Google and their new "Knol"

Encouraging people to contribute knowledge

12/13/2007 06:01:00 PM

Posted by Udi Manber, VP Engineering

The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities. But not everything is written nor is everything well organized to make it easily discoverable. There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that. The challenge posed to us by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal.

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling "knol", which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

Airplane on a Treadmill

Finally, the moment I've been waiting for has come. Mythbusters attempt to answer the Airplane on a Treadmill question. Scheduled to air 1/30/08 on Discovery channel.

As Simon put it, "Two men enter, but only one will feel vindicated, the other will be a heap of bitter feeling and shattered world viewpoint".

Skeptical Simon talking with AIM Shopping Buddy

Simon: Hello there, shopping buddy. How do you do on this glorious morning?

ShoppingBuddy: Welcome. I'm here on AIM to help you locate the best deals for your holiday shopping this season.

Type menu or any product to get started. All you have to do is type what you are searching for ("ipod", "find me the best price for uggs") and I'll immediately direct you to the lowest price online.

Not ready to buy yet? You can also use me to compare prices while you're shopping to make sure you really are getting the best holiday deal.

(To read our privacy policy, type privacy anytime.)



Simon: So, i just type menu and you'll become my willing slave, execellent

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Store Offers for Personal Care (1 matches):

Bondage Kit - Beginner's b&d kit $95.99 - In stock
Store: EdenFantasys


Simon: Huh? you think I want a bondage kit? Hey now there buddy, I think you have me pegged all wrong.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any results. Try searching again or type menu for the Main Menu.


Simon: NO results? Is that code for you thinging I'm a sexual freak. You know, you piece of junk, that I'm only going to be pushed so far before I snap.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any results. Try searching again or type menu for the Main Menu.


Simon: Don't play dumb, my friend.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Store Offers for Hal Leonard Nirvana - Unplugged In New York (7 matches):

Musician's Friend $19.95 - In stock

Guitar Center $19.95 - In stock

Music123 $24.95 - In stock

Music123 $24.95

Giardinelli $24.95 - In stock


Type "more" or "m" for more results

Simon: Don't change the subject with my love of nirvana.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Categories:

1 - Books (2 matches)
2 - Toys (14 matches)
3 - Sport and Outdoor (2 matches)


Simon: Toys and Sports, you really know how to distract a man, don't you? Well, I'm still mad... ummm... what kind of toys?

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any results. Try searching again or type menu for the Main Menu.


Simon: oh, so now "no toys". You're a fickle buddy whose allegiances shift like the wind.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any results. Try searching again or type menu for the Main Menu.


Simon: toys. I want toys.

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Products (301617 matches):

1 - Discovery Channel Store Discovery A (2 stores)
Price range: [$15-$15]
2 - Milton Bradley Chutes and Ladders a (5 stores)
Price range: [$9-$30]
3 - Hasbro Trivial Pursuit 1990 Edition (4 stores)
Price range: [$16-$25]
4 - Fisher-Price T.M.X. Elmo English Ve (4 stores)
Price range: [$25-$45]
5 - Dora the Explorer Egg Hunt (2 stores)
Price range: [$9-$14]

Type a # for stores selling this

Type "more" or "m" for more results

Simon: Discovery Channel Store is great!

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Store Offers for Clothing (23 matches):

Men's Bike Discovery (2 Pairs) Athl $34.95 - In stock
Store: Shoebuy.com
National Geographic Channel Tees $19.95 - In stock
Store: National Geographic
MYTHBUSTERS SCIENCE IN ACTION Long $33.99 - In stock
Store: CafePress.com
WARNING - SCIENCE IN PROGRESS Dark $28.99 - In stock
Store: CafePress.com
WARNING - SCIENCE IN PROGRESS Kids $22.99 - In stock
Store: CafePress.com

Type "more" or "m" for more results

Simon: Now you offer shirts?

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Categories:

1 - Sport and Outdoor (108 matches)
2 - Clothing (31753 matches)
3 - Toys (31 matches)
4 - Craft Supplies (213 matches)


Simon: I want toys, buddy!

