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Give this random phrase a search on Google “if i live in tolleson what should be my private phone call number”….  My site comes up as the very first result.  How random is that?  I don’t expect many people to read these ramblings… its more a way for me to organize my own thoughts than anything else, but the people that DO find it (and aren’t doing it on purpose) seem to come from some odd connections.  55% of traffic is from referring or search engine results, 51% of those who stumble upon it, its their first and last visit… inhabitants from 24 countries have happened upon it, average time on the site is 3 minutes 58 seconds (seems wayyyy too long), 4pm is when most people hit it, and on and on.  Night night.

In a clear indication that there is something to loose, Verizon Wireless files suit over the open-access standards in the upcoming 700mhz spectrum auction.  Considering that the top four carriers hold a collective market share of roughly 85% and 200 million subscribers, they should be nervous about any open-access standards.  Verizon’s legal counsel drummed up the following choice ramblings saying that the open access standards proposed by the FCC;

“Violates the U.S. Constitution, violates the Administrative Procedures Act … and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law.”

I’ve got two things programmed into my phone, Google’s 411 service at 1-800-GOOG-411 and their SMS number of 46645.  If you’ve never used either, you should be.  Long gone are the days of paying for information.  I use both services quite a bit, more the SMS than the 411.  Google just updated their SMS service so that you can now set your home location  by texting [set location city, state, zip] or [city, zip, address] to 46645.  That way you only have to text them “RA Sushi” instead of “RA Sushi Scottdale AZ”.  It’s a very handy way to get an address whilst driving.

Word has it that T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France, and O2 in the U.K will be signing exclusive distribution agreements with Apple, Inc. for the iPhone.  What I assume ALSO means that the iPhone will be 3G capable.  That is the world and specifically, the European standard.  3G capable was one thing holding me up from getting one as I like to be able to use my phone when I travel around the world.

 I read an article the other day that the iPhone is 2x slower in text input as well.  Don’t know how reliable that study was, but that gives me pause as well.

For anyone who uses Google or any other index to search, you’ve no doubt heard/used/stumbled upon Wikipedia, as it comes up on the top 10 of any subject search result.  It’s accuracy is always called into questions and steps are being made to make it a bit more agnostic, but as a resource, it’s phenomenal in its purview and scope.

A 24 year old brainiac, Virgil Griffith recently manipulated an open source database of all anonymous Wikipedia edits dating from February 2002 to present.  He then mashed up the source IP address with the owners of those domains and uncovered some interesting results.  He calls it WikiScanner.

Seems corporations, government agencies, politicians, and relgious organizations like to protect their goodwill online.  The only assumption that can be made is that the edits came from someone with access to the organizations network, doesn’t mean it was calculated… could just be some bored employees.

It’s interesting to note however that a tremendous amount of edits came from within the walls of the C.I.A., Bob Jones University, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Curch of Scientology, Fox News, US Department of Justice, N.R.A., LDS Church, The Pentagon and others.

Give it a look, it’s quite interesting.  Search for an organization and see what their employees have been editing.

There’s like a billion different types of USB thumb drive wraps.  This one, however, has got to be the best!  From the excellent design firm Suck UK.  Pricing has yet to be released, but I hope it’s reasonable.  Someone I know will be getting this.  Don’t know who yet…

Like the movie “The Transformers”, which I got made fun of for liking, this hits a nostalgic vibe with me.  Gotta love the 80’s!  The first cassette I can remember ever owning was Lionel Richie | Dancing On The Ceiling.

The Air Force has opened a bid for the construction and launch of 8 next-gen satellites to run the evolution of GPS for the United States public and private sectors.  The folks on the other side of the pond (European Union) are in the midst of launching their own civilian GPS solution, called Galileo which is expected to have 30 satellites in operation by 2010.  The USA already has 30 in orbit.

There is one problem however, the switching/signaling technologies between the USA and EU solutions are not compatible.  They are, however, close to an agreement to make them interoperable which would be fan-freaking-tastic. 

If Google sucessfully forces the FCC on open-access requirements for the 700mhz spectrum to be auctioned shortly, and these two GPS worlds collide, expect a lot of very ubiquitous devices to finally hit US markets.  We all know our mobile phones are lightyears behind those in Asia and elsewhere.

BitLet allows you to download torrents without a traditional client installed.  Handy if you’re at work and need something without the hassel of an application to download it in…

My brother mentioned this a while ago, I found a video on it.  Apparantly Ford and Microsoft have teamed to create a seamless communications platform for mobile and music devices.  It’ll read you text messages, you can yell at it which track to play on your Zune or iPod…  Looks pretty cool.  Don’t know when I’ll ever own a Ford, but here’s a review nonetheless.

UPDATE: Ford said that it’ll be a mere $395 option.  Affordable indeed.