Don’t Hold Your Breath For This One

(Pharmacy | Boulder, CO, USA)

(I am counseling a patient on using an inhaler.)

Me: “Do you know how to use an inhaler, sir?”

Patient: “Nope, never used one.”

Me: “Okay, you’ll want to begin inhaling, and then depress the inhaler as you are breathing in. Then, hold your breath for as long as possible to allow the medication to be absorbed into your lungs.”

Patient: “Oh, sort of like smoking pot…”

Hiss-terical Contest

(Pet Store | London, UK)

(It is closing time. I come across a man in the reptile section staring intently at one of our pythons.)

Me: “Sir, just to let you know, the store will be closing in about–”

(The customer silences me and continues to watch the snake.)

Me: “Sir, did you–”

Customer: “I heard you. I’ll be out in a minute. This brat mcan’t last much longer.”

(The snake moves to the side, and so does the customer. It slithers back to its original position and he suite. I notice his eyes are quivering all this time and he hasn’t blinked once.)

Me: “Sir, forgive my asking but are you trying to have a staring contest with Archie there?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “You do know snakes can’t blink, right?”

Customer: Oh, now you tell me? I’ve been challenging this brat for the last ten minutes!”

Must Be That Time Of The Month

(Box Office | Toronto, ON, Canada)

(A customer calls in to order tickets.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [theater], how can I help you?”

Caller: “I need to order tickets to see your show!”

Me: “Alright then, and which show were you looking for?”

Caller: “You mean there’s more than one?!”

Me: “That’s right, we have 6 shows in our season, and 12 from people who rent our space.”

Caller: “Well, I don’t like that many choices!”

Me: “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. Maybe we can narrow it down. Would you like to see one of our current shows or something within the month?”

Caller: “What Month is this?!”

Me: “It’s January.”

Caller: “No, I don’t like January! What else is there?”

Me: *pause* “February?”

Caller: “Hmm. February. FEB-ruary. F-F-F-Feb. No, I don’t like that either!”

Translation Is No Small Feat

(Supermarket | Alabama, USA)

Me: “Hi, thank you for calling [supermarket]. How can I help you?”

Customer: “Hey, can I speak to someone in the ladies wear department?”

Me: “That’d be me. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I bought some scrubs at another store and I was wondering what the ‘S/CH’ on the tag means?”

Me: “It means it’s a small.”

Customer: “But what does the ‘CH’ mean?”

Me: “It’s the Spanish abbreviation for small.”

Customer: “But ‘CH’; isn’t that American?”

Me: “The letters C and H are used in a lot of different languages, including Spanish.”

Customer: “Oh, how strange!”

The most World Cup-crazy countries

Last weekend, Spain won the 2010 World Cup. For the month leading up to the final, Googlers joined the world in cheering for their favorite teams. Around our campus, games were watched on computer screens and on cafe video screens. Code went unwritten. Emails went unanswered.

Throughout the world, real life also slowed during World Cup matches. Which teams had the most loyal fans? Which game captured the attention of world the most? To answer these questions, we looked at counts of queries using Google. People search using Google day and night—except for football fans when a game is on.

These graphs show the volume of Google queries for some of the World Cup matches:

On June 15, as Brazil played its first game against North Korea, the volume of queries from Brazil, shown using a red line, plummeted when the match began, spiked during halftime, fell again and then quickly rose after the match finished.

Queries from Spain during its June 25 game against Chile also decreased during the game, except during halftime. After some post-game querying, Spaniards went to sleep and queries dropped again.

To measure which country has the most loyal fans, we computed the proportional drop in queries during each of its team’s matches compared with normal query volume. Brazil topped the charts with queries from that country dropping by half during its football games. Football powerhouse and third-place winner Germany came in second, followed by the Netherlands and South Korea.

In fourth place, South Koreans were remarkably loyal even though some games began at 3:30am Seoul time. Japan, Australia and New Zealand, also affected by time-zone differences, expressed much less interest. A few countries searched more, not less. But only Honduras and North Korea increased significantly.

During the knockout rounds, each match’s losing team is eliminated from the tournament. As fewer and fewer teams remain, we expected increased worldwide interest in each remaining game. Unsurprisingly, worldwide queries slowed the most during the final game between the Netherlands and Spain, but the round-of-16 Germany v. England game had the second largest query decrease. Semi-finals and quarter-finals were all popular except for semi-final Uruguay v. Netherlands, during which queries actually increased.

