One "Trick," One Quirk in Microsoft's Bing

1. The bing equivalent of "googled," past tense, would probably have to be "banged," which may _finally_ help wintel make some inroads into Apple's more fecund by reputation demographics.

For the sort of searches I do, I have not yet seen an advantage in using bing.

2. Regarding the topic under discussion of ip number locations (and identification,) google has put a helpful video by Maile Ohye up at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgJYBRzUXY>

Someone has kindly noted in the comments area that her purported name is an anagram of, "Ahoy, me lie".

3. Finally, on the theory that Microsoft should be as annoyed as google by end users whenever possible, it is only fitting to note that the chief anagram of "Steve Ballmer" is, "slave tremble".

4. Incredibly, the anagram generator at wordsmith.org returns none for "Steve Jobs".... (At least one does exist, however, for the interested.)

On Jun 16, 2009, at 6:21 PM, David Weintraub wrote:

>
> Then, one day, Yahoo decided that being a mere search engine wasn't
> good enough. It had to be a Web Portal.

Yahoo started out as a directory - a collection of the favorite sites
of the founders, it then evolved into a mega-directory by merging
with the DMOZ, featuring peer review by volunteers of sites. Yahoo
was developed into a portal.

Yahoo later bought Overture, a paid ad serving firm that had just
bought Alta Vista to add search marketing to its repertoire; it also
bought Inktomi, which had the HotBot engine. Overture/Alta Vista/
Hotbot became the backbone of Yahoo's portal and search services.
Yahoo also bought some other early entry search engines, I can't
remember which.

> Suddenly the fairly simple layout of Yahoo started buzzing with
> ads, celebrity gossip, ball scores, and clutter. Finding the Yahoo
> directory of links became more difficult. The search results were a
> mess and interlaced with ads.

Yahoo originally outsourced its search and search ad sales services
from Google - they were shelling out mega-bucks to Google that they
would rather have kept for themselves. Around 2001-2, they dropped
Google and launched their own search engine developed from technology
from Alta Vista, Hotbot and whatever else - rather like MS basing IE
on Mozilla, which it bought from Spry. At the time, the odds were
predicted as even as to whether Yahoo would beat Google to the finish
line. Google had taken a mega-hit loosing all those Yahoo revenues.

Yahoo had been making money selling banners on the portal, so they
figured givinging priority to paid inclusions, in the directory as
well as in search. Alta Vista and Hotbot, which they bought, had both
already begun to do this. Neither started out this way; they had to
monitize their search operations. Alta Vista had been totally free,
and its owners, the now defunct Digital Equipment, needed to make
money - they were the biggest engine on the block, and they begin to
give priority to paid results. The services Yahoo bought were
attractive to them because they needed to increase revenue.

I agree that one of the reasons for Google's success and the big
reason why it so easily eclipsed Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc., is that it
did, and still does, not include paid searches in its natural search
results. But this is only part of the equation - Google started
making even more money by offering advertising services (TV and radio
time - the remnant magazine space sales was dropped this year), along
with other services, to other companies.

>
> Many people switched to Google because they didn't want a Web Portal.

That's why I don't think the premise behind Bing is so shakey - it's
organizing its results like a portal.

> Google provided a clean interface and its search results weren't
> intermingled with ads. (Later, Google did take in ads, but they
> aren't mingled with the search results). It took more than better
> search results to get people to switch from Yahoo to Google. It
> took Google making a product that Yahoo and other major Internet
> Search engines couldn't provide: Clean interface with easy to use
> search results.

This is very true, and they also quickly took the lead by constantly
refining their algorithms, as well as by indexing PDFs, and recently
Flash, as well as instituting image, video and book search, etc. They
not only keep improving their stuff, they keep searching new stuff,
and adding back records from news services, libraries, and more.

>
> If Bing is to make it, it has to be something besides a better
> Google than Google. This isn't the first time Microsoft has simply
> copied an idea rather than innovate on it. For example, IE came
> about to beat Netscape. Once Netscape was down for the count, IE
> stagnated. Windows Mobile became a product aimed squarely at Palm's
> PDA. It was so aimed at Palm that Microsoft didn't even notice that
> Palm itself was becoming irrelevant.

And neither of them expected iPhone - the ultimate mobile game changer.

>
> What Microsoft has to do is give me a reason to switch, and right
> now, all Bing can do is give me search results almost as good as
> Google's.

I don't see this either; it could be the next Zune.

Marilyn

Well, I tossed the Bing name discussion fully off the track. Sorry.

