Delta One Zero
So I'm playing this cool SMS, offline, online combo game called DeltaOneZero...so far quite fun.
I've created a directory of objects from the game at http://www.neuronwave.com/D10/ so if you're playing the game and want to see the two sites we've found which have since been removed have a look.
Monday, November 24, 2003
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Here bloggy bloggy blog
Gosh... Its been ages since I sat down to blog and so much has been going on which at the time I thought I should have blogged about but alas, I've been looking after other bits of my life and have forgotten most of those things.
More and more I've been thinking about this whole Mobile, Social, Recommendation space and sparking off new ideas for work and play which I want to progress.
The latest is a finder cum recommendation service for childrens playgrounds which is now going to be a summer project. The elevator pitch is that its a web site and mobile phone service which will help parents find playgrounds when they are traveling be it over the other side of town on interstate. User will be able to upload photos and reviews of the playgrounds and add/edit details as they need to. Because you need a playground recommendation when you are away from your computer you'll be able to print out a handy wallet size playground rec list for you to take around and you'll be able to use your mobile to send a request via wap or sms (at a later date) to the service requesting details of playgrounds.
If you are interested in helping out in some way please drop me an email. We'll need lots of people to add details of their fave playgrounds around the place.
On the work front it looks like we'll be doing some J2ME work to build a music service demo for the nokia series 60 phones which sounds like a bit of fun. Also, we're playing around with the whole IM/Chat/Social Recommendation system to make use of our recommendations technology etc... Not a bad few geeky things to be working on....at least it beats the hell out of being a middle manager working on billing or provsioning systems for a telco/utility company.
We're building up to the usual pre Xmas party season here which is accentuated by Oskar's birthday next month and his friends various parties too. I must say that there is only a limited number of 3 year old parties one wishes to attend so thankfully the mum's in the mothers group have organised one big party for the kids...although it sounds like all we'll be eating is roast chicken and potatoe salad (don't ask!! I think someone may have options in red rooster).
Gosh... Its been ages since I sat down to blog and so much has been going on which at the time I thought I should have blogged about but alas, I've been looking after other bits of my life and have forgotten most of those things.
More and more I've been thinking about this whole Mobile, Social, Recommendation space and sparking off new ideas for work and play which I want to progress.
The latest is a finder cum recommendation service for childrens playgrounds which is now going to be a summer project. The elevator pitch is that its a web site and mobile phone service which will help parents find playgrounds when they are traveling be it over the other side of town on interstate. User will be able to upload photos and reviews of the playgrounds and add/edit details as they need to. Because you need a playground recommendation when you are away from your computer you'll be able to print out a handy wallet size playground rec list for you to take around and you'll be able to use your mobile to send a request via wap or sms (at a later date) to the service requesting details of playgrounds.
If you are interested in helping out in some way please drop me an email. We'll need lots of people to add details of their fave playgrounds around the place.
On the work front it looks like we'll be doing some J2ME work to build a music service demo for the nokia series 60 phones which sounds like a bit of fun. Also, we're playing around with the whole IM/Chat/Social Recommendation system to make use of our recommendations technology etc... Not a bad few geeky things to be working on....at least it beats the hell out of being a middle manager working on billing or provsioning systems for a telco/utility company.
We're building up to the usual pre Xmas party season here which is accentuated by Oskar's birthday next month and his friends various parties too. I must say that there is only a limited number of 3 year old parties one wishes to attend so thankfully the mum's in the mothers group have organised one big party for the kids...although it sounds like all we'll be eating is roast chicken and potatoe salad (don't ask!! I think someone may have options in red rooster).
Sunday, November 02, 2003
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is silly
I've been reading some online stuff and have found this excellent page on Forer, a psychologist from the 1st half of the 1900s.
He gave his students a personality test and ignored the results and gave them all the following paragraph as a description of them
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
He then got them to rate the accuracy of the description from 0 to 5. 5 being excellent and 4 being good. The class average was 4.26 since then the test has been done many times and the average is 4.2 (please ignore the fact that with a discrete scale such as 1,2,3,4,5 you cannot validly get averages that are more precise than the starting ratings so 4 should be average).
