I’ve often noticed that you can get a good handle on the difference in mentality between Melbourne and Sydney by checking the “Most viewed articles” box on www.theage.com.au, and comparing the most read articles in the SMH and the Age. Since I first observed this, they’ve kindly added the brisbanetimes and WAtoday to this box, allowing my daily Zeitgeist to cover most of Australia’s population.

Of course, anything involving sex, celebrities and crime scores well on all papers. But most days, you can see a pattern where Sydney readers care more about sensationalist superficial stuff than Melbourne readers, and Brisbane readers invariably love reading about sex. (The WAtoday was added too recently for me to form accurate prejudices.) But today’s excerpt was particularly revealing:

Martin: Oh look, there’s the Euro fanzone, let’s go inside and see what they’ve done with all that prime real estate.
Fat-Necked Security Guard: No.
Martin: Huh?
FNSG: Your camera. Too big. (Security guards talk in short sentences.)
M: What??
FNSG: Too big. Too professional.
M: Please tell me you’re joking.
Another FNSG (they also hunt in packs): Do you have ID?
M: You mean, my passport?
AFNSG: No, your media pass.
M: *shrugs and walks away* fine, I wasn’t likely to drink any of your “official beer” anyway (sale of all other brands is banned), but I guess if you won’t let me, then the issue is closed. There’s plenty of other places in town to watch the game with just as good an atmosphere, and without a “sponsors only” dress code, a ban on good beer and arbitrary cameras, and whatever else the power-hungry UEFA demands next.

(actually, I didn’t say that last bit, I only thought it. It was still good though.)

Today’s evidence:

• The front page of the Palo Alto Mercury News praises the AMGEN Tour of California bicycle race as having (and I quote) “more cowbell”.
• At the next table during dinner, a young man entertains his date with a detailed explanation of how he has his work mobile and home phone set up to forward calls to each other so that he only has to check one voicemail box. And then moves on to a explanation of Mean Time Before Failure, and how hard drives work. And she seems to be enjoying it.
• The local cafe has a list behind the counter, listing Things That Do Not Go In The Bin, which includes, as well as “recyclable plastics” and “drinking straws”, not only Chuck Norris but also Your Mom.

I feel like I have left the real world and am now living inside The Internet.

(it’s kinda cool.)

Yup, I’m back in Silicon Valley, for a slightly longer stay this time (4 weeks). Wasn’t so long ago that I was here last, but I’m still stunned by how bizarre it is. Got asked today by a kid on the street if I had MySpace. WTF?? (He liked my hat.) And this morning in the SF Muni I ran into a guy I had last met when I was visiting a uni in Germany about a PhD position. (Turns out he works in Palo Alto now.) Yup, this place sure is crazy.

Meanwhile, another sunny day in San Francisco, top of 19 degrees. I like spring.

Some things are so powerful merely as concepts that the fact that they physically exist is really superfluous. Possibly even somewhat offensive. The Eiffel Tower, for instance. I was in Paris a few months ago, and was somewhat unsettled by the fact that the Eiffel Tower was in fact just over there, clearly visible on the skyline, wherever you went. Everyone has such a clear concept of the Eiffel Tower that it is real enough already, without it needing to actually physically exist. Yet you go to Paris, and there it is. Creepy.

Similarly, Silicon Valley doesn’t actually need a physical manifestation. Just the concept is enough. And yet, here I am, going to an organic coffee bar hearing a live acoustic band with lots of long-haired laid back californians … who are wearing eBay t-shirts and texting on their Blackberry. Or checking email on their macbook. Or playing with their new iPhone. The biggest peril I face every morning is getting on the right employee shuttle bus. A mistake might accidentally result in me ending up not at Google, but at Yahoo!, or eBay, or Microsoft, or LinkedIn, or… you get the idea. Inicidentally, these companies are also things that don’t need to exist. I mean, we all use Google, or eBay, or LinkedIn, but the thought of them having massive office buildings, all near each other, with busloads of brilliant college graduates commuting every day to work there … well, why can’t I just stick to my nice fantasy that eBay is “just a website”?

