Cubelogic Improv

“A conflict of interests exists when a person takes care of its own interests against the interests of the community. If, by doing the interests of the community, I’m also doing MY OWN interests because I am one of the community… this is not a conflict of interests.”

Silvio Berlusconi, current Italian Prime Minister, owner of three major nation-wide analogue TV stations, many digital TV channels, radio stations, one nation-spread newspaper, numerous magazines, advertisement agencies, publishing companies (big ones like Mondadori), a major insurance and banking company (Mediolanum), one football team, countless real estate properties, one major film production company (Medusa), legions of whores placed in his own TV programs, and who knows what the fuck else.

(Thanks Mazapegul for the video)

Maybe Google hires smart people to have someone able to tackle their bureaucracy… in any case 3-6 months to become accustomed to using their tools sounds scary.

Never share your Facebook password with anyone. Never. No Facebook employee will ever ask for it, and no one else should know it. If you are ever prompted to log in to Facebook, make sure it’s from a legitimate Facebook web address. [Source]

So Facebook is telling people not to enter their Facebook username and password on other websites, such as websites that want to access and integrate with Facebook data. Good. That’s what a person with some residual brain functions should always do anyway.

The fucked up thing is that Facebook has a feature doing exactly that! In other words, Facebook is asking users to enter other websites’ credentials into Facebook to suck in the information they have on those sites. Fuckbook, err Facebook was one of the first to promote such unethical practices (they’re actually responsible for the spreading of this shit) and now they even go around preaching how wrong it is, while they still use it for their own advantage. You shameless corporate hypocrites.

You can tell that cuil sucks just by looking at its home page. There are so many wrong things about it.

1. It’s black. I think a black background for a search engine is horribly wrong. Search is about bringing things to light, not the opposite.
2. The search box is in the lower half of the screen.
3. cuil, the name. Are you serious?
4. Why do I care about how many pages you search? I don’t know how many are out there. Plus, I want to search them all anyway. I just want meaningful results. Which cuil don’t bring.
5. Fuck, the search box is not even centered.
6. The overall impression is that they want to look cool, not actually solve problems.
7. I don’t know why, but I can’t even think about my search in such a home page… my mind just goes into a halt.

This is pretty fucking scary.

And the mortgage crisis is spreading to Europe.

The speech by Benjamin Zander about leadership, passion and classical music should be taught in universities worldwide. (Tim O’Reilly: thanks.)

What’s the value of an app that lets you send zombie bites to your friends on Facebook? Is allowing users to display Coors Light beer caps on their home page on XYZ social network changing the world? Would you feel proud developing an app that allows you to “sell your friends” on FB or whatever? Seriously?

How can people even develop such useless crap? Are they that hungry for money? Where has the ambition to change the world gone, the ambition that propelled Apple and other great companies, where’s the will to improve society and sure, make a profit while doing it, where’s all that in apps like Owned?

Yes, those apps are worth money, but that doesn’t change the fact they provide no real value to users. They are like McDonald’s food. People eat them, sure. But not only they don’t improve the world, they worsen it.

What a shame.

And what a waste of talent.

What a great event last night at YC. I talked to a lot of cool people, shook hands with robots, drank beer, really a lot of fun. It is so nice to see so many guys (and 6 or 7 girls) with a desire to create new stuff, never saw anything like this. That’s how progress should be, in the hands of young people that do stuff because they truly love it.