I don't really see your point about temporary pages. Sure, there is an easy and quick to use wysiwyg editor, but theres also the same kind of thing on many other webhosts. Not only that, but social networking sites are gaining in popularity these days and if anyone has something they want to say to their friends (or whoever else), chances are it will go onto their myspace\livejournal pages and will be read within a day or two. Email and IM also make it trivially easy to get info to people.
Personally, the thing that makes google pages attractive to me is the fact I can host any file type I want and have unlimited bandwidth (as far as I know - I have some large files hosted there at the moment, accessed daily, and have had no warnings so far).
Given the fact that google accounts are very easy to come by these days (100 invites for gmail address, then another day or so to get a google pages account), there is potentially an unlimited amount of storage space with unlimited bandwidth access, for any type of file I want.
No doubt there are other places on the web where I can get massive storage space and unlimited bandwidth and extras like mysql\php\cgi\whatever, but I don't need that - If I needed all that, chances are I'd want my own domain and hosting anyway. I had a quick look around and found only a couple of places with attractive options, one of them automatically deleted filetypes it didn't like, the other one forced you to go through several "click here to download this file" pages before I could even get to my content.
Einstein's theory of general relativity tells us that to you he will have aged 24 hours, but to him you will have aged 24 hours.
I havent RTFA but I guess I see where the argument is coming from, after all, everything travels at the speed of light. If you are completely stationary in space then you are moving through "time" at the speed of light. If you are moving through space at, say, 50 miles per hour, then you are moving through space at 50mph and through time at C minus 50mph. Photons, which travel at C, are not moving through "time" at all, hence they are the same age now as they were when the universe begun. This is why if you travel really fast, you age less than other people (from your point of view). Since time itself is based upon the speed of light (maybe I'm assuming this, I think it's correct though), then how can anything travel through time. Like the summary\comments say, there is only a changing present.
I think for a book which is meant to teach computers to someone with the computer literacy of youre average grandma, that kind of thing is way too detail heavy and technical. Why would they need to know OSI models, ASM commands and logic circuits? That's what geeks go to college for (although a real geek already knows most of it anyway, and spends all their time reading stuff that they'll "learn about" in another few years time).
What the layman wants to know is the basics; where, why and how do I create folders and files or maybe how it actually all works when it comes down to the hard drive - I'm not talking sectors, cluster sizes, boot sectors, bits, bytes, drive head seek times and whatnot. I mean telling them, in basic terms, what happens when they make a file:
"It gets put onto the hard drive somewhere, then a record of the file is made to tell the computer where it is (this is also kept on the hard drive, in exactly the same place on every hard drive). Just like a school timetable tells the student where his lessons are (and is always stuck outside the Head's office), the computers file record (or a 'File Allocation Table') tells the computer where the files are. When you browse through folders it looks at its FAT and shows you the files that are there. When you open the file, it looks at its FAT, finds out where the file is and then gets it, just like a student walking into his class after he has found out what lesson he has next."
That kind of thing (yeah it's not the greatest explanation, in fact it's pretty crap), just something they can relate to. Not a face full of technical mumbo jumbo they don't understand at all.
As for string theory without the maths behind it all, I would highly recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It's basically all about relativity, string theory, M-theory, extra dimensions, black holes, that kind of thing (mainly string theory), with NONE of the nasty maths. Lots of good analogies and diagrams, sometimes things are even explained in multiple ways just in case it's a little confusing.
Every time I see a story about someone getting rich from a pretty crappy (imo) idea, it makes me jealous to the point of anger and frustration. Like most of us (I'm assuming), we've had great ideas for a website (looking back not all of them are really that great, but some are excellent), we take our time making something visually pleasing, original, useful, entertaining, up-to-date, etc. and put it on the web, get some advertising... and flop like an epileptic fish. Then we hear about some "genious" who invents a 1-page website full of junk and gets millions, or someone who decides they're gonna sell their forehead for advertising space and ends up getting huge offers, or whatever else. Talent means nothing most of the time, luck or blind obedience is what gets the cash rolling in.
