The second result is for the Wikipedia entry that gives an alphabetical list of the 484 rivers in Minnesota.
The thing is, Google doesn't have to understand the results. It just has to deliver the correct ones. And for that, keyword searching is good enough. In this case, it delivers several results for "many rivers" and "minnesota", but it also gives results for "rivers" and "minnesota", which is what you're actually looking for.
"Why did World War I start" or "what does a duck eat" are questions that require too much understanding and explanation of the concepts.
Not at all. I do that kind of question in Google all the time.
Googling for "Why did World War I start" brings up, as the first result, an article titled "The Causes of World War I".
Followed by a few million more hits if that one isn't good enough.
And the question "What does a duck eat" gets many hits as well. The first one has, in the summary:
Ducks in the wild eat a variety of plants, insects, and native foods that will differ from...
I know it's just picking out keywords from the query and matching them to the sites, not trying to parse the natural language, but it works pretty damn well.
Yes, the group is still active. Sort of. We're small and underfunded, and have no paid staff, so we're generally limited to about 2-3 projects per year.
Yeah, we desperately need to update the web site. And I keep putting off sending out another mailing list update until we have more news to report. We're on the verge of getting our permanent determination letter for our 501(c)3. (The initial one is good for only five years, so the IRS can evaluate your five-year report to make a final determination if you get it.) (And, of course, all the rules have changed since we first set up, so I'm having all sorts of fun with that:)
Mostly, right now we're spending our time trying to get rid of the useless pieces in the warehouse to make room for more stuff, and building as many computers as we can out of the working parts, some to go to a school in India, and many to be distributed locally.
But, yeah, now that you mention it, I really do need to get an update out to the mailing list.:)
Some do, some don't. Subsistence agriculture still exists in many parts of the world. One of the places we've placed computers, in Chiapas, the land is communally owned by several small villages. These computers have been used for checking prices, recording languages (something like 13 dialects spoken across the 80 villages that the computers serve), and maintaining communication between displaced people.
And 3rd world doctors can pay for a normal computer.
Not necessarily. Not all doctors make lots of money - especially in the third world. And they have to prioritize their spending, so getting a free computer can go a long way. Sure, a doctor in Mexico can go to a nearby city and get a computer for a couple of thousand, and maybe even find someone locally who can show him how to set it up and use it and maintain it. Or he can get a free computer and spend that couple of thousand on medicine or other needed items.
The African Commission on Human and People's Rights, for example, is a huge organization which probably has more than a thousand times as much funding as GWoB does, but we were still able to help them out with a couple of photocopiers. Yeah, maybe they could have just purchased some somewhere, but budgets are tight and every purchase of something means they can't purchase something else they need.
I help run a group called Geeks Without Borders that has a similar mission, providing computers and related technology to developing areas.
We get this question a lot. It's a good question.
Isn't it better to give the kid some medicine, drinking water, or food?
Yes. If a child doesn't have access to medicine, clean drinking water, or food, those are all more important.
But, even more common than communities that don't have access to those, are communities that do, but still don't have access to education, or communications.
A kid spending his day farming isn't going to say, "man, I could really go for a/. break right now."
No, but he might say, "I wonder if I can sell some of my excess crops within a reasonable distance", or "Can I get some other kinds of seeds that can grow here" or "Is my brother who I haven't heard from since he fled the village after the last war out there somewhere?"
And the teacher in his school might say "I wish I had an encyclopedia in my language I could show these kids to aid in their lessons."
And his doctor might say "I'm so glad I have a way to consult with my colleagues to help diagnose this kid's disease so he has a good chance of recovery."
So why are we giving away laptops? Is it because we think that we can genuinely help them by providing a computer to a remote village?
Yes. Yes we can. In addition to the above, how about the AIDS educator who can put together a better presentation to try to convince the local city council to help out?
Or the orphan who is able to learn some bookkeeping and is thus able to get a job in a local shop? Or the girl who's able to learn enough science to earn a scholarship to a nearby university?
All of these, of course, are examples from real projects where people have used computers donated by GWoB or other organizations.
They don't want code. They want food.
