04.23.09
The Kilosteve crushes scientists for ID
Apparently there is a list of (so-called) scientists who are backing the concept of ID (Intelligent Design). The reason for this, is that they would like to see ID taught at schools in biology class. This would, obviously, be a bad idea. As an attempt to fool the general public into believing that there is any scientific ground for an ID theory they made a list of scientist that believe in ID. These are usually scientists that have no expertise in any relevant field, but whatever.
Stephen Jay Gould, the alpha Steve.
The American National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has started a the Project Steve as a response to this. The NCSE does not believe that the length of a list of scientists who agree on any given subject decides on the scientific value of that subject, their ‘list of Steves’ should be regarded as a “tongue in cheek parody” of the”‘long standing creationist tradition” of amassing such lists. (Creationists, being not proper scientists, do feel that there is any scientific value to be found in the number of scientist are misled by any given belief. ) In honour of the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould they started a list consisting of all scientist named ‘Steve’ that agree with NCSE’s following statement:
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to “intelligent design,” to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation’s public schools.
(taken from NCSE website)
Currently, the list has been signed by more than one thousand Steves (and Stepehens, Stephanies etc.) which led the British popular scientific magazine NewScientist to introducing a new standard measurement: the KiloSteve (kS). The probability of the accuracy of Intelligent Design is currently less than 1 kS or: ID < 1kS. Whoever said scientists don;t know how to have fun?
I am your fatha
Argument taking place on my desk this morning. Need coffeebreak.
04.16.09
Nathan Frizzell keeps on dreaming
True Believer 2008
Don’t we all just hate the wakin’ world of adult life? Whatever happened to running around in the mud only to come back home because your mother calls that dinner is ready? I don’t know about you, but for me the excitement of my first new smartphone came nowhere near the excitement of my first GI Joe.
Financial independence and being allowed to stay up late are great, but also came at a cost. Only when we dream do we still have the ability to shape our own world, just like when we were kids. Those sentimental feelings flowed through me when confronted with the works of Nathan Frizzell. Deep inside this mature exterior there’s still a superhero hidden somewhere. And when I sleep, I still know I can fly. Frizzell’s beautifully painted images make you close your eyes and see what’s painted inside.
Untitled 2006
Crow Ride 2008
04.15.09
Time for a new search engine startup
I am a total non-coder when it comes to computers (or anything else for that matter). I suck at math, don’t even know the difference between a logarithm and an algorithm… However, had I been a computer whizz, I would’ve started my own software firm to develop just one thing; a search engine.
From Google to great
Speed, relevance, reliability
Why, you ask, isn’t Google good enough for you? Well, thank you for asking (nice to show an interest) and: yes it is. It’s damn near perfect to be honest, but whether or not Google is ‘good’ is not the point. A new search engine doesn’t have to be better (in terms of speed, relevance and reliability) than Google. It doesn’t even have to match it. The need for a new search engine isn’t technical, it’s mental. In the hearts and minds of a growing number of people, Google is too big, too commercial. It’s becoming too scary. Google is no longer very credible as the ‘not-enemy’ (mainly meaning: not Microsoft).
Goddamn treehuggin hippies
Volunteers, anyone?
Of course, there are some alternatives for those that wish not to use Google or Yahoo. But initiatives like the human powered search engine Mahalo won’t actually cut it. Mahalo is just too much annoyingly tree-huggin’ happy and cheerful. And you can’t find a damn thing with it either. We need and want tech to do that sort of thing. A search engine like gigablast for example looks too much like it was built in the USSR (before the iron curtain came down, that is). Melzoo on the other hand looks great, works ‘okay’ but is too reliant on a ‘not very necessary’ innovation; showing you a surfable the webpage it’s found for your query in a side bar (a small improvement over ask’s former usp feature)… it doesn’t really work for me.
It’s not about the results that a search engine comes up with, as long as it’s basically ‘okay’ (admit it, unless you’re a researcher or journalist you can’t tell the difference in quality between Google and yahoo or Microsoft search), it’s about the brand. So, if no one else does it, I guess I’ll just have to get my savings together and buy some old obsolete search engine technology myself and position it as some hip yet lefty internet start-up. Should that be the case, watch out Forbes 500. Bankers going down, new search engine techie coming up.
PS#01.
Maybe WordPress’s own search engine will be on top of my bookmark list soon?
PS#02
Edwin Valent added a great tip recently: cuil (which, apparently, is the Irish word for ‘knowledge’). I have to agree… that’s looking pretty good.
ps#03
Who knew Ray Ozzie reads my blog? Or perhaps it was Bill himself who heard about it and put together a team to build Bing, the Google killa.
04.09.09
New frontier: what’s going on NOW?
Only one post ago (how time flies) I uttered a mea culpa on having dissed Twitter, when it can be such an elegant medium. I guess that any web-channel that provides me with something worthwhile I would undoubtedly have missed otherwise must at least be a little ‘ok’ . Then, today, through Twitter I ended up on an article that I found interesting as well. A story in which Twitter is a player itself.
What’s going on NOW?
I guess it’s safe to assume that most of you out there are aware of the fact that Google would really like to buy Twitter (just as Microsoft… Twitter however, says it has no intention of selling). Since Google wants to become the one and only portal for everyone through which they can find everything (their determination to do this is apparent if you look at the enormous amounts of money they throw down the Youtube pit annually), they must work on the things they are not good at. And that is: Google is not good at finding out what is going on right now. Suddenly hear a lot sirens and want to know what’s going on? You won’t find out by using Google. You’re better off by checking Twitter to see if there are tweets about it. The San Francisco FD uses Twitter since they regularly find out quicker that way if there’s a fire somewhere than by 911 calls. Twitter is good at now (I will not go into the discussion of what the value of now is right now. I will do that later perhaps).
Google correspondent
Who else is good at now? I guess that would be the news media. Radio, television and newspapers. Want to know what is going on now? You can check their websites and quite often you’ll find that there’s a ‘breaking news’ section somewhere. Real on the ground correspondents bringing you breaking news, which can then be fed into the Google newsreader, if it makes the AP threshold.
Schmidt at the NAA
At the annual Newspaper Association of America (NAA) meeting, Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) said that news organisations are in need of a new business model and that Google would be a big part of that new model. Schmidt asked: “why doesn’t the paper know, what articles a visitor has read yesterday?’ Schmidt feels that it’s important that online newspapers learn how to make money off their articles, without necessarily dragging newsreaders like Google news or Techmeme into court for impeding their publishing rights. Newspaper big-shots like Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson (Wall Street Journal chief editor) disagreed and were clearly annoyed by the fact that Google is raking in millions in advertising revenue by doing nothing but link to ‘their’ news articles. Perhaps if Google would find a way to become better at bringing you the news of what’s going on right now, there would be less need for them to make money off linking to the work of others?
The fight
I guess the fight is on. Google has always been the darling of the ‘independent’ news media as it was the contender against the almighty Microsoft. But now Google is taking them on as well, not by creating content, but by making money off directing you to it. Google might increasingly be portrayed as being evil after all. Maybe Murdoch’s Newscorp would be a good potential buyer for Twitter?
04.07.09
Thank you Twitter
A ‘fun post’ and a ‘web tip’.
Only a couple of days ago, I was slagging off Twitter to friends. but that was before, Levi Leipheimer posted about how he watched the Tour de Basque on Steephill.tv and that the image was quite good. So I had to give that a go… and I must say… I don’t think I’ll ever have to miss a race or a stage again. And after seeing that epic victory of Stijn deVolder in the tour de Flandres on sunday, I am a bigger fan than ever. Thank you Levi, thank you Twitter and thank you Steephill.
