New Google Search Index 50% Fresher With Caffeine

Altavista by Pojut · 2010-06-09 01:05 · Score: 2, Funny

I miss the days when Altavista was king (purely nostalgia, I assure you). I don't, however, miss getting marked down in Spanish class due to using BabelFish -_-;;

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Living With a Nerd

Re:Altavista by moosesocks · 2010-06-09 01:29 · Score: 5, Funny

I miss the days when Altavista was king (purely nostalgia, I assure you). I don't, however, miss getting marked down in Spanish class due to using BabelFish -_-;;
This reminds me of one of my funniest memories from middle school: The Spanish teacher hands back a paper with a big red "F" on it to the guy sitting in front of me. She says: "This is very good.....But, it's in French"
Back in the day, refreshing BabelFish would cause the options to default back to English->French.

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-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Altavista by 0100010001010011 · 2010-06-09 02:24 · Score: 1

Backin the day BabelFish would only convert X amount of characters or words if you entered the text, however it would do entire webpages.
It's how I learned basic HTML. I set up my own GeoCities account and copy and pasted my project in and kept refreshing the translation page.*
* I did try and not cheat so I only did Spanish to English. If I misspelled words or had bad grammar they'd usually show up.
Re:Altavista by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:27 · Score: 0

Hotbot used to be the best. I still don't understand how Google could make it to the top so fast---suppose they were given a helpful hand by "interested parties"
Re:Altavista by RJFerret · 2010-06-09 04:07 · Score: 1

Actually, I wish AltaVista still existed (it's back end became Yahoo--useless), because you could do a literal search that Google no longer can do.
Originally Google achieved success not with tons of results (like everyone else at the time), but specific results of just what you were seeking.
Nowadays, they throw in tons of results and the kitchen sink, including variations in spelling and alternatives that you don't want.
It used to be Google was better because the first results page had a useful link. Nowadays you can click through all the results on the first result page and find nothing that relates to what you tried to search.
You can try adding quotes or +'s, which used to work, but now seem to be largely ignored. (It sometimes helps to - the alternatives, but not if it won't search your term to begin with, only if it's listing alternatives ahead of your search.)
Worse, Google Images won't "AND" results at all, but always "OR"s them.
Sadly the competitors have seen Google as a leader and try to do more of this "give them what we believe they are asking for, rather than what they actually want".
If anyone knows an alternative, literal web search, à la the original Alta Vista, I'd love to hear about it. Searching Twitter gives me limited results!
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-09 04:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

I miss the days when Google was a simple, plain HTML page resulting from the fact that it was driven by its designers and users. Now arrogant marketing VPs with no clue whatsoever push on us "features" like fade-ins (which do wonders when viewed over RDP and VNC links) and side bars while ignoring all negative feedback and making sure that no opt-out is possible to stroke their towering egos by pretending that everyone loves their "innovations". Otherwise 80% of users would have it off in an instant and the "innovator" VP's stupidity would register with some other VPs at Google HQ and give them ammo in some back-stabbing corporate ladder-climbing moves.
In other words I miss the days before Google jumped the shark.
Re:Altavista by dwinks616 · 2010-06-09 05:42 · Score: 1

They made it to the top so fast because they were leaps and bounds better than the competition and still are.
Re:Altavista by CaseyB · 2010-06-09 05:47 · Score: 1

Quoted search phrases work perfectly on Google. Can you give a counterexample?
Re:Altavista by roju · 2010-06-09 07:27 · Score: 1

I run into this all the time, though I can't think of a good example off the top of my head. Typically when symbols/numbers are involved. Ah, try searching for the string/number -100.
Re:Altavista by Pseudonymus+Bosch · 2010-06-09 11:07 · Score: 1

:)
Thanks for the story

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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Re:Altavista by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 11:24 · Score: 0

I think you're the one that needs to get in touch with the real world. I grant that you can make an argument over the fade-in, but regardless there's no fucking way 80% of users care about it or the side bar enough to disable it. Maybe 0.8%. This is why there's no opt-out.
Re:Altavista by tenco · 2010-06-09 14:24 · Score: 1

That annoys me as hell, too. Most of the time, a page misses a search term I entered completely. But I added that search term to rule out these pages. Using quotes fixes the order of search times - that's no substitute. :(
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-09 14:53 · Score: 1

.... but regardless there's no fucking way 80% of users care about it or the side bar enough to disable it. Maybe 0.8%. This is why there's no opt-out.
Bullshit. The fade in is a "feature" that adds no objective value whatsoever and slows down user interaction. All such "features" are universally turned off by pretty much any user that has a clue how to do it, irrespective of where they can be found, be it an operating system interface, application interface, search engine interface or some other conceivable user interface. And for some users, like the thousands using Windows on corporate Thin Client terminals over RDP links, the cost is much, much higher, with no corresponding gain of any kind.
Furthermore any aesthetic effect is lost after a few dozen times, never you mind hundreds or thousands of iterations, leaving only the loss of productivity in its wake.
Similarly, the side bar annoys people because it adds no value for most users and has a cost in screen real estate.
In general, the rule of thumb is that any "special effects" or "pretty UI elements" have to provide an actual usability benefit that is greater then the corresponding cost of the feature, be it in interaction speed, screen real estate or some other resource. Otherwise they are not only pointless, but can only be classified as a usability regression, also commonly known as "marketing driven design" or "Microsoft-style cluster-fuck".
Re:Altavista by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 15:22 · Score: 2, Informative

All such "features" are universally turned off by pretty much any user that has a clue how to do it, irrespective of where they can be found
As I said, you are completely out of touch with reality if you think that a majority of users have any interest in things like that. Making the claim that management somehow snuck an almost-universally hated feature in is absurd and only harms your credibility. You do not represent the majority of users. Slashdot does not represent the majority of users.

If you don't, then why are you arguing? I'm not arguing that fade-in is worth it; only that the majority of users wouldn't care and/or be aware enough to opt-out.

(On a side note, anecdotal "evidence" disagrees with your claim about the sidebar's benefit. Google likely included it because of the positive reaction users had toward Bing's related searches in their sidebar. At the recent WWW2010 conference I attended, the side bar was viewed positively by engineers from Bing, Yahoo, and Google alike. Considering they have access to real-world usage data and you do not, I'm inclined to take their side. In fact, Bing claimed the UI redesign _alone_ significantly increased traffic before any backend changes had taken place.)
Re:Altavista by wunderbus · 2010-06-09 16:39 · Score: 1

Google would argue that the fade in speeds up user interaction in the vast majority of cases by not distracting users from the search box. Actually, they did argue that. And their justification did not come from a marketing VP like you imagine but from benchmarking real users. It's as if they consider actual results a better metric than childish rants posted on a forum somewhere.
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-09 17:18 · Score: 0, Troll

As I said, you are completely out of touch with reality if you think that a majority of users have any interest in things like that. Making the claim that management somehow snuck an almost-universally hated feature in is absurd and only harms your credibility. You do not represent the majority of users. Slashdot does not represent the majority of users.

Right ... and all the people begging me (and any other IT professional I work with) for help in turning these "features" off also do not represent the majority of users. In fact the majority of users I managed to meet in my 30 and some year career apparently does not represent the "majority of users" .... only you do. Congratulations. Probably that is because of your self-awarded "credibility". I fully expect that you were in the "majority of users" who positively loved "Clippy" and had him turned on permanently.

If you don't, then why are you arguing? I'm not arguing that fade-in is worth it; only that the majority of users wouldn't care and/or be aware enough to opt-out.