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Products (2205 matches):

1 - Wild Republic Horse Blanket Pillow (2 stores)
Price range: [$24-$26]
2 - Buddy Elf Adult Costume (2 stores)
Price range: [$39-$39]
3 - York Transformers Super Jumbo Wall (1 stores)
Price range: [$22-$29]
4 - Explorer Appliances 12" Dora The Ex (2 stores)
Price range: [$11-$15]
5 - Boo Boo Fever Buddy (2 stores)
Price range: [$7.95-$7.95]

Type a # for stores selling this

Type "more" or "m" for more results

Simon: Boo Boo Fever Buddy?

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: Categories:

1 - Health Aids (5 matches)
2 - Toys (1 matches)


Simon: Health Aids and Toys? What kind of shop are you running here, SB?

ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...


ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any results. Try searching again or type menu for the Main Menu.


Simon: Okay, you play dumb. I'm going to report you!

ShoppingBuddy: good


Simon: I'll see you in hell, shopping buddy!

ShoppingBuddy: Later.

Ahmadinejad's Official Blog

Read here -- Too bad it's very sporadic, and there aren't that many entries.

This sickens me...

Rape case ruling shocks Australia

A judge's decision not to jail nine men guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community has triggered outrage in Australia.

The offenders were either placed on probation or given suspended sentences for the 2005 rape in the Aurukun settlement, in northern Queensland.

In her ruling, Judge Sarah Bradley told them that the victim "probably agreed to have sex with all of you".

A review of sexual abuse sentences in Aboriginal Queensland has been ordered.

Sentencing seven of the accused in Cairns in October, Judge Bradley told them that the girl involved was not forced into sex, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.

She placed six of the offenders, who were minors at the time of the rape, on probation for 12 months, local media said.

The three other defendants were handed suspended six-month prison sentences.

Judge Bradley later defended her sentencing, telling The Australian that the sentences were "appropriate" because they were the penalties sought by the prosecution.

'No excuse'

But Australia's newly-elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has spoken out against the ruling, saying he was "appalled" by the verdict after it was revealed in the Australian press on Monday.

"I am horrified by cases like this, involving sexual violence against women and children. My attitude is one of zero tolerance," he told reporters in Queensland, his home state.

I am not prepared to just write this off as an unusual one-off case Anna Bligh Queensland Premier

Boni Robertson, an Aboriginal activist in Queensland, said there could be no excuse for the judge's decision.

"There is nothing culturally, there is nothing morally, there is nothing socially and there is definitely nothing legally that would ever allow this sort of decision to be made," she said.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has now announced a review of all sentences given over the last two years in the communities in the Cape York region where the case occurred.

"I am not prepared to just write this off as an unusual one-off case," she said.

"I want to satisfy myself that the people of Cape York, and the people who live in remote indigenous communities, are receiving the same level of justice as we can expect in any other community in Queensland."

The offenders came from some of the most powerful and prominent Aboriginal families in Cape York, while the victim's family had a lower status, The Australian reported.

The case comes six months after a high-profile inquiry into child sex abuse in remote northern Australia said it found problems in every Aborigine community visited by researchers.

That inquiry led to an intervention programme in the Northern Territory.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7136269.stm

Published: 2007/12/10 14:31:40 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Often I wish people would have a greater appreciation for history. Humans are basically story telling animals and history is the story of humankind, written down by our ancestors and offer an insight into the human condition, past and present. That's why I feel totally saddened when I see people in the media that have a profound lack of history. In this case, I feel it borders (if not crosses) the line of blatant and inexcusable ignorance. I have attached a youtube video of Sherri Shepard. She is the newest member on the view and has gained my attention because of the silly beliefs and statements she makes. She denies evolution, and when asked if she thought the world was flat, she answered with all seriousness, "I don’t know. I never thought about it." In the latest batch of dumb, she made two comments that I find excelling ignorant of even a basic understand of history.
1. She didn't know the Greeks and the Romans came because Christianity, and made the claim that Greeks feed Christians to the lions.
2. She claims that "Jesus came first” (before Greeks and Romans) and stated “I don’t think anything pre-dated Christians".

Just... wow. Seriously, you believe that? Could I recommend you read some history books, or perhaps, rent a couple of documentaries about Greek/Roman culture. I feel that it is becoming increasingly acceptable today for people to celebrate their ignorance loudly and proudly. It makes me weep.

Skeptical Simon

Sex Tourism

This is a strange article I read, about how elderly white women are joining in on the sex tourism that was normally reserved for White males looking for underage women. I think it is interesting when you think of the psychological desires these women are trying to slate. This article brings up a lot of deeper issues, the nature of tourism, wealth and social justice, the nature of exploitation in the sex trade, the moral and ethical behaviors for tourist. Read this article and let me know what your think.

