Google’s use of a comic strip to explain the thinking behind the Chrome browser architecture has attracted lots of derision. The Register has been assembling a compendium.
Thanks to James Miller for spotting a dud link.
The Palin Effect
Welcome detachment in The Atlantic.
In the last 18 hours, I’ve seen the Palin Effect on two very different groups of Republicans: grassroots delegates and professional operatives. Last night, I wormed right up front to the edge of the stage, where I figured the hardest-core activists would cram in to watch Palin, allowing for easy anthropological observation. They raved and seemed convinced she would put the ticket over the top. (The best line, whooped in my ear by a Kentucky delegate responding to Linda Lingle’s quip about how 250 Delawares could fit inside Alaska: “That’s right, baby, size matters!”)
Everybody at this morning’s panel discussion, on the other hand, thought Palin was great, but not the decisive factor that the activist crowd did. The clear consensus was that McCain needs to focus on independents. “He’s got to message himself to independents tonight,” said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. “He has to win independents, period,” said Sara Taylor, former White House political director. “He must be more focused on the center of the electorate than Bush was in ’04, and pull independents and conservative Democrats,” said Terry Nelson, McCain’s former campaign manager. In his own inimitable fashion, Chris Matthews seemed to concur: “If you guys want to be the war party, kiss it!”
Er, I’m not sure I understand that last comment, but I sure hope the Republicans continue to make the same mistake as they made at the convention. Keep preaching to the converted and leave the country to make up its own mind.
And there’s always the ‘Eagleton Scenario’.
Nice column by Gail Collins in which she points out that McCain is actually running for Leader of the Senate:
A visitor from another planet who dropped in on the Republican campaign at this point would very likely assume that the presidential nominee was a guy who had spent his life as a prisoner of war until he was released just in time to pick Sarah Palin for vice president.
“I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington, D.C., and the pork barrelers and the lobbyists,” he said.
Ah, the dreaded pork barrelers.
John McCain is not actually running for president. He’s running for Senate majority leader. All his passion is directed at defects in the legislative process. He’s been a military man or a senator for virtually all of his adult life, and listening to him talk, you get the definite impression that the two great threats of the 21st century are Islamic extremism and the appropriations committee.
How the patent system corrupts academic inquiry
Thoughtful piece in the NYT about the long-term impact of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 which aimed to use the patent system to promote “the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development” and “to promote collaboration between commercial concerns and nonprofit organizations, including universities.”
In the past, discovery for its own sake provided academic motivation, but today’s universities function more like corporate research laboratories. Rather than freely sharing techniques and results, researchers increasingly keep new findings under wraps to maintain a competitive edge. What used to be peer-reviewed is now proprietary. “Share and share alike” has devolved into “every laboratory for itself.”
In trying to power the innovation economy, we have turned America’s universities into cutthroat business competitors, zealously guarding the very innovations we so desperately want behind a hopelessly tangled web of patents and royalty licenses.
Of course, there is precedent for scientific secrecy, notes Daniel S. Greenberg , author of “Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards and Delusions of Campus Capitalism” (University of Chicago Press, 2007). When James Watson and Francis Crick were homing in on DNA’s double-helix structure in the 1950s, they zealously guarded their work from prying eyes until they could publish their findings, to be certain that they would get the credit for making the discovery.
“They didn’t try to patent it,” Mr. Greenberg notes, “but somebody doing the same work today would certainly take a crack at patenting the double helix.”
On this day…
… in 1940, the Blitz began as the Luftwaffe began its nightly assaults on London. September 7 was a Sunday that year too. Er, no it wasn’t; it was a Saturday. Thanks to Harry Metcalfe for putting me right.
Ten years on
This morning’s Observer column…
In the old days, dates fell into one of two categories: BC and AD. Now the relevant categories are BG. and AG: Before and After Google. The critical date was 1998, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their PageRank system for rating web pages. It was an epochal moment. No British child knows there was once a world without Google. In fact most would be astonished that people were able to get along without it.
Google is 10 years old today and it has celebrated by upsetting the world’s applecart – again…
Photographing the conventions
Nice photo essay by New York Times photographers.
Vital Statistics
From the NYT’s Bits Blog celebration of Google’s 10th birthday.
Google’s age: 10
Microsoft’s age: 33
Google’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion
Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today’s dollars)
Google’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million
Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft’s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion
Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st: 89,809
Google’s revenue per employee: $1 million
Microsoft revenue per employee: $672,000
Market value of Google: $142 billion
Market value of Microsoft: $241 billion
Number of tech companies with a market value larger than Google’s: 3 (Microsoft, IBM and Apple, in that order)
Worldwide searches on Google in July: 48.7 billion
Worldwide searches on Microsoft in July: 2.3 billion
Worldwide searches per hour on Google in July: 65 million
Worldwide searches per hour on Microsoft in July: 3.1 million
Palin: those names
The Republicans’ ecstasy at the adoption of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate makes one wonder if they’re sane. But what’s even more weird is her taste in family names: the picture on the front of the IHT lists ‘Track’, ‘Willow’, ‘Trig’, ‘Levi’ and ‘Bristol’. And of course there’s husband Todd, the self-styled “First Dude”, BP employee and champion snowmobiler.
Wonder if she’s related to our own Michael Palin?
Useless information item #245
If you want to fill a Word document with random boilerplate text to serve as a placeholder for text that hasn’t arrived yet, just type
=rand(a,b)
on a separate line, where a=number of paragraphs you want and b=number of sentences in each para.
Just thought you’d like to know. I saw it in today’s Herald Tribune.
Republicans have radical new idea
From Martin Kettle…
Theme No 1 was embodied in the overarching slogan of the evening – Country First. It is a slogan with which all Republicans are deeply comfortable…
Well, it makes a change from Halliburton and Exxon first, which was the motto of the Bush regime.