Slashdot Mirror
Google Plans To Destroy Unindexed Information
linolium writes "Executives at Google, the rapidly growing online-search company that promises to 'organize the world's information,' announced Monday the latest step in their expansion effort: a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index. 'Book burning is just the beginning," said Google co-founder Larry Page. 'This fall, we'll unveil Google Sound, which will record and index all the noise on Earth. Is your baby sleeping soundly? Does your high-school sweetheart still talk about you? Google will have the answers.'" FYI; it's The Onion, so yes, it's a joke.
Slashdot vows to destory all fake articles.
Now slashdot is quoting THE ONION as real news. Wow, I want my subscription money back.
--sig fault--
this reminds me of Bill Gates decision to raise his Charisma to 25.
I KNEW THEY WERE EVIL!!!!!!
(Score:0, Interesting)
For everyone who doesn't get it:
Google plans to "destroy" unindexed information by indexing it. Get it? Good.
Is this really worth a top post on Slashdot, that The Onion wrote a funny piece? It's sort of their standard fare - in fact, I'm beginning to feel like The Onion is doing a better job at putting togethe rinteresting articles than slashdot is.
Planet-Geek
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
Did you see that? thats /. jumping the shark.
I wouldn't worry too much, your stuff should still be safe. I hear it takes them awhile to get these things out of Beta...
For a second I thought it was April 1st. Geez.
I know it doesn't show up on the main page, but the "Monty Python humor foot" is visible when you click the link. I'm sure anyone with a shred of a sense of humor would recognize it's a joke.
Ease up, cowboy. There will be a dupe you can complain about coming along in 5 minutes. My money's on the "Microsoft employee virus chaser" myself - anyone want to place bets that "Freespire" is the next dupe?
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
"When did /. get a sense of humor?"
It didn't, they just did their usual amount of fact checking.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
The problem is, someone who doesn't know what the Onion is will beleive this. Just like the Chinese did in 2000 when the Onion had an article about the Senate okaying a 2 billion dollar project to make the US Capitol's dome open like a sports arena. It's fake news people. Funny, but comepletely made up. Page3 usually has an unfilled section that they just stick a random phrase in. My favorite was the "...and there was an amazing amount of blood..." repeated over and over.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
With all these websites and news outlets that want to opt out of Google's searches, I suppose in hindsight that was a poor management decision, eh?
We had this one back in April.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
- Buy Antivirus for your cell phone
- Why we should all love corporate Linux
- MS supports good guys!
- Why you need a new digital camera... and its not about picture quality.
- Breaking story from America's Finest News Source.
What do these have in common? Corporate cheer-leading, perhaps?I want news, not ads for nerds.
It's really not that hard.....
(1) Go to preferences
(2) Select Home Page
(3) Uncheck Zonk in the list of Authors you want to read stories from
(4) Profit
This article calls attention to just how silly the whole thing is. Before I'm modded as a troll, I'd like to point out that I like Google too, but it isn't healthy to worship them this much or post every single Google-related rumour on the internet on this site.
And of course, if Zonk actually did think it was real, that just makes everything I said all the more true...
For everyone who's too dumb to read the article: It's a joke, and does not cover Google's actual intentions.
Ya know, this is really a good thing! I was really wondering how I was gonna hide all that stuff I didn't want the cops/feds to find out about me. Now, I don't have to worry about it - the all-knowing all-powerful Google Purge service will make sure my computer is clean!
OTOH, I sent this page to some friends, and they actually believed it for a few minutes... I need new friends...
--- "To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist!" -- Jesse Jackson
Go to your User Preferences > Customize Stories on the Homepage > Authors, and uncheck "Zonk" or any other editors you wish to ignore.
This is an historic day in my Slashdot life. Zonk is now being added to the list that heretofore had previously contained only JonKatz.
rooooar
Reminds me of the Futurama episode where Fry is sent in to stop the brains from destroying the Universe once they finish collecting every piece of info about it...
I agree... I don't think I've ever seen a joke go whizzing past so many heads. As if slashdot is a reputable news source... MY GOD, THE CHILDREN!
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
I refuse to RTFA because it's obviously an ad for the Onion. They make their money by serving ads while I read their amusing parodies. Well I, for one, refuse to read anything that isn't pasted to me in clear text completely sanitized of ads and recommended to me by a disinterested 3rd party. I know it seems a bit hypocritical of me to post a comment on an ad-supported site about how I won't read the article of another ad-supported site, but I really love the prestige of having the word 'Insightful' appear next to my nick.
"Derp de derp."
I believe the parent poster was hinting to the fact that Slashdot, lately, is All Google, All The Time. Just like we got sick of 9/11, just like we got sick of the Tsunami, just like a lot of folks are already sick of hearing about Mississippi...people just get tired of hearing about something constantly. I'm sick of reading news that looks very much like it was spoon-fed by a PR agency. I worked for such an agency for a couple months in IT, and I was half shocked, half not-surprised at how often stuff that popped up in the paper was the result of efforts of the firm I worked for. Reporters these days are under pressure to get stories out as cheap as possible, and when a PR firm approaches them with what seems like a pretty tame position, some handy quotes all collected for them...they're all to happy to oblige. Sound familiar? The boys at slashdot haven't touched the site in years except to add advertisements; they're fully into cruise mode.
Google really has turned into another Microsoft; a giant company that really doesn't do anything all that clever, but because they're so big, everyone thinks the world revolves around them and fawns over every little thing. For example- Google Maps. It's not even remotely clever aside from the panning bit; it doesn't, for example, let me save any frequently used addresses. The printed maps are atrocious in quality (you have to have a big screen, and do a screen cap, and print that to get anything decent). Route numbers are RARELY displayed, and names of roads not often enough.
