Search engine wars

If the search engines were to go at each others throats then what would be their weapon of choice? (Not that they will or should go to war without regard to certain ethics)

 

The best weapon would be Search engine loop bombing. By search engine loop bombing i mean to say "Use of search engine bombing(Popular as google bombing) to bomb all or most keywords to search pages of thier respective search results page"

 

In an attempt to see if search engines have a defense mechanism to such a bombing of result loops i am conducting a experiment at coop search.The idea is to bomb the internet with the following links: Google loop from yahoo search, googleoop and to google itself using google loop and googleoop .

 

You can help by linking to these pages using the same anchor text.Since we are targeting very obscure words it will not cause any problems.Using live search to google loop and googleoop.If you want other search engine results try those aswell.

The Photonic Engine

             My tenant was all that a landlord would want. He paid his rent on the first day of every month without fail. He arrived early in the evening and went out only after the sun was already halfway up. He made no fuss whatsoever. But lately I was having one problem from the upstairs rooms. A kind of whining sound like that of a giant motor running loudly could be heard.  And what's more it could be heard even at the dead of the night. It had been disturbing my daily routine for the past week. I normally would sit studying some novel during the night. The sound coming from the heavens was somewhat irritating to comply with. Moreover the sounds were more pronounced during the morning hours. These sounds were frequently interrupted by what appeared to be loud bangs. These sounds would stop very quickly as soon as two loud bangs were heard. I had given my tenant permission to keep some electric stuff he was experimenting with. But I had not bargained for what I was being put through. I had decided to enquire what the racket was all about? And suggest to him in the mildest of terms to stop that nonsense. Although I did not want to loose such a good tenant I surely wanted to loose all the noise he had been creating.

             It was late in the evening that he came in through the main gate. I called out to him from my chair in the portico, "Rajesh, come over here, I have something to talk with you." He was about to climb the staircase, but stopped suddenly when he heard me and turned back. I beckoned him with my hand. He was of the shy kind not very talkative and all that. So I came straight to the point. "Well, Rajesh I wanted to know where all that noise is coming from, are you having some problem with the ceiling fan?" He looked irritated at my question, he replied a little later, "Well it's some of my electric equipment."  I knew it would be improper to ask him to stop it after I had given him permission to keep electric equipment. So I casually remarked, "I don't know what experiment is so useful as to put up with all that sound, that does not even let you sleep at night."

 At this remark of mine he became quiet grim and rather sharply replied, "I will show you what my experiment does and you can decide whether I need to continue my work or give it up", then he left. So, I decided to visit his room before dinner. Somehow I could not find time till the next day.

However, I found myself knocking his door at around six in the evening on the next day. The dwelling of Rajesh consisted of a small hall, which opened into a side room on the left and a kitchen on the right side. Rajesh led me to the side room to show me his gizmo gadget. Inside the room were stacked all sorts of equipment, broken bulbs, and pliers, burnt out paper and what not. To put in a line 'it was a mess'. At the center of the room on a table was placed a huge cylinder. The cylinder was made up of alternate panels of transparent glass like material and iron sheets. The cylinder was fixed to a rotating wheel on the farther side. I could not see any electric connections to the cylinder, although I searched for one underneath the table also. I guessed it had some sort of a powerful battery inside the cylinder.

 As I stood there staring at the spectacular equipment in front of me, the shy Rajesh was transformed into a spectacular speaker. He explained to me all the intricate details of his invention. It was as though Goddess Saraswati had blessed him with powers of speech, which I had failed to notice in him earlier. However, most of what he said was Greek and Latin to me. I have tried to recall some of that conversation. It was more of a monolog, with him speaking and me listening.

 "First of all let me tell you something about radiation and matter. Radiation interacts with matter under appropriate conditions. The interaction leads to an abrupt transition of the quantum system such as an atom or a molecule from one energy state to another. These transitions are known as quantum jumps. If the transition is from a higher energy state to a lower one, the system gives out a part of its energy. This energy is given out as light. And if the transition is in the reverse direction, then it absorbs the incident energy.

 

When such a transition occurs the electron goes to a higher energy level. The energy of electrons increases as it is farther away from the nucleus of that atom or molecule. Thus, when the atom or molecule absorbs a photon it expands. Thus the volume of the entire mass increases. He then picked up a spring lying on the floor and held it in front of me. He continued as though he were addressing a big gathering I could hardly see.

"What you have here in front of you is GC-8. It's a polymer that I have developed. It's a heat stable polymer even at temperatures as high as 300C. I have prepared springs using GC-8. They are highly elastic and have very high tensile strength. It can hold a weight up to 500 tons. These springs expand when exposed to light and contract in darkness giving out heat. A clever system of gears and levers keeps moving these springs into brightness and darkness, hence providing the momentum required by the wheel to rotate."

