The "Google Sucks" Meme

You may have noticed a meme doing the rounds lately, gracing the front pages of many of the most popular technology blogs. The gist of this meme is that Google is sucking hard: their new products are dropping like flies and even Google Search is returning worse results than ever.

I find this meme particularly objectionable since I'm an admitted Google fanboy. It's bad enough when people point out Google's failings, but when they attack Google using arguments based on speculation, ignorance and hyperbole, that pisses me off a bit. Having read one too many of these ill-informed diatribes, I feel compelled to put out a response.

Nothing I'm about to say is new, and you can find all these arguments articulated far better by Jeff Jarvis (author of What Would Google Do?) in the last few episodes of the This Week in Google podcast.

Let's look at the claims.

Google's New Products are Failing

The most oft-cited examples of this are Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google TV and the Nexus One. Let's look at each one.

Google Wave has failed as a product. It's true. Few people are more disappointed about that than I am, and I pray to the Gods of Google all the time in the hopes they'll reconsider. That said, Wave was a very ambitious project that introduced a raft of new technologies in one glorious package. All that novelty came with a pretty steep learning curve, which was intimidating to new users. Wave didn't pick up as many users as Big G wanted, so they decided to pull the plug.

But Wave isn't dead. For starters, it's still up and running. I, and many other users, still use it on a daily basis, and will continue to do so until the day Google switches it off. Secondly, Wave's new technologies are being adapted for use in Google's many other products, most notably Google Docs and Google Shared Spaces. Thirdly, the Wave project itself has been handed over to Apache, who will be releasing their own scaled-down, open-source version of Wave in the near future. So while Wave may not have met everyone's wildest hopes, it's far from dead, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Google Buzz hasn't failed. It's still up and running, and has a dedicated, if small, user-base. To date Google has made no statements about any intent to discontinue the Buzz service. There was a considerable amount of controversy surrounding Buzz's release, which has marred it somewhat from the start. But Google has acknowledged that the way they rolled Buzz out was a deviation from their standard procedures. This was a calculated risk, and one that backfired a bit, but nobody can fault Google's intent to continue their high pace of innovation, and empirically testing their own prior assumptions by deviating from their own norms from time to time.

Google TV is brand new. The first Google TV devices were only released a few months ago. Although they met with some pretty poor reviews, it's not that hard to think back as far as the first Android smartphone: the G1. The G1 also received some scathing criticism. Only a couple of years later, Android is out-selling Apple in the US smartphone market. Given that precedent, I reckon it would be a mistake to count Google TV out just yet.

The Nexus One didn't fail. It sold pretty well, actually. It was discontinued due to Google's intent to release its successor, the Nexus S, not due to poor sales. What did fail was Google's experiment in smartphone distribution. Google set up a way of buying a Nexus One on contract without going through the cellular service provider. That didn't work out, but it was worth a shot.

Given the sheer volume of new products Google releases every year, it's a statistical certainty that a  proportion of them won't meet expectations, and some might fail altogether. It happens. What makes Google awesome is that they learn from their mistakes and keep rolling out new and better products all the time. Only a small-minded, headline-focussed person (like most tech journalists, actually) would conclude that a few floundered projects equate to a downturn in awesomeness.

Google Search Sucks

The problem with this argument is that it seems entirely based on anecdotes.

Remember kids: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

How does one measure the quality of search results? Relevance, right? One would hope that the most relevant result to what you're looking for would automatically be the first one on the list, right? How could Google know what the most relevant result be? Is Google psychic?

No. Google is not psychic. Google's search results are determined algorithmically, and Google's algorithm is their intellectual property. We, as users, have no visibility into it. Trying to make assumptions about Google's search algorithm by looking at search results is a bit like trying to predict the weather by looking up. Sure, you might be able to draw some broad, fairly reliable conclusions, but you'll never be able to make precise predictions.

Google's search algorithm (which includes, but is not limited to PageRank) isn't cast in stone either. There is a dedicated team of engineers at the Googleplex whose job it is to examine, refine and tweak that algorithm. When they come across a dodgy search result (which they do every day) they try to fix the algorithm to make it better. Google Search, like most Google products, is a perpetual work-in-progress.

