Anyone notice this?

Google's new "suggest" page (very cool, by the way, I've been playing with it a lot) doesn't let you find any suggestions for many of the same words that MSN Spaces wouldn't let you write last week.

So, Google's new test site doesn't bring any suggestions, for, say, "cocktail." I can't get any "sex" either. Nor can I find an "asshole." I do get some suggestions for "assholics." Some terms that I would expect to be blocked, like "shit" aren't.

Hmmm, just some fun things to play with on a Friday night while waiting for Maryam to get ready to go to our group's holiday party.

The Server Side.NET is playing around with video too. Here they have a pilot episode of "the code room" -- sort of MTV meets TopCoder.

I think I understand why Channel 9 videos are popular. The slickness of this turned me off. It made me think of marketing. That I was about to be sold something.

The meat started at about nine minutes into the video, which is where the participants started to write code. But, even there, my eye was messing with me. First of all, geeks don't work in TV studios. They also usually don't work in bright light conditions. It's fun, but when I run around Microsoft with my camcorder I almost always have to turn on the lights.

Another tip off? No mound of soda cans. This is why I tell people not to clean up their offices. It's the little things that tell you whether a video is being done in a real environment or if it's being done for TV.

What do you think?

Will Davies is at the Internet and Society conference and he is grumpy: "I'm speaking on Saturday morning, on the token "bah humbug" panel. Until then, I will be looking out for the usual symptoms of collective net-induced political nonsense, including..."

Jian Shuo Wang visited our geek dinner last night and wrote it up. He's visiting from Shanghai, China, so it was interesting to get to talk with him. I asked him to blog more because he brings us into a world that very few of us have visited.

China will be a hugely important economic power. He told us last night that his house has tripled in price in just a few years. Man, I thought the housing bubble in Silicon Valley was bad, but Shanghai is worse. Far worse. The houses there (which really are small apartments) are very small compared to American standards.

He says that since I visited a whole rich class has been born.

Desktop search continues to heat up: Andy Beal reports that AOL will use Copernic for desktop search.

Google innovates again and does Google Suggest. You type, it shows you potential choices. Very much like autocomplete in Visual Studio. Very cool!

By the way, Tyme, we think we've gotten the legal issues licked. We've been talking with a lot of experts, including published authors like Dan Gillmor and Greg Bear about this project, and a few lawyers too.

See, by taking the impulsive road you are learning something from watching us make mistakes out in public. We're learning them too and that'll make a better book.

People are asking us for help with how to use online communications when building products.

And, the fastest-moving teams in the industry (you'll hear my interviews with a team that's only been together six months and who uses a blog to communicate next week) are using blogs. Impulsively. Messily. Imperfectly.

See, getting work done requires you to just hang it out there and worry about the consequences as they come up.

If you can't take a risk or two what use is living?

Tyme, on "Blog Your Way" blog: What not to do if you're a corporate blogger.

Yeah, I wish I had slowed down a bit before posting the book idea, but then, you know that you're getting me. Raw. Flawed. Impulsive.

I bash ahead. There are pros and cons to this approach. Pros? You get stuff done. Cons? You mess up in public and things are half baked. You look stupid. Uninformed. Unprepared.

He says: "You need to think before you type."

Yup, that's good advice. Now we got a book to write so the messiness hopefully will clean itself up. See, in the old world you only got to read the book, you never got to see the mess.

Life +is+ messy, and my blogging is too. The more I write out in public, the more I realize a good blog lets you see the mess. Lets you see behind the scenes. Gets you involved in building things.

If you wanna read perfection, then this isn't the place for you. Go read Shakespeare.

Bungie.net: Geezer Gamers.

Old farts (I'm joining, I turn 40 next month) playing games. Cool!

Dru Nelson: the end of computer viruses is near. Dru is a senior software engineer (I know who he works for, but not sure he wanted that revealed to the world).

Let's see, there's X1, Copernic, Google, now Yahoo.

Damn, I wish that I was going next week to Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Strategies.

This is the hottest category in technology right now. Hot. Hot. Hot. Getting hotter.

I notice one name missing on this post: Microsoft. How long will that last?

Mike Gunderloy still can't see getting a Tablet PC.

Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft looks to broaden Tablet PC appeal with games.

Brandon Furtwangler, on the other hand, has a message for Mike.

Of course, I just wish my mom would write me ink notes like Layne's mom does. Hey, Dave, now you've experienced the "inkernet."