Speaking of iPhones, there’s yet another thing that really doesn’t need a physical manifestation. The concept is so powerful that even had Apple never brought a single iPhone to market, people would be queueing to buy them. We all somehow *know* this thing is cool. (Just like we *know* that Apple’s marketing guys deserve an award. Or a long and painful death, depending on which angle you’re coming from. Regardless, they’re all geniuses, whoever they are.) And yet it exists, as if to insult you by saying “I don’t trust you to believe all our marketing, why don’t you just *try me* and see?”. And just because it is so very cool, and does in fact turn out to exist, I now own one.

It’s amazing how quickly a place becomes home. I thought I’d feel relieved to visit Germany again, and not have to work quite so hard to understand what people are saying to me; and I was, don’t get me wrong. But whatever you say about the Swiss (and there’s a lot to say!), the broad smile and “Grüezi!” of the Air Berlin flight attendants, and the “uff wiedelueke” and “ade mitenand” after landing in Zürich was most pleasant. I like this place.

Of course, good things can’t last: as I write this I am packing my second suitcase in preparation for a flight to the USA in a few hours. Meanwhile, after having survived Siberian winds and ice in Berlin, the radio now reports of large storms in California, causing traffic delays and power outages around the Bay Area. Nothing is every easy!

I don’t know if I have any readers in East Africa, but just in case:

—-

Do you dream of developing an application for consumers globally? Do you have software coding and design skills you’d love to put to practical use? Or… are you simply a techie with too much time on your hands?

Google looks forward to hosting a competition for university students in East Africa. Participants from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia can design and build gadgets and win prizes. Gadgets are small, simple applications that run on web pages. There are gadgets for easy email access, gadgets for football results, gadgets for fun and gadgets for frivolity. They’re simple to develop, given some knowledge of HTML (and ideally XML and Javascript too). And they’re easy to distribute – through iGoogleTM (Google’s personalised homepage), platforms such as OpenSocial(TM) and third-party websites. There are tens of millions of people who use gadgets globally, generating billions of gadget pageviews per week!

The competition will run between February and June 2008, with more details (including a dedicated competition website and explanation of terms and restrictions) to follow in January. In the mean time, there’s more for the curious and the technically-minded at http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets.

—-

Official Announcement

Well, again I have let the weeds grow over this blog a little, but again I have a good excuse. I have been finishing a Masters thesis: Realtime generation of multimodal affective
sports commentary for embodied agents. And since finishing this thesis mid-October, I have moved to Zürich, where I am Living The Dream (as a friend put it). Specifically, I am working as a software engineer for Google.

Zürich is a beautiful city. Neutrality during two world wars, and other wars before and since, has a wonderfully preserving effect on heritage architecture. Also, the weather is beautiful here. Either it is sunny with blue skies, or it is snowing. Admittedly it is also very very cold, but I hide from that by staying in the heated indoors.

The people here are on the whole lovely, although they speak a almost-entirely-incomprehensible language that somehow is also called German. (For my linguistically inclined readers, yes, it is blatantly obvious that the language is not context-free. Words come in the ‘wrong’ order.) But I am steadfastly watching Swiss television and trying to learn. Meanwhile, I am learning that it is better to be taken for an Australian than mistaken for a German. To make some gross generalisations, the Swiss (as a whole) can be rather unfortunately hostile towards foreigners, but they seem to reserve a special level of distrust for Germans. Possibly this is due to the fact that the Germans (as a whole) tend to look down their noses at the Swiss - presumably out of jealousy that Switzerland has more money, better cheese, better chocolate and better skiing than Germany. But these are just my impressions after a few weeks here, and all the people I have met have been friendly and lovely and helpful and kind, which is something I have learnt not to take for granted.

As far as working for Google goes, the Interblags have enough rumours and writing and whatever about that. All I will add is that it’s all true. (Yes, “20-percent-time”, free food, on-site haircuts and massages, even the secret moon base.) A week ago I had a bit of a moment on the stairs, where I had to stop and think, wow, how many people all over the world wouldn’t kill (or more!) to be right where I am now. This is cool.

