Google Calendar
Today is a grand day for european maps users. Not so long ago, Google finally added a decent location search in Google Maps. Now I can find the street I live in just by typing my address. Cool! Nothing new for the U.S.ers, I know. 2 years ago, I "saw" where this friend of mine lived in Minneapolis just by typing his address in Google Earth. But for Portugal or France, only big cities would work when searching for on Earth or on Maps.
They also added the MyMaps service, which allows for users to store and save their locations.
Furthermore, I discovered that they also integrate kml files into Google Maps. Now besides viewing them with Google Earth, if you're, on Linux you can also check your favorite kml files with Google Maps. Check my beach cams! (Please insist by pressing enter in case this doesn't works at first).
But the most interesting aspect of this, is perhaps the Google Calendar integration. Whenever you fill the fields of your event in your calendar you got the "where" and "when" fields. If you fill out the "where" you'll get a link in your calendar event to google maps. And it works nicely. Neat!
It's interesting when you want to share an appointment with several other people who don't know how to get there. Fill up the "where" field with the address and the google maps link will do the rest ;)
Below is a screenshot of the most interesting article of 2013, period. Written by one the most-influentials "good" guys of world, Julian Assange. The article deals about the promiscuity between Google top-notch executives and the White House, and how it affects both institutions policies, at the expense of the people's freedom and will. Below the article I share with you some notes I've taken.
Assange sums it all up to us in two words: "Jared Cohen", and a question "Who is he? ". It's worth it to check him out. I googled him to find out he's a futurist thinker, thinking about the disruptive reach social networks and, now, context networks can attain, world-domination-wise. A megalomaniac thinker surely, with the wits, the will, the intuition, the perception and the goal. He happens to play ball - real hard - both at the White House AND at Google. He's playing with fire though, and it could easily backfire on his employers.
The new Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the XXIst century, a prototypical example of the lacquay that out-wits the masters of the house he serves. This article, and the Edward Snowden case, are a glympse iMHO to a silent-war going on, mostly between the future world-dominating nations (or corporations???), US, China, ..., but also Facebook, Google, Baidu, etc ...
Scenarios outcomes? I would bet on political borders to become obsolete, and on social-network based new nations (or tribes?). Alexander, Julius, Napoleon, Adolf and Benito, they all had big plans, but they just missed the right technology to make the entire world yield into whole "Gaia Pax". Today, technology is almost ripe, almost, to make it a breeze to administrate over 100 billions of citizens, within the blink of a byte. Not only there CAN be only one, but I'd wager, there WILL be only one. It's only a matter of WHEN, and it's definitively not an IF.
For those who fight on good side of the force, I have only one word for advice (or is it three?): "peer-to-peer". Stick with this notion deeply incepted in your mind and we'll be safe enough. Nrº1 enemies? Anything that qualifies as a "walled-gardens" ;-)
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