-headlines stories that that franchise has become know for, beginning with a criminal arraignment and continuing through the trial. The show will provide fictional access to prosecutors, defenders, judicial chambers, the jury room and every other nook and cranny of the process.

The show’s format is set up to allow for the possibility of cameos from other actors and characters from within the “Law & Order” universe.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan, but I really do like the show. I’ve been pretty disappointed with the spin-offs Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, but I’m hoping the new series will be more like the original than these two. Look for it on the air in January 2005.

There is a lesson in here somewhere.

A bunch of guys decide it would be a good idea to fire roman candles at a human target. (Via Dave Barry)

An engineer from San Fransico writes an open letter rant to the Crackhead that vandalized his sparkplugs. (Via all over the blogosphere).

On Wednesday morning I emerged from my girlfriend’s building by U.N. Plaza to find that you had sawed the tops off both the sparkplugs on my motorcycle. At the time, I had no idea why anyone would do that. Other than the sparkplugs, the bike was untouched. Some kind of bizarre vandalism? A fraternity prank gone awry? I had no idea. All I knew is that I looked like a huge douchebag riding the Muni to work in a padded motorcycle jacket and helmet.

Because the bike was immobilized I got a $35 street sweeping ticket that night. Thursday I had it towed to the shop ($45) where they replaced the sparkplugs and the boots ($50 including labor). They explained to me that “people” – I use the term loosely here – like you break off the tops of spark plugs and use the porcelain tubes to smoke crack. As an engineer and former MacGyver fan, in a way I think this is kind of cool. But then I remember that I just paid $100 for YOUR crackpipes, and I get angry again.

Submitting a link to the New York Times website? When you input the link you want into The New York Times Link Generator it gives you a URL to a permanent page. That way, your link will go to the NYT archives, and not to a page asking for money.

Prepared for my New Media Seminar class; it’s called, Creative Commons: Innovating Creation and Culture.

Wired magazine has reported that Japanese and Korean scientists working in collaboration have bred a mouse with two female parents and no male parent. While some may speculate that this is the first step to making men obsolete, I must remind them why the world needs men. Without them, who will mow the lawn, reach things off the top shelf, or open jars?

I want to say happy birthday to my girlfriend Anna-Maria.

She has this worked out… the year is 04, the month is 04, the date is the 22nd (2+2=04) and she turned 22 (2+2=04 again). 04040404 Some crazy sign or much ado about nothing? Either way, Happy Birthday Anna-Maria.

I’m making her a marbled cake (two small ones actually — I guess I should have made her four).

While researching Larry Lessig’s new book Free Culture, I came across a reference to http://www.archive.org, a site dedicated to archiving everything. This afternoon I downloaded a copy of the now famously ridiculous “Duck and Cover” film from the 50’s. It taught kids that the best thing to do in case of a nuclear attack was to duck and cover. There is a myriad of material there waiting to be analyzed in a historical context, or perfect for remixing into multimedia products.