But since relevance is a largely subjective concept, deriving actual data on the matter is difficult. There is one alternative to anecdote we can use though: a blind trial. If you're so convinced that Google Search is falling behind its competitors, I invite you to put that assertion to the test: Blind Search is a tool that compares the results of Google, Bing and Yahoo with all the branding and ads removed, allowing the results to speak for themselves. Do a random sample of a few searches (say ten or twenty diverse searches) and record the results. I predict that Google's results will be the best at least 50% of the time.

Google's Real Problems

The "Google Sucks" meme has a few more arguments that pop up in various incarnations, but the two I've dealt with here seem to be the biggest. I may decide to address the others in a future post.

What I want to be careful about here is creating the impression that Google is perfect. It's not. (Oh Googly master, please do not strike me down! Forgive me for this blasphemy!)

One particularly troubling issue is the Google/Verizon net neutrality controversy. I don't pretend to understand it all, but if it is what I think it is, it's both out of character for Google and worrying.

Another is Google's delay in rolling out international services. For example: Google's Android Market uses Google Checkout for billing purchases of Android apps. Google Checkout works in South Africa (I use it to renew the subscriptions for my various Google Apps domains), but for some reason South African Android users aren't allowed to purchase apps through the Market. No explanation is offered and no timeline given for solving the problem, which is a pain in the battery cover. There are plenty of other examples of this sort of thing: Google Books for Android, Google Voice, Google Earth for Android and so on... services that are inexplicably unavailable to non-US users.

Another gripe of mine is the fragmentation of features across different clients: Picasa Web and the Picasa desktop client are vastly different, as are Google Maps (web), Google Maps for Mobile and Google Earth (desktop)... and don't get me started on all the different Google Talk clients, no two of which have the same feature-set.

My point is there's plenty to criticise about Google. And that's good, because Google has a track record of listening to and acting on criticism. But if we're going to start attacking Google, let's get our facts straight first, okay? There's no use reading a bunch of inflamed and sensationalist headlines and then using that as a basis for an opinion... all you're doing then is making yourself look like a blithering idiot.

(Here's a little further reading on why Google is still awesome.)

Why I Celebrate Christmas

I don't, actually. At least not in any meaningful sense.

I don't think that Jesus was anybody special. In fact I'm not even completely convinced he ever existed at all. I see no reason to celebrate the non-anniversary of his birth.

But I do have a Christmas Tree up in my living room, and I'll be having a turkey-dinner with family on the 25th... probably saying "Merry Christmas" a lot and exchanging gifts.

To the casual observer, that may seem something of a contradiction. And I can certainly understand why that might be the case.

Thing is, I was raised a Christian. Growing up, Christmas was always an important family event... everyone would come for a big family lunch with all the presents and crackers and fruit pudding and all of that. Other than the obligatory church service we would attend in the morning, there was next to nothing about the Christmas festivities that had anything to do with Jesus. He simply didn't feature.

Most of my family have drifted away from Christianity in various directions since that time. But we still get together every year for the sake of getting together. Christmas, like Easter and family birthdays, is an excuse for us to set aside our usual daily routines and enjoy a few hours together as a family.

Not that we really need an excuse, but it's convenient to have one.

Christmas was never really about Jesus, at least not for my family. And now that we don't bother with the church service bit, he's been removed from the whole thing as an unnecessary accessory. The only real contradiction in celebrating Christmas as a non-Christian is in using the name "Christmas".

But since that name was only added onto a pre-existing solstice festival by Christians many years after the alleged birth of Jesus, I don't feel too bad about it. I have no guilt about co-opting a holiday that had already been co-opted from someone else.

Probably the best articulated description of how I feel about Christmas is the song "White wine in the sun" by Tim Minchin. In the festive spirit, I present it here for your enjoyment:

Link

Don't Fear the Tech

Yeah, I know I haven't been blogging here much lately. I'll remedy that, I promise.

Lately I've been focusing my creative energy on my new project, a technology blog called Don't Fear the Tech.

Please feel free to take a look over there and let me know what you think. I'll be back here again with more merciless scepticism in the not-too-distant future.

