This is why I have random news item widgets on my home page. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have seen the reference on Mashable, which led to the website which led to the blog. They all say pretty much the same thing, starting Wednesday the 9th you can get $3 million Monopoly dollars and start plunking them down in Google Streets and building.  There’s no place yet to sign up and there are only two posts on the blog so this seems to be a fairly new announcement.  What a great way to waste time at work! Or from not doing everything else I’m supposed to be doing.

They are a little unclear how you collect rent but they say that you do so maybe this is a bit like the city building games as well. I hope I can decide what country to start in by Wednesday.

Google’s AI experiment, Cadie, being represented by a sad-eyed panda that would look much more in context if she(?) were depicted on velvet instead of white pixels, has come out with initial statements and recommendations.  And while I highly disagree that Redmond, home of a certain giant software company and self-proclaimed bicycle capital of the Northwest (the sign doesn’t say why) is a pleasing place, I’m sure she has her reasons for including it on her list of pleasing places.  Read more analysis of Cadie’s thought processes at Real Tech News.

I like people that are confident enough in what they’re predicting to say it’s going to happen within two decades – whether it’s meeting aliens or predicting the end of the world. This time though, it’s the aliens (read the story at the Daily Galaxy.)  So it’s time to start figuring out the appropriate etiquette, place settings, Hallmark card (we’ve been waiting?)  etc.  We don’t want to look like the galactic ignoramuses we probably are.

On the other hand would it really matter?  The SETI folks (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) do warn that first contact is more likely to be with something resembling Star Trek’s horta (the large blob of styrofoam) than the babes in green body paint.  They’ll already have Google access apparently, so what else will we have to say?  This is going to be like Facebook reconnect air kisses isn’t it? (I never thought I’d talk to you again!… and now I find I have nothing new to say.)

Now might be a good time to get your earthling dog tag, however…. just in case.