Depends who you mean by "They". There are people who are, literally, starving. Long before they can make use of any donated computers, they need food, then help with infrastructure for growing food and getting a steady supply of clean drinking water. Though in most cases, that's more of a political problem. Extra resources won't help if the local warlord intercepts them because he wants to exterminate you.
But that is, overall, only a tiny portion of the entirety of what's needed out there. OLPC, GWoB, and many other groups are addressing some of the rest of it.
And, just as an extra note about the local tyrant, it is of note that the indigenous people of Chiapas were able to bring pressure to bear on their government because they were able to get the word out quickly thanks in large part to their access to computers, and the internet. Without the internet, there would probably be no Maya left in the area.
Do individual people respond to the same inkblots, the same way over time? Or might I see the same splotch in 3 months and associate something else with it?
Yes, they change over time. It is common to use the same test several months apart to gauge the effectiveness of ongoing therapy.
In the actual Rorschach ink blot test, what you see is almost immaterial compared to how you see it. If this system uses its own inkblots it is likely that some of them are particularly evocative of specific images (even the "official" Rorschach blots have that problem, even after being specifically chosen not to). In that case, many users may come up with the same characters, which would further reduce the effectiveness.
My NeXT, which I purchased in 1990, had a software program that would act as an "answering machine" - complete with a menu listing call, sorted by date/time, and who it was for. (The caller could hit a number on their phone's keypad to direct it).
If I had subscribed to caller ID, I believe it would have listed that, too.
I dunno what happened to all the NeXT patents when they went out of business, or if this app was even patented (I don't think it was part of the OS - probably a third-party tool I downloaded from an FTP site:), but there's definitely prior art, and Apple should have access to it.
Unless there's something more specific that they claim they're infringing than simply presenting voicemail in a visual list.
The supreme court had already said that the Vice president could claim executive privilege over a meeting with oil execs before the drafting of an energy policy months after the administration first took office.
The supreme court never ruled on that use. Congress demanded the documents, Cheney claimed executive privilege and Congress chose not to pursue the matter any further, as they didn't think at the time anything would be gained by doing so.
So far, this has been the case of all of the Bush administration's use of Executive privilege. None have (yet) made it to the Supreme court. In previous cases where the Supreme Court has ruled (Clinton and Nixon being the two most recent), they have ruled that it covers only cases of national security, directly involving either military details or discussions with foreign nations.
The claims where that the ability to keep comments secrete were essential for getting truthful, honest as well as unpopular advice without the threat of retribution on those giving the advice.
Which, it should be noted, is exactly the claim made by Nixon, which the supreme court rejected in ordering him to turn over his tapes. From which, of course, someone had accidentally deleted a completely inconsequential 14 minutes.
A little further south, in Eugene, Oregon Geeks Without Borders does a similar thing, with a more international focus.
And, for actual junk, Nextstep Recycling and Computer Re-Use in Eugene will take almost anything, though they charge a fee for monitors, as just about everybody does.
Disclaimer: I helped found Geeks Without Borders, and currently sit on the board. I also helped with the startup of MacRenewal, the predecessor organization to Nextstep Recycling.
Your local landfill will probably even give you a recycling credit giving you a discount on a load of garbage if you're taking some in at the same time.
And, there's lots of separate groups like Eugene Oregon's Freenet & Computer Re-use, though I'm not familiar with any centralized national source or listing. Though typing in your city name and "electronics recycling" to Google will likely give you something.
Environmental concerns as an "impediment" to changes in our oil-based economy is a red herring.
You don't remember the 70's well, do you?
Environmentalists are very much the reason we don't have much nuclear power in the US. Half of the operating costs of a nuclear power plant used to be fighting lawsuits trying to shut it down, and protestors keeping their employees out. These protestors weren't oil barons. And they had good PR - not that it's hard, as most people even today can't understand the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
And there were some famous incidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl) that dramatically demonstrated the danger. Of course, nuclear power plants today are far safer, and no plant built in the US was ever as dangerous as Chernobyl, but most people don't know that.
We still have the problem of nuclear waste disposal, but it would eliminate a great deal of carbon emissions. Especially if we come up with electric cars. Stop government subsidies of oil, and start government subsidies of electric car battery exchange systems and we've got no more carbon problems.