For what seems to lie in store for the Universe, see for example the
last chapter of Dr. Phil Plait's "Death from the Skies". (Available on
Kindle and in dead tree form and I don't know what else.

  --John

>> She takes a web address such as www.tidbits.com, types it into
>> Google, then clicks on the first link. :(
>
> I would argue that instead of frowning, we should recognize that
> most people not yet on the Internet need an interface simplified to
> this level, and start figuring out how to provide it.

I don't think that an "Internet UI" can get much simpler than
providing a text entry field for URLs:

"If you have an address like www.somewhereoutthere.com or
www.gohere.net, use _this_ field. If you do _not_ have an address like
that, and you want to find a website that covers a certain topic, use
_that_ field. Type a few words that relate to the topic, hit RETURN,
and you will see a list of websites that likely cover that topic.

"See? They're right next to each other in this application, Mom. Just
remember: address field, and search field. Simple as that!" ;)


Regards,

Jochen.

On Jun 16, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Nigel Stanger wrote:

> :( --- "bung.com" is parked and "bong.com" is, of all things, a
> European envelope manufacturer. My overactive imagination had
> visions of sex
> and drugs :)

Don't forget Rock n' Roll!!

Dave

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Jochen Wolters<jochenpolytropia.com> wrote:
> I don't think that an "Internet UI" can get much simpler than
> providing a text entry field for URLs:

No, but after using Firefox, where you can type anything you want into
the address bar and it will usually do the right thing about taking
you to the correct page or doing a search, if it's not a URL, I think
the Chrome innovation of doing away with the search field is probably
fine. I find Safari irritating to use since becoming accustomed to
Firefox's much better text parsing.

cheers... -Adam

On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:03, Adam Engst <acetidbits.com> wrote:
> I find Safari irritating to use since becoming accustomed to
> Firefox's much better text parsing.

Yes, but if you have LaunchBar installed you can use it to very
quickly launch URLs. If you don't, you can use Spotlight.

I hope this is fixed/improved In the next update (4.01 or so).

At 6/17/2009 12:27 AM -0700, Jochen Wolters wrote:
>I don't think that an "Internet UI" can get much simpler than
>providing a text entry field for URLs:
>
>"If you have an address like www.somewhereoutthere.com or

No, you've already lost many non-technical users, and you're only 1/6
of the way into your explanation. The "Internet UI" needs to be something like

"type something and hit Enter"

Of course, this summarization of a proposed UI begs the question of
how to implement it. But that's the level of complexity we have to
aim at for universal inclusiveness.

Another way to look at it is to compare it with telephone interfaces.
The basic interface is "lift handset, punch number". (Used to be
"dial number".) Phones can offer more complex interfaces, and many
people will use them, but the basic interface has to remain
available. Same for the "Internet UI" -- most people here, including
most certainly me, would be very unhappy being restricted to the
basic UI, but it needs to be available.

Edward
--
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

> While in general we frown upon monopolies, in some cases it can be
> so expensive to build the infrastructure to support a necessary
> activity that we agree to allow natural monopolies: water & electric
> utilities being obvious examples.

I wouldn't call those monopolies "natural"; maybe "incumbent" is a
better fit. And while it makes sense to not build duplicate utility
networks to distribute water, electricity, gas, etc., because any
household (usually) only needs one "connector" for each, that does not
mean that the provider of those goods can uphold a monopoly.



E.g., in Germany, the owners of electrical and gas networks are
required by law to allow other companies access to those networks, and
the result is a (more or less) open market, in which the consumer can
choose their power or natural gas suppliers.



Unlike utilities, however, Google's serverfarm is a purely private
investment. Why should a competitor _not_ build a competing product,
as long as _they_ consider that a worthwhile investment?



If you apply your statement to heavy industries, there might as a well
be a single car manufacturer, a single plane manufacturer, etc.,
because the costs of constructing, building and maintaining a
production line for such products are enormous. And if you look at,
say, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes Benz, you'll notice, that there is no
significant difference in product quality that would warrant its own
factory (as you suggest by requiring that Bing be considerably better
than Google for users to choose it over the latter). And yet, I'm glad
I can choose from several car brands, etc.



