Technically Incorrect

I know those little Google search ads are supposed to be terribly clever.

And I realize that Google has lots of other highly interesting services, none of which come to my mind just this minute because, well, I seem to have done without them until now. They don't move me. They don't make me think "oh, what a fabulous little invention."

Then I heard about GMail Goggles. So brilliant and yet so wonderfully, non-mathematically human.

Someone at Google clearly came into work one morning and said: "You know that girl I met in a bar two nights ago? You know, the one who turned her back on me...the one I regaled with the one-legged martian and the hermaphrodite pterodactyl joke...yeah, the one who poured her White Russian over my black satin H&M shirt?...well, I sent her an e-mail last night telling her I loved her."

"Step away from that laptop, sir. Step away from it now."

(Credit: CC Andronicus Max)

The lovely thing about these Goggles is that the Googlies haven't totally sacrificed their mathematical religion on the altar of humanity.

Essentially, if you enable the Goggles they will ask you several mathematical questions before allowing you to send a late-night Gmail. And you have to complete them within a certain time. It's a little like the GMAT (but probably more difficult).

Surely there is not one amongst us who hasn't sent the wrong e-mail when the mind was a little slurry.

Or, perhaps worse, sent the right e-mail to the wrong person. Come on, admit it, you've once sent an e-mail saying that Gregory Snoggings was a conniving, two-faced son of an ill-bred dachshund TO Gregory Snoggings. Just by mistake, Freudian or not.

The Goggles will sit by your side and electronically whisper into your ear: "Step away from that laptop. There's nothing to see here. Certainly not the way you're seeing things right now. So drink lots of water and go to bed with Winnie the Pooh and Loopy Lou. Tomorrow morning you will be glad we had this conversation."

I would very much like to buy the wise, wonderful person who invented these Goggles the largest and most refined drink possible.

And, come to think of it, isn't this the week for the Nobel Prizes?

These days it's hard for a porn producer to find new ways to go where no man (or woman or beast) has gone before.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that Virgin Galactic, the company that plans to fly passengers into orbit from late 2009, announced that it has received a $1 million offer to allow a porn movie to be shot on one of its spacecraft, an offer the company has declined.

As I understand it, the producers thought they would be able to find a completely different kind of action if the participants were under the influence of zero gravity.

It is, however, difficult to understand how they thought they might be able to shoot such a movie.

Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson acknowledges the pleasures of the service.

(Credit: CC Tanya Ryno)

Virgin Galactic's proposed flights offer, for a return ticket of $200,000, only a five-minute period of weightlessness.

However, those who involve themselves in the pleasures of pornography explain to me that the copulatory scenes tend to last a little longer than your average real-life five minutes. And sometimes they involve multiple physically demanding entanglements.

I am, therefore, unclear as to whether the producers (who remain strangely unnamed) wanted to rent the spacecraft solely for their own purposes or whether they were merely looking to book seats for the performers and a single member camera crew.

If it were the former, then surely the $1million offer has something of a derisory nature.

If it were the latter, might Virgin Galactic have charged the other passengers a little extra, given that they would be in the presence of an entirely otherworldly transport that would truly make the trip a once-in-a-lifetime experience?

One's mind is also somewhat disturbed by whether sex in space really is such an easy pleasure. Would there not be a problem with synchronization?

Still, Virgin's extraordinary and surprising intransigence on this alluring space sexperiment means that those who have had to tolerate suboptimal sex for so many years will have to also have to do without suborbital sex for a while longer.

We really are living in very difficult times.

So has everyone been wandering around your office, puffing out their hairless chests and declaring "I'm a PC" with pride?

Thought not.

Visible Measures, a company that measures viral-video activity, announced this weekthat the Gates-Seinfeld ads enjoyed 4.3 million more viral views than the politely conventional "I'm a PC" campaign.

A somewhat improbable explanation was given for this enormous discrepancy. "So much viral video is basically word of mouth. And when you build a question into the creative, it gives people something to talk about," Matt Cutler, vice president of marketing and analytics at Visible Measures, told Ad Age.

I question this analysis.

