That is true. Bing did not use Google's ranking as an input, just the link that the user got from Google.
There is a distinction there, but not a difference in terms of whether or not Bing is piggybacking on Google's algorithms. Google found that link and displayed it to the user. Bing then knows that the link is relevant without having to actually find that out for itself.
If Google went away, Bing would be a worse search engine, because it is relying on Google to improve its own search quality. The reverse is not true.
...engineers working in the space launch industry are resistant to change just for the shits...
You have an excellent rant, and I know there are many people who should read it.
However, it seems like a straw man argument here, as TFA did not say that "engineering culture" is resistant to change without good reason, just that it's resistant to change. You seem to agree with this assessment since your post gives many very good reasons why engineering culture should be resistant to change. Change is hard, and you need to do it right.
Just because the application is running on a web server somewhere, and not on your hardware, doesn't mean it's not an application. Applications that users access over the web are called, gasp, "web apps".
Also, a bookmark is not the same as a web app. "bookmark" is a term for a URL that probably begins with "http" and is stored by a browser (unless it's IE, in which case I believe it's "favourite" instead). Slashdot is not a bookmark, but you can have a bookmark for Slashdot. The things being called "apps" in this case are not the little icons, they're the things you access using the icons.
How did this make it to the front page of Slashdot?
The issue is not alleged copyright infringement. No one needs evidence of direct copying to make this a story.
The fact is that Google's search results are, albeit indirectly, an input into Bing's ranking algorithms. That makes it a less credible search engine, since to a degree they are piggybacking on Google's ranking algorithms, which work without using other search engines as input.
Statements like "but we got the data via opt-in customers" and "it's just one of many inputs" do not change the fact that Google's ranking is being used as an input to Bing's ranking algorithm.
All those hours spent gazing fondly at your picture at the top of every Wikipedia page. Installing the Jimmy Wales extension for Chromium, so I could see you everywhere. Knowing that you were looking just at me...
You have betrayed me, Jimmy, with your false generalization of software distribution systems. Words cannot express the anger and shame I feel.
It's the "net" part of Net Neutrality that makes it irrelevant to this. This is the older and more well-known problem of companies forcing incompatibility to achieve one of their goals when it's not in the interest of the masses. You waved the wrong flag. Try "Freedom" next time.
Also, your assertion that Google is in control of every aspect of this are completely false:
The player is a codec, and Google has open-sourced it, placed all the patents they own that pertain to it in the public domain, and promised never to sue anyone for using it however they want. So they do not "own" the player.
The distribution mechanism is the web. Google is a big fish in that particular pond, but they do not "own" it, and any attempts to exert control using their influence will be seen as a fault in the network, and they will be routed around.
The codec, as has been discussed, is the player.
As for the video search that reveals the content: Google is only one option among at least two acceptable options, and to suggest that they would tamper with their search results to promote WebM over h.264 is ludicrous. They would lose market share faster than the GIF file format.
I may agree with your apparent wish that Google would just support h.264, but your opinions on this matter are not well thought-out. I suggest you stop posting on this article.
A group of people disagreeing with you is not censorship. The fact that I still (unfortunately) see your posts is proof that no matter how stupid the things you say are, some people on Slashdot will still be forced to read them.
But I suppose I can understand your frustration. You must get modded into oblivion quite often.
So it's not enough for you that one codec is definitely encumbered with patents and that the owner of these patents is highly litigious, while the owner of the other codec has placed all patents they hold relevant to the codec explicitly in the public domain. You demand that the latter group also provide legal protection for you?
Do you get legal protection against patents for all the software you use?
It's incorrect to say that WebM is equally dangerous to use from a patent litigation point of view. Is it 100% risk free? No. But what non-trivial piece of software is, when a static image file format has resulted in royalties being collected under threat of litigation?
The idea that this has anything to do with Net Neutrality is ridiculous.
A browser not supporting a codec has no impact on your ability to retrieve a video encoded with that codec.