I've been reading some online stuff and have found this excellent page on Forer, a psychologist from the 1st half of the 1900s.
He gave his students a personality test and ignored the results and gave them all the following paragraph as a description of them
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
He then got them to rate the accuracy of the description from 0 to 5. 5 being excellent and 4 being good. The class average was 4.26 since then the test has been done many times and the average is 4.2 (please ignore the fact that with a discrete scale such as 1,2,3,4,5 you cannot validly get averages that are more precise than the starting ratings so 4 should be average).
Secret Purchases
A little over a week I succumbed to my nasty little habit (ok one of many little habits) and bought a new cumpler bag. This means we now have 5 bags between Suze and myself....all needed of course.
My new bag is a little one which I can hang around my neck and store my iPod (i love you iPod) and my phone (you are a utilitarian necessity phone and will be replaced when Steve Jobs creates iPhone). Meanwhile, I can carry my iBook (i love you too iBook) in my crumpler laptop bag and my other stuff in my crumpler messenger bag.
Being a secret purchase meant that at some stage I'd have to show Suzette and incur some anger over unnecessary purchases or something like that. So I used my tried and tested method of showing it to her when we had visitors (Suze's sister in this case) and using/taking-advantage-of Suzette's etiquette gland to not get told off too much....alas it didn't work :-(
The upshot of all this is that I am no longer to purchase any bags or officeworks products or ebay ANYTHING (I'm waiting on my 2 james bond games from this week).
A little over a week I succumbed to my nasty little habit (ok one of many little habits) and bought a new cumpler bag. This means we now have 5 bags between Suze and myself....all needed of course.
My new bag is a little one which I can hang around my neck and store my iPod (i love you iPod) and my phone (you are a utilitarian necessity phone and will be replaced when Steve Jobs creates iPhone). Meanwhile, I can carry my iBook (i love you too iBook) in my crumpler laptop bag and my other stuff in my crumpler messenger bag.
Being a secret purchase meant that at some stage I'd have to show Suzette and incur some anger over unnecessary purchases or something like that. So I used my tried and tested method of showing it to her when we had visitors (Suze's sister in this case) and using/taking-advantage-of Suzette's etiquette gland to not get told off too much....alas it didn't work :-(
The upshot of all this is that I am no longer to purchase any bags or officeworks products or ebay ANYTHING (I'm waiting on my 2 james bond games from this week).
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Big numbers over breakfast
Two big numbers that are flashing at me over my Saturday morning coffee.
- Friendster has taken 53 million US dollars in funding
- Google is estimated to be worth 15 billion US dollars
Its 1999/2000 all over again.
Dear Kleiner Perkins VC man,
Can I get 20 million funding for an online baby food portal site. There are millions upon millions of babies out there and if ibabyfood.com can get 0.1% of them buying 10$ of food a year from the site we'll make 100 million in the first year!!!!
Additionally, we can sell advertising to baby product makers and provide rich deep content which will create "sticky" eyeballs for the parents who will build a deep relationship with the site. And, we can have a community of parents and children online.
As the children grow we'll know their ages and in 20+ years be able to market financial products to them based on their life events such as college funds, buying a house etc.
As for an exit, we can IPO for 40 billion within 4 years
Ben
President and Chairman
iBabyFood.com
Two big numbers that are flashing at me over my Saturday morning coffee.
- Friendster has taken 53 million US dollars in funding
- Google is estimated to be worth 15 billion US dollars
Its 1999/2000 all over again.
Dear Kleiner Perkins VC man,
Can I get 20 million funding for an online baby food portal site. There are millions upon millions of babies out there and if ibabyfood.com can get 0.1% of them buying 10$ of food a year from the site we'll make 100 million in the first year!!!!
Additionally, we can sell advertising to baby product makers and provide rich deep content which will create "sticky" eyeballs for the parents who will build a deep relationship with the site. And, we can have a community of parents and children online.
As the children grow we'll know their ages and in 20+ years be able to market financial products to them based on their life events such as college funds, buying a house etc.
As for an exit, we can IPO for 40 billion within 4 years
Ben
President and Chairman
iBabyFood.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)