Although the first ad had moments as forced as a Sarah Palin wink, the Gates-Seinfeld campaign was genuinely original. The second ad, in which the Laconic Duo tried to commune with real people--yes, even crabby little teenagers--was both amusing and intriguing.

The "I'm a PC" campaign, on the other hand, is as familiar as the tangy smell of a dentist's surgery. It captures the imagination about as well as Britney Spears captures a B-flat at 8 in the morning.

Visible Measures' figures bear this out starkly. After two weeks in the market, the Gates-Seinfeld ads were still getting about 700,000 views a day. After the same period, the politely conventional follow-up couldn't even scrape 50,000 a day.

"I am truly moved to accept this Technically Incorrect acting award..."

(Credit: CC Domain Barnyard)

In case you were wanting to cry "Fix!," please be advised that each of the campaigns had about 75 online placements.

Of course, viral viewing isn't everything. But it is a significant indicator of where daily eyes--and especially young eyes--go to get themselves through their desperately tedium-ridden days.

Every echo coming out of the closed chambers associated with these two efforts suggests that Microsoft simply lost its nerve after some negative reaction to the Gates-Seinfeld buddy movies. You don't spend large amounts on a star--and pay Jerry Seinfeld to appear as well--with the thought that you'll only run the campaign for a few days.

It is all one large pity.

Firstly, because sometimes the very best creative works aren't universally embraced when they first come out.

And, secondly, because we have been deprived of more "Bill Gates, actor." Mr. Gates' performance in the second ad was quite remarkable, and there was enough in his chemistry with Mr. Seinfeld to suggest a long-term campaign.

Let's hope his agent finds him another gig.

A very wise (and, strangely, important) person in the news industry said to me the other day: "Do you know ANYONE who has ever clicked on an online ad?"

I had to confess I knew many who clicked on those little Google thingies, but not many who clicked on display ads. And even fewer who would admit to it.

This led us to consider how news organizations might make more (some) money in the future, given that untold riches are not exactly flowing yet from online display advertising.

So imagine if all the (supposedly) reputable news organizations got together one night, in a dark room owned by Rupert Murdoch and decided that they would all start charging for their online content. Not just one or two of them. All of them.

No more linking by the Drudge Report without a fee. No more getting up in the morning to read the election latest online before you put on your lucky underwear, without, at the very least, a subscription.

Of course it's true that, in times gone by, these same news organizations had little clue how the Web would develop. They believed in unlimited free sampling of their product online, in the interesting belief this wouldn't devalue the one thing they had to offer.

Some organizations did try charging (a few, like The Wall Street Journal, still do) and then backed away like Alaskan moose when faced with an armed news crew.

But it used to be free to park on many Main Streets in America. Then they put in parking meters and, though we might show McCainish grouchiness on occasion, we pay. Could it still be the same with online news?

(Credit: CC Sillygwailo)

Where, in fact, does the thing we call "news" come from anyway? Don't we imagine that somewhere out there are paid journalists of some repute, battling past press releases, spin surgeons, and proprietorial prejudice in order to sniff out something akin to truths and bring them to their readers?

If, at noon tomorrow, all news organizations announced they would immediately start charging for their hard-earned and, presumably, valuable online product (I'm imagining Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger making a joint statement, their arms linked in solidarity, each reading every second word of their pronouncement), would people refuse to pay?

Yes, there would still be competition from new free sites, financed solely by advertising. But these would have to be new brands. Would people trust them? Remember, I am talking about every single news organization coming together and sticking to a joint principle. (Yes, I know, I know. Please dream with me, won't you?)

Given that times are now a-changing and we are all a-working together to blunt the parts of capitalism that the finest algorithms failed to anticipate, might some readers hope that by paying for news they might just get a product of slightly better quality?

What if the proprietors suddenly grasped the times they were living in, clutched the concept of truth like a man rolling off a cliff grabs at a dried-up branch, and shared a little of their business model with their readers?

What if they then promised their readers that for, say, a $25 subscription (yes, not much more than 6 coffees or a pack of 24 condoms) they would guarantee a 25 percent expansion in online news coverage?

Might this also allow the news organizations to reverse their tendency (their need, they might say) to pepper their pages with so much display advertising that their online content sometimes looks like a teenage acne-ridden cheek?

