Making Light :: How things work :: comments

How things work

A lucid explanation of Google's PigeonRank99 system....

How things work -- comment #1 from Scott Lynch

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:34:24 -0500

Hey! I had no idea that thing was still up and available. Probably the best online April Fool's gag I've ever seen, though several roleplaying game companies and freelancers come close ( and keep doing themselves proud each year).

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Posted October 22, 2003 8:34 PM by Scott Lynch

How things work -- comment #2 from Laurie Mann

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:59:41 -0500

Oh, that's GREAT!

One of the things I love about Google is the
sense of humor its employees are allowed to have
about their company.

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Posted October 22, 2003 8:59 PM by Laurie Mann

How things work -- comment #3 from Scott Lynch

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:05:11 -0500

And the little holiday decorations they add to the Google logo are just *adorable.*

Sigh. There goes my macho credibility.

But... little bears! Giving each other presents!

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Posted October 22, 2003 9:05 PM by Scott Lynch

How things work -- comment #4 from adamsj

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:14:32 -0500

Used to be when Topica was down, they put up a notice explaining they were feeding and resting the hamsters, along with a funny little graphic of a hamster wheel.

Now that their outages are longer and (harder work for everyone--and more of it, too!) more frequent?

It's gone.

There's a lesson in that, somewhere.

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Posted October 22, 2003 11:14 PM by adamsj

How things work -- comment #5 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:18:04 -0500

The little bears are wonderful. The other holiday versions of the logo are great too, but I like the bears best.

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Posted October 22, 2003 11:18 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

How things work -- comment #6 from Elayne Riggs

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:30:54 -0500

Thanks for this, Teresa, it's adorable!

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Posted October 23, 2003 10:30 AM by Elayne Riggs

How things work -- comment #7 from julia

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:18:16 -0500

the one for Escher's birthday is way cool.

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Posted October 23, 2003 4:18 PM by julia

How things work -- comment #8 from Jonathan Vos Post

Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:00:38 -0500

I seem to recall that after B. F. Skinner proved his pigeon-guided missile technology to the Pentagon, one of the big casinos in Las vegas contacted him. He'd made a comment that an utterly addictive gambling machine was possible. He declined their offer.

BTW, I adore the new Amazon.com ability to search for phrases in the text of the first 100,000 or so books they scanned. Of course, egotist that I am, I ego-googled, and discovered not only some of the ones I know about (i.e. acknowledgments from David Brin, who widely circulates 1st draft novels), but some that were news to me.

For example, I was nicely cited in "Beyond the Trauma Vortex: The Media's Role in Healing Fear, Terror, and Violence", by Gina Ross [Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, distributed by Publishers Group West, 2003] for my web page on Correlations of television Violence with Actual Aggression; and was quoted in Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" paperback, from his Scientific American column.

Amazon, family bookstore killer though they may be, has moved us a step towards all knowledge of all human civilizations being available in fanzines, whoops, I mean web pages.

Best,

Jonathan Vos Post

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Posted October 25, 2003 4:00 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

How things work -- comment #9 from pxl

Fri, 21 Nov 2003 06:37:52 -0500

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