I may as well claim that Adobe is undermining Net Neutrality because I can't edit Photoshop files I downloaded from the internet without buying their software.
The reason it is widely believed that crack is the result of OtherOS support being removed is that the group that cracked the system explicitly stated that, multiple times, in a publicly-accessible presentation at 27c3.
Rarely has the caliber of conversation dropped so far, so fast, as between the GP and your comment, sir. Even on Slashdot. I almost want to congratulate you.
Now please don't make any disparaging jokes about Guinea Pigs.
DRM means 'Digital Rights Management' and is used to control the use of digital media by controlling access, and preventing the ability to copy media such as movies....Intel Insider is NOT a DRM technology.
...Intel insider, an extra layer of content protection...
So it's not Digital Rights Management, it's just Content Protection. I feel better.
I don't think this aspect of the nature of Open Source Software has escaped Google. True, they did provide something that people can use against them, but Google's focus seems to be on growing the market, rather than going to war against a set of opposing corporations.
Without Android, the global touch-screen smartphone market would be a lot smaller than it is now, and much less search traffic would be coming Google's way.
Charles Stross might call this article the thinking of "zero-sum dinosaurs". Just because an action may profit someone else as well as yourself, that's not in itself a reason not to do it.
While package selection is limited in any enterprise distro, I see this as a good thing, since I'd rather have the QA resources of Red Hat applied liberally to the packages I actually need, rather than have them stretched out over a larger set of packages so I can install VLC on my servers without adding a repo if I want to.
I don't know what took this release so long, but I wonder if the continued move from Xen to KVM could have had something to do with it. Providing solid, performant virtualization out-of-the-box can't be easy, especially with KVM being relatively new to the enterprise world.
If you hadn't actually quoted part of the GP's post, I'd think you were replying to the wrong one.
So because there haven't been totally unrelated very large and sometimes hated Objective-C projects, iOS is better than Android? I find it humorous how quickly this has been sidetracked to a religious language flamewar instead of looking at the platforms and developer support.
No one mentioned iOS. I get the impression that you're responding to what you perceive to be persecution at the hands of Apple fanboys, but none of that was happening here. I find it humourous how quickly this has been sidetracked to a religious platform flamewar.
I feel the GP was wrong to dismiss the value of Java skills by equating it with Websphere/JBoss development, although it is probably true that Meego development is more applicable to the linux desktop. He/she has a point.
I'd like to see Meego get a significant portion of the market, and I've got a Nexus One running CyanogenMod in my pocket.
You are free to use the Android NDK, develop your entire app in some other language, and write only the front-end in Java. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good mad or anything.
Wow, what part of *desktop Linux skills* don't you understand? Last I checked, your average desktop Linux app didn't have a Java frontend.
Besides which... mad? What?
But hey, let's not let reading comprehension get in the way of a good flaming or anything.
I see you took the GP's advice. That was a very good mad.;)
While it's true that Android runs linux under the hood, you don't encounter linux at all while developing for Android, or while using it. Thus, the fact that it is based on linux is irrelevant from the perspective of developers and users having experience with it.
If Nokia does a good job with Meego, it will be just like Android: the linux will be there, and you can get at it if you want to, but developers and users shouldn't have to know or care to be satisfied with the platform.
These vendors choose linux to use for their OSes not because people know linux, but because they get a lot of stuff for free compared to writing an OS from scratch.
"Just as the Manhattan project was a test of atomic theory; if it worked, an amazing weapon was created; if it didn't work, it had profound ramifications on invalidating the the atomic theory of the day."
That's an insane interpretation of the Manhattan Project... How in the world did you arrive at that conclusion?
Slashdot Mirror
That is true. Bing did not use Google's ranking as an input, just the link that the user got from Google.
There is a distinction there, but not a difference in terms of whether or not Bing is piggybacking on Google's algorithms. Google found that link and displayed it to the user. Bing then knows that the link is relevant without having to actually find that out for itself.
If Google went away, Bing would be a worse search engine, because it is relying on Google to improve its own search quality. The reverse is not true.