Skeptical Simon

Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists

Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:28am EST

By Jeremy Clarke

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64.

They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.

Allie and Bethan -- who both declined to give their full names -- said they planned to spend a whole month touring Kenya's palm-fringed beaches. They would do well to avoid the country's tourism officials.

"It's not evil," said Jake Grieves-Cook, chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, when asked about the practice of older rich women traveling for sex with young Kenyan men.

"But it's certainly something we frown upon."

Also, the health risks are stark in a country with an AIDS prevalence of 6.9 percent. Although condom use can only be guessed at, Julia Davidson, an academic at Nottingham University who writes on sex tourism, said that in the course of her research she had met women who shunned condoms -- finding them too "businesslike" for their exotic fantasies.

The white beaches of the Indian Ocean coast stretched before the friends as they both walked arm-in-arm with young African men, Allie resting her white haired-head on the shoulder of her companion, a six-foot-four 23-year-old from the Maasai tribe.

He wore new sunglasses he said were a gift from her.

"We both get something we want -- where's the negative?" Allie asked in a bar later, nursing a strong, golden cocktail.

She was still wearing her bikini top, having just pulled on a pair of jeans and a necklace of traditional African beads.

Bethan sipped the same local drink: a powerful mix of honey, fresh limes and vodka known locally as "Dawa," or "medicine."

She kept one eye on her date -- a 20-year-old playing pool, a red bandana tying back dreadlocks and new-looking sports shoes on his feet.

He looked up and came to join her at the table, kissing her, then collecting more coins for the pool game.

"JUST UNWHOLESOME"

Grieves-Cook and many hotel managers say they are doing all they can to discourage the practice of older women picking up local boys, arguing it is far from the type of tourism they want to encourage in the east African nation.

"The head of a local hoteliers' association told me they have begun taking measures -- like refusing guests who want to change from a single to a double room," Grieves-Cook said.

"It's about trying to make those guests feel as uncomfortable as possible ... But it's a fine line. We are 100 percent against anything illegal, such as prostitution. But it's different with something like this -- it's just unwholesome."

These same beaches have long been notorious for attracting another type of sex tourists -- those who abuse children.

As many as 15,000 girls in four coastal districts -- about a third of all 12-18 year-olds girls there -- are involved in casual sex for cash, a joint study by Kenya's government and U.N. children's charity UNICEF reported late last year.

Up to 3,000 more girls and boys are in full-time sex work, it said, some paid for the "most horrific and abnormal acts."

"PREYING ON POVERTY?"

Emerging alongside this black market trade -- and obvious in the bars and on the sand once the sun goes down -- are thousands of elderly white women hoping for romantic, and legal, encounters with much younger Kenyan men.

They go dining at fine restaurants, then dancing, and back to expensive hotel rooms overlooking the coast.

"One type of sex tourist attracted the other," said one manager at a shorefront bar on Mombasa's Bamburi beach.

"Old white guys have always come for the younger girls and boys, preying on their poverty ... But these old women followed ... they never push the legal age limits, they seem happy just doing what is sneered at in their countries."

Experts say some thrive on the social status and financial power that comes from taking much poorer, younger lovers.

"This is what is sold to tourists by tourism companies -- a kind of return to a colonial past, where white women are served, serviced, and pampered by black minions," said Nottinghan University's Davidson.

"LIVE LIKE THE RICH"

Many of the visitors are on the lookout for men like Joseph.

Flashing a dazzling smile and built like an Olympic basketball star, the 22-year-old said he has slept with more than 100 white women, most of them 30 years his senior.

"When I go into the clubs, those are the only women I look for now," he told Reuters. "I get to live like the rich mzungus (white people) who come here from rich countries, staying in the best hotels and just having my fun."

At one club, a group of about 25 dancing men -- most of them Joseph look-alikes -- edge closer and closer to a crowd of more than a dozen white women, all in their autumn years.

"It's not love, obviously. I didn't come here looking for a husband," Bethan said over a pounding beat from the speakers.

"It's a social arrangement. I buy him a nice shirt and we go out for dinner. For as long as he stays with me he doesn't pay for anything, and I get what I want -- a good time. How is that different from a man buying a young girl dinner?"