There is a major difference between "not caring" and not knowing what to do about it. Thus what usually happens is that the issue becomes a low-key nuisance about which users cannot do anything or about which they are afraid to ask (because it seems like they are somehow supposed to adjust to it and they do not want to appear stupid or "behind the times") and after a while they become so accustomed to it that they learn to tune it out, like rheumatics learn to live with their pain. Only when reminded, usually during some unrelated conversation with IT personnel they suddenly exclaim: "and would someone do something about this fucking xyz thing that drives me crazy for months now!!!". That is the standard pattern which I have witnessed countless times.

Google likely included it because of the positive reaction users had toward Bing's related searches in their sidebar

Correction: they included it because some bozo at Google panicked about Bing doing something that they did not have, regardless of any advantage, usefulness or other factors. This is a standard pattern of behaviour of incompetent management who is faced with a possibility of somewhat viable competition. They simply attempt to emulate all and any features of the competitors in hopes that a "shotgun" approach of "and we have that feature of theirs too!" will save their market position .... somehow.
A situation all the more amusing given that Google already had an equivalent (and superior) functionality resulting from including "image", "shopping" and the like sample results as a section inline, which required no Ajax functionality.

At the recent WWW2010 conference I attended, the side bar was viewed positively by engineers from Bing, Yahoo, and Google alike. Considering they have access to real-world usage data and you do not, I'm inclined to take their side. In fact, Bing claimed the UI redesign _alone_ significantly increased traffic before any backend changes had taken place

Oh for fuck's sake, I have the real world usage data in form of thousands of corporate users, probably far more scientific then theirs since I get to see the way people at work actually interact with Google, something no server logs at Google can ever show. And listening to claims of companies spouted at, of all places, a conference, where every one company tries to out-posture all the others! That's like going to a Comdex circa 1994 and hearing the ever-present IBM salesmen and engineers positively promising you that OS/2 will take over the world! Guaranteed! Or going to some programming conference and learning that Smaltalk is all the rage that will replace every other language and paradigm ever invented! Etc and so on.
There has to be some kind of special category of gullibility just for the "serious" (as opposed to the get-away-and-party kind) trade conference goers.
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-09 17:32 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Google would argue that the fade in speeds up user interaction in the vast majority of cases by not distracting users from the search box. Actually, they did argue that. And their justification did not come from a marketing VP like you imagine but from benchmarking real users. It's as if they consider actual results a better metric than childish rants posted on a forum somewhere.

Except, of course, that this entire "study" is utter horse shit. Most corporate users do not use Google home page for searches (they usually have a corporate intranet home page and use the search browser box - present in all browsers today - instead). They use the Google home page as a switchboard to News, Maps, Gmail etc, which is precisely where the useless "feature" gets in the way. I should know, I have watched hundreds of them do so. Personally. It got so bad that we now push a standard set of bookmarks to desktops for News, Maps etc that allow people to bypass Google home page.
So Google can stick these kind of transparent face-saving and "we are right even when we are wrong" studies and stick'em whey they belong. Up theirs.
Furthermore, this entire discussion would not be taking place if Google actually stood behind the fake "studies" and allowed an opt-out to the older, simpler (and thus easier on bandwidth and what-not, Ajax-free, page). That alone would prove if they are right or wrong. They however know quite well what would happen and thus no choice will ever be offered to the users (save switching to Bing - with its own litany of issues - and the like).
Re:Altavista by perryizgr8 · 2010-06-09 22:30 · Score: 1

i agree that fade in is kinda dumb. but sidebar is very good. it saves the 2-3 extra clicks required to do an advanced search.

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Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-10 00:22 · Score: 1

Oh and one more thing, these "usability" studies just surely, I mean positively, fingers-crossed and all, showed that users are even more productive with full fucking screen fade-ins of random high resolution images - much, much worse then fucking Bing!
Which, as if to underline the level of stupidity in your water carrying for Google, they introduced today! I have been receiving phone calls all morning already. Fuck, fucketey, fuck Google, with a rusty steel brush covered in pepper spray! Shit, looks like I am putting Google home page into the list of banned web pages at the web filter ....
Re:Altavista by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-10 00:48 · Score: 0

Probably that is because of your self-awarded "credibility". I fully expect that you were in the "majority of users" who positively loved "Clippy" and had him turned on permanently.
Good one, but no. I think where we differ is that I have no illusion of representing the majority of users. I personally dislike the fade-in and think the sidebar could at least be improved, but my opinion of that isn't relevant to this discussion.

Oh for fuck's sake, I have the real world usage data in form of thousands of corporate users, probably far more scientific then theirs since I get to see the way people at work actually interact with Google, something no server logs at Google can ever show.
Bullshit. For one, a single company is not representative of all users. In fact, multiple companies likely wouldn't be a good sample either. Most users have no clue what VNC/RDP are either, so it sounds to me like your sample isn't representative.

They simply attempt to emulate all and any features of the competitors in hopes that a "shotgun" approach of "and we have that feature of theirs too!" will save their market position .... somehow.
We've talked about this happening once that I can see: the sidebar in Google. The sidebar in Bing was new. The Google fade-in was new.

There has to be some kind of special category of gullibility just for the "serious" (as opposed to the get-away-and-party kind) trade conference goers.
Hardly a trade conference and hardly salesmen. I wouldn't remember that, much less quote it. These were researchers and academics, many of whom presented scientific papers there.
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-10 15:10 · Score: 1

I was just about to reply when I realized that I have violated my long standing policy of never replying to ACs, ACs who want it both ways, to use their real accounts to down-mod my replies and then still spew their froth at me. Oops, free ride has ended.
Re:Altavista by IgnoramusMaximus · 2010-06-10 15:31 · Score: 1

but sidebar is very good. it saves the 2-3 extra clicks required to do an advanced search.

Well, yes and no. "More shopping"? That is far better achieved simply by clicking at the "Results from shopping" in-line result sampleand thus changing the whole view to "Shopping" (or using the top menu bar for the same effect). And excluding results by, say, a set date range is actually far inferior to sorting them by date (newest first) while within limit, which is not easily accessible from the bar in a click. The nearest you can get is the Timeline view that is in the wrong order. And even if there was something actually so useful as to be needed with one click, the bar is simply located at the wrong place: i.e. the side of the screen, particularly since Google violates HTML design principles and restricts their whole page to a particular pixel width (which leaves nearly half of my screen blank along its width).
So as far as I can tell the side bar is just more eye useless candy that takes place of the actual search results due to the reduced by it screen space (and it fades in and scrolls and nearly does back-flips ...) that brings very little to the table, especially that access to different search areas is still available at the top where it has always been and where it is far less intrusive.
Re:Altavista by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-10 23:54 · Score: 0

You are an expert at making up bullshit and using it to explain away your world. Thanks for providing yet another great example. Have a nice day.

Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:07 · Score: 4, Funny

I found this post at google before I wrote it.

Re:Wow! by drsmack1 · 2010-06-09 01:46 · Score: 3, Funny

I think that is because they started using Thiotimoline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline

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Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 05:55 · Score: 0

Sure enough!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=T7P&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22I+found+this+post+at+google+before+I+wrote+it%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
Re:Wow! by dave87656 · 2010-06-09 19:27 · Score: 1

It's in there now:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=de&q=I+found+this+post+at+google+before+I+wrote+it.+slashdot&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Does it run on Linux? by ashraya · 2010-06-09 01:07 · Score: 1

With a name like that, you have to wonder if its written in Java or a derivative?

Ashraya

Re:Does it run on Linux? by Vectormatic · 2010-06-09 01:37 · Score: 1

AFAIK java is in heavy use at google
basically when you look at the 800 pound gorilla heavy duty platforms, it's either .net or java, guess which one isnt an option at google?