Isn't there just the smallest, tiniest chance that readers might buy into this new commercial relationship? If the financial folks can all get together to save themselves, er, I mean, to readjust their business principles, isn't this a good time for online news organizations to do it too?

That'll be $49.99. Thank you.

If you've always thought you were a wonderful singer, but somehow failed to produce your best in karaoke bars, scientists may have found a solution.

At last, some of the world's finest brains have gotten together to release the finest parts of everyone's brain.

Yes, soon you may be able to buy your own thinking cap, put it on, and be the person you always thought you could be.

The cap looks a little like a hairnet, but please don't let that put you off. The theory behind the incredible thinking cap is that it will be able to switch different parts of your brain on and off, thereby allowing specific parts of your gray matter to blossom to their full potential.

Scientists from the University of Sydney have studied brilliant people like Dustin Hoffman. Or, rather, brilliant people like the Qantas Airways-knowledgeable savant Dustin Hoffman plays in Rain Man.

This is not a thinking cap. But wouldn't it be great if it came in pink?

(Credit: CC Breibeest)

Mirroring the way savants are both brilliant and mentally not quite there (remind you of any techies you know?), the thinking cap's scientific milliners use tiny magnetic pulses to either deaden a part of your brain or excite it beyond its normal level of stimulus, thereby allowing the excited part to reveal the full glory of its capabilities.

Professor Allan Snyder's optimism for your ability to, say, rumba like a Cuban while being an analyst for Mark Cuban, is boundless: "I believe that each of us has within us nonconscious machinery which can do extraordinary art, extraordinary memory, and extraordinary mathematical calculations."

Once the thinking cap buzzes experimentees up for 10 or 15 minutes, some are able to draw in a far more lifelike manner. Others, and this will please many at this site greatly, become far better editors, able to spot mistakes in a text that they could not see before the "OUT OF ORDER" sign has been hung on certain areas of their brains.

There is, however, a little bad news. The effects of the thinking-cap zap wear off after an hour. This might lead to some very unfortunate occurrences.

You've impressed someone over dinner with your ability to simultaneously sing hits from the '70s and balance a spoon on your nose. You go back to your place. The clock strikes midnight, the spoon falls off and, in the middle of some particularly apposite Barry Manilow rendition, you hit more bum notes than Britney Spears hits live.

But even this bad news might bring with it some good. The technique in the thinking-cap experiments, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, also seems to be helpful in treating depression.

Web 2.0 activists keep repeating that there is no such thing as privacy. Now the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it tends to be known in movies, has declared that it is using Web 2.0's finest creation, Facebook, in order to find new devotees.

A spokesperson for the UK's Foreign Office whispered: "The Secret Intelligence Service's open recruitment campaign continues to target wide pools of talent representative of British society today. A number of channels are used to promote job opportunities in the organisation. Facebook is a recent example."

This causes my brow to contort somewhat uncomfortably.

The whole ethos of spying seems to me to have, at its heart, a certain penchant for, well, covertness. When I was studying at one of the UK's more filmic universities, friends of mine would receive letters that suggested an "opportunity in the field of foreign trade" or some such discreet double parlance. They would then be invited to tea with a rather nondescript man whose pallid features would suggest he lived in a place called Nondies Crypt.

Will looks now help you get that dangerous mission to Uzbekistan?

(Credit: CC Alain Elorza)

They would be told they would not be required to kill anyone and that their ability to read people and keep secrets was what would bond them to the Service.

Times have clearly changed. While James Bond continues to wear swimming attire that is at least one size too snug, MI6 is branching out into truly uncharted waters.

The ads themselves are deceptively simple. For example: "Time for a career change? MI6 can use your skills. Join us as an operational officer collecting and analysing global intelligence to protect the UK."

But there is already more of an MI6 presence on Facebook than you might have imagined.

Perhaps you, too, have perused Facebook's Secret Intelligence Service Group. It is now more than 700 strong. And the names of those interested are there for all to see.

The Group's blood pressure is already rising: "In a world of growing technology, hacking capability and information gathering...our government now see's fit to not only lose info, but to now display its potential applicant and employees details on one of the largest social networking sites in the world....oh yes, including full facial recognition for some of you too....," writes Andy Leavy from England's West Midlands.

