I was hanging out with some friends in Oregon last night, and we ended up needing some pizza. A friend called Google 411 (1-800-GOOG-411) to get the number of a nearby Dominoes, and something happened that we didn’t expect. Listen to the resulting call.
Here’s an excerpt:
GOOGLE: What city and state please?
Me: Gresham, Oregon.
GOOGLE: Gresham, Oregon. What business name or category?
Me: Dominoes.
GOOGLE: Ya know what, it looks like you’ve uncovered a small error in the system. We’ll fix that as soon as possible. We really appreciate your call. Talk to ya soon!
I was surprised. First, there was an error on what I would think was a popular request; second, Google’s error message! If Google’s 411 software was written by a “stereotypical” development company, I would have gotten “Error 51.” Props to them.
On the other hand though, it seems weird that the Google voice talks to me like another person. “Ya know what?”, “Talk to ya soon.” I know I’m calling a computer… it just feels odd.
Being the tester that I am, I tried to see how I could reproduce the bug. It seems as though using the input “Gresham, Oregon” and “Dominoes” reproduces it fairly easy. However, I’ve seen a non-scientific correlation between the bug and any related background noise. It seems as though the bug happens more often when there is a noisemaker, such as a TV, running in the background while making the call. I’m not totally sure this is the case, but going into a quiet room gave me the results I was looking for.
Good bug, Google.
Bugs
This is a post I’ve wanted to make for a while.
It turns out that this page — a previous blog post of mine — is my most visited page on this site. This isn’t a bad thing (I think it’s great!), but I’ve noticed the info there is either obsolete or naive, and there are better ways of doing things.
Instead of recreating that page (and rewriting a lot of what I’ve already written), I’m instead giving a bit of code with some unit tests that shows how repository interaction can be done.
Now, the file above is in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of what you can do with the Subversion Bindings. Also, I don’t guarantee it to be correct. My use of the subversion bindings faded about six months ago (the project I was working on no longer needed them), but I didn’t want to see useful information go to waste. So, with that, I hope this file is useful, and I would encourage people to let me know how it is used, and how it can be improved.
Projects
… and have figured out where I stand. Here’s one of my message’s to a friend:
“Yes, I agree that creative property (IP), is central to our economy, but I don’t believe fist-tight control (aka, DRM) is the way to go about it. Take RadioHead for instance — they released their last album for free (0$), and have made millions from people who decided that it was worth paying for. We need to find business models that don’t contradict consumer’s rights and freedoms, and instead find ways to compensate those who should be duly compensated. Is a recording really worth paying for, or is the singing of the song, in person, in front of the live audience, really what people want? I don’t know, but I know people want to give their money to the artists. How much money do you think, per CD, goes to the artist, and how much goes to the RIAA? In a world where we don’t need CD’s to distribute media to the masses, why should we be paying an obsolete conglomerate for a service they no longer provide? In my opinion, the RIAA is drowning in a failing business model, and are unsuccessfully trying to force their value upon their consumers through DRM and legal action.”
I was a bit surprised when that came out because, for an AIM message, that’s not the usual fair. I instantly said, “Wow, this is blogable!”
Without detailing too much of my previous discussion, I was hoping to get some separate opinions. Is DRM the way to go when protecting our creative content — and protecting our creators? Or is there something different, another way, perhaps?
Uncategorized
… I just thought I’d share.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/12/03/ciclovia-a-moving-experience-in-bogota/
This is a video and description of what Sunday’s are like in Bogotá, Columbia, where 70 miles of city streets are closed off and left to the people, instead of the cars.
StreetsBlog is a subsidiary of The Open Planning Project.
New York, Work
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