Cognitive Dissonance and Smoking

An important skill for a sceptic is the ability to identify cognitive dissonance in yourself, and in doing so, hopefully apply reason to the situation and thereby resolve it. I've managed to identify an instance of cognitive dissonance residing in my own brain, but despite my best efforts at reasoning through it, I can't seem to resolve it.

Let's start by defining the term: cognitive dissonance is a state in which you simultaneously hold two mutually exclusive ideas to be true. The classic example (and surprisingly relevant to my topic) is the person who knows that smoking significantly increases their risk of contracting lung cancer, but decides to smoke anyway. Such a person has found a way of resolving that dissonance, which usually involves convincing themselves of a lie... in this case, that for some imagined reason, their own odds of contracting lung cancer from smoking are diminished to such an extent that the short-term gain of the nicotine buzz is worth the long-term risk of a horrible death.

My own case of cognitive dissonance also relates to smoking, although I myself am not a smoker. Here's my dilemma:

I am, and have always been, pretty strongly anti-smoking. Not only am I convinced by the evidence of harm it causes, but I also find the whole thing pretty distasteful. I hate the smell, I dislike the appearance of it, and I find it unfair that smokers are accorded all sorts of privileges (like the right to take as many breaks during a work day as they like, so as to feed their addiction). Not to mention the fire hazard.

It's because of my strong dislike for it that I am somewhat grateful to the late moron, Manto "The Genocidal" Tshabalala-Msimang. Thanks to her new legislation placing strong restrictions on smoking in public, I'm not forced to deal with the unpleasantness of it as often as I used to be.

Here's where the dissonance comes in.

The problem is that Manto used a scientific argument to justify the implementation of her anti-smoking laws. And it just so happens that that argument had about as much scientific merit as all her arguments: none at all.

Specifically she cited the "fact" that second-hand smoking (aka 'passive smoking', the act of sitting near someone who is smoking) has shown significant increase in risks of lung cancer and other smoking related illnesses. While on the surface it stands to reason that this should be true, there has been quite a lot of research done on this question (of varying quality). The literature isn't at all clear on the link between second-hand smoke and lung cancer (or any other disease) risk. Given that ambiguity, it's not really justified to claim it to be an established fact... doing so is basically a lie.

So there's my dissonance. On the one hand, I have a vested aesthetic interest in supporting the anti-smoking laws. But on the other hand, the reasons given for those laws are bullshit. And I'm not comfortable with supporting bullshit.

Given that South Africa is supposedly a liberal democracy, I can't support the notion of using the mechnisms of state to restrict people's behaviour without just cause. As long as a smoker isn't actually harming the people around him, he should be able to puff away to his heart's content. If he wants to take the risk of dying an early and excrutiating death, that should be his prerogative. As disgusting as I think it is, I kinda have to support people's right to smoke.

(There's a line that should be drawn here, and this is when the people smoking are in my family. If my spouse, parents or children were to smoke, that could have a knock-on effect on my life and wellbeing, and I would feel justified in being upset about it. I'm talking here about strangers and other people whose wellbeing doesn't directly influence mine.)

But there's another issue here: public health.

There is a substantial precedent of governments taking steps, using the mechanisms of state to manage threats to the health of society as a whole. For example: obligatory vaccinations.

Vaccines are a hot-button topic in sceptical circles. We've started seeing resurgances of vaccine-preventable illnesses in first-world countries as a result of people failing to vaccinate their children. In South Africa there is a precedent of making certain vaccinations mandatory, like in the case of the current rabies outbreak in Gauteng. It's my understanding that the CDC in the United States, and similar government organisations in other countries, are sometimes granted special emergency powers in order to deal with high-risk epidemics and outbreaks.

Since there is a precedent for government intervention on preventable illnesses, why shouldn't the government intervene in order to try and reduce instances of diseases like lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease?

I'm not talking about an all-out ban on cigarettes here. I'm talking about legislation which could make it sufficiently difficult to smoke that a statistically significant portion of smokers will be encouraged to quit, thereby reducing their risk of lung cancer. In other words, legislation not unlike South Africa's current anti-smoking laws.

I haven't seen the statistics on smoking rates since the introduction of the new anti-smoking laws (if such data exists), but I imagine there could potentially be an impact there. If I were a smoker, and the number of places I was able to smoke was reduced to rainy balconies and smelly smoking-rooms, I might be more strongly motivated to quit.

