Jobst Brandt vs. Tire Glue

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:30:37 GMT, still me <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Their search tool is not very powerful from a boolean
>view point. They just caught on.

It caught on because it worked better than the alternatives. Pretty
simple reason to catch on.

I used other search tools side by side with Google and Google's
result's seemed better -- less junk and more quality stuff high up in
the results. Then I just stopped using the others.

I'm still open to using others -- Ask.com is not bad and I've got an
Ask search box above the Google search box on my screen at work. But
it doesn't seem as good as Google yet.

--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

 

[still me]

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:25:36 -0500, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On the other hand, they could kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
>if they compromise their search function to favor certain interests. The
>case of the old Altavista search engine comes to mind - one of the best
>until they changed it to give advertisers the first page of results, at
>which point most people stopped using it.


Not to mention, the advanced search has been broken for over a year
and they don't seem inclined to fix it. Too bad, the advanced tool is
the best one in the search business. Since they sold it to Yahoo
there's no one who cares in the least (at least I've reported it
multiple times and it's still glaringly broken).

But, back to your point - lots of search tools show featured listings
first. I think it's decline was more one of marketing - being an ex
Digital company, it was against the company charter to do any sales
work at all with the product.

 

[still me]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:48:57 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
<[email protected]> wrote:

>It caught on because it worked better than the alternatives. Pretty
>simple reason to catch on.

It's not because it works better. It's got a lame boolean capability.
Altavista advanced search (when it was working) was far more powerful
and helpful. Google advertised, AV didn't and lost even though they
had the leading edge and better technology. Then even worse, they sold
out to Yahoo. Google was a latecomer in the search business.

>I used other search tools side by side with Google and Google's
>result's seemed better -- less junk and more quality stuff high up in
>the results. Then I just stopped using the others.

Still lame compared to AV. but, AV is passe and handicapped.

>I'm still open to using others -- Ask.com is not bad and I've got an
>Ask search box above the Google search box on my screen at work. But
>it doesn't seem as good as Google yet.

I agree that there's no longer an alternative.

 

[Peter Cole]

Tim McNamara wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Tim McNamara wrote:

>>> It's a rosy portrait you paint but it's more impressionistic than
>>> factual. And Microsoft did develop a monopoly, not through
>>> marketing and technical superiority but through monopolistic
>>> practices.
>> Chicken/egg argument. The monopoly gave them the opportunity to abuse
>> the market, not the other way around.
>
> This history of the thing is a bit different. Gates et al understood
> that the opportunity they had was in the wholesale market and they set
> out very deliberately to control that market. Microsoft's sales of
> their OSes to the retail market are practically incidental (as the
> horrible user experiences of people trying to install the software over
> the years has shown).

Sure, they had a strategy, and it worked, so what? Apple had/has a
strategy of heavily discounting prices to the educational market trying
to indoctrinate early. If you want to read sinister into the strategies,
I'd be more critical of Apple.

I have installed every version of Windows (and many DOS'es) over the
years on many different platforms, both personally and professionally. I
haven't had "horrible user experiences" as a rule.


>> The geek POV is that MS foisted a lot of **** with marketing muscle
>> and disinformation. The truth is that the geek community clings to
>> ancient technology. Developers are their own worst problem. The US
>> tech lead is being frittered away with cultish devotion to obsolete
>> ****.
>
> Because there are so many superior operating systems coming from China
> or India?

The "OS war" was over years ago. OS choice isn't really an issue any
more. Languages, libraries, frameworks, IDE's, etc. is what I'm talking
about -- things that affect productivity. China & India didn't care much
about developer productivity since they had so many cheap bodies. The US
developer community didn't leverage their advantage to develop tools to
automate the process, instead coming out with obsolete **** like Java
and abortions like C++, pure productivity sinks.


>> MS worked hard, delivered real value and enjoyed the
>> winnings. The best side of capitalism.
>
> LOL. Your religious adoration of these guys notwitstanding, it's all
> ****. Microsoft has offered second-best technology throughout its
> history, ignoring the end user to a huge extent and focusing instead on
> controlling file types and access to information (the same goal as
> Google but with different strategies) to force user dependence and lock
> them into Microsoft products. That's not the best side of capitalism,
> it's the worst.

Everybody has historically used proprietary file formats in
applications, "lock-in" has always been a strategy (Adobe, Oracle,
etc.). It's hardly a MS invention.

