When people ask me, “Dave, where can I find a good Japanese-language educational video about the dangers of trying to hit a melon with a stick while blindfolded after narrowly escaping from a shark?” I always direct them here.

listen to this

Wired News, Why Did Google Want Blogger

Google became the preeminent search engine by exploiting the structure of hyperlinks that make up the Web. Instead of using a simple keyword search, which is how most early search engines found their results, the company developed a proprietary system, called PageRank, which looks at hyperlinks as well as keywords to determine which pages are most popular on the Web.

The PageRank system combines keyword searches with a method of ranking the popularity of a target Web page based on the number of inbound links from other highly ranked pages.

That’s where Blogger comes in. Weblogs are a rich source of links, which are posted in a fast, timely manner. Not only that, many weblogs are readable in RSS, or rich site summary, a standard syndication format that is easily parsed and indexed by search engine spiders, the bots that search engines use to crawl and index the Web.

“Web pages are hard to index without a standard structure,” said Cleveland. “But Google can easily index RSS feeds.”

Like most weblogging tools, Blogger is capable of exporting new content in RSS. Based on XML, RSS is an increasingly popular format used by thousands of technology-oriented news sites such as CNN, The New York Times, Salon, Slashdot and Wired News, and well as thousands of weblogs.

Cleveland said Google will likely use Blogger to develop sophisticated searches that utilize the rich metadata inherent in the RSS feeds from weblogs: who wrote what and when, what it linked to, what linked to it and its level of popularity with Web surfers.

DALLAS (AP) — Prosecutors say a pet cockatoo that was killed while trying to protect its owner from an attacker produced evidence crucial in convicting the man’s murderer.

Kevin Butler’s 18-inch white-crested cockatoo, named Bird, flew at the Daniel Torres during the Christmas Eve 2001 attack and pecked him in the head, drawing blood. Torres wiped the blood and then touched a light switch, leaving his DNA at the crime scene, authorities said.

His DNA was also found on the handles of two knives used to attack Butler, prosecutor George West told jurors.

Torres was convicted Tuesday of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison for Butler’s slaying in Pleasant Grove.

“This bird spoke; he spoke to us,” West told jurors. “We know this bird will attack anybody who is attacking his owner. And who did he attack? Daniel Torres.”

Torres had said in a confession that he stabbed the bird with a fork because it pecked him “all over my head.” However, on the witness stand Tuesday, he denied the account and blamed the crime on his half-brother, who is to stand trial later. He had worked for Butler’s pool company and had had a falling out with Butler, Torres said.

Defense attorney Phillip Linder told The Dallas Morning News he didn’t think the cockatoo played into the jury’s decision.

“I think that even without the bird — the crime scene, the photos and the way the victim was bound — it was a violent struggle,” Linder said. “The state had a lot of evidence.”

Google and Larry Page: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong’s Webjournal

Think about it, Google’s king hit is PageRank which generates highly reliable sources of whatever kind of information you ask for, based on search terms generated by idiots like you and me. Bloggers have developed a whole new set of tools that is making the reliability of information much higher and is using massively distributed human resources to find and rank that information very quickly.

A story hits the net and the Blogosphere, using newsreaders, Blogs with Trackback links and the usual power rule processes of the network evaluates that information and weaves it into it proper place in the knowledge universe very quickly.

By making Blogs the preferred system for publishing information in the first place, Google will be able to help improve the weaving and ranking processes even more reliably and in the otherwise untrustworthy world of the Internet, that will keep them on top. While other search engines are still trying to figure out how to turn their spidered information into a business, Google is focusing on what really matters, and that is reliability. The Blogosphere will benefit because Google will fund the development of the tools and they will be open source because the more of them they have out there the more valuable they are, because, can I say it again, Google does not sell search, it sells reliability, and every blogger and surfer and webmaster in the world is contributing to that. We do not get free services from Google, we pay for them with our clicks on their linked information. Pretty soon we will also be paying with our Blogging and we will be paid back with reliable information. That’s an information economy; the information is the currency, knowledge is the payoff and reliability is marketable to those whose reliance on it is highest.

USATODAY.com – Doomed plane’s gaming system exposes holes in FAA oversight

A small Las Vegas company with large ambitions and marquee investors sold U.S. regulators and Swissair on a video gaming system for airplanes. Until Flight 111 crashed, no one realized how many chances had been taken with passengers’ safety.

From: AutoResponder@headhunter.com

Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 2:57 PM

To: Mike@fhgwgadshg.com

Subject: CV

Thank you for submitting your resume.

Your accomplishments are impressive.

We will contact you with the earliest appropriate opportunity.

Regards,

Those who have golfed with me will understand the significance of the following:

Thanks to Stan, Rob, Art, Sandy and Ken Perlman (who were there) and the State of Florida!