Another example that is "closer to our hearts": Microsoft. Considering
how many people work for Microsoft, they must have a huge
infrastructure in place for all those offices, as well as for all the
computers that are networked within the company. Productwise, they
have massive monopolies with Windows and Office. And still, we're glad
that Apple invests in their own infrastructure in Cupertino to build
competing products, even though it must cost them tons of money, too.
Heck they're said to be investing 1 billion Dollars in a server farm.
Even though "we all" could just say: "Nah, ain't worth it. Let's just
go Microsoft! They're good enough. (Which, of course, isn't true. ;) )"



<http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/05/23/apple_said_building_1_billion_server_farm.html
 >





> And yet, we get to use it for free, and it works extremely well, and
> they even make a profit in the process. Sounds fair to me.

Yes, Google's services are free. Unless you count seeing ads wherever
you go and whatever you do, and if you don't mind entrusting a huge,
faceless corporation with all of your (potentially sensitive) data
without having any idea who gets access to that data, how it may be
processed, and where it is stored.

Admittedly, that's a general problem with "the cloud", though.


> Replacing Google just for the sake of replacing Google isn't good
> enough.

It's not about replacing Google; it's about providing/supporting
alternatives to their services so that consumers have a choice.



Regards,

Jochen.


--
Jochen Wolters | jochenpolytropia.com | http://polytropia.com

On 6/19/09 at 5:45 AM, edwardpaleo.org (Edward Reid) wrote:

>At 6/17/2009 12:27 AM -0700, Jochen Wolters wrote:
>>I don't think that an "Internet UI" can get much simpler than
>>providing a text entry field for URLs:

>Another way to look at it is to compare it with telephone interfaces.
>The basic interface is "lift handset, punch number". (Used to be
>"dial number".)

Er... I think that was his point. The URL is the phone number,
and frankly it's on average more meaningful than a phone number
- which usually doesn't bear any relationship to who you're
calling once you get past the area code. And just like a URL,
you have to either memorize the number, or look it up somewhere.
Which is where the search field comes in.




Travis Butler

Edward Reid wrote:
>
> Another way to look at it is to compare it with telephone interfaces.
> The basic interface is "lift handset, punch number". (Used to be
> "dial number".)

Still is dial. I ask kids every now and then if they have noticed that it isn't a dial. Usually they give me a blank stare. I guess "dialing a phone" is so ingrained in the culture of at least the US that the phrase will be around for a long time.

David

On 19-Jun-09, at 6:47 AM, Jochen Wolters wrote, in part:

>> While in general we frown upon monopolies, in some cases it can be
>> so expensive to build the infrastructure to support a necessary
>> activity that we agree to allow natural monopolies: water & electric
>> utilities being obvious examples.
>
> I wouldn't call those monopolies "natural"; maybe "incumbent" is a
> better fit. [...]


I doubt it would fly, since almost no one would be able to figure out
what it meant. Water and electric utilities are classic examples of
"natural monopoly" as that term is defined in economics--and it is an
economic term, after all.

> E.g., in Germany, the owners of electrical and gas networks are
> required by law to allow other companies access to those networks, and
> the result is a (more or less) open market, in which the consumer can
> choose their power or natural gas suppliers.


Without that legal requirement, those other companies wouldn't exist
because economies of scale would preclude their existing; that's
what's "natural" about a "natural monopoly". Germany has chosen
"artificial" competition; other countries choose to regulate prices
charged by the monopolist.

--
David McMurray

On 17/06/2009, at 8:52 AM, Paul Schinder wrote:

>> After all, the estimated number of atoms in the universe is a mere
>> 10^79 to 10^82, so 10^100 is a number so large as to be, essentially,
>> meaningless.
>>
>
> Just to be horribly pedantic, this is only true if the universe is
> closed. I don't follow cosmology at all closely these days, but I
> believe that current thinking is that it's open (infinite) with a non-
> zero cosmological constant (the Hubble expansion is accelerating). If
> it's infinite, it's always been infinite, even at the moment of the
> big bang (infinite is *really* big). The simplistic picture of the
> big bang as a "cosmic egg" exploding into space was never correct.

Actually, I'm not pedantic — I simply split hairs; there's a
difference — but one of the most fundamental laws of physics, one I
gather it's *really* difficult to get an exemption or waiver from, is
the law of conservation of mass and energy. There are 10^82 atoms in
the universe; according to said law, there always will be. Assuming
expansion of the universe, there'll always be that many, but they'll
simply be farther apart.

Paul did, to be fair, say that he doesn't follow cosmology. Equally
clearly, cosmology doesn't follow Paul; if it did, we would see atoms
so new they'd still have the wrapping on them appearing from the
cosmic void to fill the Hubbularly-driven empty space that's
constantly appearing. But since the universe isn't full of the bubble
wrap and annoying polystyrene peanuts that those shiny new atoms would
come in, it's a pretty comfortable bet that that particular
fundamental law can breathe a deep, intergalactic sigh of cosmic
relief, safe in the knowledge that we have quite enough atoms already,
thank you very much, and we'll let you know if we need any more.

