Jan 14 2022 - Wordle of the Day

 

I checked out the news in Google News.  I found this WORDLE, The Daily Game.  I don't normally go to Google News - it is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web.  This is the service opposed  by news organizations and countries over licensing and the lack of it by Google.  They even thought that displaying snippets of content without licensing seemed to be ok.  Where there is licensing, the company is under investigation.  France has fined Google and other countries such as Germany are involved in an antitrust probe. But what we noticed in the News Feed was the Wordle of the Day.  What is Wordle?  The New York Times on January 3rd, 2022 says that it is a love story - a game designed by Josh Wardle in November 2021 for his girlfriend.  It now has over 300,000 players.   "It’s been a meteoric rise for the once-a-day game, which invites players to guess a five-letter word in a similar manner as the guess-the-color game Mastermind. After guessing a five-letter word, the game tells you whether any of your letters are in the secret word and whether they are in the correct place. You have six tries to get it right. Few such popular corners of the internet are as low-frills as the website, which Mr. Wardle built himself as a side project. There are no ads or flashing banners; no windows pop up or ask for money. There is merely the game on a black background". It is based on five-letter words - around 12,000 in English.  Here is what it looks like: Here is the New York Times article about it HERE.  Isn't this a wonderful news story of the day!  A game that will soon become beloved world-wide.  This was a bit of graffiti in St. Catharines.  It has been colourized and given a painterly effect.  All of my manipulation software tools have to be upgraded and uploaded and then tested.  Both Photoshop and Lightroom moved to new releases, and plugins stopped 'plugging in'.   The original is below - itself an interesting image with a graceful composition.

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July 12 2020 - People also ask

What about that box "People Also Ask".  For today's date they asked what day is July 2020.  It got my attention.   Here's an article explaining it: You’ve likely seen the People Also Ask (Related Questions) boxes in SERPs (search engine results page). These accordion-like question and answer boxes are Google’s way of saying, “Hey, you beautiful searcher, you! These questions also relate to your search... maybe you're interested in exploring these too? Kick off your shoes, stay a while!” That article explains how there can be an infinite number of People also asked responses. That article is for technical types.  All the articles are for technical types.  Way to technical and dry for us on a Sunday. Here's the outstanding Google joke of the day: Hello! Is this Gordon's Pizza? Google: No sir, it's Google's Pizza. Did I dial the wrong number? Google: No sir, Google bought the pizza store. Oh, alright - then I’d like to place an order please. Google: Okay sir, do you want the usual? The usual? You know what my usual is? Google: According to the caller ID, the last 15 times you’ve ordered a 12-slice with double-cheese, sausage, and thick crust. Okay - that’s what I want this time too. Google: May I suggest that this time you order an 8-slice with ricotta, arugula, and tomato instead? No, I hate vegetables. Google: But your cholesterol is not good. How do you know? Google: Through the subscriber's guide. We have the results of your blood tests for the last 7 years. Maybe so, but I don’t want the pizza you suggest – I already take medicine for high cholesterol. Google: But you haven’t taken the medicine regularly. 4 months ago you purchased from Drugsale Network a box of only 30 tablets. I bought more from another drugstore. Google: It's not showing on your credit card, sir. I paid in cash. Google: But according to your bank statement, you did not withdraw that much cash. I have another source of cash. Google: This is not showing on your last tax form unless you got it from an undeclared income source. WHAT THE HELL? ENOUGH! I'm sick of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. I'm going to an island without the internet, where there’s no cell phone line, and no one to spy on me ... Google: I understand sir, but you’ll need to renew your passport ... it expired 5 weeks ago. **** Peeeep ****** I have been out first thing in the mornings taking pictures of Grimsby gardens for the Trillium awards.  This is the Ford Cottage in Grimsby Beach - one of my favourites.

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March 29 2020 - Google's no Pagan Fool

