Month: December 2004

Google Suggest is a Google interface that “suggests” what you are looking for as you type. It does so using:

algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see. For example, Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers.

I did notice some interesting results when challenged with “naughty” language. Evidently “blow job” is a perfectly acceptable term, since as I enter “b-l-o-w” it suggests “blow job” to me. But “fuck” doesn’t give any results…contrary to expectations. Neither does “sex” or “anal,” but “f-e-l-l” gets “fellate” as a suggestion. “B-u-t-t” gets lots of suggestions for things, but “b-i-t-c-h” doesn’t. “F-e-l-t-c” gets “feltching” as a suggestion, so I can only assume that it’s the Seven Dirty Words that are somehow depreciated in the results. “M-o-t-h-e-r-f-u” gets me “Motherfunkers” as a suggestion….somehow, not the mostly likely result.

I’ve emailed Google about the limitations, and will post the result as soon as I get one.

..give me one of these things! We are inching closer and closer to real-life Anime these days. We’ve got working replicas of Kaneda’s bike from Akira…what Anime/Sci-Fi t3ch would all my readers like to see? I’ll put in one vote for hoverboards and lightsabers, but only for their Darwinist capabilities. 🙂

The Toyota iFoot This 2-legged, mountable robot was developed for three-dimensional mobility, with the ability to navigate staircases. The passenger climbs on and drives with a joystick. Toyota will present this proposal for a new type of mobility at EXPO 2005 AICHI, JAPAN.

Of course, once this is a reality, we’re only a step away from Nanny and Orphan Maker. Watch out, kids!

Paul Jones pinged me today to let me know that one of his current students is doing some research into Blogs and Ethics. While it looks like it’s pretty heavily geared towards “Blogs as Journalism” I thought that some of my esteemed readers might have something to say. Here’s the summary from the site:

I am a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I am researching ethics in the blogosphere, and I am using this blog to gather the opinions and insights of active bloggers. I invite you to answer the following questions by publicly posting your comments or by e-mailing me at mgkuhn at email dot unc dot edu.

It’s an interesting take, in that he breaks down the first three questions into the philosopher who first popularized that particular twist on ethics: Rawls (Stakeholder), Ross (prima facie Duty), or Kant(Absolute Duty). The last couple of questions are more personal, focusing on the function and purpose of blogging for you.

I’ll hold off on questioning why he stuck with those three, out of the hundreds of ethical styles, and simply say: go comment! I’ll reflect on the types, and comment in a bit, after I managed to lay aside my humanist ethics for awhile and put on these other coats.

Been a bit longer than I like since I’ve blogged…I try hard to record something every day, just for myself (and the half-dozen brave readers who keep coming back). Thanksgiving caused some of the delay, and the fact that I’ve been fighting off a chest cold for a few days hasn’t helped. Nothing makes you feel down quite like being unable to breathe.

On to more interesting matters: Slate has an interview up with my favorite scientist, Richard Dawkins. The fact that I have a favorite scientist should come as no surprise to any of you (I also have a favorite poet, a favorite fantasy author, a favorite way to eat chocolate, and a favorite Iron Chef. My life is full of judgement and hyperbole.). If readers of this blog haven’t read him, go thee forth to a library and get a copy of The Selfish Gene (a book that literally changed the way I understood the world the first time I read it) and The Blind Watchmaker (another book that caused me no end of philosophical re-thinking).

During the interview, there’s a discussion of things evolutionary, among them the role of losing hair during the course of man’s journey:

As for the hair in our armpits and pubic regions, that was probably retained because it helps disseminate “pheromones,” airborne scent signals that still play a bigger role in our sex lives than most of us realize.

I know that scientists are still arguing this, but I’ve never read any suggestion that seems the most obvious to me. Why would there still be hair only around those parts of humans that lose the largest amount of heat to the outside world? Oh…I don’t know…maybe insulation? Maybe the axiliary hair deals with heat loss/retention in ways that we don’t quite get yet. Just an idea (but it seems a good deal more likely than waving the idea of “phermones” around.).

I also appreciate the end of the article, where the interviewer asks Dawkins about his critiques of religion:

“You’ve called religion a ‘dangerous collective delusion’ and a ‘malignant infection,’ ” I said. “Don’t you think you’re underplaying it a bit?”

Dawkins turned, smiled a small fox smile, and said, “Yes!”