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People, what a bunch of bastards
Re:Does it run on Linux? by Cryacin · 2010-06-09 01:51 · Score: 1

You forgot good ol' C and C++

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Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Re:Does it run on Linux? by asserted · 2010-06-09 02:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

AFAIK java is in heavy use at google
java is in heavy use at google but in other places - there is no java involved in serving a search query. with search, it's c++ all the way down.
Re:Does it run on Linux? by gmack · 2010-06-09 02:06 · Score: 1

And Python.. Google also uses a lot of Python.
Re:Does it run on Linux? by Vectormatic · 2010-06-09 03:10 · Score: 1

when i said 800 pound gorilla heavy duty, i meant it, good luck writing a google-scale web-app in C/C++

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People, what a bunch of bastards
Re:Does it run on Linux? by DragonWriter · 2010-06-09 03:58 · Score: 1

You forgot good ol' C and C++
C and C++ are languages, not platforms, and GP referred to platforms. Java is both the name of a language, and the name of a platform for which the Java language is the primary (but far from only) language.
Re:Does it run on Linux? by DragonWriter · 2010-06-09 03:59 · Score: 1

And Python.. Google also uses a lot of Python.
Python is one of many languages with an implementation that runs on the Java platform.
Re:Does it run on Linux? by Captain+Segfault · 2010-06-09 05:48 · Score: 1

Multithreaded python:
There's a global lock to do what?
Re:Does it run on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 09:38 · Score: 0

Thanks; appreciated. I'm at Google and in the process of designing another C++ based app (re-implementing one that presently is in Java, actually). We always appreciate well-wishing!
Re:Does it run on Linux? by dave87656 · 2010-06-09 19:42 · Score: 1

It's pretty hard these days to write a complex app that runs faster in C++ than in Java unless it is purely computational.
Re:Does it run on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-10 23:42 · Score: 0

lol says the guy surely employed writing java.

java, the language for people who don't actually understand how computers work.

It's a trick by For+a+Free+Internet · 2010-06-09 01:08 · Score: 2, Funny

"Caffeine" is a NSA code word for a mind controle satellite they build with GOOGLE/Italian money on loan from Chinese Muslim Islamo-Communist sorcerers and vegetarians. It will probably be used to sell your daughters into slavery in Mexico via facebook. That is why our SAVIOR OBAMA must continue to wage the WAR FOR FREEDOM at all costs, because if not the evil Italian axis will enslave us all!!!!!!!!!!!

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Re:It's a trick by Dishevel · 2010-06-09 01:50 · Score: 1

"Caffeine" is a NSA code word for a mind controle satellite they build with GOOGLE/Italian money on loan from Chinese Muslim Islamo-Communist sorcerers and vegans. It will probably be used to sell your daughters into slavery in Mexico via facebook. That is why our SAVIOR OBAMA must continue to wage the WAR FOR FREEDOM at all costs, because if not the evil Italian axis will enslave us all!!!!!!!!!!!
FTFY

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Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Re:It's a trick by Crudely_Indecent · 2010-06-09 06:11 · Score: 1

That is why our SAVIOR OBAMA must continue to wage the WAR ON FREEDOM at all costs...
I fixed that for you...

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"Lame" - Galaxar

Caffeine?! by Kensai7 · 2010-06-09 01:09 · Score: 1

The thing is... what's the story behind this very name? Why Caffeine?! :p

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"Sum Ergo Cogito"

Re:Caffeine?! by bsDaemon · 2010-06-09 01:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

because the results will now be fairly half-assed and kind of jittery? On a related note, what's with Apple pimping Bing all of a sudden?
Re:Caffeine?! by morgan_greywolf · 2010-06-09 01:14 · Score: 1

what's with Apple pimping Bing all of a sudden
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

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My blog
Re:Caffeine?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:20 · Score: 0

Apple are hardly pimping Bing, it's just an option, and not even the default one.
Re:Caffeine?! by Pojut · 2010-06-09 01:24 · Score: 2, Informative

On a related note, what's with Apple pimping Bing all of a sudden?
Because, at this point, Google is more of a threat than Microsoft. Apple knows that the chances of OSX catching up to Windows in terms of market share are practically zero. However, Android poses a credible threat to Apple's mobile popularity here in America.

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Living With a Nerd
Re:Caffeine?! by bsDaemon · 2010-06-09 01:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

The only way that OS X would catch up to Windows in terms of market share, is if either A) they dramatically dropped the price point for Macs, or B) they licensed the software for white-box PCs. In either case, their brand would be diluted. They sort of thrive on a high-margin, low-volume model, and I'm not sure they were ever really competing with Microsoft in the way people imagine, especially being primarily a hardware company from the start.
Re:Caffeine?! by Rockoon · 2010-06-09 01:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

A hardware company generally does not compete with a software company.

Apple has a long standing friendly relationship with Microsoft. They even turned to Microsoft to bail them out of a big financial mess not so many years ago.

yes, this is contrary to Apples television advertisements... but those arent reality.

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"His name was James Damore."
Re:Caffeine?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:52 · Score: 2, Informative

What is a 'price point'? Stop emulating how marketing tells you to speak you dipshit. A price is a 'point' by definition.
Re:Caffeine?! by lwsimon · 2010-06-09 02:40 · Score: 1

Microsoft and Apple have long been collaborators.

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Learn about Photography Basics.
Re:Caffeine?! by AndrewNeo · 2010-06-09 02:45 · Score: 1

Especially since, heyguesswhat, a Mac is a PC, too.
Re:Caffeine?! by yancey · 2010-06-09 02:59 · Score: 1

I think the way Apple sees it is that, by providing the hardware, software, and services together, they offer a complete package in a way that Microsoft and Dell just can't. They consider it a premium product which is worth the higher price, just as a Porsche costs more than a Ford. So they are not interested in lowering the price points or breaking up the product into separate parts.

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Ouch! The truth hurts!
Re:Caffeine?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:06 · Score: 1, Informative

They even turned to Microsoft to bail them out of a big financial mess not so many years ago.
Microsoft didn't bail Apple out of anything. I forget the exact reason why, but Microsoft bought $150 million worth of Apple stock at a time when Apple had billions of dollars in cash sitting in the bank. Microsoft later sold that stock for a profit.
The more significant announcement was that Microsoft would continue to support Microsoft Office for the Macintosh for at least 5 years. Having Office was very important to Apple, but Microsoft also made a lot of profit from that product, so it's not exactly as though continuing it was charity.
Re:Caffeine?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:10 · Score: 0

> They consider it a premium product which is worth the higher price,
Hadn't thought of it that way - but much like Skoda, VW, SEAT and Audi all use the same parts bins, but one of those brands costs much more...
Re:Caffeine?! by besalope · 2010-06-09 03:17 · Score: 1

Especially since, heyguesswhat, a Mac is a PC, too.
After you install Windows or Linux on it of course.
Re:Caffeine?! by Pojut · 2010-06-09 03:18 · Score: 1

I think the way Apple sees it is that, by providing the hardware, software, and services together, they offer a complete package in a way that Microsoft and Dell just can't.

I would agree with you if Apple actually manufactured all of their hardware...but if you open up an Apple device, literally everything is manufactured by someone else. I know Apple sells branded hardware, but because they don't actually produce any of it, I don't consider them to be a hardware company.

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Living With a Nerd
Re:Caffeine?! by Rockoon · 2010-06-09 03:28 · Score: 1

Microsoft didn't bail Apple out of anything. I forget the exact reason why, but Microsoft bought $150 million worth of Apple stock at a time when Apple had billions of dollars in cash sitting in the bank.
You forget the exact reason why because you blocked out the stuff you couldn't cope with. Apple was losing the better part of a billion dollars a year by this point, and was in the midst of a restructuring to save itself.. but the restructuring wasnt enough. They needed cash. Cash Cash Cash.

