Wrong attitute! Big time wrong! If people had this attitude in early 1900s you wouldn't be enjoying any job with 5 days a week, and overtime pay, and benefits, and so on. Because if allowed, rampant, extreme capitalist firms can easily make most people work like hell, for minimal salaries, and no time off. Read "Grapes of wrath" and replace all references of "cotton pickers" with "game/software programmers," "cotton field" with "office complex," etc. and you'll get a freakish similarity.
Companies like this shouldn't be allowed to do it. People should get organized and ask for overtime pay and benefits, and time off, and so on. Because yes, there's alway that poor soul who'll work under any conditions... and if it's allowed, pretty soon a lot of companies will do it. There's a reason why labour got organized. My 2c,
-- ikoflexer
1984. The height of communism in at least one Eastern European country. We were teenagers, and very much into AC/DC, Judas Pries, and ever'thing western. One of us knew some electronics; so we got ourselves some parts and soldered together some FM transmitters. Then we broadcasted AC/DC, other heavy metal rock, stupid teenager rants:), and sometimes even Radio Free Europe. All this at random times all around the neighbourhood, so we don't get caught. Those in the know realize how much the secret service hated people like me and my friends (and they really hated AC/DC). And we knew that is was dangerous to taunt them. Nevertheless, it was fun.
Present: people probably realize how powerful it is to be able to disseminate ideas, even in a limited and local setting. And this type of radio TX is all but forgotten in these day of the web, but it can be much more personalizable. People react different to hearing a real voice for a change. I'm glad to see people pushing the idea of microradio. In fact they should make radio TX free, not hand guns.
We're over-using letter "g"! I thought it had something to do with gmail---got all happy and fuzzy and sweaty...
What a disapointment....:( Printing labels was useful years ago, like 6-7. Now everything is disposable... can't find it?--get a new one. Not labeled?--trash can! Works for me good.
Seeing some of the euphoric comments here is pretty interesting. It just shows how good googleans are at maintaining their "we're the good guys" image. And that's good, because indeed they seem to have cleaner business practices than many other.
However, let's set the record straight here. There is no magic algorithms and most likely no new science in the technology google uses for search. The original page ranking paper published by Sergei et al. explained the entire algorithm, and data structures they needed to have a fast search. The paper was quite detailed. It's good old computer science. Nothing extraordinarily outrageous about it (from a mathematical standpoint), except that it worked damn well: it leveraged human knowledge, which is something a lot of people don't yet either understand the importance of, or don't know how to do it.
Since then, google has improved on the original algorithm, data structures, and overall implementation. But the main technology was in plain sight from the beginning.
My guess to why google is releasing some source code is because it will pay off for them. Forget the "give back" bit. It'll improve the image, and, potentially they might benefit from people using that source. How? Not clear yet until we see the source code.
In any case, as slashdotters ubergeeks we should keep a cool head and look at what google will show. I'm 100% sure that if they said they release some source they'll do it. You see, it would hurt their image if they didn't, and they're too good at image management to make such a stupid mistake.
It's obviously a strategic move on their part, just that we don't see yet the real reason for it.
BTW, it's just a matter of time for MS or Yahoo to incorporate this type of technology into their search engines, and google knows that. As they loose their technological edge over the competitors, keeping a good image is very important. As is branching out into other services (e.g. gmail).
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong attitute! Big time wrong! If people had this attitude in early 1900s you wouldn't be enjoying any job with 5 days a week, and overtime pay, and benefits, and so on. Because if allowed, rampant, extreme capitalist firms can easily make most people work like hell, for minimal salaries, and no time off. Read "Grapes of wrath" and replace all references of "cotton pickers" with "game/software programmers," "cotton field" with "office complex," etc. and you'll get a freakish similarity.
Companies like this shouldn't be allowed to do it. People should get organized and ask for overtime pay and benefits, and time off, and so on. Because yes, there's alway that poor soul who'll work under any conditions... and if it's allowed, pretty soon a lot of companies will do it. There's a reason why labour got organized.
My 2c,
-- ikoflexer
1984. The height of communism in at least one Eastern European country. We were teenagers, and very much into AC/DC, Judas Pries, and ever'thing western. One of us knew some electronics; so we got ourselves some parts and soldered together some FM transmitters. Then we broadcasted AC/DC, other heavy metal rock, stupid teenager rants :), and sometimes even Radio Free Europe. All this at random times all around the neighbourhood, so we don't get caught. Those in the know realize how much the secret service hated people like me and my friends (and they really hated AC/DC). And we knew that is was dangerous to taunt them. Nevertheless, it was fun.
Present: people probably realize how powerful it is to be able to disseminate ideas, even in a limited and local setting. And this type of radio TX is all but forgotten in these day of the web, but it can be much more personalizable. People react different to hearing a real voice for a change. I'm glad to see people pushing the idea of microradio. In fact they should make radio TX free, not hand guns.
We're over-using letter "g"! I thought it had something to do with gmail---got all happy and fuzzy and sweaty...
What a disapointment....
Seeing some of the euphoric comments here is pretty interesting. It just shows how good googleans are at maintaining their "we're the good guys" image. And that's good, because indeed they seem to have cleaner business practices than many other.
However, let's set the record straight here. There is no magic algorithms and most likely no new science in the technology google uses for search. The original page ranking paper published by Sergei et al. explained the entire algorithm, and data structures they needed to have a fast search. The paper was quite detailed. It's good old computer science. Nothing extraordinarily outrageous about it (from a mathematical standpoint), except that it worked damn well: it leveraged human knowledge, which is something a lot of people don't yet either understand the importance of, or don't know how to do it.
Since then, google has improved on the original algorithm, data structures, and overall implementation. But the main technology was in plain sight from the beginning.
My guess to why google is releasing some source code is because it will pay off for them. Forget the "give back" bit. It'll improve the image, and, potentially they might benefit from people using that source. How? Not clear yet until we see the source code.
In any case, as slashdotters ubergeeks we should keep a cool head and look at what google will show. I'm 100% sure that if they said they release some source they'll do it. You see, it would hurt their image if they didn't, and they're too good at image management to make such a stupid mistake.
It's obviously a strategic move on their part, just that we don't see yet the real reason for it.
BTW, it's just a matter of time for MS or Yahoo to incorporate this type of technology into their search engines, and google knows that. As they loose their technological edge over the competitors, keeping a good image is very important. As is branching out into other services (e.g. gmail).
Just my 2c.