Google claims to release stuff half-baked to see where people go with it, but honestly? It's still half-baked. Some people point to Google Maps and say "look how clever it is!" and I turn around and say, "look at how clever it ISN'T for a product from a huge corporation with supposedly the best talent in the industry working for it."
Please help metamoderate.
I come to Slashdot for news. Not parody. I read the Onion regularly, and I read the Onion for laughs. I do not read Slashdot for laughs (except the occasionally funny comment).
How did this get past the editors? "Stuff that matters." Yeah, we're living up to that real well. Fake news - that really does matter.
I'm really not being a devil's advocate here; I am genuinely glad to see this article on slashdot.
/. is posting a humour story from the onion when we are all already aware that the onion post humour stories. Although the onion always posts humour stories they don't always post humour stories about tech and links to tech stories is something we expect on /..
People seem to be complaining that
But secondly I think this belongs here because it is actually a really funny story: much funnier than that which I've usually read in the onion. I'm not much of an onion fan personally but I have several friends who like to email me links from the onion from time to time. So I've seen a few stories and when I received this one I thought it was hilarious.
Meanwhile, just last night, I wrote to Google and said, "OK, you find everything on the Internet, you find what I need to get stuff done at work on my workstation, but why can't you find my car keys?" And now they're going to do that.
Apparently, this means we can all stop submitting Google headlines to Slashdot. Ask me instead.
Help us build a better map!
When the flying brains created the giant infosphere that indexed all the information in the universe, and was then to destroy the universe to prevent any new information from being created. But who's going to sneak into google on a flying scooter?
Of course, this is an Onion article, so it's a joke.
I am confused about one thing: while I'm used to Slashdot reporting non-news as news, and incorrect news as news, outside of April Fool's I don't think I've ever seen them report satire as if it were real news.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
I'm starting to wonder if the Onion has too. Lately it just seems like they're trying too hard, and not succeeding. The articles seem sort of mediocre, that recent "Future Onion" issue was a clever concept which utterly failed to be funny, and their web site has just gone through a complete redesign with the result is that it is (a) hideous- I'm talking face-burned-with-acid hideous- and (b) really difficult to read or navigate.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I work at a fairly well respected search engine marketing firm. Someone at a client of ours passed this article to their CEO, who in turn called us in a panic!
;)
Our analyst doesn't bother to actually read the article, and spends several hours creating reports proving every page on their site appears in Google's database! I almost fell out of my chair when heard about this.
For obvious reasons I cannot reveal my true identity.
Well, at least they remembered to include the humor icon (the Monty Python foot).
Is this Zonk guy someone fairly new, or did people just start complaining about him recently?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
i thought that was Braniac's project...
n/t
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Cliff
CmdrTaco
CowboyNeal
Hemos
HeUnique
Jamie
Pudge
Roblimo
Samzenpus
ScuttleMonkey
Timothy
Vroom
Zonk
Of course, your home page might be rather sparse!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Google search reveals: 23,900,000 for "Jesus"... 6,410,000 for "Beatles"... 251,000,000 for "Google". 'Nuff said.
"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces." --Aldo Leopold (Paraphrased)
i really thought that slashdot was above this. this isnt the type of content that should be on slashdot, it's supposed to be "news for nerds. stuff that matters"
and on that note, it would help if it a. wasn't a dupe or b. was actually real.
if we wanted fake, not really all that funny satires about stuff like this we could visit sites like the onion on our own.
The brains approach the Brain Sphere carrying information on placards, which the Sphere scans and reads aloud:
Brain Sphere: "11 > 4... Beavers mate for life... For quality carpets, visit Kaplan's Carpet Warehouse!!"
-- Stolen Memories (episode #8) --
Superman: You destroyed those planets, didn't you? And every living soul on them!Brainiac: Only their knowledge was important. It was what I was programmed to collect and protect.
Superman: But why kill?
Brainiac: The fewer beings who have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes.
Superman: You're insane!
* I wonder if it is going to confuse and anger Smallville fans when Brainiac is based on Vril Dox, the alien scientist from the comics rather than the Kryptonian AI from Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. (At least I assume that's what they are doing since James Marster's is playing Milton Fine.)
And now to post anonymously so no one will ever see this cosmic geekout!
Take a look at the google topic. Here, I'll make it easy. Hmm, we have ~1 story per day. Some days get 2, some 0, but the average for the past week is 1/day.
Now let's review the content: speculation, rumours, and outright lies, coupled with a small mix of facts.
I think Zonk has proven that he's aware of what's going on, and he's able to make a fairly well played post on the topic. I think this is perfectly topical and great. If you don't get the joke, head on over to here and decheck Zonk as an edior. I would prefer you to not post on his stories!
It's funny, laugh!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
8,230,000 for Elvis.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Google, the rapidly growing online-search company that promises to 'organize the world's information,'
Oh, that Google. Thanks for the elaboration, yes I've heard of them before.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
doubleplus ungood
Yes, I know it was an onion article...
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Ah, but any story even tangentially related to Google must be reported on the front page, even if it is fake.
Whereas most people (IMHO) coming to /. are looking for news not jokes (It does say "News for nerds" on the package.)
If you turn on CNN and find them reporting a fantastical story, your natural reaction is to assume they are reporting something which they believe to be true, whereas if you turn on "Little Britain" or another comedy show, even if they are doing a believable news report, you automatically assume it is false and just a joke.
If every piece of apparent 'news' had to be judged by the viewer for 'believability' then what happens when something apparently unbelievable does happen?
How do we know whether the story of the regenerating mouse was discussing real science or was just a science fiction article by an obscure writer?
Quantum Physics a.k.a. sub-molecular statistics