Google Blogoscoped

Monday, January 8, 2007

Google’s Password Strength "API"

OK, I don’t suggest this is something you ought to use in “real live,” but Google has a website that you can pass a password as parameter, and it will return the password strength from 1 (least secure) to 4 (most secure). For example, according to this API, “secret” and “hello” are very insecure, “rabbit” is a bit more secure, and “Fred_1” is very secure. Lucky me for always using “Fred_1” as password! (Just kidding!!) [Thanks David Bloom!]

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Google Maps Distance Calculator


A mere 9,303 kilometers from Googleplex to Blogoscopedplex.

This Google Maps API mashup calculates the distance between two or more points – plain and simple and seemingly well-working! [Thanks Tom Christensen!]

Ex-Googlers Speak Out

Will Whitted, 59, is one of the people who left Google to pursue other things. Will admits that the “loved it and hated it” at Google. Quote the San Francisco Chronicle:

Whitted, who helped design several generations of Google’s servers, said the company was increasingly bogged down by its size. Conservatism was creeping in.

One of the ideas he championed was to build portable data centers in cargo containers, a project Google tested in its headquarters parking lot. But managers were too timid to pack in enough servers, so the experiment was not cost-effective and was ultimately canceled, he said.

“Instead of inspiration-based design, it became fear-based design,” Whitted said.

Other Googlers* portrayed in the article – most with a less pessimisic outlook on the company – are Charlie Ayers, Olana Khan, Aydin Senkut, Dan Daugherty, David desJardins, and Ron Dolin.

*Or Xooglers, as they’re called (for “ex-googlers”). There’s also nooglers, gayglers and such.

[Thanks Brinke Guthrie!]

The Anti-Web Manifesto

Oren Goldschmidt writes:

I’m done.

I’m worn, beaten, battered, abused, violated, tired, shaken and more than a bit broken. I’ve read millions upon millions of pages, seen tens of thousands of videos, made enough ’e-friends’ and ’e-nemies’ to populate a burgeoning Chinese metropolis, I’ve gone through scores of keyboards and hundreds of mice, absorbed and subsequently forgotten more minutia and trivia than a human mind should ever need contain, seen enough advertising to plaster the moon in 1:1 scale, accidentally (And occasionally intentionally...) viewed more porn than an army of 10 million pubescent youths could ever work their way through in 10 million years and have completely and utterly lost my will to fill out another form for the rest of my natural life (...)

Today I write my Manifesto. Today I make my New Year’s Resolution (6 days belated, albeit) for All New Years Yet To Come.

[Thanks Oshayr!]

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