MS went after the desktop market, understanding that these applications
are core and can really be considered to be extensions of the platform.
If the majority of the buyers want a browser, why not bundle one?

As for developer tools, MS invested there too, but that didn't prevent
competition. I used Borland tools almost exclusively for most of my
development career. Borland lost share because they did stupid things --
ditto for Sun.

MS has no monopoly on server-side apps. They are a me-too supplier in
file, DB, web and application servers. That stuff isn't commodity (yet),
but it's a logical market for MS to pursue given that it's a pure
extension of the OS. Again, I've used mostly non-MS products, but those
vendors have done some real stupid stuff (e.g. Novell). The guys who
have been smart (e.g. Oracle) have created stronger monopolies (and
squashed more innovation) than MS.

Unlike Apple, MS has pretty much stayed out of the HW market. They might
have had a big advantage in graphics, printing and storage, especially
if they had tightly integrated in a closed proprietary fashion to the OS
(like Apple), but they didn't. They spec'ed the system side and allowed
every OEM from the dinkiest Taiwanese garage to giants like HP & IBM
design to it, then they distributed the vendor-supplied "glue". It was a
necessary service.

>> Ethics? Matter of perspective, I guess. I always thought of Apple as
>> unethical. The world needed MS and Google to pull things together. It
>> could be done by government agency, but I've much less faith in that.
>> When natural monopolies arise I think it's foolish not to invest.
>
> As I said, your ethics are different than mine.

MS standardized the platform, virtualizing the HW and providing and OS
API. Somebody had to. There is the Apple model (closed, proprietary) and
the MS model (open interface). Many suppliers have made lots of money
selling apps, peripherals and platforms to a MS-provided infrastructure.
Anybody can get a free Linux, a free browser, a free set of desktop apps
and even server-side apps. What's the beef? Sure, MS killed Lotus and
Netscape, but only indirectly. Those apps (spreadsheet & browser) had
descended into generic commodities, there was no room left to innovate,
the companies died because they had no vision and bad strategies. What
they really needed was smarter people.

 

[Peter Cole]

Tim McNamara wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Tim McNamara wrote:
>>> In article <[email protected]>,
>>> Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tim McNamara wrote:
>>>>> In article <[email protected]>,

>>> Google in in a position to manipulate almost any aspect of modern
>>> life that they choose.

>> They are a necessary evil.
>
> ********.
>
>> There needs to be some sort of central agency to perform the task of
>> indexing all that information,
>
> Orwell lives. Centralized power is no better in the private sector than
> it is in government- arguably much worse because the private sector is
> not accountable to the degree that a democratically elected government
> is.
>
>> just as there was a need to virtualize all kinds of disparate
>> hardware. We need standards. There are realities that dictate why
>> there should be only one Google and only one Ebay. It's a natural
>> monopoly.
>
> There are no natural monopolies.

Sure there are. Regard the "network rule" or "Metcalf's Law":

"Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is
proportional to the square of the number of users of the system (n2).
First formulated by Robert Metcalfe in regard to Ethernet, Metcalfe's
law explains many of the network effects of communication technologies
and networks such as the Internet and World Wide Web."

The PC "infrastructure" (OS & HW virtualization) is really a kind of
network -- the more people who conform to one type, the more valuable it
becomes. This creates an accretion effect that eventually becomes
irresistible. The same thing is true of Ebay and Google. These natural
monopolies are predictable -- once any standard gains a following it
becomes more advantageous to join. It's a natural "winner takes all" effect.


>> Just as people misjudge the real accomplishments of MS, they do the
>> same with Google. Google has built a distributed super computer of
>> staggering proportions to get things to the necessary scale (and
>> found a way to pay for it). In solving that correct, and very
>> difficult, problems, they've created a natural monopoly and a huge
>> barrier to entry for anyone else. I think they're in for a very long
>> run. Again, capitalism at its best. They should be fabulously
>> wealthy, they've performed a great service to the world.
>
> A "great" service with the potential to strangle the Internet and choke
> off freedom and development if such serves the interest of the monopoly.
>
> Somebody's slipped you a double shot of the Kool-Aid, Peter.

This remains a great unsolved problem for democracies -- how to handle
the natural phenomenon of monopolies. One solution that has been
regularly tried is government ownership/regulation. That obviously has
had its belly flops.

