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laodan

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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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  • Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results

    Rated Apr 15 2008 • 1 review • internet, search, freetools, web • searchengineland.com

    Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results
    via info aesthetics,in Search Engine Land by Greg Sterling

    there are a range of interesting and relatively new general purpose "visual search engines" that are seeking to offer something different than text-based results. There have always been "visual" presentations of search results (and preview features such as Ask's binoculars or more recently Snap's plug-in), as an alternative to "10 blue links." However these newer sites are on to something that may eventually take hold.

    Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results
    SearchMe
    RedZee


    SearchMe


    RedZee

    Search presented as images of each website.
    Not only does this do away with text it also abolishes the ranking of the sites it selects through a circular presentation of resizing thumbnails.

    Great potential.




    26 views
    Speculating About The Visual Future Of Search Results

  • Pioneering research shows Google Generation is a myth

    Rated Jan 18 2008 • 4 reviews • culture, internet, visualization • bl.uk

    "Google Generation" is a myth
    via KurzweilAI.net, in The British Library Online

    A new study overturns the common assumption that the "oogle Generation' " youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age is the most web-literate. The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.

    The report Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future (PDF format; 1.67MB) also shows that research-behaviour traits that are commonly associated with younger users' impatience in search and navigation, and zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs are now becoming the norm for all age-groups, from younger pupils and undergraduates through to professors.

    "Google Generation" is a myth
    Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future FREE 35 pages study report

    - Sheer size of the mountain of information available.
    - We all zap and surf wildly losing track, it seems, of "the prize".
    - And from an incredibly rich tool at distributing information the web transforms into something more akin to a spider-web that immobilizes our capacity to understand and unleashes our frantically looking always further as if further contained the finality of our clicking.

    SU is highly symptomatic of such an attitude. But where does this "always further" bring us? Impressionism?




    2,734 views
    Pioneering research shows Google Generation is a myth

  • Intro to the Semantic Web

    Rated Jan 15 2008 • 8 reviews • internet, computer • youtube.com

    The Semantic Web for Non-Geeks
    via Minding the Planet, Nova Spivack; on You Tube by Manu Sporny President and CEO of Digital Bazaar

    Question: What do you do if you're not a computer scientist but you are interested in understanding what all this Semantic Web stuff is about?

    Answer: Watch this video!

    Intro to the Semantic Web
    RDFa Basics


    A promising and exciting development of the web.






    14K views
    Intro to the Semantic Web

  • Google and the Wisdom of Clouds

    Rated Dec 16 2007 • 3 reviews • internet, change, computer, freetools • businessweek.com

    Google and the Wisdom of Clouds
    via InnovationWatch, in Business Week by Stephen Baker

    What is Google's cloud? It's a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates 1 million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes. It stores staggering amounts of data, including numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This makes search faster, helping ferret out answers to billions of queries in a fraction of a second. Unlike many traditional supercomputers, Google's system never ages. When its individual pieces die, usually after about three years, engineers pluck them out and replace them with new, faster boxes. This means the cloud regenerates as it grows, almost like a living thing.

    Google and the Wisdom of Clouds
    Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft



    These 2 articles supplement the article about the new Linux/SAAS office model I referred to yesterday.

    Cloud computing initially enabled Google to answer our searches in an extremely fast way. It then evolved into Software As A Service (SAAS). There is an explosion literally of new applications (apps) becoming available by the day online.
    I myself now, on a daily base, use Gmail + iGoogle + Gbookmarks + Gnotebook + Greader + Gsearch + Gimages (Picasa) + Gdocs + Gmaps and Gearth + Gblogger +... and SU! My experience with these Google Apps is most satisfactory I must say. No loss any longer of bookmarks and notes due to system upgrading or HD crashes...

    SAAS satisfies 95% of my daily needs on the computer. But SAAS is only feasible from a computer loaded with a system and a browser. That's where Linux and Open Source Applications are bound to make inroads...