Here is a nice video demonstrating the 'Who run barter town?' relationship.

"We believe that Internet Explorer is a really good browser" - Steve Jobs, 1997.

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"His name was James Damore."
Re:Caffeine?! by dnahelicase · 2010-06-09 03:37 · Score: 1

The thing is... what's the story behind this very name? Why Caffeine?! :p
because Acai Berry generally gets caught in the spam filter
Re:Caffeine?! by Amouth · 2010-06-09 04:15 · Score: 1

Because Caffeine is more publicly acceptable than Crystal Meth?

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'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Re:Caffeine?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 04:32 · Score: 0

Yes, but the price point for Mac's is $1000.00 because that's where they start and scale up from there. Maybe you should try taking a marketing class you stupid fuck.
Re:Caffeine?! by Sir_Lewk · 2010-06-09 04:49 · Score: 1

A PC is defined by hardware, not software. For all intents and purposes modern Macs are PCs. The only real difference is they don't use the same BIOS deal or whatever, but that is largely irrelevant (and apparently PCs from other companies are looking to ditch it too).

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"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Re:Caffeine?! by guruevi · 2010-06-09 04:51 · Score: 1

In either case the Mac's would become a lot like Windows PC's. There is good reason that Mac's are slightly higher priced that DIY boxes. I actually started purchasing Apple hardware for Windows purely because of their warranty service.
There is no good reason that Dell is generally higher priced (feature-for-feature, not their discounted yesterday's technology - Pentium M - seriously?) in my market (workstations, education, research) than Apple. There is also no good reason that some other manufacturers ship their products with half-dead motherboards and PS/2 keyboards/mice in this day and age.

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Re:Caffeine?! by nacturation · 2010-06-09 05:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Calling a Mac a PC is disingenuous much in the same way as calling a cordless phone a mobile phone. Yes, your cordless phone is mobile in the technical sense, but common usage has given the words distinct meanings. Mobile no longer only refers to the fact that it enables mobility, and PC no longer only refers to the fact that it's your own personal computer rather than a server or mainframe.
You: "Hey man, I got a new PC the other day."
Friend: "Cool, dude! What kind did you get?"
You: "An iPhone."
Friend: "Uh..."
Yeah, technically the iPhone is a personal computer. Just don't tell your friends or they'll think you're off your rocker.

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Re:Caffeine?! by nacturation · 2010-06-09 05:37 · Score: 1

What is a 'price point'? Stop emulating how marketing tells you to speak you dipshit. A price is a 'point' by definition.
Price point is a valid technical term, though you're correct that the GP's use of price point wasn't strictly applicable as each model and version of Macs is targeted towards differing price points. Putting it in terms that a 9 year old can understand: "Make them cheaper, darnit!"

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Re:Caffeine?! by Albatrosses · 2010-06-09 06:20 · Score: 1

They don't produce their hardware, but they do design it. The back of my iPhone says "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China". In the end, it doesn't really matter who puts consumer electronics together since 95% of the work is the design (by Apple) and making sure they're built to spec (also by Apple).

Who manufactures your Google Nexus One? Was it Google? Nope. But everyone still calls it the "googlephone", and for good reason.
Re:Caffeine?! by wastedlife · 2010-06-09 06:24 · Score: 1

In my experience, common people see Macs as a type of PC. I will give you that an iPhone is technically a PC while average people will not make that association. However, if you get rid of that strawman and replace iPhone in your example with Mac, you get this:
You: "Hey man, I got a new PC the other day."
Friend: "Cool, dude! What kind did you get?"
You: "An Mac Pro."
Friend: "Nice."
A normal person would not be thrown off by the statement, unless they are big Mac enthusiasts, in which case they would probably throw a fit about it being compared to a PC.

--
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Re:Caffeine?! by Pojut · 2010-06-09 06:34 · Score: 1

They don't produce their hardware, but they do design it. The back of my iPhone says "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China". In the end, it doesn't really matter who puts consumer electronics together since 95% of the work is the design (by Apple) and making sure they're built to spec (also by Apple).

Yeah, I know...still, in my opinion, if you are going to call a company a hardware company, they should be the ones who build it. Just my opinion, nothing more.

Who manufactures your Google Nexus One? Was it Google? Nope. But everyone still calls it the "googlephone", and for good reason.
People don't claim Google is now a hardware manufacturer, though...

--
Living With a Nerd
Re:Caffeine?! by nacturation · 2010-06-09 13:06 · Score: 1

It's possibly a regional thing, similar to how in some US states it's common to refer to any carbonated beverage as a "coke" even if it's actually Sprite or root beer. In my experience, your conversation would be totally familiar if someone said "I got a new (computer / system) the other day" but I've never heard someone use "PC" to refer to a Mac. Maybe that's because back in the day (get off my lawn!) I remember the IBM PC and PC jr ads on TV. And lately, the PC vs Mac ads have cemented the difference between the two.

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With the onset of social websites like Facebook by ThisIsForReal · 2010-06-09 01:10 · Score: 3, Funny

Have joking but, it would be great if the indexing was done at a particular time every month like the old system, but the moment of indexing was public. Then, at that time, all facebook users could go and untag and delete anything that may have been wholesome enough to not warrant immediate removal but yet still be considered something that shouldn't be indexed for all eternity.

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-THE END-

Re:With the onset of social websites like Facebook by Ephemeriis · 2010-06-09 01:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Have joking but, it would be great if the indexing was done at a particular time every month like the old system, but the moment of indexing was public. Then, at that time, all facebook users could go and untag and delete anything that may have been wholesome enough to not warrant immediate removal but yet still be considered something that shouldn't be indexed for all eternity.
If you don't want it indexed for all eternity, don't post it on the web.
Even if you knew when Google was coming and you took it down, you have no influence over anyone else out there who may have saved that incriminating evidence. Anyone out there can take a screenshot and post it themselves.

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"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Re:With the onset of social websites like Facebook by Arancaytar · 2010-06-09 02:54 · Score: 1

You can delete stuff on Facebook? I thought Zuckerberg was doing a damn fine job of indexing for all eternity already :P

Caffeine by morgan_greywolf · 2010-06-09 01:11 · Score: 5, Funny

The Caffeine project is approved. The system goes on-line June 9th, 2010. Human decisions are removed from search engine results. Caffeine begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

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Re:Caffeine by alphax45 · 2010-06-09 01:22 · Score: 3, Funny

Caffeine strikes back, turning every result into a "Rickroll" and rendering Google useless.

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K Man
Re:Caffeine by RDW · 2010-06-09 01:29 · Score: 1

Don't worry, it's just CADIE experimenting:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html
Re:Caffeine by ledow · 2010-06-09 01:48 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.
(And yes, I know I've jumped to a different film - bonus points for anyone who can name the common actor. I play a game where I can link any movie to the one I just quoted using actors / actresses... the worst I ever did was six-degrees-of-seperation).
Re:Caffeine by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2010-06-09 01:51 · Score: 1

In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
But they can't find it.