The currently reigning neocons with their Von Hayek economics clearly
resist all government interventions, and the overall climate of the
times has been moving toward laissez-faire even among liberals.
Personally, I think it's a return to the 19th century (and I don't mean
that as a compliment). On the other hand, I think that rapidly evolving,
technology driven industries are about the worst candidates for
bureaucratic management.

It's a conundrum, but I think it's a mistake to view it as an ethical
problem as it's really a functional problem.

If you view the world (or even just the computing world) as a
monopolistic dystopia then I think the burden is on you to at least
sketch out the alternative utopia.

Would the world be a better place without MS? I don't think so. I don't
think a world with a more even multi-vendor split of OS's, word
processors, spreadsheets and browsers would make things any better.
Those things are ancient history.

Google entered a mature market and clobbered the competition. They did
it because they were smart guys who had a smart vision. They did it
because it could be done. Altavista, Yahoo, et al had their shot & blew
it. Would we be better off now limping along with that mediocracy?

Sure, capitalism sucks, but up till now has managed to suck less than
the alternatives.

 

[Peter Cole]

still me wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:48:57 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> It caught on because it worked better than the alternatives. Pretty
>> simple reason to catch on.
>
> It's not because it works better. It's got a lame boolean capability.
> Altavista advanced search (when it was working) was far more powerful
> and helpful. Google advertised, AV didn't and lost even though they
> had the leading edge and better technology. Then even worse, they sold
> out to Yahoo. Google was a latecomer in the search business.

Oh, please. Google invented a better mousetrap and the world did what
the world does, end of story.

Altavista was **** next to Google, even when Google was new.

Google invented the page ranking algorithm and Ad-sense -- a better way
to find the needle in the haystack and a way to pay (well) for it.
They've taken the money and used it to build out infrastructure as fast
as they can. No one will catch the train, it left the station years ago.

The other guys blew it.

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:17:57 GMT, still me <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:48:57 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>It caught on because it worked better than the alternatives. Pretty
>>simple reason to catch on.
>
>It's not because it works better. It's got a lame boolean capability.

I don't even really know what you're talking about with your "lame
boolean capability" but the thing I do know is that when I searched
for something with Google many of the top results were relevant,
whereas with others I used (Northern Light, Altavista, Lycos) much
fewer were.

So that means it worked better. Now the question is, am I closer to
being a typical user or are you? How many typical users are using
boolean terms in their search? I think the answer is clear.

Pehaps Google is a worse product for you. I dare say it's a far
better product for a typical user.

--
JT
****************************
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Visit http://www.jt10000.com
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[G.T.]

Peter Cole wrote:
> still me wrote:
>> On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:48:57 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> It caught on because it worked better than the alternatives. Pretty
>>> simple reason to catch on.
>>
>> It's not because it works better. It's got a lame boolean capability.
>> Altavista advanced search (when it was working) was far more powerful
>> and helpful. Google advertised, AV didn't and lost even though they
>> had the leading edge and better technology. Then even worse, they sold
>> out to Yahoo. Google was a latecomer in the search business.
>
> Oh, please. Google invented a better mousetrap and the world did what
> the world does, end of story.
>
> Altavista was **** next to Google, even when Google was new.
>
> Google invented the page ranking algorithm and Ad-sense -- a better way
> to find the needle in the haystack and a way to pay (well) for it.
> They've taken the money and used it to build out infrastructure as fast
> as they can. No one will catch the train, it left the station years ago.
>
> The other guys blew it.

They created a page ranking algorithm that is easily gamed. Time to
move on to the next search engine.

Greg

--
The Ticketmaster and Ticketweb suck, but everyone knows that:
http://www.ticketmastersucks.org

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:

> On Aug 4, 5:06 am, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> >
> > [email protected] wrote:
> > > On Aug 3, 11:49 pm, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > > >http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/rbr/lecycle.png
> >
> > > > That chart is rather difficult to interpret, since there is no
> > > > specification of what tires were measured, the data points have
> > > > not been fitted to curves, etc.
> >
> > > Really? I thought the moral of the story was pretty evident. What
> > > it says to me is that the RR and wet pavement grip of different
> > > groups of tires overlap, and that it doesn't make much sense to
> > > treat all {tubulars | clinchers | rain tires | puncture-resistant
> > > tires} as if they were homogeneous.
> >
> > Which tubulars? Which clinchers? Which data points belong to
> > which?
>
> You're saying if you knew the names of the tubulars and clinchers,
> the distributions wouldn't overlap?