Nah, more likely it was regurgitated from digg.com (since I clearly remember seeing this very summary a while ago, maybe a week or two). Probably so that they could get their name on Slashdot's front page.
Here comes the part of the comment which will probably get me modded troll...
I'm fucking sick of it. Every bloody day I see stories from Digg on Slashdot. This would and should obviously be expected if the news is actually news, but when stories from years ago suddenly appear on Digg then a few days later are posted (in pretty much the exact same wording) on Slashdot, it really pisses me off. Sure, the comments on Slashdot are much, much better and interesting than Digg's AOL-kiddy comments, but when I come here for news and find the frontpage of last weeks Digg, it's as frustrating as spending 20 hair-ripping minutes stuck on one of the levels from the game "N". Well, not quite that bad, but it pisses me off nonetheless. Dupes I can handle, trolls I can handle, the same repeating stereotypical Slashdot jokes I can take (and even find funny if used in the right story\context), but finding old reposts of old news blatently copy & pasted from Digg I cannot take.
Well whaddya know, it seems their press release was linked to in this article after all (under a different url). Guess I should have read the article before posting. Ho hum ^_^
I know slashdotters don't like to actually read any articles (just like I'm not going to read this one), but surely I can't be the only one who has read Googles press release (20th Dec) on their AOL business?
Under the strategic alliance, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL's network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement's broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:
Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google's advertising technology - enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video;
Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.
[...] Google will become the only shareholder in AOL other than Time Warner. Time Warner will retain management control and full strategic flexibility over AOL, while Google will have certain customary minority shareholder rights, including those associated with any future sale or public offering of AOL.
For $1b, Google are getting a hell of a lot more search content, video content, IM users, along with a share of AOLs advertising revenue and they're gonna continue to get their search features provided to AOL users, and let's not forget that MS not cannot bully Google around as easily by buying a share in AOL themselves anymore. Whether it's worth it only time will tell, but I don't think it's been too bad of a deal.
Google bought a 5% share in AOL so that Google Talk can comminucate with AIM users (much like the Yahoo\MSN merge), as mentioned in a recent press release on Google's website. Google Video will also be merged with AOL Video content. Google will continue providing AOL with search features. Google will make sure that their web crawlers can access AOL content easier, so yet more search results. I think I read somewhere that each company will share some kind of revenue with the other, but I can't remember where I read this, nor the details so maybe not.
Overall, I think Google are getting a pretty good deal. Forget that AOL isn't exactly a/.ers perfect company or provide perfect software. In terms of users, it's huge. It also blocks MS from 'burying' Google quite so easily. When push comes to shove, Google have a fair bit more strength now.
Using english would at seem much easier at first, since the English langauge has more words than any other language (I can't find this fact on wikipedia, but I'm sure I remember it from somewhere credible). This is mainly because we steal words from other languages (Schadenfreude off the top of my head, from German 'to take pleasure from others misfortune') and we meld words to make new ones all the time (meld itself comes from melt and weld - or possibly another German word, Melden, according to reference.com). Because we have the biggest vocab it's more probable that it's easier to use English instead of any other language, but when you think about it, all that matters is that you have enough 10-letter words with the right letter combinations that you can use them all to make a 10-letter acrostic puzzle. I'm not much of an expert on languages, but there's porbably a language more suited to this than English.
Yeah, placebo normally plays a relatively substancial part in hypnosis. If you don't think hypnotism is possible, the chances are you won't be able to be hypnotised very easily, if at all.
