Posts from — December 2004

Battelle Argues that Google Is Mutating: “

Search guru John Battelle thinks Google has just undergone a major mutation, but I’m not so sure I agree. Here’s his case:

John Battelle’s Searchblog: Print Implications: Google As Builder

—snip—

Now Google has in effect become a subcontractor to libraries who will be deciding what to put on line from their collections. It’s still the library’s decision, Google is just providing technical help (and getting paid for it, I’d imagine?).

As Battelle notes ‘Google has announced that the results will be included in the index, not separated out in a vertical book search engine.’ There is an issue as to how the stuff is ranked at first, although Google Scholar gives us some hints. Over time, it gets linked to like everything else and it seems to me the problem shrinks, no?

“

tp://www.discourse.net/”>Discourse.net.)

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they key problem to me is that google will eventually de-hierarchize traditional assumptions about what is knowledge, what is ‘good’ information, what should be read, and what should be scanned, etc. if slashdot is on the same plane as a peer-reviewed academic journal, then, i think there will be some issues to resolve in the educational infrastructure, moreso than we have now.

Computer Stupidities: Operating Systems: ” The interview seemed to be going well up to this point, with the guy seeming to understand most of the stuff I was throwing out (even the stuff I wasn’t too sure about myself) until I happened to mention that the DG workstation, along with all the other workstations and servers in our office (save the NT server, of course) ran DG/UX 5.4R3.10:

Me: ‘Yeah, and this thing runs DG/UX 5.4R3.10.’

Him: ‘What’s that?’

He stares blankly. My heart sinks.

Him: ‘So does that run as a thread under NT?’

Me: ‘No. It’s an OS. It just runs by itself.’

Him: ‘Oh oh, so you start up NT, then–’

Me: ‘No. UNIX. It’s an operating system. It runs by itself, not under NT.’v

He stares blankly. So much for this prospective employee.”

(Via .)

funnies

INSIDE JoongAng Daily: “‘We received a tip that Mr. Song was confined and killed by his followers because they wanted to experience eternal life and resurrection,’ a police representative said. ‘We are investigating whether this was caused by a group of devotees who were into this new pseudo-religion.’
“

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just because you have faith, doesn’t mean what you have faith in…. is true.

Hundreds of free 1930s Sherlock Holmes radio drama MP3s: “Cory Doctorow:
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London has hundreds of free MP3s of Sherlock Holmes radio plays from the 1930s — amazing!

Link

(via Ben Hammersley)”

(Via Boing Boing.)

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coooolllll

Highly Recommended: “

Bloggers Beware: Debunking Eight Copyright Myths of the Online World

‘Kathy Biehl addresses eight ‘myths’ about copyright law with factual responses, resources and guidelines that are of special relevance to bloggers and website owners.’ [LLRX.com]

“

(Via The Shifted Librarian.)

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interesting….

Beer bong tragedy has entire city of Perth in shock: “Mark Frauenfelder:
A beer-thirsty Australian gentleman, inpatient with gravity, employed a mechanical contraption to rapidly deliver beer into his gullet using a pump powered by an electric drill. The device proved so effective that the high-pressure jet of beer shooting down his throat ripped a hole in his stomach. Authorities responded by warning people not to use high-pressure machines to drink beer this Christmas. Link“

(Via Boing Boing.)

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imagine the horror!

Playlist Meme: “

I gotta do something to get my mind off studying for finals. ugh.

1. Open up the music player on your computer.
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the ‘shuffle’ command.
4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That’s right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It’s time for total musical honesty. Write it up in your blog or journal and link back to at least a couple of the other sites where you saw this.
5. If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurrences. You don’t have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you’d like.

1. Walnut Tree – Keane (iTunes)
2. Right Now – Van Halen (iTunes)
3. Song for Dad – Keith Urban (iTunes)
4. Bück Dich – Rammstein
5. Obvious – Blink 182
6. Izzo/In The End – Jay-Z/Linkin Park
7. Kiling In The Name – Rage Against The Machine (iTunes)
8. The Great Disappointment – AFI (iTunes)
9. All The Arms Around You – Halloween Alaska
10. Live Again – Sevendust

Spotted at Willmore’s Blog

“

(Via Carpe Aqua.)

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1. yesterday beatles (acoustic)

2. her neon heart soviettes

3. something better(live) pietasters

4. the brightest bulb has burned out (w/ billy bragg) less than jake

5. california dreamin the beach boys

6. heros and villains the beach boys

7. rocky raccoon beatles

8. 18 til i die bryan adams (acoustic)

9. i’m on wheels julie adams and the rhino boys

10. ingrid bergman billy bragg and wilco

11. wurlitzer prize willie nelson and norah jones

12. tangled up in blue bob dylan

Google Search: inbred moron : “”

(Via .)

what some people will do….

Brewster Kahle, “Universal Access to All Knowledge”: ”

“

(Via Open Access News.)

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this might be called the ‘new enlightenment’ type of thought, no?

The New York Times > Science > With Great Beer, It’s All in the Rocks (and That Doesn’t Mean Ice): “When commercial beer making started in the 19th century in Europe, brewmasters came across a problem similar to those experienced by the Andean brewers, that the beer spoiled easily. Yet there were places that were exceptions. Burton-on-Trent in England was one, a small town that had more than 30 breweries, producing a style of beer called pale ale or English bitter.”

(Via .)

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nice little article on beer and geology