No, I am saying that I'd like to see something more than anonymous
scatter which is pretty much meaningless on its own. I am sure that the
article to which this graph belongs covers that, all we are seeing is
one illustration which is of little utility as a result of the lack of
context.

 

[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:

> Sure, capitalism sucks, but up till now has managed to suck less than
> the alternatives.

Capitalism doesn't suck IMHO. There need to be constraints placed upon
it for certain things (worker safety, for example). What sucks is
anti-competitive monopolistic practices which are not the "natural"
processes you claim they are- they are in fact anti-market. That is a
key role for government in regulating the market because monopolies
always result in stagnation in innovation.

 

[Clive George]

"Peter Cole" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> instead coming out with obsolete **** like Java

<snort> You'd not be a software developer any more then...

(yes, it's a memory and CPU hog - but it's easy to program, and seems to be
becoming more and more widespread, which suggests it fills business needs
pretty well. And it's several orders of magnitude better than VB (hawk,
spit).)

cheers,
clive

 

[[email protected]]

On Aug 4, 7:36 pm, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > >http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/rbr/lecycle.png
>
> > > > > That chart is rather difficult to interpret, since there is no
> > > > > specification of what tires were measured, the data points have
> > > > > not been fitted to curves, etc.
>
> > > > Really? I thought the moral of the story was pretty evident. What
> > > > it says to me is that the RR and wet pavement grip of different
> > > > groups of tires overlap, and that it doesn't make much sense to
> > > > treat all {tubulars | clinchers | rain tires | puncture-resistant
> > > > tires} as if they were homogeneous.
>
> > > Which tubulars? Which clinchers? Which data points belong to
> > > which?
>
> > You're saying if you knew the names of the tubulars and clinchers,
> > the distributions wouldn't overlap?
>
> No, I am saying that I'd like to see something more than anonymous
> scatter which is pretty much meaningless on its own. I am sure that the
> article to which this graph belongs covers that, all we are seeing is
> one illustration which is of little utility as a result of the lack of
> context.

Hmmm. http://www.lecycle.fr/sommaire.php?num=360

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:23:02 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>They created a page ranking algorithm that is easily gamed. Time to
>move on to the next search engine.

Easily? What does that mean? Are you suggesting there are other
approaches that are more trustworthy?

What next search engine do you use?
--
JT
****************************
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Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

 

[G.T.]

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:23:02 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> They created a page ranking algorithm that is easily gamed. Time to
>> move on to the next search engine.
>
> Easily? What does that mean? Are you suggesting there are other
> approaches that are more trustworthy?

Something that doesn't rely so heavily on the number of links into a
specific page. For instance Google is always working on limiting the
effect of spammers who get their URL inserted into thousands of sites,
blogs, forums, etc, around the web. I find that the last few years
Google has been worthless because commercial sites who can afford to do
SEO (I'm not talking about companies who pay to advertise on Google, I'm
talking about the non-commercial search results list) come out above
smaller sites that are more likely to have the info one is looking for.

>
> What next search engine do you use?

I'm still searching (absolutely no pun intended).

Greg
--
Ticketmaster and Ticketweb suck, but everyone knows that:
http://www.ticketmastersucks.org

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[Sandy]

Dans le message de
news:[email protected],
[email protected] <[email protected]> a réfléchi, et
puis a déclaré :
> On Aug 4, 7:36 pm, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>> http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/rbr/lecycle.png
>>
>>>>>> That chart is rather difficult to interpret, since there is no
>>>>>> specification of what tires were measured, the data points have
>>>>>> not been fitted to curves, etc.
>>
>>>>> Really? I thought the moral of the story was pretty evident. What
>>>>> it says to me is that the RR and wet pavement grip of different
>>>>> groups of tires overlap, and that it doesn't make much sense to
>>>>> treat all {tubulars | clinchers | rain tires | puncture-resistant
>>>>> tires} as if they were homogeneous.
>>
>>>> Which tubulars? Which clinchers? Which data points belong to
>>>> which?
>>
>>> You're saying if you knew the names of the tubulars and clinchers,
>>> the distributions wouldn't overlap?
>>
>> No, I am saying that I'd like to see something more than anonymous
>> scatter which is pretty much meaningless on its own. I am sure that
>> the article to which this graph belongs covers that, all we are
>> seeing is one illustration which is of little utility as a result of
>> the lack of context.
>
> Hmmm. http://www.lecycle.fr/sommaire.php?num=360

Won't work - they're all too cheap. If it's not free, and on inet, it ain't
real by their standards.

