I tried it. Pressed the button and it made a noise, as intended. Tried it again and it destroyed a clay pigeon. So works pretty well within spec. I then used it to scare off some tresspassers. Also pretty good. Also one button. Then I tried using is a TV remote. The off button works. Can't turn it back on though.
Do the cable companies still use analogue? This surprises me. In Britain pretty much all cable has been digital for 5 years, and in a tiny country like the Netherlands, I'd expect the rollout to have been a lot faster.
My dad's a maths teacher. Before he does percentages he does some extremely easy fractions with the students. All based on hundredths. "What are 4 100th's of 2000" sort of thing, which they find trivial. Then he tells them that they're going to do percentages, and they complain because perentages are hard.
Was this just a reversed conversion rate thing? You can make some serious profit from this sort of thing.
When Euros were first introduced, in parts of Europe (but not Britain) a few of the larger British shops accepted Euros, but gave change in pounds. A kid decided he wanted to make a purchase of Euros so he changed 20 pounds for about 30 Euros* went to a shop, and paid for a £10 purchase with a 20 note. This was converted by the till to £30 so he got back £20 in change. Clearly wrong because that's what he started with and he still had the other 10. The shop would not have it that he was right and the tills were wrong. So he changed his £20 for Euros again, went to different branches of the same shop, making small purchases and reaping the profit.
(Okay - the exchange rate was quite bit more than 1.5 Euros to the pound. But this is close enough to illustrate).
If I, as an online journalist or blogger, print my missives on dead trees and distribute them in some manner, does that count?
It helps.
Helps even more if you have more than one person responsible for the publication. Larger circulation is also a factor. Not quite sure why this sort of thing should matter but the reality is that it seems to.
Yes, I see your point. I guess my previous comment was a little too far reaching. I do however maintain that given large scale ambivalence about a law, then the law should be reconsidered in light of people's attitudes.
The problem is nobody's really interested in royalty free formats. mp3 licencing costs are low enough that this isn't a problem, and it's by far the most widely supported format, supported on almost everything. No free format comes anywhere near.
Jargon is extremely useful. But only within a technically knowledgable circle. When talking to people who are not in the domain, use of jargon make you sound arrogant. The police use jargon all the time. If you hear on the radio there's a 10-52, that's no problem. It's efficient communication and the guy listening knows to send an ambulance, but if he's talking to reporters about it, then he'll explain it in English.
No. I'm saying the difference between a million dollar idea and a billion dollar idea has a lot to do with luck. There are lots of million dollar ideas with people behind them every bit as good as those behind Google, but they're not as successful because of various small arbitrary factors that they didn't account for and were out of their control. Google had no way of knowing how much press coverage they'd get. Or if someone else was going to release an as-good search engine on the same day. Or how many people were willing to switch.
Indeed. and there's the problem. Laws should reflect what people in general think is right and wrong. Many people genuinely don't believe that the copyright holder has a right to a cut if they give something away, and aren't aware that they're breaching copyright.
So, we have a law that people routinely ignore, that's essentially impossible to enforce. This sort of thing gives people considerably less respect for the law.
Not at all. You simply just misunderstand what luck is. And while anyone will tell you you make your own luck, that's only part of the story.
Part of luck is the ability to spot opportunities. Google did this very effectively. But that's not all of it. On average, people have roughly the same opportunities. However, every so often, there's a really huge opportunity, and someone is in the position to exploit that. An opportunity this big simply doesn't happen very often. Google were in the right place at the right time to exploit it. Just as Bill Gates was in the right place and the right time to exploit the boom in the computer industry and George Stephenson was in the right place to exploit the steam locomotive. Would any of these have been as succesful had they been 10 years younger? Or 10 years older?
Bill Gates is worth 10 times as much as Steve Jobs. Is he 10 times a better buisnessman? Do you think that they both calculated the possible rewards of their respective business models, and Bill Gates was 10 times better at it than Steve Jobs? Or was Bill Gates just lucky that IBM wanted an operating system at that time?
But is this substantially better than, say the Quake engine? ID software made a fair bit of cash too but not nearly as much as Google. How about the cyclonic vacuum cleaner? Hardly a tivial piece of engineering. And also very successful. So why are Google's revenues so much higher? Because their product is so much better? Because they hire better people? Seems unlikely. Most likely it's because they happen to have hit a bigger marketplace.
