Google's Missing Tool

[susandennis]

I keep my eye on Google Labs to see what new goodies they are cooking up, but I'm pretty sure I will never see the one tool I need. The one tool that will make all of their others shine. I am pretty sure I'll never see the Personal Data Miner.

I'm thinking it would be a web page like the Google home page but with a different banner, of course...

And it would be the key ingredient to my fully enjoying things like the regular Google search engine or Google Earth. Those things are only moderately useful to me now because I CAN'T REMEMBER SHIT!

With the SusanDennis Personal Data Miner, I could plug in 2nd Grade and it would pop up my elementary school, and my teacher's name and then I could pop over to Google Earth and maybe even see the Ginko Tree that my Mom and I planted with the rest of the class outside the classroom window. For extra credit, it might even turn up a little parapgrah about why we planted that tree because I sure can't remember.

I could plug in 1957-1963 and it would come back with addresses of homes and schools and teachers' names and best friends and, heck, maybe even the memory lines that the mean ugly bitch with the gray bun made us learn in English. Can't remember her name, or the lines (and my life has lots of fucking meaning as it turns out - so there, bitch).

I remember the name of my first boyfriend - Eddie Marsh. But that's all I remember. What happened to him? Where exactly is he incarcerted now? If he actually did get his law degree like he said he wanted to, maybe it's some nice federal pen with a golf course. The SusanDennis Peronal Data Miner would tell me.

Is that Carmelite convent I lived next to in Wheeling, WVA in the early 70s still there? I have no idea where in Wheeling it was, so I need some help.

And what ever happened to that wonderful Summer/weekend house we had in Blowing Rock, NC? (I might be able to find it when Google Earth gets around to photographing Blowing Rock... I did actually find the house I lived in when I was married - in Charlotte - I couldn't remember the address but I did remember my husband's name so I got the address and found it in Google Earth - they were off 4 houses but I managed to find it because I could see the swimming pool in the back.)

But, alas, I'm afraid that like the SusanDennis Action Figure, the SusanDennis Personal Data Miner is going to be in permanant incubation. More's the pity. Because, really, don't you want to know what charges they finally napped Eddie Marsh on????

Comments

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

I hope Google comes up with the meal-o-matic that does grocery planning and tells you where to find all the cheap stuff.

The JCPDM (localized version of the SDPDM) would be a novelty for the first week, but eventually it would be the same experience as going through all my high school stuff: a reminder of how much I've changedimproved and why I don't want to go to the 20th. OTO, the trip down rememory lane has yielded a few surprises like learning the guy who I assumed would be a star artist at Marvel Comics is now handing customer support queries at Citibank (when he's not herding his seven children).

Tell us more about the Susan Dennis Action Figure?

[susandennis]

Ahhh see the Susan Dennis Action Figure was my last really really great idea. And it was actually two different ideas! (I can't remember what I had for lunch that day but I have never had two good ideas in one day since. Sigh).

Idea 1. An action figure of me. Yep. Looks like me. And would be doing fabulous actions like knitting or watching TV. Well, that, of course, led me to Idea 2. Instead of having an action figure that aped my actions, create one who did actions FOR me! Susan Dennis on the STP trip, for instance... or climbing something or kneecapping idiots or something...

The funniest part of the whole action figure thing was that I revealed my idea over lunch one day - this was back when I was an FTE out here. One of the contractors at the table actually looked into it! He did some research on what it would take to personalize action figures!! That cracked me up. He couldn't figure out how to get it all done for a price that would make it available to more than the Paul Allens of the world... Although, Paul Allen might like an action figure who could do the actions for him...

[fj.livejournal.com]

Uh, personalized action figures actually made it into the Neiman-Narcus catalog 5 years ago. There's a place that does it. Costs $20K or so.

Now people are doing it for cheap:
http://www.andgor.com/Personalized_Figures/personalized_figures.html
http://herobuilders.com/custom/
http://www.highlyflammabletoys.com/hft.php

[susandennis]

Would ja look at that! Ok, so I had the AF idea in about 1998ish. Can we then expect the VERY EXPENSIVE N-M version to be out in about 2007 and the cheap version about 2012? Excellent!

I'm over the action figure thing but I really do need this data mining thing and I think it's going to be even more critical as I get older and lose the few marbles I have now.

[geordie.livejournal.com]

He's not the footballer, ice hocky player or retired bishop of Newfoundland incarnation of Eddie Marsh then? Or the Kings College Library version? There are lots of people called Eddie Marsh on this little planet. Wouldn't you like to think he became a bishop?

[susandennis]

See, that's the problem... There are way too many Eddie Marshes... I think that's a nix on the Bishop, tho... He was as wasp as they come and southern wasp to boot.