Then we can start in on solving the problem of contaminated groundwater from leaky nuclear storage facilities...
I'm pretty sure I'd rather have publically-elected and appointed officials be the final arbiters of government secrecy, and not self-appointed anonymous individuals.
Really? The "final arbiters of government secrecy"? Why?
An unquestioning trust in the government goes against everything this country was founded on. The United States was supposed to be under the people. Government officials are supposed to be accountable for their actions to the people that elected them. "Of the people, by the people, for the people", remember? It's what made us different from every other government that came before us. Our officials are citizens, subjected to the same laws as the rest of us, not Royalty who are above the law. When an administration ignores the law, especially one as important as the Freedom of Information Act (see the summary), it is important for other citizens to step up and hold them accountable.
We may as well argue about who has the nicer cufflinks.
Okay, I have a lovely platinum set of cufflinks. They are round and have a bias relief of an eagle. The eagle's eye is made out of a small (don't know the carat offhand) diamond.
You are up.
I have a set that are hand-carved out of some kind of dark hard wood, polished smooth.
They are in the shape of the Starfleet logo from the original series.
You'd only need to lie about b-d. According to the quote, you can only get $35 cash if you have your receipt. Otherwise, all you get is a free copy of the game with content removed.
It seems like they're not really going to lose much on this deal. How many people keep a receipt for a video game for two years?
So they keep the data around except no one can see or do anything with it, so it may as well be deleted. If Facebook then uses that information somehow, then that would be a serious concern, but why would they do that?
To sell advertising using your image. That's what the original article said they were doing, and what the poster you are responded to was asking if they are doing. We know they keep information from deleted accounts. We know they use information they've gathered to advertise to other users. Asking if they're using information from deleted accounts to advertise is not really that giant of a leap.
If this type of thing is of great concern to you, then you probably shouldn't be on Facebook or any other website. In fact, the best thing would be to live off the grid completely and suspiciously eyeball anyone who hands you a paper form.
Really? You don't see any room for any middle ground whatsoever between me allowing my image to be used in ads, implying I'm endorsing products which I don't endorse, and just staying off the internet altogether? No spectrum at all between those two extremes?
Incidentally, it turns out the "Ich bin ein Berliner" isn't actually correct. Germans in Berlin refer to themselves as Berliner regularly.
The issue in the sentence wasn't the "Berliner", but the "ein". The correct form would have been "Ich bin Berliner". The extra "ein" in there implies an object rather than a person.
It is technically incorrect, but any German listening would have understood what he meant.
Slashdot Mirror
The second result is for the Wikipedia entry that gives an alphabetical list of the 484 rivers in Minnesota.
The thing is, Google doesn't have to understand the results. It just has to deliver the correct ones. And for that, keyword searching is good enough. In this case, it delivers several results for "many rivers" and "minnesota", but it also gives results for "rivers" and "minnesota", which is what you're actually looking for.
Interesting that the two numbers aren't the same.
When I was growing up, I'd always heard that it was 11,235 feet tall, which I thought was very cool.
Not at all. I do that kind of question in Google all the time.
Googling for "Why did World War I start" brings up, as the first result, an article titled "The Causes of World War I".
Followed by a few million more hits if that one isn't good enough.
And the question "What does a duck eat" gets many hits as well. The first one has, in the summary:
Ducks in the wild eat a variety of plants, insects, and native foods that will differ from...
I know it's just picking out keywords from the query and matching them to the sites, not trying to parse the natural language, but it works pretty damn well.
Not anymore.
A type of root beer.
I worked in the campus computer labs in the mid-80's. I was surprised by how many people would store their disks like that.
Most of them weren't so lucky, though.
Yeah, I hatred it when people usage a noun verbly like that.
Yes, the group is still active. Sort of. We're small and underfunded, and have no paid staff, so we're generally limited to about 2-3 projects per year.