Right, so, to recap: I like the anti-smoking laws for selfish, aesthetic reasons. I can't support those laws on the basis that they impede freedoms without adequate justification. But I could see a potential alternate set of justifications for those laws which would, at least, be precidented, if not commendable and desirable.

Of course more research is needed. If the data does bare out my suspicions about the whole public health thing, that it would resolve itself. But until then, I'm stuck with these two ideas duking it out in my melon when I'm supposed to be concentrating on more important things.

Carnivals and Awards

Just a quick couple of notes:

1. Check out the latest edition of the Carnival of the Africans hosted at Bomoko and Other Nonsense Words.

2. Please nominate Ionian Enchantment and The Skeptic Detective for the SA Blog Awards. Instructions on how to do that here. (And feel free to throw a nomination my way too, if you're so inclined.)

K, that's all for now.

In Defence of SETI

In the last few weeks I've heard a series of interviews with Massimo Pigliucci as he plugs his newly published book Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. I haven't read the book yet, but I intend to someday. It sounds like a fascinating read. I do have one issue with it, however.

In one of the interviews (I forget which one it was now), Massimo was asked to explain his position on SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Massimo classified SETI is "almost science", which he justified by saying that although SETI is employing scientific methods in their endeavour, their hypothesis (that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists) is virtually unfalsifiable. They could literally search for a million years without producing a single result, and still not have falsified their hypothesis.

I think that's a fair assessment, and I'm sure most (if not all) SETI researchers would likely agree with it.

But Massimo didn't stop there. He went on to describe the Drake Equation as being an inadequate theory, or even hypothesis. To which my response is "Yeah... so?"

(Before I carry on, I want to point out that Massimo isn't the only one who has advanced the arguments I'm dealing with here. Not by a long shot. I hear these things thrown back and forth between sceptics and other scientists and philosophers all the time. And they make my blood boil every time. I'm only picking on Massimo because his was the straw who broke the camel's back, and inspired me to finally sit down and write this post.)

The Drake Equation is a list of variables which, if each could be assigned an approximate number, should spit out the likely number of intelligent species in our galaxy right now. Some of the variables (by Frank Drake's own admission) are inherently unknowable, such as the average life-span of a technologically sophisticated civilisation. We only have one such civilisation as an example: ours. And by the time its life-span has ended, SETI won't exist anymore.

Others are knowable, but currently beyond the reach of our ability to determine, such as the average number of Earth-like planets around stars in our galaxy. We're getting closer and closer to that one, but we're still a way off.

Frank Drake often recounts the anecdote of his creation of the equation that bears his name: it was an agenda for a conference in the early days of SETI. It wasn't ever intended to to be either a hypothesis or a theory. It's little more than a way of framing the questions to be asked (and hopefully answered) as part of SETI's progress. It's a useful and important way of thinking about SETI, but it's not a hypothesis. SETI's hypothesis is far simpler: "Extra-terrestrial intelligence exists". That's it.

Another common argument Massimo put forward in the interview was this: SETI assumes that all life in the universe must be like us, and they are therefore not looking for anything other than life like us. They're only looking for radio transmissions, and are only interested in Carbon-based life.

This argument is complete bullshit.

SETI researchers will be the first to acknowledge the fact that extra-terrestrial life could take any form. While we know that Carbon-based life works (because the only form of life we know of is Carbon-based), there's no way of knowing how many other forms of life may exist elsewhere in the universe, or even here on Earth. Because we only know of one kind of life so far, that's what we're looking for. When it comes to life forms of some unknown type: how would we go about looking for it? How can you search for something if you don't know what it looks like? Nobody is assuming that all life must be Carbon-based. But nobody knows how to look for life that isn't Carbon-based.

Horta: not Carbon-based

Secondly, SETI isn't only using radio astronomy to search for signals. That was the first tool that was used (by Frank Drake himself who pointed his radio antenna at the sky back in the 60's), and is probably still the most widely used tool for SETI research. This choice is based on two things:

1. Our atmosphere is opaque to most of the elecromagnetic spectrum. Only sections of the radio and visible light parts of the spectrum can get through largely unhindered.
2. Radio astronomy is cheaper than optical. It's a lot easier to build giant radio detectors (like Aricebo or the VLA) than it is to build giant mirrors for optical telescopes. And since SETI has always had funding issues, thrift is a virtue.