Yours meticulously
Big Steve

On Jun 20, 2009, at 5:12 AM, Steve McCabe wrote:

>
> On 17/06/2009, at 8:52 AM, Paul Schinder wrote:
>
>>> After all, the estimated number of atoms in the universe is a mere
>>> 10^79 to 10^82, so 10^100 is a number so large as to be,
>>> essentially,
>>> meaningless.
>>>
>>
>> Just to be horribly pedantic, this is only true if the universe is
>> closed. I don't follow cosmology at all closely these days, but I
>> believe that current thinking is that it's open (infinite) with a
>> non-
>> zero cosmological constant (the Hubble expansion is accelerating).
>> If
>> it's infinite, it's always been infinite, even at the moment of the
>> big bang (infinite is *really* big). The simplistic picture of the
>> big bang as a "cosmic egg" exploding into space was never correct.

>
> Actually, I'm not pedantic — I simply split hairs; there's a
> difference — but one of the most fundamental laws of physics, one I
> gather it's *really* difficult to get an exemption or waiver from, is
> the law of conservation of mass and energy. There are 10^82 atoms in
> the universe; according to said law, there always will be. Assuming
> expansion of the universe, there'll always be that many, but they'll
> simply be farther apart.

Hi, I'm Paul Schinder, Ph. D., Physics, Cornell 1982. My thesis was
on a topic related to Type II supernova, but I took the graduate
General Relativity course and learned something about cosmology as
then understood. Since then I haven't kept up that much, but
cosmology has been advancing and I do read Scientific American and
Science News and subscribe to some arxiv.org preprint lists where some
cosmology papers appear, so at least I see abstracts and titles.
These days I'm a planetary scientist, a member of two Cassini science
teams (Cassini is currently in orbit around Saturn).

Mass and energy have never been separately conserved, as became clear
when Einstein's paper on special relativity appeared in 1905. There's
a law of conservation of energy, directly related to the time
translational invariance of the laws of physics (Noether's theorem).
There are also laws of conservation of lepton and baryon number,
related to other symmetries. There's nothing that says that the
amount of energy or number of leptons and baryons in the universe
isn't infinite. If the volume of the universe is infinite, the amount
of energy better be as well.

The WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which mapped the
background radiation left over from the Big Bang) people have put up a
nice web site, http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/, where you can start
learning. In particular, see http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html

The old books on my shelf downstairs are still pretty good,
Weinberg's "Gravitation and Cosmology"
<http://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Cosmology-Principles-Applications-Relativity/dp/0471925675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245499006&sr=8-1
 >
and Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler's classic "Gravitation"
<http://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Physics-Charles-W-Misner/dp/0716703440/ref=pd_sim_b_1
 >. The basic theory was well understood back then. The need for
dark matter was apparent. Since then, Guth discovered inflation,
which answers many questions, and the cosmologists these days sling
around "dark energy" and "quintessence", which I don't really
understand yet. Weinberg has put out over the years some
popularizations ("The First Three Minutes"), and I see he's recently
put out "Cosmology", a graduate level book that I should probably get
sometime.

Now, of course, these are scientific theories. As usual, they're
provisional. It may be that we find out that general relativity isn't
the correct theory of gravity, or that our assumption that the laws of
physics are the same everywhere and everywhen is wrong (goodbye
conservation laws). Or maybe we'll discover that the supernova
observations that required the Hubble expansion to be accelerating are
flawed. But for now, the theory explains the evidence we have (which
is why it's still around), and cosmologists continue to make more and
more accurate and detailed observations.

Paul Schinder

At 2:12 AM -0700 6/20/09, Steve McCabe wrote:
>On 17/06/2009, at 8:52 AM, Paul Schinder wrote:
>
>>>After all, the estimated number of atoms in the universe is a mere
>>>10^79 to 10^82, so 10^100 is a number so large as to be, essentially,
>>>meaningless.
>>>
>>
>>Just to be horribly pedantic, this is only true if the universe is
>>closed. I don't follow cosmology at all closely these days, but I
>>believe that current thinking is that it's open (infinite) with a non-
>>zero cosmological constant (the Hubble expansion is accelerating). If
>>it's infinite, it's always been infinite, even at the moment of the
>>big bang (infinite is *really* big). The simplistic picture of the
>>big bang as a "cosmic egg" exploding into space was never correct.
>
>Actually, I'm not pedantic - I simply split hairs; there's a
>difference - but one of the most fundamental laws of physics, one I
>gather it's *really* difficult to get an exemption or waiver from, is
>the law of conservation of mass and energy. There are 10^82 atoms in
>the universe; according to said law, there always will be. Assuming
>expansion of the universe, there'll always be that many, but they'll
>simply be farther apart.