:)
:)
Yeah, we desperately need to update the web site. And I keep putting off sending out another mailing list update until we have more news to report. We're on the verge of getting our permanent determination letter for our 501(c)3. (The initial one is good for only five years, so the IRS can evaluate your five-year report to make a final determination if you get it.) (And, of course, all the rules have changed since we first set up, so I'm having all sorts of fun with that
Mostly, right now we're spending our time trying to get rid of the useless pieces in the warehouse to make room for more stuff, and building as many computers as we can out of the working parts, some to go to a school in India, and many to be distributed locally.
But, yeah, now that you mention it, I really do need to get an update out to the mailing list.
Some do, some don't. Subsistence agriculture still exists in many parts of the world. One of the places we've placed computers, in Chiapas, the land is communally owned by several small villages. These computers have been used for checking prices, recording languages (something like 13 dialects spoken across the 80 villages that the computers serve), and maintaining communication between displaced people.
Not necessarily. Not all doctors make lots of money - especially in the third world. And they have to prioritize their spending, so getting a free computer can go a long way. Sure, a doctor in Mexico can go to a nearby city and get a computer for a couple of thousand, and maybe even find someone locally who can show him how to set it up and use it and maintain it. Or he can get a free computer and spend that couple of thousand on medicine or other needed items.
The African Commission on Human and People's Rights, for example, is a huge organization which probably has more than a thousand times as much funding as GWoB does, but we were still able to help them out with a couple of photocopiers. Yeah, maybe they could have just purchased some somewhere, but budgets are tight and every purchase of something means they can't purchase something else they need.
We get this question a lot. It's a good question.
Yes. If a child doesn't have access to medicine, clean drinking water, or food, those are all more important.
But, even more common than communities that don't have access to those, are communities that do, but still don't have access to education, or communications.
No, but he might say, "I wonder if I can sell some of my excess crops within a reasonable distance", or "Can I get some other kinds of seeds that can grow here" or "Is my brother who I haven't heard from since he fled the village after the last war out there somewhere?"
And the teacher in his school might say "I wish I had an encyclopedia in my language I could show these kids to aid in their lessons."
And his doctor might say "I'm so glad I have a way to consult with my colleagues to help diagnose this kid's disease so he has a good chance of recovery."
Yes. Yes we can. In addition to the above, how about the AIDS educator who can put together a better presentation to try to convince the local city council to help out?
Or the orphan who is able to learn some bookkeeping and is thus able to get a job in a local shop? Or the girl who's able to learn enough science to earn a scholarship to a nearby university?
All of these, of course, are examples from real projects where people have used computers donated by GWoB or other organizations.
Depends who you mean by "They". There are people who are, literally, starving. Long before they can make use of any donated computers, they need food, then help with infrastructure for growing food and getting a steady supply of clean drinking water. Though in most cases, that's more of a political problem. Extra resources won't help if the local warlord intercepts them because he wants to exterminate you.
But that is, overall, only a tiny portion of the entirety of what's needed out there. OLPC, GWoB, and many other groups are addressing some of the rest of it.
And, just as an extra note about the local tyrant, it is of note that the indigenous people of Chiapas were able to bring pressure to bear on their government because they were able to get the word out quickly thanks in large part to their access to computers, and the internet. Without the internet, there would probably be no Maya left in the area.
Yes, they change over time. It is common to use the same test several months apart to gauge the effectiveness of ongoing therapy.
In the actual Rorschach ink blot test, what you see is almost immaterial compared to how you see it. If this system uses its own inkblots it is likely that some of them are particularly evocative of specific images (even the "official" Rorschach blots have that problem, even after being specifically chosen not to). In that case, many users may come up with the same characters, which would further reduce the effectiveness.
Disclaimer: IANAP, either.
1994?
:), but there's definitely prior art, and Apple should have access to it.
My NeXT, which I purchased in 1990, had a software program that would act as an "answering machine" - complete with a menu listing call, sorted by date/time, and who it was for. (The caller could hit a number on their phone's keypad to direct it).
If I had subscribed to caller ID, I believe it would have listed that, too.
I dunno what happened to all the NeXT patents when they went out of business, or if this app was even patented (I don't think it was part of the OS - probably a third-party tool I downloaded from an FTP site
Unless there's something more specific that they claim they're infringing than simply presenting voicemail in a visual list.
