Rohit Gupta

There’s a fascinating NYTimes frontpage article about how jurors are causing havoc in the criminal justice system by using Twitter, Facebook, and other real-time communication tools during a court case (via their smartphones and at home on their computers).  Jurors are not supposed to seek outside information related to the case, but with the advent of internet, I’m sure this became tough to avoid.  What I think is particularly fascinating is that jurors not only search online, but they post updates on Twitter.  Here’s an awesome example:

In the Arkansas case, Stoam Holdings, the company trying to overturn the $12.6 million judgment, said a juror, Johnathan Powell, had sent Twitter messages during the trial. Mr. Powell’s messages included, “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter,” and “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

What would inspire someone to write that, I’m not sure.  But I think it’s indicative of where our technology is taking us – both for good and bad.  I think the real question here is how do we avoid egregious uses of these services.  It’s only time (and it’s already well underway) when our online personalities go hand-in-hand with our physical personalities.  Employers already use Facebook to research potential employees and their habits, who’s to stop insurers, banks, government agencies, etc to start doing the same (maybe they already do).  It’s scary, but it’s happening.  I think these kinds of cases demonstrate the lack of understanding many folks have regarding their online presence – just because we communicate electronically on a computer or phone and not to a person right in front of us doesn’t mean that our actions go unnoticed.  There is a balance of privacy, but we do need to be held liable for these online actions (in this case taxpayer dollars were wasted due to Mr. Powell’s need to update the world with his sophomoric humor).   Lawmakers need to catch up with the technology so we can penalize such behavior, but I think most of them are too busy twittering to notice.

UPDATE: In case you haven’t seen it, check out this link on how not to tweet after getting a job offer.

I’ll begin by prefacing my post – I do not depend on making a living via generating buzz for my website (and if I did, I’d be more than broke). Perhaps I would feel differently if I did.  I was inspired (or whatever the opposite of that is) to write this post because of all the recent publicity Apple is getting for a potential event where they may potentially announce something about another potential iPhone OS upgrade (which potentially has copy and paste functionality).  Really, that’s a story?  But Apple in a subject line will generate traffic, so they write about it.  All the talk about AIG’s bonuses?  I’m sure you saw those headlines.  Well, the $165 million represents less than a tenth of a percent of the bailout money they received ($173 billion), and was almost assuredly legally guaranteed due to the way employment contracts were structured.  Remember all the hub-bub about the pork in the omnibus bill?  Less than 2% of the budget.  

I’m not arguing that it’s insignificant – in fact I agree it’s very important to understand.  But it would be great if they could talk about it in the context of the entire topic.  Tell me about a product that has some details released (i.e. the Lenovo Pocket Yoga) or tell me about how AIG disbursed the other 99.9% of our money, and give some analysis on the impacts.  

Perhaps the underlying issue here is the depressed state of newspapers and rapidly declining advertising revenue stream.  Either way, do not reward this behavior, and avoid clicking the links – or we’ll be destined for these shenanigans everywhere.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think cell phone reception has degraded over time.  I’m sure upgrading to a 3G-capable phone has a lot to do with it (lots of issues with 2G-3G handshake), but I cannot go for more than 15 minutes driving without a dropped call.  And I’ll have several bars before and after the “call failed” note.  Frankly, it’s ridiculous.  Perhaps it’s my Blackberry Bold having issues, although my iPhone user friends seem to have similar dropped call issues.  But it seems odd, especially given how it often happens in the same exact spot (though this is definitely not always the case).

What I want to know is when did we decide to put up with it?  Back in the day, I used to have Sprint (the evolutionary Palm Treo 650).  And while I didn’t get coverage at my home, I rarely dropped calls.  Perhaps when the Palm Pre comes out for Sprint, I’ll return full circle.  Either that or I’ll just take the hit to the wallet and switch to Verizon.  One more thing, if you’re considering a new phone, check out T-Mobile and get the new Curve 8900.  I’ve played around with it – probably my favorite device out there right now – extremely sleek, durable,  and stable.

Or, perhaps I just need to watch CK with Conan again (highly recommended):

The Economist had a fascinating post on how the Dunbar number appies to social networks.  For those who may not know, the Dunbar number is a “theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships ” – 148 (see Wikipedia).  The conclusion:

Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.

I find that fascinating.  I always thought, and assumed others did too, that the main reason to join LinkedIn or Facebook was to increase your network and reconnect with old friends.   However, the data shows that most folks join to keep in touch with a smaller group of friends, and maybe read up on what others are doing, but not really interact with them.  So essentially, Facebook has become a replacement for email, with of course enhanced features like photos and profiles.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but does this mean that in the year 2012, we’ll be communicating mostly via Facebook?  Do people already do that and I’m missing the boat (I despise the fact that I can’t reply directly to a message when I get a new Facebook inbox notification, unlike LinkedIn where it is possible.  I hate logging directly into Facebook just to tell my friend thanks for wishing me a happy birthday)?

Maybe Google needs to build a Gmail app on the Facebook platform to avoid irrelevance (not happening anytime soon), or perhaps integrate Gmail with Orkut.  Now that would be interesting…

So I think I need to start regularly blogging here again (actually, more like for the first time).  It’s been awhile, but changing jobs (especially given the current market) and a new nephew, among other things, have kept me extremely busy.  I’m hoping I can churn out about 3-4 posts a week, but let’s see where it goes.  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to email me at me [at] rogupta [dot] com.    The posts on this site may cover a wide range of topics, but probably focus on technology, and maybe occasionally sports.  And in case it needs to be stated, the opinions on this blog represent my opinions only, and not that of my friends, family, or my employer.  Thanks and I look forward to the conversation.

Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer comes up with the idea to put oil in a rubber bouncy ball: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oil-paper-0530.html

It’s been done in baseball, and now it’s coming to basketball.  Interesting link if you’re into basketball, especially if you (like me) are a Celtics fan.  Saw this awhile ago, but even more interesting if you noticed how Rondo and Powe had huge roles in the Finals:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/magazine/04wwln-freakonomics-t.html