Gongol.com Archives: March 2011
Brian Gongol


March 3, 2011

Health It would be a painful pun to call this story "heartwarming"
But the report on a little girl who was stillborn but rescued by three days of treatment with cooling pads that brought her body temperature down to the low 90s helped her survive interventions to revive her and protect her brain in the process. She's now 9 months old.

Computers and the Internet Google should not be surprised that people are adopting mobile search so quickly
The CEO said that their internal predictions didn't foresee mobile use taking off as quickly as it has

Computers and the Internet A good argument for taking the computers out of speedy stock trading
Reducing the speed -- just a little bit -- might help prevent future "flash crashes"

Business and Finance Don't drink the poisoned Kool-Aid
JP Morgan has initiated a technology-investment fund that apparently wants to buy a 10% share in Twitter for $450 million. Under no reasonable frame of reason is that company truly worth $4.5 billion. None. Its platform, though improved, is still unreliable, and it relies mainly on brand recognition to achieve any kind of ongoing success. But brand recognition for a website isn't a durable competitive advantage -- just ask Pets.com.

Computers and the Internet Google says it's pulled 21 malicious apps from its Android Marketplace
One of the good things about an open architecture for the Android OS is that it allows people to get the benefits of the work of a lot of programmers working independently. One of hte drawbacks of openness is that some people are crooks, and an open system can let them get away with malice, at least for a while. But that's a lot like living in an open society: If people can come and go as they choose, some of them will do bad things. But the benefit generally outweighs the cost, especially if the bad people are quickly punished.

Science and Technology Bell Labs claims to have invented the breakthrough successor to the cell tower
Instead of big, bulky towers with lots of large antennae, the company says it can deliver cell-phone coverage everywhere with tiny, half-pound "lightRadio" cubes that do the same work with a fraction of the power and a much tinier footprint. Whether the reality lives up to the hype remains to be seen.

Computers and the Internet Another malicious e-mail scam about personal safety
It's half a decade old, but making its way around once again, saying that you should dial 112 if you think you're being pulled over by a police impersonator, and that 112 will connect you to a satellite even if you're out of normal cell-phone reach. Two falsehoods there: 112 isn't even a recognized number in the United States, it's 911. Second, if your phone isn't satellite-equipped, there's no set of digits you can dial that will allow it to make the technological leap to communicate with them. If you're in America and you think you're being pulled over by a police impersonator, you're supposed to dial 911.

Iowa Arkansas earthquake was felt -- slightly -- in southern Iowa

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