Getting Creative with contextual search!

I'd written about the value of contextual search a couple of months ago - more relevant results for the Beijing Olympics and for the US Elections via a more focused search.

Now, Adobe's Creative Suite 4, the premier authoring and graphics package used for web design, includes a customized Adobe Community Help search (using Google Custom Search), that searches high quality content - blogs, docs, tips and tricks, etc. from the experts in the Adobe community. This was announced on the Google blog and on Adobe's Community Help blog.

Silicon Valley is at the heart of interesting cross-company collaborations that cause your lives to become ...a little easier!

Its' fun to be involved in innovation!

Bringing Brazil back to San Jose

When you stand on the soil of Maracana stadium, one's priorities slip out of consideration for a while, while the footprints of soccer greats take center stage!

The Google Search Masters 2008 conferences at Mexico City and Sao Paulo were great, but walking through the corridor onto the field on which the likes of Maradona, Pele, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romario, Kaka (the list goes on and on) also stepped, left me feeling excited and insignificant in the same moment.

I bought some nice Brazil soccer shirts for myself and Ronrik at Maracana (the same air) - let's see how this impacts our game :-)

More on Brazil and Mexico later....

Bringing San Jose to Mexico City

Where am I from?

Questioned by the official in the Turibus in Mexico City, I first say, "San Jose" - add "California", and then, seeing some puzzled expressions, "India". I guess that's really what she wanted to know!

In Mexico City for a few days for a conference, headed to Brazil tomorrow (excited about being in the land of the Ronald(inh)os and Pele!)

Mexico City is a wonderful city - we climbed the Teotihuacan Pyramids outside the city yesterday, and took the Turibus ride around the city today! That cathedral is impressive!

The mix of old and new, and the stores and street vendors, the crowds - made me nostalgic about India - a visit is overdue!

The food is fantastic, and the margaritas are great!

I thought she WAS Sarah Palin :-)

Another really good political SNL sketch - I'd missed it, but when I started watching, I thought it was really Sarah Palin next to Amy Poehler! It was only after a few seconds that I realized that Tina Fey was what I'd searched for to find this clip!

What I liked best was Clinton's laugh towards the end (about "wanting it more") - it reminded me of the police commissioner in the Pink Panther movies, starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.

Proving the big bang?

20 years in the making, particles can finally be made to collide to explain the universe. The Large Hadron Collider just did a successful first test run. The French-Swiss 17-mile drive is likely a little more violent than the one in Monterrey, CA!

The fear and criticism was that this could create black holes that could east us alive (click for answer). What's the fear? - this is exactly what people have been doing for thousands of years - colliding to try and consume each other!

I'm no physicist - but the following sounded really impressive:

If a beam circulates around the tunnel for 10 hours, for instance, it will travel more than 10 billion kilometers, which is the distance it would take to travel to Neptune and back.
...
With the Big Bang theory, scientists largely believe that more than 13 billion years ago, an amazingly dense object the size of maybe a coin expanded into the universe that we know now -- with planets, stars, black holes and life.

...resulting in global warming, ethnic cleansing and religious fundamentalism...

Armstrong doing a Jordan?

Well...either champions just can't keep away from competition, or they like to flirt with failure! Lance Armstrong, at 38, wants to Livestrong on his bike again!! He's going to ride like the wind at the Tour de France.

I'll tell you later about the 29-mile bike ride from the Santa Cruz mountains to Santa Cruz beach that I completed a few weeks back! Why, you ask? Darned if I know - the important thing is ....it's HAAAARD to do (of course, in my defence, I haven't biked in 20 years!)

So - will Armstrong be a big letdown like Jordan was when he returned for the second time?

Can't these folks stay retired?

I'd like to retire!