Robyn-Elizabeth Tippetts (with that name, clearly a shoo-in), however, declares: "I want to apply, any advice on what I should be doing, education-wise? I will be going into University very soon."

I am concerned that MI6's rather avant-garde attempt to find the most diplomatically-forward recruits might not bear quite the most mentally-forward fruit.

As I mentioned not so long ago, Sir Edmund Bunton, the Chairman of the UK's Information Advisory Council, railed at the Facebook Generation's utter disregard for discretion. He declared young people's careless habits were responsible for the fact that the Ministry of Defense has lost 55 laptops (many left in cars overnight) in recent times.

On the other hand, perhaps this bold move signals the arrival of a new trend towards open, public, even socially-networked spying. Perhaps we are about to enjoy a new era of espionage, one in which we will observe the machinations of the covert live on our laptops, as if it were a never-ending Bourne Identity.

It will be interesting, indeed, to see how many of the new Facebook-sourced MI6 recruits will be unusually photogenic.

The Large Hadron Collider is an emotive subject.

For some, it is the most serious thing to have ever happened in the world, beyond even their first kiss or their first algebra lesson. For others, it is a source of suspicion, like a pollster stopping you in the street or a well-dressed man asking you for spare change.

Some (with either excitement or trepidation) have even pointed out that one of the brains behind this vast eternal machine is Dr. Brian Cox, once the keyboard player for the band D:Ream. D:Ream's greatest hit, a song adopted by Tony Blair's Labor Party in its landslide election victory of 1997, was "Things Can Only Get Better." There are people who believe that this song served as the final psychological push towards Dr. Cox's deep and lasting commitment to particle physics.

Technically Incorrect does not sink to fripperies. We believe in the untrammeled possibilities of particle physics. And in the soft and sneaky power of marketing.

Now that the LHC is having to endure downtime that might last as long as six months, something of a public-relations disappointment, I believe that the collective brainpower of CNET's readership should be devoted, Uri Geller-like, to finding a good name for this, the most important experiment to ever (hopefully) take place this century.

Naturally, some organizations have already attempted to address the deep and painful need for a new moniker. The Royal Society of Chemistry dedicated all of its imagination (yes, all of it) to this task. And came up with the name Halo. I know that most chemists are nice, conscientious and caring people. They have to battle with more noxious odors than most human beings, and they do it with an admirable stoicism.

Doesn't it look just a little like Charles De Gaulle airport?

(Credit: CC Ethan Hein)

But if Halo is the best name they could come up with, then I fear for a chemical solution to global warming.

Wired magazine's readers, on the other hand, displayed a dedication and a humor that is to be admired, especially when the task at hand is so infernally difficult. The magazine recently announced that the winner of its renaming competition was Black Mesa.

I appreciate the atmosphere of dark foreboding that comes with this name, the sinister sense of unknown machinations in New Mexico. But I am concerned that its provenance is its greatest downfall. It is, after all, lifted straight from the Half-Life computer game and, well, derivatives are surely not the flavor of the month in our current disturbed world.

Shouldn't we really be looking for a little pure originality, a name that will capture the imagination of every man, woman, child, monkey, and dog on this planet, so that when the LHC gets going again, everyone will be glued to a live feed of the action?

Just to give you a flavor of some of Wired's runners-up or, as some would have it, second-place winners: there was The Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick Simulator, which would have been lovely, save for the fact that, well, these days, Mr. Norris' name is a little too close to the political world; there was also Master Blaster Atom Smasher; as well as the somewhat differently stroking What Willis Was Talking About; another that some might have favored was The Thing We Play With When We Aren't Playing Warcraft.

Perhaps that last one is a little too close to the truth for some.

There is still, therefore, an opening for a great new name, one that might bring with it a little more luck. And I leave it open to those who feel strongly about this celestial collision machine and, naturally, to those who feel their creative bent has been stifled by those in positions of power (which may include parents, spouses, dealers etc).

If a name emerges that moves everyone to ecstasy, I will ensure that the concerned of CERN will hear about it.

But, please, don't even think of calling it The D:Ream Machine.