Last week Google launched Google Maps Switzerland and Austria (oh, and Lichtenstein, natch) to great acclaim and media brouhaha. T-shirts all round. Finally I have one not in Extra-Extra-Large. (I have to learn to be more proactive about t-shirt sizes!)

Thus far I have been living in a one-room corporate apartment while I searched for a permanent apartment. Finding an apartment in Zürich is remarkably difficult, especially if you’re after the sort of one-bedroom, one-person apartment that seemingly everybody is looking for. But I shall cut a long story very short and just note that I now have an apartment, and I will be moving in on the 26th. Yesterday I went to Ikea to buy plates and bowls and knives and forks and pots and pans and things so that I won’t starve (that sort of stuff is provided in this corporate apartment), and the removalists will deliver what little furniture I own to my new apartment when I move in, so I will have a bed on which to sleep. The next great adventure will consist of finding furniture. This corporate apartment is tiny, and the fridge is right next to the bed and gurgles at night, and the internet is so slow it could be the 1990s (well, not quite), and the cleaning ladies barge in en masse to change the sheets at inconvenient times, so I am greatly looking forward to moving into a place of my own.

Well, we have had snow during the week, but now we have blue skies and sunshine, and the temperature is thinking about dipping above 0C, so perhaps it’s time for me to wind up this epistle and head outside into the fresh air.

I went to Paris last week. I have been delaying posting about it because (a) I wanted to wait for the photos to be developed, and (b) I have been writing a Masters Thesis, and if that doesn’t count as Better Things To Do then I don’t know what does. Regardless, the photos are now uploaded and the thesis can handle a few minutes’ break, so I shall pen a few lines to let everyone know I’m still alive.

The excuse for Paris was the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, in particular the Gathering of Animated Lifelike Agents at which ERIC (remember him?) was competing. (Yes, he won a prize.)

The other attraction to the whole experience (apart from Paris itself of course) was the experience of the new high-speed ICE, which I took in both directions. Thundering across Northern France at 300+ km/h is rather an experience. Also an experience is having the power cut out on the way home as we cross the German/French border, leaving us stranded for two hours 5 km/h out of Saarbrücken. Almost home! even with Saarbrücken buses driving along the road next to the track … if you would only open the doors… But not to worry, we’ll just try rebooting the train from scratch, sorry folks, this means even the emergency lighting will go out, it’ll be pitch black for a while, please don’t panic.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Oh, well, that didn’t work. Never mind, we’ll phone a train from Frankfurt to come and tow us into Saarbrücken. Sorry for the inconvenience. Szank yew for traffeling vis ze Deutsche Bahn.

Regardless, the way to Paris was uneventful (give or take 15 minutes’ delay leaving Saarbrücken …), and at 300+ km/h you really do have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that you really are in Paris already, not just dreaming of it after falling asleep on the train somewhere around Metz. I stayed in a wonderful hostel/hotel in Montmartre called the Montclair which I have no reservations about recommending, it was clean and cheap and everything you expect from a hostel. Montmarte itself - and of course all of Paris - was also lovely, particularly around sunset. But you can see the photos for yourself.

Since then I have been mainly writing away at this thesis. On Friday I went to Frankfurt to sort out some visa issues, and stayed overnight to see the AFL Grand Final at the Aussie Bar there, since the No Worries Australian Pub here in Saarbrücken had never heard of the AFL. (”Grand what?” “please tell me you are joking”) A nice change from all the other Geelong Grand Finals I’ve watched (to say the least…) I’m a bit far away from the festivities at home, but I’m wearing my vaguely blue-and-grey striped jumper proudly even if nobody here knows why it brings a grin to my face.

Anyway, I’d better head back to the grindstone, plus there’s an apartment to be cleaned and that rare commodity called sunshine outside, which might be worth taking advantage of before it disappears again.