--
May the Maths Be with you!
Re:Caffeine by theskipper · 2010-06-09 02:35 · Score: 1

The sequel: Bing strikes back, turning every result into a "Dickroll" and rendering Bing more useful than it was.
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:43 · Score: 0

There is no plug. Google is on solar power.
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:48 · Score: 0

Nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.
(And yes, I know I've jumped to a different film - bonus points for anyone who can name the common actor. I play a game where I can link any movie to the one I just quoted using actors / actresses... the worst I ever did was six-degrees-of-seperation).
Michael Biehn AND Bill Paxton were both in The Terminator and Aliens.
Re:Caffeine by jank1887 · 2010-06-09 03:03 · Score: 1

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001280/
yes I cheated.
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:50 · Score: 0

Well your bonus point question is wrong, you say 'actor', it's both Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxton, Bill only repeats what Sigourney said first (to Paul Reiser).
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:50 · Score: 0

Michael Beihn, of course.
Re:Caffeine by nacturation · 2010-06-09 06:03 · Score: 1

Well your bonus point question is wrong, you say 'actor', it's both Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxton, Bill only repeats what Sigourney said first (to Paul Reiser).
No need to refer to sex. 'Actor' means 'one who acts' and the only time you would need to use 'actress' is when you specifically meant female. Even so, it doesn't make the question wrong if the GP was only interested in asking about male actors between the two films. eg: "What are the names of the men in your family?" "Your question is WRONG... there are women in my family too!"

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Re:Caffeine by Urza9814 · 2010-06-09 07:08 · Score: 1

I think he was saying it's wrong because there are two of them, therefore it should be 'actors'
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 08:16 · Score: 0

You forget: the Internet is designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
Google certainly has more than one datacenter.
Re:Caffeine by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 08:41 · Score: 0

Multiple common actors actually but that is not uncommon for movies with the same director.
Re:Caffeine by nacturation · 2010-06-09 13:07 · Score: 1

I think he was saying it's wrong because there are two of them, therefore it should be 'actors'
I didn't consider that... very good point!

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Re:Caffeine by DiEx-15 · 2010-06-09 15:50 · Score: 1

Then what? Does our new robotic overlords get massive headaches from Caffeine Withdraw?

Yahoo by Anne_Nonymous · 2010-06-09 01:11 · Score: 1

If Google's on caffeine, Yahoo must be taking PCP.

Re:Yahoo by wannabgeek · 2010-06-09 02:14 · Score: 1

you mean bing

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Re:Yahoo by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:55 · Score: 0

That would explain the "search overload" commercials.

Frank Grimes? by effigiate · 2010-06-09 01:13 · Score: 1

...Google's last index, adds Grimes, but the new search index...

Grimey to his friends.

It's called the metric system. Use it. by dingen · 2010-06-09 01:15 · Score: 5, Informative

Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database

A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:22 · Score: 0, Troll

Or maybe is it a pebibyte ? Who knows ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebibyte
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by the+bluebrain · 2010-06-09 01:29 · Score: 1, Troll

Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database
A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.
And by "we" you mean "us who don't mind being off by a factor of 100 or so"?

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by WiglyWorm · 2010-06-09 01:30 · Score: 1

Half a petabyte of which is porn.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by garcia · 2010-06-09 01:31 · Score: 1

A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.
Oh please. They were quoting a PC World article. PC World is not geared towards geeks because, well, geeks don't really read magazines anymore as they get their geek news from any variety of other sources which offer more credibility, better geek readability, and more in-depth research than talking about Google's 10101010101010100110 million gazillion quadrillion byte database.
Oh and honestly being that the indexed material I would see returned was already quite fresh and relevant, I just don't see how this will benefit anyone over what has been available for at least a year and a half.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by AHuxley · 2010-06-09 01:32 · Score: 1

Strange a small small number?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9117159/Teradata_creates_elite_club_for_petabyte_plus_data_warehouse_customers
"eBay, with 5 petabytes of data; Wal-Mart Stores, which has 2.5 petabytes; Bank of America, which is storing 1.5 petabytes; Dell, which has a 1 petabyte data warehouse; and a final bank, with a 1.4 petabyte data"
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20100322.aspx
talks of 20 petabytes for one small system?
Anyone have any insights into why/how the net would be sorted for Google over x databases over a short time?

--
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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by Vectormatic · 2010-06-09 01:41 · Score: 2, Informative

by saying "A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.", the GP obviously implied that the article should have used "100 Petabytes", after all, he didnt say "100 million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte."

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People, what a bunch of bastards
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by the+bluebrain · 2010-06-09 01:48 · Score: 1

Ouch. I need to lay off ... something, and improve my reading skills. Ta for the heads-up.

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yes, we have no bananas
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by flanders123 · 2010-06-09 02:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Typical humans (non /.-ers, like us) are more familiar with gigabytes, because that is base unit of measure used in today's PCs. e.g. 6 GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive.

The blogger intentionally used GB in order to express the size of the data relative to today's average PC, because she knows her audience. Imagine that.

Dr Evil: "I demand 100 Petabytes!"
Tim Robbins: "That number doesn't exist! It's like saying I want a kajillion bajillion gigabytes!"

Disclaimer: I did not mean to imply you were Dr. Evil.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by 0100010001010011 · 2010-06-09 02:32 · Score: 1

Dr. Evil: Here's the plan. We get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for... ONE THOUSAND Megabytes!
Number Two: Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a thousand megabytes? A million megabytes isn't exactly a lot of space these days. Dell alone sells laptops over 250 thousand megabytes a year!
Dr. Evil: Really? That's a lot of space.
[pause]
Dr. Evil: Okay then, we hold the world ransom for...
Dr. Evil: One... Hundred... BILLION megabytes!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by WCguru42 · 2010-06-09 02:49 · Score: 1

I would hope that Bank of America's entire database wasn't indexed. An educated guess would put the large majority of that data as private, secure (for the Internet) data and only a small portion of the data as public, such as their home page and loan advertising.

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"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:51 · Score: 0

Dell, which has a 1 petabyte data warehouse

I worked at Dell in the data warehouse group about 2 years ago and it was 78TB. I highly doubt in only 2 years it has grown that much.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by hercubus · 2010-06-09 02:55 · Score: 1

A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.
They're a family-friendly business, they wouldn't want to use a word like "petabyte" - that sounds kind of dirty.
As in: at the furry parties Ms. Petabyte was always the most popular; no one could keep their paws off of her.

--
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by brxndxn · 2010-06-09 03:02 · Score: 1

But nobody here can grasp the scales of those measurements. How about you translate those little-known measurements into standard Slashdot summary lingo? For example:
How many Libraries of Congress is that?
How many songs does it hold?
How many digital pictures is it?
How many truck loads of floppy disks is it?

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--- We need more Ron Paul!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by ColdWetDog · 2010-06-09 03:15 · Score: 1

More Caffeine...

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by DarthVain · 2010-06-09 03:29 · Score: 1

Ya, if you want to make it sound more impressive call it 900,719,925,474,099,200 bits and be done with it already.
I believe that is 900 quadrillion with a capitol Q!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by Firehed · 2010-06-09 03:40 · Score: 1

Still, at today's hard drive prices, that's only about $87.

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by Tim+C · 2010-06-09 04:20 · Score: 1

No, if you're talking about gigabytes rather than gibibytes, I think you can safely assume you should be talking about petabytes.

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by rawler · 2010-06-09 04:25 · Score: 1

The blogger intentionally used GB in order to express the size of the data relative to today's average PC
It's probably what the blogger meant, but I've found it's a pretty bad comparison.
1. An "average PC" hardly exists today, with small cheap netbooks, home-server configurations and all in-between.
2. Average consumers doesn't relate to gigabytes anyways. Size is better explained in "number of mp3 files" or "hours of HD-video".
So, a technically correct, and at the same time explanatory way to put it would be. "100 petabytes (about 3000 years of HD-video)".
Another topic is what Google stores in their index if it just the keywords and metadata amounts to those volumes.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by rawler · 2010-06-09 04:28 · Score: 1

100 000 terabytes for $87? I'd buy that.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by DeadboltX · 2010-06-09 04:59 · Score: 1

A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.
Or...

