ME, Me, Everywhere!

I did today what most people do at some point in time:  I did a search on Google for “Scott Vannatter” (sans the “”).

It returned with 26,800 finds.  Rather than write a post that would stretch on for the length of a small novel, I wandered through the first 15 pages and pulled anything that truly had to do with me, and not the other bunch sharing my name or last name.  Amusing?  Yes, and I thought I would share with you just a bit.

1.  My LinkedIn profile
2. My Facebook profile  – I am the 2nd one, the one with hat and dark glasses ( actual page )
3. White pages – From Middletown and just found out my 2nd wife remarried, Interesting.
4. My Amazon Kindle Collection 
5. My Twitter Account
6. My Kevin Bufton Books (1 story in each) on Goodreads
7. My Google+ page 
8. A Scam reporting page (I am down a bit on the list)
9. A Page about My Father’s Death 
10. Page from School where I taught
11. My Cousin – a page
12. A comment I made on Grace for Retts, a post I have followed for years.  Worth a look! Home page
13. My UK Amazon Kindle Page
14. A brief listing about my son – decided not to give link for his own privacy
15. A Digitized copy of my MA diploma program (not sure why the names and things are crossed out, but I am in the very top section!)

There you have the Internet of Me!  Not really exciting, but does show how much info is collected on someone over the years. There could be, I suppose, a few more in the remaining 26K+ entries I didn’t try, however, it is doubtful as relevance goes down as the list continues.

How about Googling yourself?  Have you ever Googled someone else?  Dating someone? Spouse? Children? Neighbor?

Just nosey, that’s all.  This was, basically, to help you understand that you really do need to keep your private info private.  I try hard not to give out anything that I would care if anyone found out about it.

Namaste,

Scott

 

 

Remake the Internet – A Good Thing for Everyone!

If anything needs to go viral this year, it is the buildup and last 1/2 of this talk!!!

And I think I have memory problems!!!

Tonight, just playing around, I was curious – so, I asked Google:

“How much storage space does Google have?”  Here is the link to the answer:

http://paulwallbank.com/2012/08/23/how-much-server-space-do-internet-companies-need-to-run-their-sites/

And, in true form, Google previewed my question this time after “How much storage”.

I found it a great article to read and the idea the world, basically, had about 295 exabytes in 2007 freaked me a bit.  We know it will have come a very, very long way since 2007.  Now, I am told the true answers are, mostly, kept secret by these large companies.  But, let’s take a short look at that number.

1 exabyte = 1,000 petabytes and 1 petabyte = 1,000 terabytes.  Going on, 1 terabyte = 1,000 megabytes and a megabyte = 1,000 kilobytes which, in turn, is equal to 1,000 bytes or 2 bits each equaling a 1 or 0.

Making it ridiculous, 1 exabyte = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes or 1 trillion bytes.

So, the storage was about equal to 590 trillion 1s or 0s.  The nearest star to us, I am told, is about 4.367 light years (Alpha Centauri).  A light year is about 5.87849981 × 10¹² miles.  This large number is:

5,878,499,810,000 or a little LESS than 6 trillion miles.  So, look at this comparison:

590,000,000,000,000 and 5,878,499,810,000.  If it needs to be made easier, if you traveled 1 mile for each byte in the storage space of the Earth for 2007, you could travel to Alpha Centauri AND BACK nearly 5 times!!! Now, that makes it a huge number.

Then, I found a chart within the article:

This was a fabulous info graphic and deserves a bit of your attention and I won’t ruin it by trying to summarize.  Just know that it is fairly easy to understand and the numbers are almost as freaky as those above!

I hope this quick trip through large numbers and computers has held your attention.  Feel free to ask me in the comments about other large numbers in computing.  What’s your question?!

Namaste,

Scott

A Google then and Now

Source: Google Image Search with License for Reuse Click Pic for Page

When I was young, I was introduced to the word “google.”  It came from something I was reading.  In it, a math person had come across a number in his work that was a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.  He asked his little boy what it should be called and the boy said it was a “googol.”

That is such a far cry from what it is now.  The word is now known by nearly every person in the world, certainly everyone who owns or has access to a computer.  It is now both a search term (used on said site) or the company that began the search engine.  “Google” now means a great deal more.

However, this morning I brought up my home page and clicked on the “Google” word to see what the company wanted to talk about today.  It seemed it is their anniversary (or one of them as they used several different dates).  Today marks 16 years for them.  The wiki page it brought me to discussed, at great length, all the company has gone through and done in its relatively short time in existence.  According to the document, the shares run a little over $576 as of this morning.  In 2004, the stock (GOOG) ran about $54.10.  That’s over 11 times your money in about 10 years!  If that doesn’t seem to interest you, think of it this way:  If you invested $5000 in the stock in 2004 and simply left it in, you would have about $55,000 now (minus some expenses).  That always angers me because, I know that somehow I could have come up with $5,000 back then had I really put my mind to it.