So why would Son of Google do any better than other innovators?
The thing is, people keep making the mistake of assuming that because Google are making more money than anything else, they're obviously better than everyone else. This is not the case. There are many products and businesses that are very good but the market is a narrower niche. Put the same amount of work into unicycle design. You'll come up with the world's greatest unicycle. Get the best marketting people in the world, and the best business people in the world. Have a perfect business model. You'll be very successful, but not as successful as Google. Even if you sell your product to every unicyclist in the world, there are more people who want to advertise on the web than there are unicyclists. By any test, apart from gross profit, you may be doing better than Google. But people want to know the secret of Google's success.
If I was working on exactly the same technology as Google but came to market a few months later, would I have been successful? No. Google would already have been there. In this situation, what would Google have that I didn't? If I started earlier, then Google would fail and everyone would want to know what I did. But all they're doing is what every entrepreneur has done. See a gap in the market and exploit it. That's the secret to their success. They just saw a bigger gap. Their smart employees would have the same chance to find their own gap whether they were working for Google or not. The problem is the big gap has been closed.
Yes. I made a mistake of implying that it was all down to luck. But Google is not inherently better than a lot of substantially less successful products. If the Stanford grads had learned about computer vision or something, they would no doubt have come up with a remarkably good image recognitiuon system, which probably would have netted them a decent reward. But they happened to research an area where at the time there was a large gulf in the market.
Someone else would have written that thesis, and would have leapt on the chance. They might still write a thesis, but they'll find that the gulf has been filled. They lose out, because they're unlucky enough to have come to it too late.
Slashdot Mirror
I did an interview once where I was asked to write some bit operation code (reverse bit order of a 32 bit vlaue).
It's surprising that some people claim to be C programmers but can't do that.
That's a shame. I was hoping you could tell me how to get some work in 1973.
Well, I for one don't think he's an ass.
If this really is his plan, then I'd say it's a pretty good hoax. I'm not the only one who finds hoaxes funny.
Does the link from several high traffic sites increase his ranking further, or will this only happen for certain keywords?
I tried it. Pressed the button and it made a noise, as intended. Tried it again and it destroyed a clay pigeon. So works pretty well within spec. I then used it to scare off some tresspassers. Also pretty good. Also one button. Then I tried using is a TV remote. The off button works. Can't turn it back on though.
A complete uncomplicated answer to the question.
You must be new here.
Do the cable companies still use analogue? This surprises me. In Britain pretty much all cable has been digital for 5 years, and in a tiny country like the Netherlands, I'd expect the rollout to have been a lot faster.
Well, I want a device with a single button that knows what I want to do when I prress it every single time.
Not because I really care that much.
I just think it would be funny to call a middle school maths teacher as an expert witness.
True, but the UK is meant to be a very close ally of the US, and is a major investor in the project.
I have to wonder if part of this is that the UK keeps being ignored in the "special relationship".
My dad's a maths teacher. Before he does percentages he does some extremely easy fractions with the students. All based on hundredths. "What are 4 100th's of 2000" sort of thing, which they find trivial. Then he tells them that they're going to do percentages, and they complain because perentages are hard.
Google converts units. It understands that 0.002 cents = $0.00002
Was this just a reversed conversion rate thing? You can make some serious profit from this sort of thing.
When Euros were first introduced, in parts of Europe (but not Britain) a few of the larger British shops accepted Euros, but gave change in pounds. A kid decided he wanted to make a purchase of Euros so he changed 20 pounds for about 30 Euros* went to a shop, and paid for a £10 purchase with a 20 note. This was converted by the till to £30 so he got back £20 in change. Clearly wrong because that's what he started with and he still had the other 10. The shop would not have it that he was right and the tills were wrong. So he changed his £20 for Euros again, went to different branches of the same shop, making small purchases and reaping the profit.
(Okay - the exchange rate was quite bit more than 1.5 Euros to the pound. But this is close enough to illustrate).
If I, as an online journalist or blogger, print my missives on dead trees and distribute them in some manner, does that count?
It helps.
Helps even more if you have more than one person responsible for the publication. Larger circulation is also a factor. Not quite sure why this sort of thing should matter but the reality is that it seems to.
wtf?
I am a game developer and a browncoat.
Please can I have a job.