One Thousand, Hundred Million, Million Bytes! Muahahaha!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by JamesP · 2010-06-09 05:20 · Score: 1

Tell that to the guy that sold the HDs to google
100 million GB fits, 1 PB doesn't

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by kramerd · 2010-06-09 07:39 · Score: 1

A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.

And by "we" you mean "us who don't mind being off by a factor of 100 or so"?
Theres no -1 (wrong) moderation, but here, lmgtfy:http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=petabyte+to+gigabyte&aq=f&aqi=h1g1g-m1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CVz3Yeu0PTKvkBKX4Mdrq-ecKAAAAqgQFT9Bfe8k&fp=dfdf66882bd03aae
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by the+bluebrain · 2010-06-09 07:50 · Score: 1

I think a -1 (fail) would be better than just a plain -1 (wrong). It's like, I dunno, claiming Poland has no coast or something similarly insane. But thank you for the heads-up.

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yes, we have no bananas
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by ncohafmuta · 2010-06-09 08:51 · Score: 1

A million gigabytes is what we call 'good marketing'.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by martin-boundary · 2010-06-09 09:41 · Score: 1

flanders123: "I did not mean to imply that you were Dr Evil"
That criminal mastermind does not exist! That's like saying you weren't implying that the OP is a super-duper-extralopitaceous-meanie-with-a-beanie!
Disclaimer: I did not mean to imply that you would use the words super-duper in a conversation :)
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by aylons · 2010-06-09 11:25 · Score: 1

Let me tell you something: only in the US the metric system is for geeks.

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Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by mirix · 2010-06-09 11:37 · Score: 1

+1 Fail would be nice, for when the sheer level of fail warrants others seeing it.

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Sent from my PDP-11
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by mirix · 2010-06-09 11:48 · Score: 1

900 billiard bits. Awesome.

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Sent from my PDP-11
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by rgo · 2010-06-09 15:36 · Score: 1

well done, mister!
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by alexpalmer · 2010-06-09 20:20 · Score: 1

Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database
A million gigabytes is what we call a petabyte.
One million gigabytes is actually (about) 100 petabytes.
Re:It's called the metric system. Use it. by alexpalmer · 2010-06-09 20:26 · Score: 1

oops, i was thinking you said 100 million is a petabyte. Then I misspoke by saying one million rather than 100 million. Too bad you can't edit your posts.

Re:Wow, Impressive!! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:18 · Score: 0

Already said above by another freak, nicknamesarefunny. Proof that Caffeine is not working...

That's a hundred petabytes of storage by Nimey · 2010-06-09 01:19 · Score: 1

and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?

--
Hail Eris, full of mischief...

E pluribus sanguinem

Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by AlexCorn · 2010-06-09 01:24 · Score: 1

and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by dingen · 2010-06-09 01:28 · Score: 5, Informative

They've developed their own.

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Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by moosesocks · 2010-06-09 01:28 · Score: 1

and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Express Edition.

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-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by Cornwallis · 2010-06-09 01:30 · Score: 1

and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?
dBaseIII
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by suso · 2010-06-09 01:46 · Score: 1

and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?
Something that you don't need to worry about using. And neither does anyone else who is "thinking about switching to whatever it is".
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:48 · Score: 0

No, they've gotta be using OpenVMS. That's a rock-solid system, but bring a blank check.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:55 · Score: 0

COULD YOU SPEAK UP? It's hard to hear you through the cocks in your mouth.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by CastrTroy · 2010-06-09 01:56 · Score: 1

No, they are using csv files.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by Spaham · 2010-06-09 02:40 · Score: 1

with ROT13 for safety
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by TheThiefMaster · 2010-06-09 02:48 · Score: 1

I actually have a copy of that. It's in a hell of a box.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by treeves · 2010-06-09 12:20 · Score: 1

on punch cards. in wooden boxes down in the basement hallway, next to the boiler room.

--
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Re:That's a hundred petabytes of storage by HeadlessNotAHorseman · 2010-06-09 12:59 · Score: 1

They are using millions of Microsoft Access databases, linked to a few excel spreadsheets for reporting.

--
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.

Competition by dugn · 2010-06-09 01:23 · Score: 2, Funny

If it weren't for the competition from Bing, would this have even happened?

Re:Competition by hireawebgeek · 2010-06-09 01:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

If it weren't for the competition from Bing, would this have even happened?
Probably not, but that's the great thing about competition. The consumer wins when 2 or more businesses compete (most of the time that is).
Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 03:53 · Score: 0

What competition?

Is there a different page for it? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:23 · Score: 0

I read through a couple of the articles and didn't see anything about "GO HERE TO TRY IT" so it is just now used behind the scenes on the default google search or do you need to go someplace else to see the caffeine results.

Maybe I just missed a link somewhere, but I would have thought something like that would kind of stick out. :)

And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:25 · Score: 4, Interesting

... productivity.

When Google was new It was a wonder. I could use it to help solve problems (such as identifying error codes when the servers went down), locating reveiws of products (saving me the expense of subscribing to loads of computer magazines and the time searching through them when I needed to buy something) and finding snippets of code when I needed to develop a program. As the web gets older and older there is more and more out of date information that I have to dig through. Plus when Google (and Yahoo) killed off Usenet (with an assist from Andrew Cuomo) the utility of the Usenet information structure has been destroyed (which the world is still trying to recreate with Keywords).

As Google has added more and more information it gets less and less useful. Plus the rise in SEO makes it even harder to find what I need (But I find lots of useless stuff that people have paid to get put in front of my eyes). Of course it probably isn't in Google's best interest to help me locate information that I need in the most efficient way. The more I have to sort through the crap they now deliver the more ad revenue they generate.

Too bad Bing sucks. I would really appreciate and alternative to Google.

Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by KrugalSausage · 2010-06-09 01:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

You just haven't adapted along with it. Use search modifiers and your problems will be solved.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by ClaraBow · 2010-06-09 01:38 · Score: 1

Usenet has not been destroyed --yet! I"m hoping for the Usenet renaissance! I"m sure it will be called Usenet 2.0 ;)
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

wrong. they don't pay for showing ads, they pay if YOU click ads.
if they serve you with crappy results, the advertisement targeted is going to suck.
on the other hand, if they provide accurate results, there is a chance the ads being shown are interested for you.
you don't think google is efficient or helpful?
go one week not using it and then decide if google is not making you more productive.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by eulernet · 2010-06-09 01:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Use Google CodeSearch, it's more adapted to developers:
http://google.com/codesearch
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Mascot · 2010-06-09 01:57 · Score: 1

As the web gets older and older there is more and more out of date information that I have to dig through.
Google does have an option to filter by age. But I'm a bit puzzled by your examples. Reviews, code samples, error messages, none of which seem to me to be terribly date dependent.
Reviews are typically for a specific product or version of product. Code snippets don't expire on date. Neither do error messages.
What can I say, I don't share your experience. Google typically hands me highly relevant results. It's very rare I need to venture past the first result page.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Dishevel · 2010-06-09 02:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is in Googles best interest to give you the best search results. That is how they got big. They can only sell your eyes if you are using them.

--
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:12 · Score: 0

http://duckduckgo.com/
No really, not kidding. Silly name, almost as silly as googoo, er I mean google.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by bendodge · 2010-06-09 02:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

IMO, real product reviews are hard to find because of SEO. Everything else he mentioned I have no problem with.

