September Random Rants

Remember last year when Kanye West proclaimed to the world how he would never participate in another MTV VMA event?  Yeah, well, guess what?  Kanye is closing out this years VMA ceremony.  I just lost some respect for you, Mr. West.

Obama has said he does not plan on focusing on Palin’s personal issues.  Great way to save face, Obama — especially when you have the entire media focusing on Palin’s personal issues. 

I don’t trust Google’s new Chrome web browser one bit.  And neither should you. 

This one is not a rant, but a rave.  Bob Sheppard is planning on being at Yankee Stadium for it’s finale.  What a great thing that would be.

Hanna is moving towards the east coast and especially near the Carolinas+Maryland.  Great, just when we’re supposed to be in Baltimore for the weekend. 

Lego turned fifty today!

I still wish I could just sit down and play with my Lego sets all day long — unfortunately, I have to work instead.  But, I cannot wait for the day until I’m fully justified playing with Lego sets all day long (read: when I have a child).  I still have most of my sets in my parents’ basement; including my Lego Train set. 

Google joined in the celebration as well and displayed a Lego-inspired Google logo. 

Google has released an updated version of Google Maps for mobile phones.  It’s a much improved version with great features and capabilities. 

The first thing I realized when I downloaded the new version and ran the application for the first time was that it pinpointed my location to within 10 meters.  Now, for those with Verizon, you know that your built-in GPS is crippled unless you pay them ten bucks a month for their software — a rip-off, yes.  But Google Maps uses the cell towers around you to pinpoint your location — instant GPS capabilities for free!

Unfortunately, there are no vocal turn by turn directions, but there is detailed on-screen directions that update as you progress on your trip.  However, I’m unsure if it offers correction updates, in case if you make a wrong turn here or there. 

Plus, real-time traffic with estimation delays are now included.  I used the real-time traffic view the other day, and it was relatively accurate.  However, I had no idea where I was in the long stretch of traffic on the map, nor how much of a delay I’d be encountering.  So, this is definitely a nice feature to have in my BlackBerry. 

Oh, and this comes just a few days after I ordered one of those GPS pucks for my phone.  Turns out that as long as I have service, I have faux GPS-capabilities.  I’ll probably hold on to the puck, however, since it can help if I’m not in a service area. 

http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html

Google has planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in coming years to promote a move to encourage cheap renewable electricity. 

This is certainly what the world needs, and I’m surprised it has taken this long for a large company to open the financial doors to other sources of renewable energy.  But, it has finally come, and I feel, for the most part, that Google is the right company to be pushing this initiative. 

Google, thus far, has been able to challenge the tech industry with it’s search engine capabilities, web-based mail applications, and it’s various other services and tools.  Google applying this same creativity and innovation to the energy market will only benefit everyone — cheaper energy, less toxic emissions, etc. 

This comes in a time when the “clean coal” advertising schema are starting to appear throughout the media.  These schemes are making it appear that “clean coal” is much safer, and cleaner, than traditional coal.  Unfortunately, this isn’t entirely true.  “Clean coal” may be cheaper than others, but it’s certainly not “cleaner.”  It still produces many hazardous and toxic byproducts.