Here's a question?  Is April 1st a pagan holiday?  Every holiday seems to have 'pagan roots'. The 'pagan' term comes from Christians describing the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. Equivalent terms were hellen, gentile, and heathen.  So it is a label that Christianity applied to others. "Anyone not Christian" is how it started out.  So was April Fool's Day a pagan tradition? The first written reference to April 1st as a day of tricks comes from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.  This reference is disputed.  What is confirmed is the French poet Eloy d'Amerval refer to a poisson d'avail in 1508, considered the first reference to the celebration in France.  Wikipedia says this: "Although no Biblical scholar or historian is known to have mentioned a relationship, some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fool's Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative." Reader's Digest claims that the likely origins are the Roman Festival of Hilaria.  It took place around March 25 in honour of the first day of the year longer than the night (equinox).   Because the origins are unknown, there are lots of articles and sites who weigh in on their version. And so it goes.   However, with this year's Covid-19 concerns, there is April Fools' news!  Google has officially canceled its April Fools' joke. Here's the list since year 2000.  We'll have to revisit them instead of getting a new one.  This turns out quite fun. Google's first April Fools' Day hoax, the MentalPlex hoax, invited users to project a mental image of what they wanted to find whilst staring at an animated GIF. Several humorous error messages were then displayed on the search results page, all listed below: Error 005: KUT Weak or no signal detected. Upgrade transmitter and retry. Error 466: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again. Error 05: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital. Error 4P: Unclear on whether your search is about money or monkeys. Please try again. Error 445: Searching on this topic is prohibited under international law. Error CK8: That information is protected under the National Security Act. Error 104: That information was lost with the Martian Lander. Please try again. Error 007: Query is unclear. Try again after removing hat, glasses and shoes. Error 008: Interference detected. Remove aluminum foil and remote control devices. Error: Insufficient conviction. Please clap hands 3 times, while chanting "I believe" and try again. Error: MentalPlex™ has determined that this is not your final answer. Please try again. And our image today is the flower 'Statice' - this came from the greenhouse tour last year (on this weekend).  This was the Prins greenhouse.

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What is Alphabet?

Have you wondered about Google the company?  I use its search engine every day. So I went to the Alphabet site - it's the company that 'owns' Google.  Its domain name is www.abc.xyz. (They couldn't get the domain name of alphabet.com as it was taken by a BMW fleet management division). These founders are known to be creative and crazy.  Alphabet came about after Google, through a complicated restructure so that Google could be a subsidiary of Alphabet.  And Alphabet could get on with experimentation in all kinds of areas.  Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted Alphabet to be able to engage in a diverse range of activities.  Pictures of the pair show them as relaxed people with open smiles that have a little mischief showing, and often doing silly things for the photographer. We know about the Google car, so here are a few more: "What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related." Such an interesting pair to profile - CNET's article on them is HERE Do you know that both Page and Brin are "burners" - avid attendees of the "free-wheeling" art festival Burning Man?  I've covered this festival in the past. The theme for Burning Man 2018 is  "I, Robot".  Here is the introduction on the Burning Man website: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. — Isaac Asimov, I, Robot Along with developments in robots, there are a lot of events expected in 2018.  You can find theme HERE.  Many of these are outer-space related - for example the expectation of the first picture of a black hole and the launch of the transiting Exoplanet survey satellite. My pictures today apply the Flaming Pear India Ink filter first, and then Flexifly to get images that remind me of Escher's abstract drawings.

So Many Questions!

Google covers the top trending searches.  For example, the number one searched-for animal is Giraffe, then Brahma chicken.  "The most Googled "What is..." and "How to..." questions of 2016 both revolved around one thing: Pokémon Go." I found the website covering the World's Most Popular Questions -  Martin Kryzwinski, science art, staff scientist, Bioinformatics, Genome Sciences Centre, Vancouver.  He is willing to take them all on:   "Even before we explored outside our caves, mankind has been plagued by unanswerable questions. How do I heal a broken heart? Why do I never see baby pigeons? I don't understand how Lost ended." In the section Examples, he lists these questions as  General Issues: How could I ask for more? How do people do extreme couponing? How can I sell my soul? Who can I sue? Why can't I hold all these limes? Why can't I sell my kidney? Why don't people like me? Why do people hear voices in their head? Why do I always feel like murdering everyone? Why do I never see baby pigeons? I don't understand how Lost ended. I don't understand where I went wrong. One might want to click on these questions to see what the answers are.  Alas, they don't have links. There's enough on his website to keep one busy, though.   These pictures come from a farm burn pile beside the road on the escarpment.

Goggle Every Day

Do you remember the burning man festival?  This is a yearly event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.  It is a radical movement based on 10 principles, such as communal effort, civic responsibility, and radicalism - self-reliance, self-expression and inclusion.   What does this have to do with Google?  I though I'd find out about the daily theme.  I guessed it is a great accomplishment in one of the largest companies in the world to have one's theme chosen.  How does it work?  The very first google doodle appeared in honour of the Burning Man Festival of 1998, and was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed.   This has evolved over time into a major activity with a Google Doodler team, and competitions in various countries. The history of the google doodle is available on Wikipedia here. I am looking forward to the Canada Day google this year with the 150th birthday.  You can see the Canada Day google doodles here. Last week Queen Street West had a window display that got my camera's attention.