You have an excellent rant, and I know there are many people who should read it.
However, it seems like a straw man argument here, as TFA did not say that "engineering culture" is resistant to change without good reason, just that it's resistant to change. You seem to agree with this assessment since your post gives many very good reasons why engineering culture should be resistant to change. Change is hard, and you need to do it right.
Just because the application is running on a web server somewhere, and not on your hardware, doesn't mean it's not an application. Applications that users access over the web are called, gasp, "web apps".
Also, a bookmark is not the same as a web app. "bookmark" is a term for a URL that probably begins with "http" and is stored by a browser (unless it's IE, in which case I believe it's "favourite" instead). Slashdot is not a bookmark, but you can have a bookmark for Slashdot. The things being called "apps" in this case are not the little icons, they're the things you access using the icons.
How did this make it to the front page of Slashdot?
Not everyone considers loss aversion a fundamental law of nature.
It doesn't matter how much we spent on that stuff. We should still be doing what makes sense for us here and now.
The issue is not alleged copyright infringement. No one needs evidence of direct copying to make this a story.
The fact is that Google's search results are, albeit indirectly, an input into Bing's ranking algorithms. That makes it a less credible search engine, since to a degree they are piggybacking on Google's ranking algorithms, which work without using other search engines as input.
Statements like "but we got the data via opt-in customers" and "it's just one of many inputs" do not change the fact that Google's ranking is being used as an input to Bing's ranking algorithm.
All those hours spent gazing fondly at your picture at the top of every Wikipedia page. Installing the Jimmy Wales extension for Chromium, so I could see you everywhere. Knowing that you were looking just at me...
You have betrayed me, Jimmy, with your false generalization of software distribution systems. Words cannot express the anger and shame I feel.
I want my $2.50 back.
A controlling body preventing another group of people from seeing selected content is censorship.
When the controlling body and the group of people are one and the same, it is not censorship. So censorship is not what's going on on Slashdot.
Please mod this and parent Offtopic; I fear our nerdly pendantry has led us far astray of the original discussion.
You can't be "censored" by the masses, no matter what your persecution complex is telling you.
It's the "net" part of Net Neutrality that makes it irrelevant to this. This is the older and more well-known problem of companies forcing incompatibility to achieve one of their goals when it's not in the interest of the masses. You waved the wrong flag. Try "Freedom" next time.
Also, your assertion that Google is in control of every aspect of this are completely false:
The player is a codec, and Google has open-sourced it, placed all the patents they own that pertain to it in the public domain, and promised never to sue anyone for using it however they want. So they do not "own" the player.
The distribution mechanism is the web. Google is a big fish in that particular pond, but they do not "own" it, and any attempts to exert control using their influence will be seen as a fault in the network, and they will be routed around.
The codec, as has been discussed, is the player.
As for the video search that reveals the content: Google is only one option among at least two acceptable options, and to suggest that they would tamper with their search results to promote WebM over h.264 is ludicrous. They would lose market share faster than the GIF file format.
I may agree with your apparent wish that Google would just support h.264, but your opinions on this matter are not well thought-out. I suggest you stop posting on this article.
Who is censoring posts?
A group of people disagreeing with you is not censorship. The fact that I still (unfortunately) see your posts is proof that no matter how stupid the things you say are, some people on Slashdot will still be forced to read them.
But I suppose I can understand your frustration. You must get modded into oblivion quite often.
So it's not enough for you that one codec is definitely encumbered with patents and that the owner of these patents is highly litigious, while the owner of the other codec has placed all patents they hold relevant to the codec explicitly in the public domain. You demand that the latter group also provide legal protection for you?
Do you get legal protection against patents for all the software you use?
It's incorrect to say that WebM is equally dangerous to use from a patent litigation point of view. Is it 100% risk free? No. But what non-trivial piece of software is, when a static image file format has resulted in royalties being collected under threat of litigation?
The idea that this has anything to do with Net Neutrality is ridiculous.
