There’s an inorganic rubbish collection in our area next week. There is so much I could write about this – the van-loads of ’seagulls’ pouring in from all over Auckland for some al-fresco shopping are a reality TV show just waiting to happen – but that’s a post for another day.

I walked past the rubbish pile below, as I was out walking the dogs this afternoon, and was so gutted not to have a camera with me that I jumped in the car and drove back, just to capture that beautiful scene and share it with you fine folks.

A full set of Encyclopedia Britannica, strewn out on the curb alongside a broken TV and a piss-stained mattress.

Welcome to the 21st century, people.

Fantastic juxtaposition of articles on the Herald website.

A couple whose bank screwed up and deposited $10m in their account are being hunted by Interpol after fleeing the country with some of the money, while NZ’s power companies face no consequences after fleecing consumers to the tune of $4.3b in just six years.

If you’re going to rob somebody in this country, make sure you wear a tie.

I don’t want to sound like a hater. I think Wolfram Alpha is a beautiful execution of a unique approach to search, and I’m glad the Mathematica folks have been able to bring it to life. Unfortunately, it is subject to two critical flaws:

1. It isn’t what people think it is; and
2. What it is really isn’t that flash

Let’s start out with the obvious. Wolfram Alpha isn’t a Google killer. It doesn’t even come close. Actually, it really doesn’t have much to do with anything Google does. Putting aside a whole lot of peripheral activities, Google is a search engine, an advertising network, and a bank. It helps people to find authoritative websites on topics they are interested in; It provides advertisers with a cost-effective means of reaching prospective customers; and It facilitates transactions between advertisers and publishers, and is effectively the Reserve Bank of the Internet. Wolfram Alpha does none of these things – it doesn’t lead you to authoritative sources of information, it assumes that role itself; It doesn’t help advertisers reach new audiences; and It sure as hell doesn’t help to monetise other properties.

The latter two alone would seemingly be enough to ensure Google’s continued dominance over newcomers, but even if that wasn’t the case – even if all Google was was a search engine – Google would win hands down. Why? Because this *smarts*, this unique approach that sets Wolfram Alpha apart from its predecessors and competitors is the answer to a question nobody asked. It is different more for the sake of being different than as a response to a real need, and it smacks of the ‘build it and they will come’ mindset that has lead to some of the Internet age’s greatest failures. Louis Border’s ‘Webvan‘ immediately springs to mind. Assuming people wanted to buy their groceries online, and assuming that a completely automated online-only supermarket was the best way to satisfy that need, Webvan was the best possible response to that opportunity. Problem was, both of those assumptions were tragically flawed and billions of investor dollars were lost. In the same way, Wolfram is assuming that all people want is a direct, concise response to a direct, concise question. Problem is, people don’t ask those kinds of questions or accept those kinds of answers.

Wolfram seems to misunderstand how and why people really use search. Sure, we search for information, but we do so in order to be able to do something with it. We search for hotels so we can find somewhere to stay, not to find out what a hotel is. And when we do want to find out what something is, context and referenced, authoritative sources are essential for validating what we are being told and furthering our understanding. The ’source information’ link accompanying Wolfram results provides a list of sites used, but with no indication of which *facts* came from which sources. Even Wikipedia - whipping boy of research purists the world over – has higher standards of transparency, which is kind of ironic when you consider that Wolfram Alpha was designed by a respected scientist.

Wolfram’s reference material is also alarmingly Americentric. For example, no New Zealand websites are referenced in response to queries about ‘New Zealand‘. I agree that there are always three sides to every story, but I’d back our own over the Library of Congress, any day.

The contextual deficiency of Wolfram results reminds me of John Steinbeck’s meditation on the problems of measuring a fish:

The Mexican sierra has 17 plus 15 plus 9 spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsing and his tail beating the air, a whole new relational externality has come into being – an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman. The only way to count the spines of the sierra unaffected by this second relational reality is to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colorless fish from the formalin solution, count the spines, and write the truth. . . . There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed – probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself.

It is good to know what you are doing. The man with his pickled fish has set down one truth and recorded in his experience many lies. The fish is not that color, that texture, that dead, nor does he smell that way.

- Steinbeck, John. 1941. The Log from the Sea of Cortez

So Wolfram Alpha isn’t what people think it is. It isn’t a Google killer. It isn’t a better search engine than Google, Yahoo, MSN or even Wikipedia. It isn’t really a search engine at all.

It is also pretty uninspiring. A lot of attention has been directed towards how *different* it is, and much has been made of the various witty responses returned by some search phrases. Sure it’s different, and its novelty value is enough to ensure we’ll all check it out at least once. But is different better? Is different enough to change our habits? Is different enough to make us persevere with a lesser solution that offers to human understanding what KFC offers to human nutrition?

It can’t be. It shouldn’t be. And it won’t be. Expectations are too high and substance is too low. Wolfram Alpha will never make it as an alternative or successor to traditional search. At best, it will become a new feature or algorithmic enhancement to Yahoo, Google or Microsoft.

But maybe that was the plan all along.

Yeah, sorry about that (I’m not really). I’ve been deliberately silent for the past couple of months, a combination of experimentation with Twitter (shock and horror – I’ve been cheating you with another publishing format!) and also just to give myself some time to reflect on some pretty major life changes in the works. In case you hadn’t heard already, I’m gonna be a dad. That’s right, sports fans, Parker 2.0 due for beta release on September 21st. It’s set to be a girl, apparently, but I couldn’t care less so long as she (a) is healthy and (b) doesn’t grow up to date guys like me. If there’s any karma in this universe she undoubtably will, but I’ll shoot that fucker cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyhoo, time to get back into some bloggy goodness. I’ve accumulated a lot of random crap to rant about over the past few months, so stay tuned for a tidal wave of rage, inappropriate humour and ill-formed opinion over the next few days. First on my shit list: Wolfram Alpha

It’s good to be back.

