Exquisite Google

Google has become ubiquitous in our lives for its abilities to give us answers. Not necessarily the right answers, but a great many of them from which to choose. Less is spoken of my favorite new use for google: generating questions, a practice I have dubbed Exquisite Google after the surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse in which words are assembled collectively in a way which no one person could have done on his own.

When you begin to type anything into the Google Search box, Google will magically attempt to finish your question or sentence for you by giving you a list of options to click on based on the most popular searches requested that begin with the words you have typed. Try typing 'why' into the Google Search box. A list of questions from which to choose that stem from the 'why' will appear on your Google screen. If you are seeing the same list that was generated for me, then you might notice the forth, and my favorite 'why' on the list: 'why can't I own a canadian.' I'd like to know the answer to that one as well.

You can run through the whole assortment of who, what, why, where, when and for further amusement move on to typing in your friend's names and 'is' (as in 'john is').

Exquisite Google is limited only by your ability to generate the beginnings of questions and phrases.

Let the games begin.

Footnote: I should tip my hat to Graham Norton, the BBC talkshow host, who first introduced me to what I have named Exquisite Google.

There will be spam in the afterlife

My friend Michael passed away last year in a tragic accident. Imagine my surprise then to open up my email client program and to see an email from him with the subject line 'Hi!' It sent a chill down my spine. And then I began to read "On this website, you can find many new and origianl electronic products ..." And then I realized that a spambot had taken over Michael's email account, and that I had received a zombie email. The zombie email was not trying to eat my brain, just to get me to click through a link. And then it would turn my email account into a zombie that would seek further victims.

Before this I knew one thing with certainty about what happens after we die: we will all become mormons at some point after death through the postumous practice of baptism by proxy. (Google "mormon holocaust" and you will find out how the mormons baptized all of the victims of the holocaust as mormons 'by proxy'.)

And now I have learned with certainty a second thing about what happens when we die: we will be sending spam to our friends and loved ones.

Welcome to the afterlife, my fellow future mormon spammers.

This one goes out to you Michael.

One small step, One giant leap backward

Woke up this morning to read that the Obama administration plans to cut NASA funding for a new manned mission to the moon.

Fifty years ago Kennedy made a pledge to put a man on the moon in ten years despite having no idea whether it was possible. Today we say no we can't and maybe set space exploration back by fifty years. This is not the science fiction future of 2010 that I imagined as a kid.

Not to worry though. It seems like China will have humanity covered on the moon exploration front. You just won't be able to use Google from their moonbases.

Origins: Codename Hugo

Every comic book hero has an origin. Spiderman gets bitten by a radio-active spider. Cosmic rays infuse the Fantastic Four. Bruce Banner is famously belted by gamma rays. Codename Hugo, that is to say my blog, also has an origin story.

For much of last summer and fall I was in pre-production, production, and post production on a short science fiction film entitled SEED. (More about that in the future.) Films need scores, and the very talented Peter Scherer signed on to write music for us in the middle of a life-changing move to Zurich from New York City. In order to pay him, we needed to send him a wire transfer which my new business banking account promised would be as easy as hitting a few keys.

So I dutifully hit the keys, and expected the wire to go through right away. Three days later, I was still waiting and I called up my bank's customer service to determine why the wire had not gone through and after much apologizing on their part, and much holding on my part, I was told that my wire was on hold because of an investigation by the Department of Homeland security. I was a smidge flabbergasted and asked what reason was given for the investigation. I was told that apparently certain words associated with wire transfers send up red flags and one of them was 'Hugo.' I had written 'From Hugo' in the memo section of my wire, and apparently that was enough to trigger an investigation.

Later that day I spoke with my bank manager who tried to explain to me why my name would send up a red flag. "We don't know what Hugo means in the rest of the world," he said. Yes, I thought to myself, we don't know what Hugo means to the rest of the world. My bank manager also advised me to never write anything in the memo section of a wire transfer form because you never know what will send up a red flag. I now pass along this advice to you.

I wound up cancelling my wire, and resending (this time with a blank memo section), and voila, minutes later my composer had his deposit.

So because we don't know what 'Hugo' means to the rest of the world, I have chosen to remedy the situation by writing a blog.

Welcome to Codename Hugo.