    I use Ubuntu and Firefox.
    Those who use professional applications (writing, imaging, engineering or other) will not be satisfied by Online Apps at least in their present versions. They still need their specialized software. I myself, for example, often use imaging and writing software and I'm very satisfied with Open Source offerings. (Imaging: The GIMP, INKSCAPE, PICASA, XSANE SCAN,... Writing: TOMBOY NOTES, OPEN OFFICE, SCRIBUS, ...)




    476 views
    Google and the Wisdom of Clouds

  • Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents

    Rated Nov 23 2007 • 65 reviews • internet • slideshare.net

    Slide Share
    via Minding the Planet / Nova Spivek, on SlideShare.net

    Slideshare is a site where people post and share their Powerpoints. You can watch the powerpoints quickly with a little viewer widget that let's you click through them in your browser. There are some really interesting, creative, and informative presentations there. And it's free.

    Slide Share
    Presentations on art

    Great tool to publish presentations. I was amazed by the richness of content published there. I checked the presentations about art... and found out that you can subscribe to the tag and receive all new presentations directly in your RSS reader.




    6,772 views
    Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents

  • WikipediaVision (beta)

    Rated Oct 30 2007 • 155 reviews • internet, freetools • lkozma.net

    Live anonymous edits to Wikipedia on Google maps
    via MetaFilter / stbalbach, on lkozma.net

    WikipediaVision is a visualization of edits to the English Wikipedia, almost the same time as they happen. The idea came after seeing flickervision and twittervision, both created by David Troy. WikipediaVision, however, was designed and implemented by me alone. (L. Kozma, I am a grad-student at the Helsinki University of Technology)

    Live anonymous edits to Wikipedia on Google maps



    Amazing follow-up of anonymous edits on Wikipedia




    176K views
    WikipediaVision (beta)

  • Simple Spark

    Rated Sep 06 2007 • 12 reviews • internet, archives, freetools • simplespark.com

    Simple Spark. Over 5000 Web Apps.


    Just a few months ago, we launched Simple Spark with 1000 web applications. Today, we\u2019re proud to announce that the Simple Spark Catalog has surpassed 5000 fully searchable, summarized, and categorized web apps that are ready for discovery.

    Simple Spark. Over 5000 Web Apps.

    Bookmark this site. It is one of the best web apps archives on the net.




    4,450 views
    Simple Spark

  • http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml

    Rated Jun 19 2007 • 0 reviews • culture, internet, open source, society • lessig.org

    61 views
    http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml

  • Export All Your Documents from Google Docs

    Rated May 01 2007 • 2 reviews • internet, freetools • blogspot.com

    Export All Your Documents from Google Docs
    in Google Operating System by Ionut Alex Chitu

    Google Docs & Spreadsheets doesn't provide you a way to export all your files at once. But if you use Firefox, there's a Greasemonkey script that creates a page with links to downloadable versions of your documents and spreadsheets.

    You need two extensions: Greasemonkey and DownThemAll, probably the best download manager for Firefox (or other extension that downloads all the files linked from a page).

    Export All Your Documents from Google Docs




    A very handy free tool for those of us using Google Docs.




    257 views
    Export All Your Documents from Google Docs

  • Baidu Word of Mouth Video

    Rated Feb 06 2007 • 1 review • internet, china, video • youtube.com


    via Fons Tuinstra / China Herald an advertisement by Baidu on YouTube

    China's number one search engine goes after its American competitor Google in this commercial, playing the nationalistic card. (It is on YouTube, so you must have some patience when you are in China.)

    Update: Ah, see now it has been put there by Sam Flemming already in December 2005. Only emerged today at one of my mailing lists.

    Baidu Word of Mouth Video

    SUE

    Watch The Original



    Baidu is the n#1 Chinese search engine... far ahead of Google.






    8 views
    Baidu Word of Mouth Video