And FTP.
:)
I remember downloading drivers from HP as early as 1989.
After calling their technical support department and being given a location and temporary name and password, of course
The supreme court never ruled on that use. Congress demanded the documents, Cheney claimed executive privilege and Congress chose not to pursue the matter any further, as they didn't think at the time anything would be gained by doing so.
So far, this has been the case of all of the Bush administration's use of Executive privilege. None have (yet) made it to the Supreme court. In previous cases where the Supreme Court has ruled (Clinton and Nixon being the two most recent), they have ruled that it covers only cases of national security, directly involving either military details or discussions with foreign nations.
Which, it should be noted, is exactly the claim made by Nixon, which the supreme court rejected in ordering him to turn over his tapes. From which, of course, someone had accidentally deleted a completely inconsequential 14 minutes.
A little further south, in Eugene, Oregon Geeks Without Borders does a similar thing, with a more international focus.
And, for actual junk, Nextstep Recycling and Computer Re-Use in Eugene will take almost anything, though they charge a fee for monitors, as just about everybody does.
Disclaimer: I helped found Geeks Without Borders, and currently sit on the board. I also helped with the startup of MacRenewal, the predecessor organization to Nextstep Recycling.
Recycling center, if you have one locally.
Your local landfill will probably even give you a recycling credit giving you a discount on a load of garbage if you're taking some in at the same time.
And, there's lots of separate groups like Eugene Oregon's Freenet & Computer Re-use, though I'm not familiar with any centralized national source or listing. Though typing in your city name and "electronics recycling" to Google will likely give you something.
"At Microsoft, Quality is job 1.1"
You don't remember the 70's well, do you?
Environmentalists are very much the reason we don't have much nuclear power in the US. Half of the operating costs of a nuclear power plant used to be fighting lawsuits trying to shut it down, and protestors keeping their employees out. These protestors weren't oil barons. And they had good PR - not that it's hard, as most people even today can't understand the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
And there were some famous incidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl) that dramatically demonstrated the danger. Of course, nuclear power plants today are far safer, and no plant built in the US was ever as dangerous as Chernobyl, but most people don't know that.
We still have the problem of nuclear waste disposal, but it would eliminate a great deal of carbon emissions. Especially if we come up with electric cars. Stop government subsidies of oil, and start government subsidies of electric car battery exchange systems and we've got no more carbon problems.
Then we can start in on solving the problem of contaminated groundwater from leaky nuclear storage facilities...
Really? The "final arbiters of government secrecy"? Why?
An unquestioning trust in the government goes against everything this country was founded on. The United States was supposed to be under the people. Government officials are supposed to be accountable for their actions to the people that elected them. "Of the people, by the people, for the people", remember? It's what made us different from every other government that came before us. Our officials are citizens, subjected to the same laws as the rest of us, not Royalty who are above the law. When an administration ignores the law, especially one as important as the Freedom of Information Act (see the summary), it is important for other citizens to step up and hold them accountable.
I have a set that are hand-carved out of some kind of dark hard wood, polished smooth.
They are in the shape of the Starfleet logo from the original series.
Beat that.
You'd only need to lie about b-d. According to the quote, you can only get $35 cash if you have your receipt. Otherwise, all you get is a free copy of the game with content removed.
It seems like they're not really going to lose much on this deal. How many people keep a receipt for a video game for two years?
To sell advertising using your image. That's what the original article said they were doing, and what the poster you are responded to was asking if they are doing. We know they keep information from deleted accounts. We know they use information they've gathered to advertise to other users. Asking if they're using information from deleted accounts to advertise is not really that giant of a leap.
Really? You don't see any room for any middle ground whatsoever between me allowing my image to be used in ads, implying I'm endorsing products which I don't endorse, and just staying off the internet altogether? No spectrum at all between those two extremes?
The issue in the sentence wasn't the "Berliner", but the "ein". The correct form would have been "Ich bin Berliner". The extra "ein" in there implies an object rather than a person.
It is technically incorrect, but any German listening would have understood what he meant.
I dunno... could have used a car in it somewhere...
To say nothing of the time it would take them to look up current postal rates...