We all make mistakes. We date the wrong people, we expectorate at unfortunate moments and, sometimes, we make ill-judged investments. In an atmosphere in which many poor investments are being rescued like lost puppies on a Friday night after the bars close, you might expect some bright tech mind to go all Web 2.0 on the issue.

Welcome, therefore, buymyshitpile.com.

I was directed to this most innovative site by one of America's more renowned literary figures, who, I understand, has already put one of her more regrettable purchases there (asking price: more than $250,000). As all the best sites do, buymyshitpile.com offers a simple explanation for its existence. It is an attempt to introduce a little democracy into the bailout plan proceedings.

"We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government," declares the site. It therefore invites you to dispose of your more dubious assets by displaying them on its pages and naming your own price.

Though the design of the site could use a little more finesse, it is hard to argue with the sheer beauty of its logic: "It's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets."

Just a quick meander through buymyshitpile.com brings you closer to the world at large, the world of the the true sufferer, the despairing citizen, the person whose mistakes never seem to work out right.

(Credit: CC Tim Parkinson)

Browsing through the most recent dungish offerings, I saw three oil filters going for a very reasonable $250million; 300 cassette tapes from Abba to ZZ Top at $42million; someone's old bike for a snippy $25,000; some rotten (but not necessarily British) teeth for $1million; and some roadkill for the utterly bargain price of $6.66.

However, there was one item that I know should interest the Treasure Secretary greatly; an engineering diploma from the great Northwestern International University, priced at just $50. Northwestern International is not the place in Illinois with all those massive business and mathematical brains (some of whose alumni might, one supposes, have been involved in the more exotic financial calculations of recent years that, um, didn't quite turn out right).

Northwestern International has a president with the providential name of Dr. Jay Wise. "Northwestern International University is genuinely open. There are no entry qualifications, no admission interview, no barriers of any kind. As long as you are over 18 and want to study, we will accept you," says its website.

The apparent owner of the diploma tells his story thus: "One engineering diploma. Got laid off in 1995 and never found another engineering job. Value of lost wages to date $780,000. But costs more if adjusted for inflation. I'm willing to sell it for the value of the worthless paper-much cheaper than the worthless paper Henry (Paulson, presumably) is trying to sell us."

A Ph.D from this profoundly democratic establishment costs a vast $495. A B.S., a severe $345. And its administrative office is in exotic Gibraltar. The diploma, gained in 2001, declares that Northwestern International is in equally exotic Cyprus. But on buymyshitpile.com, this diploma can be bailed out for a mere $50.

You can see, therefore, just what huge bargains the authorities can pick up if they scour the apparently detrital wasteland that is buymyshitpile.com.

This weekend, could there be anything more important for you to do, but to display your own most painful errors on this site, in order to cleanse your life, help the cause and gird yourself for the fun that is still to come?

There are some things you think you know, but never dare to say. Until a very clever scientist says it for you.

First, there was the idea that the Large Hadron Collider experiment might not go off with an instant bang. And now news has emerged this week from the laboratories of the University of Florida that men who have sexist attitudes get paid more.

Every time you think the world has moved forward, it is information such as this that makes you lie down in the fetal position, clutch your favorite Kelly Clarkson CD and sob a little.

The scientists running this experiment, Timothy Judge and Beth Livingston, believe they accounted for every possible skewing variable before they reached this manically depressing conclusion.

Their study lasted 26 years and embroiled 12,686 guinea pigs--some of whom appeared to be sexist (guinea) pigs. Well-off, sexist (guinea) pigs.

On average, men who favor traditional gender roles make $8,500 a year than those with more gender-balanced views.

There is no suggestion that this gentleman works in tech.

(Credit: CC Gregg O'Connell)

Female readers should clutch their mallets very gingerly when they hear that the situation is reversed for them, but with very different proportions. As Bernie Ecclestone, the head of Formula One racing, once said: "I've got one of these wonderful ideas that women should all be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances." With that in mind...the researchers found that women who don't believe in traditional roles earn only an average $1,500 a year more than their white-dressing counterparts.

When women and men are working in an egalitarian environment, the researchers found, there appears to be little difference between their salaries. But in organizations with more traditional attitudes, the pay discrepancy between men and women might remind some of The Shining.