Yes, I see your point. I guess my previous comment was a little too far reaching. I do however maintain that given large scale ambivalence about a law, then the law should be reconsidered in light of people's attitudes.
The problem is nobody's really interested in royalty free formats. mp3 licencing costs are low enough that this isn't a problem, and it's by far the most widely supported format, supported on almost everything. No free format comes anywhere near.
Jargon is extremely useful. But only within a technically knowledgable circle. When talking to people who are not in the domain, use of jargon make you sound arrogant. The police use jargon all the time. If you hear on the radio there's a 10-52, that's no problem. It's efficient communication and the guy listening knows to send an ambulance, but if he's talking to reporters about it, then he'll explain it in English.
No. I'm saying the difference between a million dollar idea and a billion dollar idea has a lot to do with luck. There are lots of million dollar ideas with people behind them every bit as good as those behind Google, but they're not as successful because of various small arbitrary factors that they didn't account for and were out of their control. Google had no way of knowing how much press coverage they'd get. Or if someone else was going to release an as-good search engine on the same day. Or how many people were willing to switch.
Indeed. and there's the problem. Laws should reflect what people in general think is right and wrong. Many people genuinely don't believe that the copyright holder has a right to a cut if they give something away, and aren't aware that they're breaching copyright.
So, we have a law that people routinely ignore, that's essentially impossible to enforce. This sort of thing gives people considerably less respect for the law.
Not at all. You simply just misunderstand what luck is. And while anyone will tell you you make your own luck, that's only part of the story.
Part of luck is the ability to spot opportunities. Google did this very effectively. But that's not all of it. On average, people have roughly the same opportunities. However, every so often, there's a really huge opportunity, and someone is in the position to exploit that. An opportunity this big simply doesn't happen very often. Google were in the right place at the right time to exploit it. Just as Bill Gates was in the right place and the right time to exploit the boom in the computer industry and George Stephenson was in the right place to exploit the steam locomotive. Would any of these have been as succesful had they been 10 years younger? Or 10 years older?
Bill Gates is worth 10 times as much as Steve Jobs. Is he 10 times a better buisnessman? Do you think that they both calculated the possible rewards of their respective business models, and Bill Gates was 10 times better at it than Steve Jobs? Or was Bill Gates just lucky that IBM wanted an operating system at that time?
Of course it bloody well did.
But is this substantially better than, say the Quake engine? ID software made a fair bit of cash too but not nearly as much as Google. How about the cyclonic vacuum cleaner? Hardly a tivial piece of engineering. And also very successful. So why are Google's revenues so much higher? Because their product is so much better? Because they hire better people? Seems unlikely. Most likely it's because they happen to have hit a bigger marketplace.
So why would Son of Google do any better than other innovators?
Don't get me wrong. They deserve the accolades.
The thing is, people keep making the mistake of assuming that because Google are making more money than anything else, they're obviously better than everyone else. This is not the case. There are many products and businesses that are very good but the market is a narrower niche. Put the same amount of work into unicycle design. You'll come up with the world's greatest unicycle. Get the best marketting people in the world, and the best business people in the world. Have a perfect business model. You'll be very successful, but not as successful as Google. Even if you sell your product to every unicyclist in the world, there are more people who want to advertise on the web than there are unicyclists. By any test, apart from gross profit, you may be doing better than Google. But people want to know the secret of Google's success.
If I was working on exactly the same technology as Google but came to market a few months later, would I have been successful? No. Google would already have been there. In this situation, what would Google have that I didn't? If I started earlier, then Google would fail and everyone would want to know what I did. But all they're doing is what every entrepreneur has done. See a gap in the market and exploit it. That's the secret to their success. They just saw a bigger gap. Their smart employees would have the same chance to find their own gap whether they were working for Google or not. The problem is the big gap has been closed.
Yes. I made a mistake of implying that it was all down to luck. But Google is not inherently better than a lot of substantially less successful products. If the Stanford grads had learned about computer vision or something, they would no doubt have come up with a remarkably good image recognitiuon system, which probably would have netted them a decent reward. But they happened to research an area where at the time there was a large gulf in the market.
Someone else would have written that thesis, and would have leapt on the chance. They might still write a thesis, but they'll find that the gulf has been filled. They lose out, because they're unlucky enough to have come to it too late.