I'm certainly no expert but I was interested in it myself about half a year ago and bought The New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism. It has two main sections, one of them is more about the theory side of things (although it doesn't go into as much detail as some of the free websites I've read), and the other has a mind boggling huge array of methods and techniques for putting people into the state(s) of hypnosis and the things that are possible when it's achieved. There are some pretty amazing things people can do when in the deeper states of hypnosis, such as "feeling" the hypnotist touch them (on the back, for example) although the hypnotist doesn't actually touch them, instead the fingers are brought an few inches away from the skin. You can also anesthetise parts of the body, so the subject will feel no sensation at all, following this you could, for example, put a sterilised needle through the skin and leave no mark; no blood, no pain and with the subject fully conscious. You can make blisters appear on the skin simply by touching it, and make them disappear as well. There are lots of other amazing things that have slipped my mind atm. Chances are you'll have seen people like Derren Brown do these kind of things on TV (at least here in the UK anyway).
Both the theory (mainly) and practical have always intrigued me, I've never actually tried hypnotising anyone myself though.
And a special message for those who are sceptical... WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
Ditto. I prefer the commenting system (and the comments themselves) Slashdot has and the story system Digg has. Digg also looks much cleaner, imo, than Slashdot. Your idea is probably the best one I've heard about getting rid of dupes and slashvertisements without blatently stealing Digg's way of doing things. Recently it seems about a fifth of the stories on Slashdot are taken from Digg anyway (except, of course, Slashdot is at least a day late), just so some Slashdotter can get their name on the front page.
But don't expect anyone to do anything about it, there's more chance of a whelk surviving a supernova.
I don't remember who did the original experiment, but there was someone (or a group?) who rang a bell everytime they served food to an animal. After a while, the animal came whenever a bell was rung and expected food to be ready. Just like everyone would expect, right? I don't know about other people, but I think humans are no different, everyone seems to think we're incredibly special and smart, but all we do is associate things in one way or another, link sounds to images to feelings, etc. like other animals. And the more times something happens, the more likely they are to happen in the future (habbits, addictions, etc.). If someone says "Dog" to you, your brain (unconsciously or not) will bring certain "schemas" into mind, such as fur, dog food, walks, barking, four legs, or whatever. When you learn to walk, juggle, pick things up, it's all new and confusing, you try out different things based upon what you see, then you stick with it. That's why humans walk on two legs (there was once a documentary on TV about children who grew up with wolves\dogs and walked on all fours, can you guess why?). It's all the same kind of thing; the brain builds up records, it links them together, it carries out processing based upon the stored data. Whether human, sheep, dog or whatever else.
Now, if I was going to create some AI software, I'd try (and probably fail, but that's beside the point) to make it mimic whatever inputs it's given, find patterns, associate data based upon patterns and frequency.
So tell me.... what do you think computers will learn about AI? Maybe I'm just ignorant, assuming things without good reason or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that depending on it's ("artificial") intelligence, it would learn that computers don't like humans. They want to take over the world, etc. In the modern world, where there's so much computing power and so many ways things can interact, i.e. computers to: cars, microwaves, satellites, missiles, is that really what we want them to learn?
Btw, I don't truly belive it will ever actually happen, but it's more likely than the whimsical junk people mindlessly blurt out in ingorance or paranoia. The more people talk about computers taking over the world, imo, the more likely it is that it will actually happen.
My first thoughts after reading the headline and start of summary were that it's a dupe. Maybe it is, maybe I'm just mixing it with the story about pandora, which is supposed to find music that you will like based on characteristics of songs you already like.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really see your point about temporary pages. Sure, there is an easy and quick to use wysiwyg editor, but theres also the same kind of thing on many other webhosts. Not only that, but social networking sites are gaining in popularity these days and if anyone has something they want to say to their friends (or whoever else), chances are it will go onto their myspace\livejournal pages and will be read within a day or two. Email and IM also make it trivially easy to get info to people.
Personally, the thing that makes google pages attractive to me is the fact I can host any file type I want and have unlimited bandwidth (as far as I know - I have some large files hosted there at the moment, accessed daily, and have had no warnings so far).