Cheap

That said, Optical SETI is a real thing. Nobody's ignoring that part of the spectrum. SETI researchers who can get their hands on funding for it are going at it as hard as they can.

SETI isn't assuming that any intelligent species out there must use radio (or even light) to communicate with us. Once again, they're going with what they know: radio and light. Humans use radio and light for communication, so we know that it works, and there's a possibility that ET would know that too - and might decide to exploit it the same way we do.

Once again, it's a practical concern. Nobody is claiming that ET would only use radio to talk to us. Nobody is even claiming that ET would talk to us at all... we just hope they will, and we hope they'll use something we can detect.

The third claim Massimo made (although less strongly) is that SETI hasn't changed their methods at all since Frank Drake's first attempt in the 60s.

This claim is also complete bullshit.

Although it's certainly true that the biggest weapon in SETI's arsenal is the same one Drake used: radio astronomy, as I've said, SETI has added at least one weapon to that arsenal in that time: Optical SETI. Also, SETI is constantly looking for ways of refining their search: Figuring out new tricks and techniques for optimising their telescope time, and figuring out what they should be looking for.

SETI has been utilising data and ideas generated by the more mainstream ongoing hunt for exoplanets as a guide, and coming up with insightful and hopefully fruitful new methods. For example: spending more time surveying stars that line up with the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun, since inhabitants of those stars would be more likely to have detected our presence through the transit and wobble methods that today's exoplanet hunters employ. And therefore would be more likely to try and make contact with us, if they're so inclined.

The SETI Institute has a whole staff of Phd's whose job it is to figure this stuff out. They literally sit around all day trying to come up with new and useful ways of improving their search, new things to look for, what we should do about it if we ever pick up that signal and being totally awesome.

If you're genuinely interested in learning more about what SETI actually does, as opposed to what the general public opinion about them seems to be, I highly recommend listening to Are We Alone - a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the SETI Institute and hosted by Dr Seth "The Alient Hunter" Shostak.

Ensign Shostak waiting for a signal

And guys, please. Do a little reading before attacking people like SETI. Those guys are far too nice to stick up for themselves. They've got a hard enough job as it is. Can you imagine working in a career knowing that there's a significant probability that you may never find what you're looking for in your lifetime? Especially since finding what you're looking for could be the most important discovery mankind has made ever. Cut them a little slack, okay?

Hypocrites

Are you a hypocrite? Let's find out.

Do you believe any of the following things?

• Evolution didn't happen, or if it did, it doesn't explain the origin of the humankind.
• Climate change is all hype.
• Homeopathy works.
• The age of the universe is measured in thousands of years, not millions and certainly not billions.
• The Earth is flat, not spherical or spheroid.
• Quantum physics explains the existance of the soul.
• The pyramids could only have been build by aliens. Humans of that period weren't clever enough to pull it off.
• People can bend cutlery using only the power of their mind.
• It's possible to predict the future reliably by interpreting celestial signs, tarot cards, gazing into crystal balls or just thinking about it really hard.
• Vaccines cause autism.

If you do believe in any of those things (or anything similar), and you're reading this, congratulations! You are a hypocrite!

Why? I'll tell you!

The methods used to learn, parse, understand and apply the principles used to create computers and the Internet (the thing you're using to read this right now) are the very same methods used to understand the following reliable bits of understanding about the world:

• The Theory of Evolution (including the notions of common descent and natural selection)
• Anthropogenic Climate Change
• The Germ Theory of Disease
• The Big Bang Theory
• The Theory of Gravity (both Newtonian and the theories of Relativity)
• Quantum mechanics
• Structural and material engineering.

And so on.

So, I propose this: either rethink your belief in those crazy notions, or do the rest of us a favour and stop using the Internet - since it clearly doesn't fit into your "worldview". Also: stop using gravity.

Kthxbai!

MTN Customer Disservice

After the ordeal I went through in migrating my cellphone contract from Nashua Mobile to MTNSP two years ago, I was kind-of expecting a easier time of it when my contract came up for renewal.