In Latin American countries, search volume dropped more steeply leading into and out of matches while, in Europe, searches ramped down and up more gradually. Of course, for games that went into extra time and penalty shootouts the drops deepened the longer the match went on, including Paraguay v. Japan, Netherlands v. Spain, and Uruguay v. Ghana as seen here:

Finally, no blog post about the World Cup would be complete without a look at what did drive people to search—after the final match, of course. Although he won neither the Golden Boot (for the most World Cup goals) nor the Golden Ball (for best player) last weekend, Spain’s David Villa is winning in search compared to the recipients of those two honors—Germany’s Thomas Müller and Uruguay’s Diego Forlán—and Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder. All of these men competed for the Golden Boot with five goals apiece.

Similar to when Carlos Puyol headed in the single goal that put Spain in the final, people flocked to the web to search for information on Andres Iniesta, the “quiet man” who scored the one goal that led his country to its first World Cup championships. They were also interested in Dani Jarque, a Spanish footballer who died last fall and whose name was emblazoned on Iniesta’s undershirt, which he displayed after his goal. And after the match, searches for keeper Iker Casillas skyrocketed to a higher peak than any other popular footballer—including household names like Ronaldo, Villa and Messi—reached during the Cup. Sometimes, it seems, goalies get the last word.

We hope you enjoyed our series of posts on World Cup search trends and we’ll see you in Brazil in 2014!

Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer and Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer

iOS 4.0.1 hitting iPhones right this second

Well it's not the full 4.1 we were expecting... but here's a little tidbit from Apple. One of the main features? The update 'improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display.' Interesting. We're updating some devices right now, and will report back with what we find.



[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

iOS 4.0.1 hitting iPhones right this second originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumored HTC Desire HD specs surface: 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera

We didn't have a ton of details on the so-called HTC Ace when it turned up in a leaked roadmap last week, but a fresh set of rumors are now suggesting that the Ace is actually the Desire HD, which will reportedly pack a number of HD-esque upgrades over the standard Desire. That includes a larger 4.3-inch WVGA screen -- no word if it's AMOLED or SLCD -- and an 8-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. Other rumored details include Android 2.2, 4GB of internal storage, the same 1GHz Snapdragon as the current Desire and, perhaps most interestingly, talk of a 'unibody aluminum design.' Unfortunately, the rumors still don't include any actual images of the device, but there's still plenty of time for those to leak out before the supposed October release.

Rumored HTC Desire HD specs surface: 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear | SuperETrader

Brammo goes street fighting with the 100mph Empulse electric motorcycle (video)

When we took Brammo's Enertia motorcycle for a test ride last summer we found it to be a lovingly crafted and fun to ride bike that really only disappointed when it came to ultimate performance -- far closer to your average scooter than your average sportbike. Since then the company has gone racing, taking on the iconic Isle of Man as part of the all-electric TTXGP and finishing third place with a top speed of 102mph. That fully-faired bike was called the TTR, and now the company is making a naked version for you: the 100mph Empulse. Read on for full details and a little video too.

Gallery: Brammo Empulse electric motorcycle

Continue reading Brammo goes street fighting with the 100mph Empulse electric motorcycle (video)

Brammo goes street fighting with the 100mph Empulse electric motorcycle (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Should Have Gone For (M)Academia

(Bakery | California, USA)

Customer: “What’s in the White Chocolate Macadamia cookie?”

Me: “White chocolate and macadamias.”

Customer: “Oh, duh,. That was a stupid question.”

Me: “It’s okay, people ask me all the time what kind of nuts are in the ‘Chocolate Almond Joy’.”

Customer: “Oh yeah, ha ha! Walnuts!”

Overly Essaying The Situation

(Community Outreach Center | Atlanta, GA, USA)

Me: “What can I help you with today, sir?”

Customer: “Well for starters, you can talk to that girl at the front desk. She made me fill out so much paperwork!”

Me: “I’m sorry. She must have been mistaken. Can you show me the forms you were asked to complete?”

Customer: “No. I don’t have them.”

Me: *confused* “Where are they?”

(The man proceeds to lead me to the front desk and gestures at the sign-in sheet where visitors are asked to write their name and zip code.)

Customer: “This! She made me write all this!”