Not Quite Integrated

Google is trying to link together their various services (Picasa, BlogSpot/Blogger, Plus, etc.). It's sort of a Good Idea™, but it's "not quite there," yet.

I'm one of those people who uses online services like Picasa as a cloud-based backup of my home storage. I use BackBlaze for my general data (really sweet service: I recommend it to anyone that has a good up-stream connection and gives a crap about protecting important electronic documents, images, etc. against hard drive failures or home disasters) and I (currently) use Picasa for my photo memories (Flickr has better storage pricing, but, when I was making the decision, Picasa had the better management software).

When I first opened my Picasa account, it was very much a stand-alone service. This was reflective of it being one of Google's many acquired services. Eventually, I noticed that images I'd posted via my BlogSpot account were automagically showing up in my Picasa account.

When I cashed in my Plus beta invite, one of the things I had to do was link my Picasa account to my Plus profile (no choice was given: if I wanted to try out Plus, I either clicked on the "accept" button or I couldn't do Plus - in retrospect, the latter might have been the better option). It didn't seem like too big of a deal at the time, so, I clicked "yes". I didn't post my first photo to Plus for several days after joining up (might have even been a couple weeks). It was several days, after that, that I noticed Plus-posted photos were showing up in my Picasa account.

Honestly, I think what alerted me to that fact was that Donna and I were out and wanted me to show some pix of our dogs to friends. So, I fired up my Android phone's "Gallery" application and noticed there were photos showing up that were from Plus. When I got home, I logged into Picasa and, sure enough, there was an album (tree) of my Plus-originated photos.

Sidenote to Google: data aggregation is great, in theory, but the way you're doing it for me - and not giving me any good method to manage or override - makes my data utterly chaotic: not good. At least give me options to determine what things appear in multiple applications. The first time I end up embarrased by your "helpful" stream-crossing, you can expect a subpoena. 

It was mostly a shrug-worthy moment. I mean, at least I knew how to get at photos after I'd posted them via Plus. It did raise the concern of, "do Plus photos count against the Picasa quota I bought"? I'm hoping that what I discovered today indicates that the Plus folder-tree doesn't count against that quota: 1) it's the only album that seems to allow sub-albums; 2) unlike all of my Picasa-originated albums' photos, the Plus originated photos don't seem to be online-editable the way my Picasa-originated ones are. Dunno. It might be buried in a Google FAQ (or similar document) somewhere, but there's no quick indication of it.

I'll give Google kudos for making data available. Unfortunately, what Google really doesn't seem to get is that masses of data suck if you don't have good tools for logically-ordering them. And, no, I don't consider having a search engine to plow through the data-heap to be a good organizational method or solution for masses of data.

More Pepsi Math

Ok, so, a day or so ago, I noted that Pepsi's math seemed to be off on their nutrition labels. I had purchased a 16oz. bottle of Mtn. Dew. The nutrition information (hah!) label on the back of the bottle states that the figures are based on an 8oz serving size. However, Pepsi is kind enough with their bottles to include a "how much in this bottle" column on their nutrition information panel. The 16oz. bottle had indicated that there was 230 calories. Given that 16oz is, exactly, twice as much as the 8oz benchmark, it seemed odd that Pepsi would say that there other than (exactly) twice the number of calories in the 16oz bottle than one
Today, I was handed a 20oz bottle of Mtn. Dew. Due to the math peculiarities on the prior bottle of Mtn. Dew, I decided to run the numbers on this on. Again, this bottle had an 8oz serving size column and a "how much in this bottle column". As with the prior 16oz bottle, the listed serving size was 8oz. Pepsi lists the calorie count for the 20oz as being 290. Now, 8 doesn't divide evenly into 20, but 4 divides evenly into both 8 and 20. So, I decided to halve the calorie count in the 8oz serving size to get a calorie count of 55cal per 4oz serving. There would be five such 4oz servings in a 20oz bottle. One would expect that 20oz bottle to yield 275 calories (55cal/serving * 5 servings). Pepsi's own notations on the nutrition panel indicate "2.5 servings per bottle". Doing the math using their figures, again, produces 275 calories (110 * 2.5).
So, either their calories/8oz serving size metric is wrong or there's some undocumented calories in the soda. Either way, it makes one wonder what the point is of putting labels on if the information on said labels is wrong? I could almost understand the errors (or undocumented calories) if the error percentages were identical. However, the error differentials are not identical. So, "what gives".
I mean, it's not that I really care. I'm still going to drink the damned thing, any way. It just bothers me. I really need to stop looking at things. The world's a much less vexing place when you simply fail to notice discrepancies and inconsistencies.