links for 2009-06-29

"It appears that the doubt surrounding Google’s new guide is not unfounded. Several errors and half-truths were found. Google’s use of optional HTML tags could save some bandwidth, but for pages like google.com it doesn’t save that much compared to what could have been saved with the headers." Google wrong, what??

"Sounds to me like I got duped, and I apologize to everyone for forwarding this story. Hopefully more info will come out soon, and I’ll update as I hear it." Man so close.

"While Microsoft is struggling to separately hone performance for each and every application, Google can uniformly juice speed across its entire portfolio. The secret to Google's success, Gill said, is not in the company's mystery data centers, but in its software infrastructure, including GFS, its distributed file system; BigTable, its distributed database; and MapReduce, its distributed number-crunching platform." Google can always one up Microsoft and I agree.

"Many mainstream media sources, which have in the past been critical of the undifferentiated sources of information on the Web, had little choice but to throw open their doors in this case. As the protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad grew, the government sharply curtailed the foreign press. As visas expired, many journalists packed up, and the ones who stayed were barred from reporting on the streets." Every rule has an exception.

"The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times. In an interview, Mr. Wales said that Wikipedia’s cooperation was not a given." I'm of the opinion that the information should have been allowed to be publicized.

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"But many violence and public-health experts agree that at least one major issue was, and has for too long remained, missing from that conversation. For girls like Janey, as you can see, partner violence doesn't show up in police photos as swollen bruises. Instead, the evidence might be their swollen, pregnant bellies." Another reason to provide cheap controncitive and safe and legal abortion, and to push for more resources eliminitating domestic violence.

"The Internet has proven to be a frighteningly efficient tool to create virtual mobs. But we note two trends that suggest a bleak future: the increase in non-anonymous mob participation and the evolution of online services towards ever more efficient and real time communication platforms that facilitate mob creation and growth like never before. Things are changing online way too fast for society and culture to adapt. Something will eventually break." Are we having problems online?

"As these apps grow in sophistication and sync with the web they better tell us just what they are collecting and how. Now I imagine all three of these apps mean well. But the lack of a privacy policy on their web sites seems like a mistake – one they can easily correct."

"A practical hydrogen car has been elusive for decades. Before the announcement this week by University of Delaware engineers, a nonstop trip from Portland to Eugene in a hydrogen car would need a tank bigger than 100 gallons to store liquid or gaseous fuel, even under high pressure. Treated chicken feathers work like a sponge. They soak up large amounts of hydrogen and hold it in a small space so the tank can be a conventional size and the fuel won't need to held under dangerously high pressures." Science works.

"The first scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul, the Roman Catholic saint, “seem to conclude” that they belong to him, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday. Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century." So is carbon dating valid today and not valid when seeing how old the earth is?

Tons of really good wallpapers.

"DARPA has hired a company to develop a reading machine to reduce the gap between the ever increasing mountain of digitized text and the intelligence community's insatiable appetite for data input. However, BBN also expects the program to enable a plethora of new civilian applications, everything from intelligent bots to personal tutors. The system could provide unprecedented access and automated analysis of the world's libraries, allowing for vastly expanded cultural awareness and historical research, according to the Cambridge, Mass.-based company." Interesting.

"A new method of attacking cancer cells, developed by researchers in Australia, has proved surprisingly effective in animal tests. The method is intended to sidestep two major drawbacks of standard chemotherapy: the treatment’s lack of specificity and the fact that cancer cells often develop resistance. In one striking use of the method, reported online Sunday in Nature Biotechnology, mice were implanted with a human uterine tumor that was highly aggressive and resistant to many drugs. All of the treated animals were free of tumor cells after 70 days of treatment; the untreated mice were dead after a month." Wow that's some amazing research.

"The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor across the land, under an antivice plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin that as recently as a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched. But the result will be hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work.

And in a move that at times seems to have taken on almost farcical overtones, the Kremlin has offered the gambling industry only one option for survival: relocate to four regions in remote areas of Russia, as many as 4,000 miles from the capital. All the same, none of the four regions are prepared for the transfer, and no casino is expected to reopen for several years. As of July 1, not even two decades after casinos began proliferating here in the free-for-all post-Soviet era, the industry’s workers will be out on the street." Wow that seems like a very unintelligent and non-politically smart move.

"None of the investigations take aim at Google’s core advertising business. And unlike other technology giants in years past, Google has not been accused of anticompetitive tactics. But the investigations and carping from competitors and critics have Google fighting to dispel the notion that it has a lock on its market, even as it increases its share of search and online advertising."

"Britain's energy systems are no longer fit for purpose, according to leading members of the UK's best-known scientific academy, the Royal Society. A meeting of experts at the society said the government must invest hugely to create a new low-carbon economy. And it must take on the big generating companies who dominate energy policy, participants said." The UK scientific community on energy.

"The Washington State Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday over whether an Internet filter at the North Central Regional Library System violates freedom of speech rights. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the regional library system in 2006 on behalf of three North Central Washington residents and a pro-gun organization who say the library’s Internet filter policy violated their state and federal freedom of speech rights." I'm with the ACLU, legal adults should be able to request the filter to be removed, though personally I would like there to not be any filtering in place.

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