Comments on: "Sci-Fi" search begets sci-fi search

By: @haddoncd

@haddoncd — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:33:04 +0000

Ok, that first link doesn't seem to work – but the second link is directly to the "Latest results" page.

By: @haddoncd

@haddoncd — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:31:57 +0000

"Now imagine Google being able to live-refresh its own search index for all web pages"

It looks to me that that's pretty much what they're doing:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> http://;http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one” target=”_blank”>;http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one&hl=en&tbs=rltm:1&tbo=u&ei=D-8oS8W4E9vajQeF4sysDQ&sa=X&oi=realtime_result_group_more_results_link&ct=title&resnum=9&ved=0CDAQ5QUwCA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> http://;http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one&hl…” target=”_blank”>;http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+one&hl…

By: @CptCharles

@CptCharles — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:08:44 +0000

Double Bingo.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:32:49 +0000

Our minds could eventually follow a model similar to data storage right now on computers. Computers basically have several layers of storage, which roughly break down to:

1) Registers
2) CPU Cache
3) RAM
4) Hard Disk
5) Network

Each layer is much larger but also much slower than the one above it. Thus, when you're writing programs, you consider which data is important enough to get promoted to a faster tier. "Caching" nearly always refers to the practice of keeping data in RAM to speed access to it (as compared to pulling it from disk).

It's not unreasonable to think that we'd adopt a similar approach for our own memory. Life critical concepts like breathing speech are subconscious. Important day to day data like names of family members or how to do repeated tasks at work are stored in our actual memory for fast access. Access to less important, but still relevant data is streamlined through services like wikipedia. Finally, rare or unimportant data is left to be found via search.

By: John A

John A — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:52:16 +0000

I just checked Wikipedia and the capital of Paraguay is balls balls balls balls balls jeremy is a fag

So now you know

By: Phoenix

Phoenix — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:53:32 +0000

Toby, are you perhaps remembering "The Feeling Of Power" by Isaac Asimov? http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html

By: dogfork

dogfork — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:40:53 +0000

The book you're looking for is called Accelerando, by Charles Stross.

By: NeonArmadillo

NeonArmadillo — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:11:54 +0000

Hey, "Never commit to memory anything you can easily look up." –Albert Einstein

By: Toby

Toby — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:18:17 +0000

There's a sci-fi story about this… Which I read many many years ago, and therefore don't know the author or title of… in which some future man makes the amazing discovery that every time he types "2 + 2" into his calculator it comes up 4. EVERY TIME!!! Amazing! And so he posits that it is possible to ACTUALLY DO MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS WITHOUT A CALCULATOR! It was pretty funny.

By: frostyplum

frostyplum — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:03:19 +0000

I constantly worry that the Internet is making me stupid…but that comes as a function of information overload as opposed to "here, we'll store that for you, no need to know it for yourself." I learn so many little tidbits here and there they all drop out the sieve en masse.