Never mind the big hole in it.

Dilbert author Scott Adams has an interesting blog entry, about his Donut Theory of the Universe. I call it interesting, because it is a fairly good explanation of something that has piqued the curiosity of mankind for millenia.

(As an aside, it also provides ample fodder for puns: one comment goes, “Sweet theory. I think you are on a roll with this idea. Perhaps some Danish research institute could fund research into your theory. Although, I have to admit I sort of glazed over reading it.”)

Give it a read; it’s the closest I’ve ever come to understanding these things. :)

Time Magazine captured the essence of 2006 (and maybe 2005 and 2004 too) when they nominated You as Person of the Year. Yes, you, who contributed to a global knowledge-base that’s larger than anything the experts could ever do. You, who brought attention to shameful acts that otherwise would have remained hidden from the public eye. You, who created an operating system that has the major for-profit vendor all worried. You, who brought us Web 2.0.

Here’s to You!

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day. While we spend a moment of silence in memory of those who succumbed, this is also a time we can do something proactively. The (RED) effort encourages consumers to buy (RED) products over competing others, and according to their manifesto, a percentage of the proceeds will be used to buy medicine for victims of AIDS. A long list of (RED) products includes manufacturers such as Apple, Motorola, American Express, Gap, and Armani, and the effort has been endorsed by Google.

My site is wearing a red ribbon today, in the form of a red band at the top of each page. May we collectively be able to make a difference.

Google just announced a new feature in Google Maps: Click to Call. When you find a business on Google Maps, you can ask to be connected directly. Google then calls you on the number you provide, and places a call to the business at the other end.

This is yet another example of seamless task migration. The user’s ultimate goal in locating a business is to get in touch with them. The most common way to do this today is to call using a phone (at least as long as Voice-over-IP is not as ubiquitous as cellphones and land-lines). Lo, Google bridged the gap. End-to-end support for a user’s tasks using multiple devices is a challenge that’s getting its due attention only recently.

Hopefully, we will soon be able to do the same with phone numbers all over the Web. Imagine a button on my website that says, “click to call me”. Or, a button on my photo albums page that says, “view as a slideshow on the living room TV”. Or being able to press a button on your car radio to “read more about the currently-advertised product once I’m back home”.

Users who bought music from Microsoft’s MSN Music Store (no one I know, but still) will not be able to play it on the newly-announced Zune portable player. (Oh, did I mention Zune is made by Microsoft too?)

Let’s see how many different classes of people they’ve alienated this time:

1. There are the users who bought players from their hardware partners. If they want to “upgrade” to a Zune, they’ll have to re-buy their music.
2. Their hardware partners, because this is going to affect their sales, no doubt.
3. Their music suppliers, because they’re discontinuing the MSN Store.
4. And this is in addition to all of us Mac OS X and Linux users for whom Microsoft doesn’t even have a media player (not that we care, but still.)

From playsforsure.com:

Look for the PlaysForSure logo if you’re shopping for a music or video device and you want to make sure the digital music and video you purchase will play back on it every time.

Heh. I’d just buy an iPod, then. :)

And the irony to top it all is that this initiative was called ‘Plays for Sure’. Yeah, right.