Bwahahahahahaha!

We all saw it coming, but frankly I’m amazed it took so long.

The news media have been circulating the usual clichés from insiders citing external factors such as ‘the current retail environment’. Bullshit. The fact of the matter is, Ferrit never had a viable business model and seemed hell-bent on throwing money at a problem that could only be solved with smarts and balls.

A wee word of advice to any cash-heavy corporates looking to speculate on the next Interweb bubble: if you don’t believe in your product, neither will anyone else.

I totally LOVE The Onion

I’ll give you a hint – it’s the same reason I don’t go to church at all (in addition to the obvious ones, where there is no such thing as God, and all religion is inherently false and quite contemptible)…

Heh. If you like that, you’ll love these…

As many of you are no doubt aware, Monday after next I’ll be turning 35. Dave too – funny that. Anyhoo, I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few weeks, and must admit I’m surprised at how little I actually give a shit about this ‘milestone’ year in contrast to the previous ones…

I vividly remember the card my mother sent me on my 18th birthday, reminding me to be careful as I was now old enough to be tried as an adult. It felt like such a big deal to be legally an adult, despite the fact that, while I was now eligible to vote, marry, get drafted, go to prison, and enter into binding contracts, I wasn’t about to do any of those things. The drinking age was still 20, so I was still just a kid in the eyes of the only people that really mattered (bouncers). And in hindsight that’s all I really was – a kid.

I know turning 20 hasn’t been much of a big deal since that the drinking age was lowered to 18, but it was back then. I remember proudly presenting my driver’s license to a doorman at a club in Auckland, only to be refused entry because the licenses at the time showed the month but not day of birth. “Your birthday could be next week, ” he grinned, before waving me inside. I kept the “fuck you, door monkey” to myself on that occasion, partly due to my keen sense of self-preservation, but mostly because most of my mates were still underage. I was 20 now, and they couldn’t keep me out anymore (this was before they invented Spy Bar), but there was a definite sense of loss at the end of my teens. I was convinced for years that 19 was the coolest age I had ever been – best physical condition, least responsibility, most active socially… and then it was over. Twenty. Gotta grow up now, hey son? (Turns out that I didn’t – 20 was also the year that I got expelled from university, but that’s a story for another post).

Turning 21 was a big deal, but it is for everyone I suppose. For me it was the beginning of a big adventure, and a fantastic, chaotic chain of events that has added inestimable richness to my life. I moved to Queenstown and went snowboarding every single day for a whole season. I met a guy in a bar who offered me a job in Auckland, which lead me back to University, a first-class Master’s degree, and an amazing career. I have no idea what my life would be like now were it not for some of the choices I made at 21, and it’s both comforting and frightening to look back at how flippantly some of those decisions were made.

When I hit 30, the only big deal as far as I was concerned was that it seemed like such a big deal to everyone else. We had a big party (interesting way to find out that your Dad really knows how to handle a gun), but I distinctly remember the anticlimax when it dawned on me that the day after was exactly the same as the day before. I was officially into my fourth decade, but I didn’t feel any different. Ironically, this was the first of the ‘big years’ where I felt young and stupid but actually wasn’t. I have since reasoned that the yearning for my late teens that I felt in my early twenties is something akin to a veteran’s reminiscence of battle. Fuck that – I wouldn’t be that stupid again for all the tea in China! How in the hell I escaped death and/or imprisonment is beyond me.

So now, as I approach the big three five, I’m finding that I actually really like who I am, where I am, the choices I’ve made (even, and some might say especially, the bad ones) and what lies ahead. My one regret isn’t for myself and the lost opportunities of my youth (although I do agree that the indiscretions a man regrets most later in life tend to be the ones he failed to make when he had the chance), but for the many friends I’ve had over the years who never got the chance to grow old at all. I close my eyes and try to picture the face of an old school friend who died in a motorcycle accident when we were at university. On the one hand it’s disturbing how hard it’s getting to recall what he looked like. Was it that long ago? Could we really have been that close, if I’m forgetting him already? Will I fade from memory like this when I’m gone? On the other hand, the face I do remember is still just 21 years old, and that’s what bothers me the most – he should be 35 too!

So on the 19th of January all you young pups can feel free to point out the spare tyre I’ve grown, and kid me about the heat radiating from my cake (hint hint Simonne!). You can do all that and more, because I really don’t give a shit. I’ll be thinking about how grateful I am to have the opportunity to celebrate yet another milestone birthday, and toasting the memory of friends who weren’t so lucky.

Have yourselves a great weekend.

I’ve had a few late entries come in over the past few days, and in my infinite benevolence I’ve decided to keep the tote open until the end of January to cater for all you lucky buggers taking extended vacations. However, out of consideration for those who managed to get their picks in on time, I’m placing an additional restriction on latecomers:

From here on in, only new ponies will be accepted. If somebody else has already picked him or her, tough shit – you should have gotten in earlier

I’m actually considering applying a first-in-first-served, no duplicates rule for the entire pool in 2010. It hardly seems fair that people who get their picks in good and early have to share the points and glory with the vultures who come in late and seem to just grab the likeliest candidates from other people’s picks. Then again, is not a dead pool by its very nature all about rewarding vultures and carrion-like behavior? Leave it with me and we’ll thrash out a ruling over the year.

The judge has spoken. I AM THE LAW!