Looking back at the article, I will highlight below.  I would encourage you to read > THIS < when you have more time and are interested as it is pretty fascinating.

1996 – began as research project by Page and Brin at Stanford

9/4/1998 – Google as a privately-owned company (Page and Brin at Stanford)

8/19/2004 – Public stock offering

Unofficial Slogan – “Don’t Be Evil”

2004 – moved headquarters to Mountain View, CA – googleplex (from googolplex – 1 followed by a googol zeroes)

2007 – est. 1 million data centers around the world

2009 – 1 billion searches per day and 24 petabytes of user-generated info (1 petabyte =1,000 Terabytes or 1,000,000 Gigabytes)

2012 – Earned $50 Billion dollars in revenue

2012 – Google increasingly into world communications.  Creating fiber-optic network in Kansas City

2013 – Listed by Alexa as most visited website in the world

January 2014 – market share capitalization reaches $397 Billion

2014 – Owns Motorola, YouTube, and Blogger;  Runs Gmail, Google Drive, Google Plus, and Google Docs – Leads development in Android and Chrome

In all of this long article there are many acquisition stories as well as sell-outs and corporate conflict.  In all, I think Google has still come out as a company keeping allegiance to it’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto.  What do you think?

Namaste,

Scott

How to Get Lost and Enjoy It!

Source: Google images – copyright allows reuse

Being bloggers, the majority of us spend a great deal of time online. I have a routine each morning which consists of:

Log on –

1)      Check my amazon accounts for sales

2)      Check my dating site (just in case)

3)      Check my email (usually about 40)

4)      Check my Blog site

I do these while eating breakfast at my computer. Now, that really doesn’t look like much, but there is a problem with number 4: my email. My email consists of moving things to different folders, reading them, or deleting them. It all depends on what they are. I usually save blog emails, family emails, friends emails (unless they are mult-sends), and those dealing with money. I get several news feed emails. In these, I look at the links to see if I would enjoy reading any of them. There are usually about 15 links. I, normally read about 6-10 of them.

This morning I went through my usual routine. When I finished, I looked at the clock and realized that I had been online for nearly 3 hours just to do my morning routine! This led to me realizing just how much time a person can spend online and not even know it. I have people who get upset (not sure why they get upset that I do this) that I spend so much time online. I mean, really, does it hurt them? Anyway, I hear people getting upset with children who spend so much time with online games. Being a gamer myself, I understand completely. I logged in last night to play just a bit of “Fallout 3”. I did my little bit and looked up to see that I had been playing for 2 hours! The time just went by and I truly did not know it.

All that has been said to prepare for tonight’s excitement. Here are ten things, with links when possible, of what I learned in the past 48 hours online:

1)      Even a teen should not fake that she’s a member of a terrorist organization and call the airlines! http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/218754/dutch-teenager-actually-arrested-for-tweeting-fake-terrorist-threat-to-american-airlines/

2)      There is a company that lived and died while I was blissfully unaware of the process. http://www.trippapparel.com/tag/clinckle

3)      There are several movies coming out in the next 6 months whose trailers really make you want to watch, but you can’t be certain if they will be any good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VccFcuDclhQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0

4)      There are some young ladies that should not be dated (due to their daddy)! http://www.upworthy.com/a-dad-gets-a-standing-ovation-for-what-he-says-to-boys-who-want-to-date-his-daughter-well-played?c=reccon1

5)      Airline safety is a laughing matter! http://www.ijreview.com/2014/04/129644-attendant-takes-flight-entertainment-new-level-hilarious/

6)      Graphene is going to be awesome! http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/bend-it-charge-it-dunk-it-graphene-the-material-of-tomorrow/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

7)      A person changes a lot in 4 minutes – if it covers 14 years. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/beautiful-timelapse-shows-dutch-girl-grow-baby-teenager-article-1.1755689

8)      Denzel Washington was almost known as a racist. http://www.upworthy.com/denzel-once-turned-down-a-movie-role-so-racist-he-thinks-it-could-have-changed-his-career?c=reccon1

9)      Ellen D. had a strange guest on her show to illustrate photoshop. http://www.upworthy.com/you-know-those-models-with-unrealistic-bodies-ellen-had-one-on-her-show-yep-totally-impossible

10)  Yes, I laughed too. Now, so many years later, I learn more of the truth about the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit. http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions?c=reccon1

This is, of course, only a small amount of what I covered, but it should show why I lost 2.5 hours in the mix.

How about you? Can you get lost on the net? What do you learn about? Is it a waste?

 

Namaste,

Scott