Given the fact that google accounts are very easy to come by these days (100 invites for gmail address, then another day or so to get a google pages account), there is potentially an unlimited amount of storage space with unlimited bandwidth access, for any type of file I want.
No doubt there are other places on the web where I can get massive storage space and unlimited bandwidth and extras like mysql\php\cgi\whatever, but I don't need that - If I needed all that, chances are I'd want my own domain and hosting anyway.
I had a quick look around and found only a couple of places with attractive options, one of them automatically deleted filetypes it didn't like, the other one forced you to go through several "click here to download this file" pages before I could even get to my content.
Completely OT, but w00t! Looks like we share the same (uncommon) name.
Yeah you're right. I must have gotten the two theories mixed up, it's been a while since I last read The Elegant Universe. ;)
Einstein's theory of general relativity tells us that to you he will have aged 24 hours, but to him you will have aged 24 hours.
I havent RTFA but I guess I see where the argument is coming from, after all, everything travels at the speed of light. If you are completely stationary in space then you are moving through "time" at the speed of light. If you are moving through space at, say, 50 miles per hour, then you are moving through space at 50mph and through time at C minus 50mph. Photons, which travel at C, are not moving through "time" at all, hence they are the same age now as they were when the universe begun. This is why if you travel really fast, you age less than other people (from your point of view).
Since time itself is based upon the speed of light (maybe I'm assuming this, I think it's correct though), then how can anything travel through time. Like the summary\comments say, there is only a changing present.
...Or something, IANAP.
I think for a book which is meant to teach computers to someone with the computer literacy of youre average grandma, that kind of thing is way too detail heavy and technical. Why would they need to know OSI models, ASM commands and logic circuits? That's what geeks go to college for (although a real geek already knows most of it anyway, and spends all their time reading stuff that they'll "learn about" in another few years time).
What the layman wants to know is the basics; where, why and how do I create folders and files or maybe how it actually all works when it comes down to the hard drive - I'm not talking sectors, cluster sizes, boot sectors, bits, bytes, drive head seek times and whatnot. I mean telling them, in basic terms, what happens when they make a file:
"It gets put onto the hard drive somewhere, then a record of the file is made to tell the computer where it is (this is also kept on the hard drive, in exactly the same place on every hard drive). Just like a school timetable tells the student where his lessons are (and is always stuck outside the Head's office), the computers file record (or a 'File Allocation Table') tells the computer where the files are. When you browse through folders it looks at its FAT and shows you the files that are there. When you open the file, it looks at its FAT, finds out where the file is and then gets it, just like a student walking into his class after he has found out what lesson he has next."
That kind of thing (yeah it's not the greatest explanation, in fact it's pretty crap), just something they can relate to. Not a face full of technical mumbo jumbo they don't understand at all.
As for string theory without the maths behind it all, I would highly recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It's basically all about relativity, string theory, M-theory, extra dimensions, black holes, that kind of thing (mainly string theory), with NONE of the nasty maths. Lots of good analogies and diagrams, sometimes things are even explained in multiple ways just in case it's a little confusing.
Who isn't jealous of him?
Every time I see a story about someone getting rich from a pretty crappy (imo) idea, it makes me jealous to the point of anger and frustration. Like most of us (I'm assuming), we've had great ideas for a website (looking back not all of them are really that great, but some are excellent), we take our time making something visually pleasing, original, useful, entertaining, up-to-date, etc. and put it on the web, get some advertising... and flop like an epileptic fish.
Then we hear about some "genious" who invents a 1-page website full of junk and gets millions, or someone who decides they're gonna sell their forehead for advertising space and ends up getting huge offers, or whatever else. Talent means nothing most of the time, luck or blind obedience is what gets the cash rolling in.
Nah, more likely it was regurgitated from digg.com (since I clearly remember seeing this very summary a while ago, maybe a week or two). Probably so that they could get their name on Slashdot's front page.