Sorry, but I believe that the second part of this is just wrong.
Inside the sun, for example, two hydrogen atoms are fused together to
form a helium atom.
The number of atoms in the universe has decreased by one, but the
mass-energy of the universe has not.
mass = energy, said Einstein. (On the flip side, you can split one
atom into several, as in a fission reactor)
--
-- Marshall

--On June 20, 2009 2:12:08 AM -0700 Steve McCabe <bigstevestevemccabe.net>
wrote:

> the law of conservation of mass and energy. There are 10^82 atoms in
> the universe; according to said law, there always will be. Assuming
> expansion of the universe, there'll always be that many, but they'll
> simply be farther apart.

I'm not a physicist of any sort but I think this is pretty easy to
demonstrate as false. If you look up, unless cloudy, or inside, you'll see
something busily turning hydrogen atoms into helium atoms at a rate of
approximately using up 2 hydrogen atoms for every 1 helium atom produced,
plus a whole bunch of energy.

Of course you can also make more atoms by waiting around for some Uranium
235 to suck in a neutron, and then breaking up into an atom of Barium and
Krypton, plus a bunch of energy.

There may be some sort of conservation of smaller particles, but not of
atoms.

> >"If you have an address like www.somewhereoutthere.com or
>
> No, you've already lost many non-technical users, and you're only
> 1/6 of the way into your explanation.
>

With web links showing up just about everywhere, I cannot quite
imagine that asking someone to type a URL into the browser would be
too demanding already.

Also note that, unlike the results of a web search, a URL non-
ambiguously refers to exactly one specific website, so if that website
has the information you need (e.g., when you see a URL in an ad for a
product you're interested in), entering the URL is much more efficient
than trusting a web search to list that relevant site in its results.


> Same for the "Internet UI" -- most people here, including most
> certainly me, would be very unhappy being restricted to the basic
> UI, but it needs to be available.
>

What is the "basic Internet UI", if not the URL text field in a web
browser? And how does the combination of the URL field and a search
field (possibly combined into one, as Adam outlined for Firefox)
restrict you? What other options would you like to see in a web
browser beyond those two fields?


Regards,

Jochen.

> "natural monopoly" [...] is an economic term
>

Sorry, I wasn't aware of that.


> Without that legal requirement, those other companies wouldn't exist
> because economies of scale would preclude their existing;
>

Unless they were backed by an investor with a) an interest in entering
that market and b) sufficient funds to finance this endeavor. Which
brings us right back to the topic of Bing, I guess. ;)


> Germany has chosen "artificial" competition; other countries choose
> to regulate prices charged by the monopolist.
>

In fact, Germany regulates the prices as well.


Regards,

Jochen.

On 6/21/09 at 1:08 AM, kevinvanhaaren.net (Kevin van Haaren) wrote:

>--On June 20, 2009 2:12:08 AM -0700 Steve McCabe
><bigstevestevemccabe.net> wrote:

>>the law of conservation of mass and energy. There are 10^82 atoms
>>in the universe; according to said law, there always will be.
>>Assuming expansion of the universe, there'll always be that many,
>>but they'll simply be farther apart.

<fusion, fission examples snipped>

>There may be some sort of conservation of smaller particles, but not
>of atoms.

No, there is no conservation of smaller particles either.
Collide a positron and electron or any particle/anti-particle
pair and you get total conversion of mass to energy. And there
is a process to go the other direction, pair production which is
the creation of a particle/anti-particle pair from photons.

At 6/20/2009 02:12 AM -0700, Travis Butler wrote:
>Er... I think that was his point. The URL is the phone number,
>and frankly it's on average more meaningful than a phone number

More meaningful perhaps, but definitely more complex. And that's the problem.

At 6/21/2009 06:08 PM -0700, Jochen Wolters wrote:
>With web links showing up just about everywhere, I cannot quite
>imagine that asking someone to type a URL into the browser would be
>too demanding already.

The imagination of technical people like us has been shown to be an
extraordinary poor tool for predicting how non-technical people will
react in technical situations. See Nielsen.

Edward
--
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org