At one point, during an auction for certain wireless patents last week, Google's representatives bid $3.14159 billion.
Yes, they bid pi.
Such behavior might have inspired Dr. Seuss, were he still around to hear of it.
Then the firm that was named for a number too high
Decided to bid for the patents. They'd try
With a whim and a will to win the IP
And choke out their rivals from markets -- with glee!
They could have bid "googol," if they'd spelt it right --
But then all those zeroes gave even them fright.
Upon a new plan they soon did alight:
They'd bid for a number so tasty to try
It needed no "e" when they all screamed for "pi"!
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
09 July 2011
13 May 2011
Microsoft buying Skype
The price tag seems high to me. $8.5 billion? with a "b"? for a money-losing service?
MS' problem, I suspect, is simply that its core business, involving Windows and the Office Suite, is sooo ... 20th century. The folks in the corporate suites over there must feel at times like they're trying to sell manual typewriters.
So they're reaching out, not just for peripheral activities, but in hopes of defining for themselves a new core.
In this case, they had to grab for it before Google got it. I understand, dudes. Really.
But $8.5 billion? Carl Sagan money. "buh-illions."
Here's Reuters from Tuesday morning.
And here are a few pertinent words from Felix Salmosn.
Note that the commenter on Salmon's blog entry makes a case that Skype wouldn't have made a good match for Google. Could Google simply have head-faked MS into a money-losing deal neither of them really wanted?
MS' problem, I suspect, is simply that its core business, involving Windows and the Office Suite, is sooo ... 20th century. The folks in the corporate suites over there must feel at times like they're trying to sell manual typewriters.
So they're reaching out, not just for peripheral activities, but in hopes of defining for themselves a new core.
In this case, they had to grab for it before Google got it. I understand, dudes. Really.
But $8.5 billion? Carl Sagan money. "buh-illions."
Here's Reuters from Tuesday morning.
And here are a few pertinent words from Felix Salmosn.
Note that the commenter on Salmon's blog entry makes a case that Skype wouldn't have made a good match for Google. Could Google simply have head-faked MS into a money-losing deal neither of them really wanted?
08 March 2009
The metaphysics of soap suds
Someone in Yahoo!Answers said recently that he/she had heard of some prominent philosopher who described human thoughts as "soap suds in the washbowl of nothingness," and asked if we could come up with a name.
I haven't found that exact quote, or anything with a distiguished pedigree, but I did find the use of the imagery, an invocation of soap bubbles in 'vain casings of nothingness,' and then the use of that image as a descriptor of intellectual constructions. I found this in a book review written for Union Seminary Magazine.
This just shows how neat a project Google Books has become. It is amazing the things you can find, including a bit of perhaps overly elaborate prose styling at the start of a review written in 1890.
The imagery appears as an expression of scepticism about theories of the "Aryan race," a subject that might have seemed harmlessly academic in 1890.
The author of the book review is R.B. Woodworth, and he begins this way: "To blow a bubble requires but a pipe, a basin of soap-suds and a blower. And it is pleasant, too, to watch these vain casings of nothingness as, reflecting in their diaphanous films the varied and beautiful colors of the rainbow, they float away beyond human ken into the azure depths of the heavens.' He goes on like that for awhile before he gets to the point. Adult intellectuals too, he says, "are bubble blowers. Castles in the air delight us children of a larger growth." And so forth.
If you want to read the whole bit, go to page 303 of the volume to which I've just linked you, and partake in Mr. Woodworth's bid for immortality.
This is probably far from what the Yahoo! questioner had in mind, but I ghad fun and, hey, isn't that the point of the existence of the cosmos?
I haven't found that exact quote, or anything with a distiguished pedigree, but I did find the use of the imagery, an invocation of soap bubbles in 'vain casings of nothingness,' and then the use of that image as a descriptor of intellectual constructions. I found this in a book review written for Union Seminary Magazine.
This just shows how neat a project Google Books has become. It is amazing the things you can find, including a bit of perhaps overly elaborate prose styling at the start of a review written in 1890.
The imagery appears as an expression of scepticism about theories of the "Aryan race," a subject that might have seemed harmlessly academic in 1890.
The author of the book review is R.B. Woodworth, and he begins this way: "To blow a bubble requires but a pipe, a basin of soap-suds and a blower. And it is pleasant, too, to watch these vain casings of nothingness as, reflecting in their diaphanous films the varied and beautiful colors of the rainbow, they float away beyond human ken into the azure depths of the heavens.' He goes on like that for awhile before he gets to the point. Adult intellectuals too, he says, "are bubble blowers. Castles in the air delight us children of a larger growth." And so forth.
If you want to read the whole bit, go to page 303 of the volume to which I've just linked you, and partake in Mr. Woodworth's bid for immortality.
This is probably far from what the Yahoo! questioner had in mind, but I ghad fun and, hey, isn't that the point of the existence of the cosmos?
15 December 2007
Tony Soprano Pragmatism
If you type those words: Tony Soprano Pragmatism, into the google search engine, this humble blog comes up fifth on the resulting list of more than 2,000 results.
Indeed, according to sitemeter, somebody in Burlington, Mass. did did get to my blog by typing that string of words two days ago.
That person wasn't disappointed, either. (S)he spent more than 24 minutes here, looking at 15 pages. I'm proud to have received such attention for this collection of stochastically-generated sitemaster-friendly, synaptic snapshots.
My guess? Some teacher in an intro-to-philosophy course suggested a pro or con assignment on pragmatism, as part of which, said instructor suggested asking yourself "Was Tony Soprano a pragmatist?" A teacher must always use his student's existing interests as a base, after all, and presumably Tony S. was known to our Burlingtonian student going in.
I regret to say, though, that although such an inquirer into this blog could find some material on Tony, and could of course find some material on pragmatism, in the task of interestingly relating the two, I'd be unhelpful.
And so I remain even in this post, despite its promising title.
Indeed, according to sitemeter, somebody in Burlington, Mass. did did get to my blog by typing that string of words two days ago.
That person wasn't disappointed, either. (S)he spent more than 24 minutes here, looking at 15 pages. I'm proud to have received such attention for this collection of stochastically-generated sitemaster-friendly, synaptic snapshots.
My guess? Some teacher in an intro-to-philosophy course suggested a pro or con assignment on pragmatism, as part of which, said instructor suggested asking yourself "Was Tony Soprano a pragmatist?" A teacher must always use his student's existing interests as a base, after all, and presumably Tony S. was known to our Burlingtonian student going in.
I regret to say, though, that although such an inquirer into this blog could find some material on Tony, and could of course find some material on pragmatism, in the task of interestingly relating the two, I'd be unhelpful.
And so I remain even in this post, despite its promising title.
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