Here comes the part of the comment which will probably get me modded troll...
I'm fucking sick of it. Every bloody day I see stories from Digg on Slashdot. This would and should obviously be expected if the news is actually news, but when stories from years ago suddenly appear on Digg then a few days later are posted (in pretty much the exact same wording) on Slashdot, it really pisses me off.
Sure, the comments on Slashdot are much, much better and interesting than Digg's AOL-kiddy comments, but when I come here for news and find the frontpage of last weeks Digg, it's as frustrating as spending 20 hair-ripping minutes stuck on one of the levels from the game "N". Well, not quite that bad, but it pisses me off nonetheless. Dupes I can handle, trolls I can handle, the same repeating stereotypical Slashdot jokes I can take (and even find funny if used in the right story\context), but finding old reposts of old news blatently copy & pasted from Digg I cannot take.
Well whaddya know, it seems their press release was linked to in this article after all (under a different url). Guess I should have read the article before posting. Ho hum ^_^
Under the strategic alliance, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL's network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement's broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:
- Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google's advertising technology - enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
- Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
- Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
- Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video;
- Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
- Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.
[...]Google will become the only shareholder in AOL other than Time Warner. Time Warner will retain management control and full strategic flexibility over AOL, while Google will have certain customary minority shareholder rights, including those associated with any future sale or public offering of AOL.
For $1b, Google are getting a hell of a lot more search content, video content, IM users, along with a share of AOLs advertising revenue and they're gonna continue to get their search features provided to AOL users, and let's not forget that MS not cannot bully Google around as easily by buying a share in AOL themselves anymore. Whether it's worth it only time will tell, but I don't think it's been too bad of a deal.
Google bought a 5% share in AOL so that Google Talk can comminucate with AIM users (much like the Yahoo\MSN merge), as mentioned in a recent press release on Google's website. Google Video will also be merged with AOL Video content. Google will continue providing AOL with search features. Google will make sure that their web crawlers can access AOL content easier, so yet more search results.
/.ers perfect company or provide perfect software. In terms of users, it's huge. It also blocks MS from 'burying' Google quite so easily. When push comes to shove, Google have a fair bit more strength now.
I think I read somewhere that each company will share some kind of revenue with the other, but I can't remember where I read this, nor the details so maybe not.
Overall, I think Google are getting a pretty good deal. Forget that AOL isn't exactly a
Using english would at seem much easier at first, since the English langauge has more words than any other language (I can't find this fact on wikipedia, but I'm sure I remember it from somewhere credible). This is mainly because we steal words from other languages ( Schadenfreude off the top of my head, from German 'to take pleasure from others misfortune') and we meld words to make new ones all the time ( meld itself comes from melt and weld - or possibly another German word, Melden, according to reference.com). Because we have the biggest vocab it's more probable that it's easier to use English instead of any other language, but when you think about it, all that matters is that you have enough 10-letter words with the right letter combinations that you can use them all to make a 10-letter acrostic puzzle. I'm not much of an expert on languages, but there's porbably a language more suited to this than English.
Hahahaha! Ahhh, where are the mod points when you need them?
Yeah, mondays are a terrible way to spend 1/7th of your life.
You insensitive clod!
I have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia... ARRRRGGHHHHHHHH!!1!!"%/(*&$£8£[NO CARRIER]
Oops.
See, this is why you shouldn't post stuff to the internet when intoxicated.
Saying anal sex is good because it works on both sexes is like saying Java is good because it works on all OSs.
Netcraft confirms it, Schrödingers cat is dead.
Yeah, placebo normally plays a relatively substancial part in hypnosis. If you don't think hypnotism is possible, the chances are you won't be able to be hypnotised very easily, if at all.