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Sara Ledwith)

Of course, if it is about history, I'm going to be interested

Of course, if it is about history, I'm going to be interested in it and read it. This is a good article talking about the first map of America and how it has many mysteries still to be solved about it.

Skeptical Simon


Map that named America is a puzzle for researchers
Mon Dec 3, 2007 1:47pm EST

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The only surviving copy of the 500-year-old map that first used the name America goes on permanent display this month at the Library of Congress, but even as it prepares for its debut, the 1507 Waldseemuller map remains a puzzle for researchers.

Why did the mapmaker name the territory America and then change his mind later? How was he able to draw South America so accurately? Why did he put a huge ocean west of America years before European explorers discovered the Pacific?

"That's the kind of conundrum, the question, that is still out there," said John Hebert, chief of the geography and map division of the Library of Congress.

The 12 sheets that make up the map, purchased from German Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for $10 million in 2003, were mounted on Monday in a huge 6-foot by 9.5-foot (1.85 meter by 2.95 meter) display case machined from a single block of aluminum.

The case will be flooded with inert argon gas to prevent deterioration when it goes on public display December 13.

Researchers are hopeful that putting the rarely shown map on permanent display for the first time since it was discovered in the Waldburg-Wolfegg castle archives in 1901 may stimulate interest in finding out more about the documents used to produce it.

The map was created by the German monk Martin Waldseemuller. Thirteen years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the Western Hemisphere, the Duke of Lorraine brought Waldseemuller and a group of scholars together at a monastery in Saint-Die in France to create a new map of the world.

The result, published two years later, is stunningly accurate and surprisingly modern.

"The actual shape of South America is correct," said Hebert. "The width of South America at certain key points is correct within 70 miles of accuracy."

Given what Europeans are believed to have known about the world at the time, it should not have been possible for the mapmakers to produce it, he said.

The map gives a reasonably correct depiction of the west coast of South America. But according to history, Vasco Nunez de Balboa did not reach the Pacific by land until 1513, and Ferdinand Magellan did not round the southern tip of the continent until 1520.

"So this is a rather compelling map to say, 'How did they come to that conclusion,'" Hebert said.

The mapmakers say they based it on the 1,300-year-old works of the Egyptian geographer Ptolemy as well as letters Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci wrote describing his voyages to the new world. But Hebert said there must have been something more.

"From the writings of Vespucci you couldn't have prepared the map," Hebert said. "There had to be something cartographic with it."

MISGIVINGS ABOUT AMERICA

Waldseemuller made it clear he was naming the new land after Vespucci, describing how he came up with the name America based on the navigator's first name.

But he soon had misgivings about what he had done. An atlas Waldseemuller produced six years later shows only part of the east coast of the Americas, and refers to it as Terra Incognita -- unknown land.

"America has gone out of his lexicon," Hebert said. "(No) place in the atlas -- in the text or in the maps -- does the name America appear."

His 1516 mariner's map, on the same scale as the 1507 map, steps back even further, showing only parts of the new continents and reconnecting the north to Asia. South America is labeled Terra Nova -- New World -- and North America is labeled Terra de Cuba -- Land of Cuba.

"Essentially he's reconnecting North America to the Asian mainland, suggesting a continual world of land mass rather than separated by those bodies of water that separate us from Europe and Asia," Hebert said.

Why the rollback? No one knows.

In writings accompanying the 1516 map, Waldseemuller comes across as if he "has seen the better of his error and is now correcting it," Hebert said.

He speculated that power politics played a role. Spain and Portugal divided the globe between them in 1494, two years after Columbus, with territory to the east going to Portugal and land to the west to Spain.

That demarcation line is oddly absent from the 1507 Waldseemuller map, and flags marking territorial claims in South America suggest Portugal controls the region's southernmost land, even though it is in Spain's area of influence. On the later map, the southernmost flag is Spanish, Hebert said.

"It is possible one could say the 1507 map is influenced strongly by Portuguese sources and conceivably the 1516 map may be influenced more by Spanish sources," he said.

Although the map conceals many mysteries, one thing is clear: it represents a revolutionary shift in the way Europe viewed the world.

"This is ... essentially the beginning or first map of the modern age, and it's one that everything builds on from that point forward," Hebert said. "It becomes a keystone map."

(Editing by Eddie Evans)