 

[still me]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 11:28:08 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Something that doesn't rely so heavily on the number of links into a
>specific page. For instance Google is always working on limiting the
>effect of spammers who get their URL inserted into thousands of sites,
>blogs, forums, etc, around the web. I find that the last few years
>Google has been worthless because commercial sites who can afford to do
>SEO (I'm not talking about companies who pay to advertise on Google, I'm
>talking about the non-commercial search results list) come out above
>smaller sites that are more likely to have the info one is looking for.

The first issue here is that the notion of page ranking is not unique
to google. Everyone does it. The second one is that google's
algorithms is not fixed, it's ever changing as they try to teach it to
ignore people who try to get listed higher. There are people who
reverse engineer google each month, and people who follow those
people, who try to improve their own listings.

You are right about the current algorithm. They value sites that are
link to by other valued (established) sites highly. It's leading to
distortion in favor of large businesses. They also use some methods of
evaluating page appropriateness that are questionable in terms of web
page technology. Hopefully they will improve.

Currently, they give too mc

 

[still me]

On Sat, 4 Aug 2007 18:54:38 +0100, "Clive George"
<[email protected]> wrote:

><snort> You'd not be a software developer any more then...
>
>(yes, it's a memory and CPU hog - but it's easy to program, and seems to be
>becoming more and more widespread, which suggests it fills business needs
>pretty well. And it's several orders of magnitude better than VB (hawk,
>spit).)
>

I think he was referring more to the fact that we've been waiting for
the "next generation" of programming tools since about 1982. It's
still the same old game.

 

[still me]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:09:58 -0400, Peter Cole
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Oh, please. Google invented a better mousetrap and the world did what
>the world does, end of story.
>
>Altavista was **** next to Google, even when Google was new.

Not true. ALtavista was quite good for a while. When google first came
it was very lame. Google improved. After Altavista was spun off as
it's own company they began to make algorithm changes that made their
simple search results (or the ranking of them) get poorer and poorer
over time. They don't seem to do any work at all anymore on it and
it's been dead for a few years now.

At the same time, their advanced search was, and still is, way beyond
other tools (except it's broken). If finite searches are your game,
it's very good.

>Google invented the page ranking algorithm and Ad-sense -- a better way
>to find the needle in the haystack and a way to pay (well) for it.
>They've taken the money and used it to build out infrastructure as fast
>as they can. No one will catch the train, it left the station years ago.
>

"Invented" page ranking? Hardly. Everyone ranks. They just spent more
time on it in the last few years and made it a little better.


>The other guys blew it.

 

[still me]

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 11:59:51 -0400, Peter Cole
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>You can make hand-waving religious arguments all you want, but when you
>actually look at the realities of the market, history is not on your
>side. Without MS, we would just have yet another hardware monopoly --
>like IBM, Sun, DEC and Apple -- been there, done that. MS virtualized
>storage, printers, graphics, communications and lots of specialized
>peripherals, giving people choice and creating real HW competition.
>Before they did that applications had to bundle drivers -- a real
>nightmare -- don't you remember that?

I do't object to MS as a software / OS vendor. It's their strategy to
take over dozens of other industries that worries me.

 

[A Muzi]

>> "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> From the times I have been in the shop, I think Andrew likes bicycles
>>> too much [1] to be a really good capitalist.

> still me who? wrote:
>> Your implied definition has more to do with a certain lack of morals
>> combined with greed than it does with a romantic attachment to the
>> business one is in. I know some CEO's who are passionate about their
>> business - yet they are still, as an average, a bunch of greedy
>> bastards that will do anything to anyone to boost the bottom line....

Tom "Johnny Sunset" Sherman wrote:
> I wonder if Andrew would make more money running a more mainstream
> TrekSpecializedGiantEtc bike store with a standard inventory, rather
> than a store with odd specialty bicycles and a large inventory of
> uncommon parts? Such a store, however, would be much LESS interesting to
> run (and to shop at).

Yes, and we all make choices.

My ex-bike-mechanics on Wall Street out-earn the ex-bike-mechanic
musicians and artists. The ex-bike-mechanic research scientists and
doctors are in the middle. The ex-bike-mechanic homeless alcoholics are
at the bottom of the earning curve. Who can decide which human is more
capable or more satisfied?

We don't want to imply that filthy lucre, while nice, is the sine qua
non of a full and satisfying life, do we?

Enough is good. More may or may not be better.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971