A browser not supporting a codec has no impact on your ability to retrieve a video encoded with that codec.
I may as well claim that Adobe is undermining Net Neutrality because I can't edit Photoshop files I downloaded from the internet without buying their software.
The reason it is widely believed that crack is the result of OtherOS support being removed is that the group that cracked the system explicitly stated that, multiple times, in a publicly-accessible presentation at 27c3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-AEInyQkS0
You could be claiming that they were lying, but I see no reason to believe that.
Rarely has the caliber of conversation dropped so far, so fast, as between the GP and your comment, sir. Even on Slashdot. I almost want to congratulate you.
Now please don't make any disparaging jokes about Guinea Pigs.
From that link to Intel's website:
So it's not Digital Rights Management, it's just Content Protection. I feel better.
The Macbook Air models already include no optical drive whatsoever.
Apple makes a USB "Macbook Air Superdrive", and sells it for about $80.
OS X.
Who's Denny Crane, Quickly, and why has he got a comma in his name?
I don't think this aspect of the nature of Open Source Software has escaped Google. True, they did provide something that people can use against them, but Google's focus seems to be on growing the market, rather than going to war against a set of opposing corporations.
Without Android, the global touch-screen smartphone market would be a lot smaller than it is now, and much less search traffic would be coming Google's way.
Charles Stross might call this article the thinking of "zero-sum dinosaurs". Just because an action may profit someone else as well as yourself, that's not in itself a reason not to do it.
With Chrome 7.0.517.44 (latest at the time of writing), I get WebM. Looks pretty good at 720p!
While package selection is limited in any enterprise distro, I see this as a good thing, since I'd rather have the QA resources of Red Hat applied liberally to the packages I actually need, rather than have them stretched out over a larger set of packages so I can install VLC on my servers without adding a repo if I want to.
I don't know what took this release so long, but I wonder if the continued move from Xen to KVM could have had something to do with it. Providing solid, performant virtualization out-of-the-box can't be easy, especially with KVM being relatively new to the enterprise world.
If you hadn't actually quoted part of the GP's post, I'd think you were replying to the wrong one.
So because there haven't been totally unrelated very large and sometimes hated Objective-C projects, iOS is better than Android? I find it humorous how quickly this has been sidetracked to a religious language flamewar instead of looking at the platforms and developer support.
No one mentioned iOS. I get the impression that you're responding to what you perceive to be persecution at the hands of Apple fanboys, but none of that was happening here. I find it humourous how quickly this has been sidetracked to a religious platform flamewar.
I feel the GP was wrong to dismiss the value of Java skills by equating it with Websphere/JBoss development, although it is probably true that Meego development is more applicable to the linux desktop. He/she has a point.
I'd like to see Meego get a significant portion of the market, and I've got a Nexus One running CyanogenMod in my pocket.
You are free to use the Android NDK, develop your entire app in some other language, and write only the front-end in Java. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good mad or anything.
Wow, what part of *desktop Linux skills* don't you understand? Last I checked, your average desktop Linux app didn't have a Java frontend.
Besides which... mad? What?
But hey, let's not let reading comprehension get in the way of a good flaming or anything.
I see you took the GP's advice. That was a very good mad. ;)
While it's true that Android runs linux under the hood, you don't encounter linux at all while developing for Android, or while using it. Thus, the fact that it is based on linux is irrelevant from the perspective of developers and users having experience with it.
If Nokia does a good job with Meego, it will be just like Android: the linux will be there, and you can get at it if you want to, but developers and users shouldn't have to know or care to be satisfied with the platform.
These vendors choose linux to use for their OSes not because people know linux, but because they get a lot of stuff for free compared to writing an OS from scratch.
"Just as the Manhattan project was a test of atomic theory; if it worked, an amazing weapon was created; if it didn't work, it had profound ramifications on invalidating the the atomic theory of the day."
That's an insane interpretation of the Manhattan Project... How in the world did you arrive at that conclusion?
He read XKCD today.