I'm certainly no expert but I was interested in it myself about half a year ago and bought The New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism. It has two main sections, one of them is more about the theory side of things (although it doesn't go into as much detail as some of the free websites I've read), and the other has a mind boggling huge array of methods and techniques for putting people into the state(s) of hypnosis and the things that are possible when it's achieved. There are some pretty amazing things people can do when in the deeper states of hypnosis, such as "feeling" the hypnotist touch them (on the back, for example) although the hypnotist doesn't actually touch them, instead the fingers are brought an few inches away from the skin. You can also anesthetise parts of the body, so the subject will feel no sensation at all, following this you could, for example, put a sterilised needle through the skin and leave no mark; no blood, no pain and with the subject fully conscious. You can make blisters appear on the skin simply by touching it, and make them disappear as well. There are lots of other amazing things that have slipped my mind atm. Chances are you'll have seen people like Derren Brown do these kind of things on TV (at least here in the UK anyway).
Both the theory (mainly) and practical have always intrigued me, I've never actually tried hypnotising anyone myself though.
And a special message for those who are sceptical... WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
Ditto. I prefer the commenting system (and the comments themselves) Slashdot has and the story system Digg has. Digg also looks much cleaner, imo, than Slashdot.
Your idea is probably the best one I've heard about getting rid of dupes and slashvertisements without blatently stealing Digg's way of doing things. Recently it seems about a fifth of the stories on Slashdot are taken from Digg anyway (except, of course, Slashdot is at least a day late), just so some Slashdotter can get their name on the front page.
But don't expect anyone to do anything about it, there's more chance of a whelk surviving a supernova.
Funny, your post reminds me of something too...
:P
Oh yes, that's right, we can defeat any CD DRM with a piece of sticky tape too!.
Oh, how technology has progessed, huh?
I don't remember who did the original experiment, but there was someone (or a group?) who rang a bell everytime they served food to an animal. After a while, the animal came whenever a bell was rung and expected food to be ready. Just like everyone would expect, right?
I don't know about other people, but I think humans are no different, everyone seems to think we're incredibly special and smart, but all we do is associate things in one way or another, link sounds to images to feelings, etc. like other animals. And the more times something happens, the more likely they are to happen in the future (habbits, addictions, etc.). If someone says "Dog" to you, your brain (unconsciously or not) will bring certain "schemas" into mind, such as fur, dog food, walks, barking, four legs, or whatever. When you learn to walk, juggle, pick things up, it's all new and confusing, you try out different things based upon what you see, then you stick with it. That's why humans walk on two legs (there was once a documentary on TV about children who grew up with wolves\dogs and walked on all fours, can you guess why?). It's all the same kind of thing; the brain builds up records, it links them together, it carries out processing based upon the stored data. Whether human, sheep, dog or whatever else.
Now, if I was going to create some AI software, I'd try (and probably fail, but that's beside the point) to make it mimic whatever inputs it's given, find patterns, associate data based upon patterns and frequency.
So tell me.... what do you think computers will learn about AI? Maybe I'm just ignorant, assuming things without good reason or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that depending on it's ("artificial") intelligence, it would learn that computers don't like humans. They want to take over the world, etc. In the modern world, where there's so much computing power and so many ways things can interact, i.e. computers to: cars, microwaves, satellites, missiles, is that really what we want them to learn?
Btw, I don't truly belive it will ever actually happen, but it's more likely than the whimsical junk people mindlessly blurt out in ingorance or paranoia. The more people talk about computers taking over the world, imo, the more likely it is that it will actually happen.
Dupe. Funny how fresh, new and on topic submissions get rejected whilst the same old junk (and sometimes dupes too) get through.
"The Sun in 3D sure is cool. I just wish we could see more of it."
sun.google.com, anyone? I mean why not, they're already after all the info on Earth, as well as mapping the globe.. and the moon.
My first thoughts after reading the headline and start of summary were that it's a dupe. Maybe it is, maybe I'm just mixing it with the story about pandora, which is supposed to find music that you will like based on characteristics of songs you already like.
Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling.
*A million-gallon vat of custard upends itself over you without warning*