--
The government can't save you.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

It's easy:
http://www.google.com/?q="mysearchterm"&modifier="no_empty_review_sites+no_sites_hosted_by_godaddy"
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by AvitarX · 2010-06-09 02:33 · Score: 1

Actually, the advertisers decide what gets put for a keyword (that and the frequency ads are clicked, along with the price advertisers are willing to pay).
I've run a few ads, and it costs me about $1.50-$3.00 /click for the ads i ran.
I make damned sure that I am relevant, and what I think someone is looking for, because that money should not be wasted.

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Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:43 · Score: 0

No. Tried it a couple times and duckduckgo.com sucks ass something fierce.
Don't waste your time.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Opyros · 2010-06-09 02:50 · Score: 1

There actually is such a thing, but it doesn't seem to have taken off.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by vbraga · 2010-06-09 02:58 · Score: 1

Google does have an option to filter by age.
Of course it does. Search for wherever you're looking for. Click on "more search options" on the left sidebar. Filter by an age range.

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English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Mascot · 2010-06-09 03:46 · Score: 1

Did you read that "does" as "does not", by any chance?
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Mascot · 2010-06-09 03:52 · Score: 1

Perhaps this varies by region. I tend to get plenty of "proper" review sites in the top 10 results. More than enough to get the information I need, at least.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by vbraga · 2010-06-09 05:38 · Score: 1

Yes I did. My error :)

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English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by BikeHelmet · 2010-06-09 09:27 · Score: 1

Too bad Bing sucks. I would really appreciate and alternative to Google.
So basically, you admit they're the best, but you hate them?
Maybe it's not malice - it's just harder to do what you want than you think...
Re:And yet Google adds less and less to my .... by Mana+Mana · 2010-06-09 14:17 · Score: 0, Troll

: Plus when Google (and Yahoo) killed off Usenet (with an assist from Andrew Cuomo) the utility of
: the Usenet information structure has been destroyed (which the world is still trying to recreate
: with Keywords).
What are you talking about? What has nearly killed Netnews is the elitist ass, pedant, recalcitrant ways of news oldtimers and wannedtobe ol'timerz. Back in the late 1990s UCE, UBE, SPAM! was getting seriously annoying but systems like Moose that allayed or tried to eliminate it were just not adopted by the powers that be 'cause you know the shit had to be studied, couldn't rush it, you know "this is Usenet, man." Fucking Google had nothing to do with it, they didn't steal anything away* when they acquired DejaNews from its failed self. Their UI was so-so when it was Mutt like ASCII arrows for thread structure, then they improved the shit out of usefulness, I thought.
Usenet was/is? great for the warez, the p0rnz, the lulz but the level of shit to gold went absurd with the torrent of SPAM--thanks of the endless debating server operator Order.
* I hate to be teaching you in a crowd like this, but if you could---"poof"---duplicate my BMW M3 just like that what the fuck would I care. I would still have my M3. "But, but, but." Butt your wife's sweet ass, I'd duplicate and ride her ass too. What goes around comes around and we'd all be better for it, if the **AA suits understood that the cocaine and hookers for all would be on them.

Goddamn Whippersnapper! by SatanicPuppy · 2010-06-09 01:26 · Score: 1

When I was in Spanish class I got marked down for cheating off the hispanic stoner behind me, and I liked it!

All you kids with your interwebs, and your babbling fishes can get off my lawn!

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

50% fresher? by wealthychef · 2010-06-09 01:27 · Score: 1

Does that mean 67% as stale?

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Currently hooked on AMP

Re:50% fresher? by Sockatume · 2010-06-09 01:33 · Score: 1

You'd have to ask Google's new VP of Marketing, Jonathan del Monte.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?

Too Much Coffee For Steve by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:32 · Score: 0

BING

100 Petabytes by Anarki2004 · 2010-06-09 01:36 · Score: 1

Man, that's a lot of data. Anybody have a rough estimate of how much data there is on the web?

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The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.

Re:100 Petabytes by dingen · 2010-06-09 01:38 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I heard it's over 9000.

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Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Re:100 Petabytes by RMH101 · 2010-06-09 01:42 · Score: 1

have you tried googling it? (grin)
Re:100 Petabytes by Anarki2004 · 2010-06-09 01:48 · Score: 1

I totally set myself up for that...

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The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Re:100 Petabytes by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:31 · Score: 0

42

Google Bombs by UnknownIdiot · 2010-06-09 01:37 · Score: 1

Great... In theory, Google bombs will get removed faster but also probably get propagated just as quickly. No?

50% fresher with caffeine? by linzeal · 2010-06-09 01:40 · Score: 1

What is this some hippy-skippy coffee enema of an algorithm? Are they going to try to tell us next that they are building their next datacenter at one of the earth's vortices to cram some metaphysical in with the metadata ? Hurumpf.

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An Education is the Font of All Liberty

Caffinated Freshness? by RivenAleem · 2010-06-09 01:42 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I've been using Caffine (in it's Coffee form) to freshen my breath for years. I find it is really useful to increase the alertness level of staff around the office by breathing heavily in their face. It only takes a few goes and suddenly most of the workers here are on a much higher alertness level whenever I'm around. I would estimate it at least matches, if not exceeds Googles 50% increase.

Re:Yahoo! by rwa2 · 2010-06-09 01:43 · Score: 1

I kinda liked the human-generated Yahoo! index / hierarchy, it was a neat way to get started with the web, back when it wasn't all too big and time-sensitive to organize by hand.

I'd use yahoo mail more, if they even bothered trying to be competitive with gmail. But I don't really want to pay extra for the plus account just to get minimum necessities like forwarding and pop3 access on what is essentially now my spam account.

32 Google indexer visits this month by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

Google has pulled my site robots.txt file 32 times this month and it is only the 9th - about 4 times a day. I'm showing almost 2000 web pages pulled by Google indexers in this same time period. My site is tiny, private, not very large.

By bandwidth, Google is only 2.4% of the total site traffic, so far, this month.

I agree Google is "fresher" than they used to be. OTOH, my non-commercial site has approximately doubled readers in each of the last 6 months by publishing 1 new posting about every other day.

I suspect other, more use sites are hit hourly or even more often by google.

MSN-Bot appears to visit 10 times a day, but is much more selective about which pages it indexes. Since my site is date organized, this seems smarter than what google does. Some times, I do edit older stories with new knowledge or corrections which google will see, eventually and MSN will not. Zero referrals from any microsoft searches seen.

Yahoo! slurp barely touches my site. Only 1 referral has been seen.

Google sends about 30% of the total traffic, but most is from social networking with "hey, check this out" type referrals. Not bad for a technical article site.

Re:32 Google indexer visits this month by Jainith · 2010-06-09 03:43 · Score: 1

I can't belive you didn't post a link.
I mean this is slashdot...getting your site slashdotted is part of the fun.
-Keith
Re:32 Google indexer visits this month by buchner.johannes · 2010-06-09 08:34 · Score: 1

Google has pulled my site robots.txt file 32 times this month and it is only the 9th - about 4 times a day.
Maybe your "Expires" HTTP header tells it to? Well, for robots.txt it's not that important, but I'm often frustrated how few people know about the expires header and how much traffic they could save.

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NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.

Is this new? by Brad1138 · 2010-06-09 01:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

For a hwile now I have been noticing my forum posts being indexed within hours of making the post. It's been doing this for a couple years I think.

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If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people

Re:Is this new? by Tacvek · 2010-06-09 04:26 · Score: 1

Agreed. It has been years since there was a visible "Google dance". Hell, often only minutes after I make a forum post, and then search on the topic to double check what I said, my post is the first thing to show up.
I'm not sure what caffeine really is, but it does not sound particularly new to me.

