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October 22, 2003

How things work
Posted by Teresa at 08:55 PM * 11 comments

A lucid explanation of Google’s PigeonRank99 system.

Welcome to Making Light's comments section. Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Comments on How things work:

#1 ::: Scott Lynch ::: (view all by) ::: October 22, 2003, 08:34 PM:

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).

#2 ::: Laurie Mann ::: (view all by) ::: October 22, 2003, 08:59 PM:

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.

#3 ::: Scott Lynch ::: (view all by) ::: October 22, 2003, 09:05 PM:

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!

#4 ::: adamsj ::: (view all by) ::: October 22, 2003, 11:14 PM:

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.

#5 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: October 22, 2003, 11:18 PM:

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

#6 ::: Elayne Riggs ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2003, 10:30 AM:

Thanks for this, Teresa, it's adorable!

#7 ::: julia ::: (view all by) ::: October 23, 2003, 04:18 PM:

the one for Escher's birthday is way cool.

#8 ::: Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: October 25, 2003, 04:00 PM:

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

#9 ::: pxl ::: (view all by) ::: November 21, 2003, 06:37 AM:

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d nt hv th sm nfrmtn n sft

#10 ::: Kris H-J: Comment Spam! ::: (view all by) ::: November 21, 2003, 10:28 AM:

Now *this* is definitely comment spam.

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