As usual I was well prepared, and I had selected which device I wanted to upgrade to months in advance: the HTC Desire. I monitored press releases of the local distributor, Leaf, to see when it would become available in South Africa.

I believed that I would only be due for upgrade in June, 24 months after I opened the contract. I wanted to narrow down the date, so last week Wednesday I called in to check my upgrade status. The computer told me that I was already due for upgrade. Which was awesome.

So I set about the process of acquiring my new Desire.

My first stop was the relatively new MTN Direct website. From there, I should have been able to process my renewal and order my new device with only a few clicks. It was not to be so. I found the site to be months out of date, showing none of the newest offers, and the Desire wasn't yet listed on it.

So I decided to call in. I dialled the MTNSP Customer Support line and followed the voice prompts until I found myself on hold, waiting for a human to answer. I held for ten minutes before the call dropped. I tried again a little later: 32 minutes in, the call dropped again. I tried one more time: One hour and eight minutes of holding later, the call dropped.

So I tried another strategy: I relented and decided to go into an actual MTN store to do the upgrade. The client where I'm currently stationed is too far from the main MTN service centre in Sandton for me to get there during office hours, so I found the closest branch and went there: The Boulders Shopping Centre.

Within ten minutes or so, I had filled in all the required paperwork. The staff were friendly and helpful, and they were regretful about the fact that they didn't have the Desire in stock on the premises. The assured me they could order it, and it would most likely arrive on the Friday.

It didn't.

It also didn't arrive on the Monday. And I've just been told that it won't arrive today: it's still sitting at the Fourways Crossing branch, waiting to be shipped. A week after I ordered it, it has yet to make the 20-minute trip from Fourways to Midrand.


View Larger Map

So now I'm left with two choices: I can either wait another day (or another week, or longer), or I can drive to the Fourways branch myself and redo all the paperwork there. Neither of those is acceptable, really. I suppose if I want my new device today (and I really really do), I have little option but to take time out of my work day and make the trip. The very trip I was trying to avoid all along, by using the customer service systems MTN supposedly provides.

I even tried complaining to @MTNSouthAfrica on Twitter, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears too.

If I hadn't been burned before my the arduous and painful of experience of moving from one service provider to another two years ago, I would seriously be considering making another move right now.

Thanks for nothing, MTN. And don't think I haven't noticed the declining 3G reception where I live. If there isn't a serious turnaround in customer service in the next two years, I'll have to re-evaluate my decision not to move.

UPDATE: As you can see in the comments, I've just had a response from Mr Bagley, who apparently mans the @MTNSouthAfrica Twitter account. Let's hope it works out!


UPDATE 2: I ended up going to the Fourways branch. A fortuitous confluence of unrelated events led to me happening to be driving through the area in the mid afternoon. I signed the papers again and left with my shiny new HTC Desire. While driving home I received a phone call from an MTN representative regarding my tweet. It would have been an interesting experiment to see how long it would have taken to resolve my complaint had I not gone to the other branch. But it's an experiment I think I'm better off for not having run.

It's Googlemas!

Google I/O, Google's annual developer conference is underway. What does that mean? Lots of new Google-riffic toys for us to play with!

Rather than inundate you guys with an unending torrent of updates in Twitter, Reader and Buzz, I thought it might be better to collate the most exciting announcements in one place. And since one of the first exciting announcements was the opening of Wave to the general public (no more invites needed), what better way to do it than inside an embedded wave?

Foursquare Etiquette Questions

I recently posted about my decision to start using Foursquare, the location-based social networking tool.

I'm still having fun with it, but a few questions have come to mind regarding the proper etiquette for using it. I've also found a few resources that have answered my questions, but I've got a few that remain unanswered.

I'm going to tap into your collective wisdom to try and find the answers:

1. If I went on holiday and stayed at a hotel or something, should I check in only when I arrive, or every day as long as I'm there?
2. Should I check in at a place if I'm just there looking at/for something, but don't make an actual purchase? Like if I'm window-shopping, or if I'm looking for a specific item and they're out of stock.
3. If one place is nested inside another place (like a coffee shop inside a shopping mall), should I check into both, or only one? Which one?