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Re:Is this new? by PotatoFarmer · 2010-06-09 08:30 · Score: 1

Google has multiple indexes. There's a fast refresh index for news, blogs, and social networking sites. The larger "long tail" index has a much longer refresh cycle and is presumably what will be replaced/supplemented by caffeine.
Re:Is this new? by buchner.johannes · 2010-06-09 08:37 · Score: 1

Google mentioned at some point that they have several search profiles (blogs, forums, static websites, etc.) so I think its safe to assume that if you have a forum software, Google taps into the RSS feed or something. Some blogging software use the Google sitemaps to notice Google of new content.

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NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.

Re:Yahoo! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:51 · Score: 0

... get out of my fucking head! GOD DAMMIT! I can't take you people being in here all the damn time. It's driving me crazy!

Another crappy choice of names by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 01:59 · Score: 0

What, like caffeine isn't already used enough? What's up with this confusing and lame practice of using common words as product labels. Sadly, it's just ever more corrupt marketing crap. You'd think search engine masters would know better.

Corporations are clearly incapable of creativity. Way to go you overpaid idiots.

Oh yeah? by eyrieowl · 2010-06-09 02:02 · Score: 1

They should try Amphetamine!

Google Dance by GameMaster · 2010-06-09 02:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Google dance if you want to,
If it helps you search online.
MSN don't dance,
and if they don't dance,
well they're no search engine of mine.

--

Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1

Re:Google Dance by SerpensV · 2010-06-09 03:58 · Score: 1

I would only use a search engine that knows how to dance.
Re:Google Dance by jjbenz · 2010-06-09 06:19 · Score: 1

Makes me think of that Scrubs episode where Turk starts singing the Safety Dance song.
Re:Google Dance by soppsa · 2010-06-10 23:48 · Score: 1

Get off my lawn.

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Ogre Wedding Planners llc.

Just A Minor Rant by BigBlueOx · 2010-06-09 02:14 · Score: 4, Funny

Ok, what is it with people who write about technical subjects that they think they have to use ridiculous analogies?

"if this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second"?? Yes, and if this was a goat it would have a thousand young. WTF. This was a Google blog post, not some story-for-the-terminally-stupid from The Daily Show ferchrissakes. The author even measures storage capacity in the universally used miles-of-iPods.

What is the sound of one vein popping?

Re:Just A Minor Rant by Chowderbags · 2010-06-09 03:14 · Score: 1

But did they do it in terms of football stadiums filled with CDs (to within an accuracy of a Library of Congress)?
Re:Just A Minor Rant by Spad · 2010-06-09 03:24 · Score: 1

The author even measures storage capacity in the universally used miles-of-iPods
What's that in Libraries of Congress per fortnight?
Re:Just A Minor Rant by inio · 2010-06-09 03:50 · Score: 1

Hey, at least they didn't resort to Libraries Of Congress Per Month.
Re:Just A Minor Rant by queazocotal · 2010-06-09 05:19 · Score: 1

There is clearly one easily accessible way to describe 100 petabytes of data.
'The same information content as half a pint of sperm.'
Re:Just A Minor Rant by game+kid · 2010-06-09 08:21 · Score: 1

Yes, and if this was a goat it would have a thousand young.
Thanks, I really need to think of the Great Old Ones when I search for product reviews. :(

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You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.

Google vs P2P by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:25 · Score: 0

And people say P2P uses lots of bandwidth.

*ducks* by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 02:28 · Score: 0

...or is that one million forty eight million five hundred seventy six gigabytes?

The Googlebot and I have something in common by Arancaytar · 2010-06-09 02:50 · Score: 1

Amazing how human-like these machines get.

So do you just pour the coffee all over the server, or is there a special intake?

The future by karmaBurner · 2010-06-09 02:51 · Score: 1

Just imagine what the Google Cocaine will be capable of! And then Google Methamphetamine?...

When will it go online? Is it operating already? by ciaran_o_riordan · 2010-06-09 03:06 · Score: 1

Sorry for the silly question, but it's "ready" and it's "announced" and other things, but do any of these mean that it's what's being used today by google.com? If not, is there a date for when it will become the index used for google searches?

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Re:When will it go online? Is it operating already by ColdWetDog · 2010-06-09 03:22 · Score: 1

is there a date for when it will become the index used for google searches?

The system goes on-line August 4th ...

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

No, the cat does not, in fact, "got my tongue." by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2010-06-09 03:23 · Score: 1

"Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day."

Luke: No! That's not true! That's not possible!

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seems a waste by Surt · 2010-06-09 03:27 · Score: 1

http://tinyurl.com/268rtm6

All the results are the same, except for a couple of news stories, but they could have cheated on those. Seems like a titanic waste to have put all this effort into one search word, for no improvement.

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"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking

All I know is regular Google results are getting W by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 04:05 · Score: 0

WORSE. Searching google today is terrible. Most items presented are trash, and with all that trash it's hard to impossible to find the stuff I want.

If you or I run a spider that downloads from sites and stores the data, that's copyright infringement not "indexing". If your robot downloads the wrong file then you're liable for upto $150k per HTTP GET, or worse.

Whether you believe they should be allowed to or not, or that they provide a useful service by it, Google is by far the largest copyright infringer ever. Google copies everyone's published data and then profits by doing so.

And people say "but robots.txt!". Well if robot.txt grants copyright permission to spiders, the filesystem is an index so as long as it's not denied by robots.txt then can you copy anything on the web without any legal problems? No way. Robots.txt does not grant permission to make copies. RIAA suing you? No problem, you were just 'indexing' torrent contents.

and the database application is? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 05:32 · Score: 0

mysql?

It probably wasn't really Google than indexed you by TravisO · 2010-06-09 06:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

You do know many spam/exploit bots use your robots file to look for admin logins or sensitive info. Just because the browser agent was the same as Google doesn't mean it really was, you have to check the agent's IP to be reasonably sure it's legit. Considering that Google even says they have previously only indexed sites every 10 days, it's much more likely you have 3 Google indexes and 29 exploit scans.

Imagine... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-06-09 07:21 · Score: 0

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Caffeine systems. Now that's a lot of power.

Experience: forget MBCS/CITP in the job market by freddled · 2010-06-09 07:55 · Score: 1

Take it from me, MBCS/CITP at whatever level does not count for one dented penny in the job market. Nothing. Nada. Correction. It gives interviewers a laugh when you mention it, so maybe it works as an icebreaker.

Re:Experience: forget MBCS/CITP in the job market by freddled · 2010-06-09 07:58 · Score: 1

Oops! Misspost. Nothing to see here. Move along please. Slap me as you pass.

Re:Yahoo! by skarphace · 2010-06-09 08:03 · Score: 1

I kinda liked the human-generated Yahoo! index / hierarchy, it was a neat way to get started with the web, back when it wasn't all too big and time-sensitive to organize by hand.

Actually, that was the Open Directory Project that built the data that Yahoo directory was based on. I was an editor there for a few years about 10 years ago. Pretty nice idea, and when search engines really sucked at finding what you wanted back then, it could be a great alternative. But, there's just too much Web content out there for any human powered directory to deal with.

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Bullish Machine Tzar

It can be mere minutes... by kc8jhs · 2010-06-09 08:16 · Score: 1

It can be mere minutes. I've filed a bug with an open source project, like say MacPorts, and then realized maybe I should have tried searching Google for a different part of the error message and lo and behold there was my report as the number one result for my search. It was less than 5 minutes old at that point. I've seen similar reports from folks on freenode.

Blogs are closer to 100% faster by MobyDisk · 2010-06-09 09:47 · Score: 1

Google has improved so much that my Google Reader showed this article twice!

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New Google Search Index 50% Fresher With Caffeine

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