"These results cannot be explained by the fact that, in traditional couples, women are less likely to work outside the home," Judge said in a statement. "Though this plays some role in our findings, our results suggest that even if you control for time worked and labor force participation, traditional women are paid less than traditional men for comparable work."

The researchers are keen to see if this is merely a Mammonist American phenomenon. They cite European research that suggests the most traditional female workforce can be found in the same place as some of the world's finest beer, the Czech Republic. While a country with beer of a lesser reputation, Norway, appears to have found a way to create something of a financial balance between the sexes.

However, the researchers' final conclusion is an interesting and, for some, no doubt, a wishful and wistful one.

"Our results have a certain normative assumption," they write, "that earning money is a social 'good'. (....) it is important to recognize that in industrialized nations such as the United States, the correlation between income and happiness is relatively modest."

This skirts with dangerous proximity to a suggestion that women (and gender-enlightened men) shouldn't worry, as money isn't everything. Indeed it isn't. But does it have to be said, or even thought, that if a woman is doing the same job as a man she should be paid the same number of dollars?

There are indications that, when it comes to the tech world, women with a traditional view of gender relations might have a greater chance of "success."

The Harvard Business Review concluded that women get sick of tech companies not necessarily because of some clear imbalance in pay, but because of the delightfully-termed "antigens." These antigens seem to contribute greatly to the fact that 52 percent of women drop completely out of the science, engineering, and technology business in their 30s.

"We found that 63 percent of women in science, engineering and technology have experienced sexual harassment. That's a really high figure. They talk about demeaning and condescending attitudes, lots of off-color jokes, sexual innuendo, arrogance; colleagues, particularly in the tech culture, who genuinely think women don't have what it takes--who see them as genetically inferior," said the researchers.

One wonders what the very largely male bunch of tech CEOs is doing about this parlous situation. Because if one looks at the whole picture painted by the Harvard and Florida research, some troubling questions arise.

Should one conclude that if you're a woman you're more likely to survive (and, perhaps, even "thrive") in a tech company if you can deal with being treated in a sexist manner? And do we also conclude that those women who tolerate sexist behavior do so because it actually corresponds with their world view in some way, even though they might be paid significantly less than male counterparts?

Or do we need some more research? Which tech CEO will sponsor it?

I don't know if you've ever flown Aeroflot, but I am told that on some of the flights you get benches rather than seats--which is why I am rather admiring of Richard Garriott's courage.

Garriott, a video game developer from Austin, Texas, is spending a reported $35 million to get shot up in a Soyuz, according to Reuters.

He says he isn't scared. That's despite the fact that a South Korean lady, who became a Soyuznik in April, complained that she thought she was going to die upon re-entry. Her no-doubt highly sober captain apparently re-entered the capsule into the Earth's atmosphere at a rather unfortunate angle.

Parts of the module became smithereens, and the crew seems to have experienced the space equivalent of the bends.

Garriott is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott. And the younger Garriott is about to enjoy 10 days in space before, hopefully, returning to Earth in a three-man re-entry vehicle.

The thing is, this vehicle might not get a wonderful Carfax rating.

It's a long time since we saw CCCP, isn't it?

(Credit: CC DeusXFlorida)

Its last two landings have been less than optimal. Both times, explosive bolts, which are supposed to detonate before re-entry, failed to do so. Insain, rather than Usain Bolts, clearly.

Nonexploding bolts cause what are known as ballistic landings (the name does not appear to refer to the passengers' mood during one of these returns to Earth).

"I am convinced the probability of a ballistic landing in my case is significantly reduced," Garriott told Reuters. "But if it were to occur, I am physically and mentally well-prepared for it."

You might be wondering why Garriott is not using some family influence to take a ride on a NASA vehicle. Apparently, his poor eyesight prevents him from participating in the U.S. program.

Whereas the Russians, having sent a dog up in space, seem perfectly happy to send those with merely diminished vision and surplus cash.

Garriott will need all his visual powers on his trip. His job will be to photograph environmental movements. Let us hope that he doesn't suffer from any other untoward movements while he is floating in the firmament.

Perhaps, too, he will have time to photograph what is going on at the Russian/Georgian border.