Just to show off that I was not a ignorant person I remarked, "I have read all about quantum theory, but it is all theoretical stuff isn't it?" "To be truthful, yes, not much has been done practically using the quantum theory concepts. This engine is surely a breakthrough in the application of quantum theory."

Pleased at being acknowledged I asked, "So is this wheel being rotated by solar energy? Its no big deal, haven't you seen solar powered automobiles on discovery channel?"

To this he replied rather boastfully, "There is a big difference between solar powered automobiles and this engine, this engine if fixed into a automobile it can compete with formula one cars and beat them for sure. Apart from that this engine can be run even from the light coming from this tube light here. It does not stop running if the sky is cloudy and in the night the light from the stars is more than sufficient to operate it at optimum speeds "

 He went onto explain the magnitude of benefit this engine will have on developing countries like India that are facing an energy crisis. I asked him whether he had shown this invention to anyone else. He replied rather carelessly, that there was no scope for people of his kind in this country. He belonged to the new breed of youngsters who considered patriotism a virtue of the past. I stopped myself from giving him a lecture on the sacrifices our fore fathers had made to achieve freedom. He seemed rather pleased at having me baffled for the whole evening.

Most of what Rajesh was telling was going way over my head. However, I was sure he was onto something big. I thanked him for showing me his invention and came downstairs in time for my Dinner. It was nearly a week later that Rajesh declared he was going to the US. I promptly paid up his deposit for the house. I don't know what happened to Rajesh or his invention. May be its on the last stages of design in NASA for a rocket or in some pentagon secret weapon of the future, only time will tell.

This is an excerpt from the family memoirs of Mr. Kantraj (1951-2004). It has been reproduced with the permission of Mr Sagar, son of kantraj for the benefit of the general public and the scientific community in particular. The above incident is dated around February 2001.

The Autotrophic Man

'Patience' had been the watchword for Dr Kapur. Be it reading a book or treating a patient, he was ready to wait. Kapur worked in a small hospital that was situated outside the village of Na-280 (Present day Narosipur). His routine had become rather boring and monotonous after hundred years of village life. Patience with these human patients was becoming rather stressful. He was a city fanatic, he always had been. The adventures of city life appealed to him more than its privileges. He hoped someday to join a city hospital, where he could treat complicated cases of all those mutants and evolved humans. He was feeling frustrated being with these ordinary humans in the village. His thoughts were revolting against humans, they were weaklings; developing gastric problems eating all the new man made creatures. "Why couldn't they just eat natural things and let him alone?"

 The intercom was beeping in a message

 "A patient with gastric trouble doctor, he has an appointment with you" the nurse said.

 Dr Kapur pressed the blue button summoning the patient. The patient was a human, probably fully natural, without even the basic biosensors. Dr Kapur did not even bother to look at the tele-viewer and engaged age-old pharmaceutical drug treatment. Soon the human was ending the tele-viewer conversation.  Kapur exhaled deeply, it was a kind of aversion that he had developed for fellow humans.

 He commanded the hospital cafeteria robot for a drink. The robot took a few minutes for processing the order. An android appeared holding a tray. Placed on the tray was a glass tumbler filled with a flavor drink. The drink had as many as a hundred flavors extracted from various organic sources. There was a light dememoriser dissolved in the drink. Kapur did not like the flavor drink, but it allowed you to forget all about the previous human meeting. He took it more as a medicine rather than refreshment.

 "Another patient with gastric trouble doctor, shall I send him in?" asked the nurse.

He pressed the red button marked 'privacy destroyer' to activate outgoing speech and replied, "Well I am not in a mood to attend to these silly patients, send him to Dr PC-360."

 A few minutes later the nurse was back again, "This patient is insisting on seeing a human doctor, he claims to be a partial mutant." These words had an electrifying effect on Dr Kapur; he surely was in a mood to treat a mutant, even if he was partial. After all it was better than a boring human case. "Send him in"

 The patient who entered looked quiet human. Kapur was about to disengage his tele-examiner when he remembered this was a partial mutant. The patient was using a very old version of the tele-viewer software or may be it was an Internet browser or something. The hologram was either 2-d or non-existent. The patient appeared to be immobile. He was strapped onto a home-medico robot. The voice came out in bursts of speech, courtesy overburdened broadband. Kapur asked the Tele-examiner to repeat the communication. The monotonous voice of the computer began, "I am a partial mutant. I have developed severe stomach ache and gastric problem."

 "For how long?"

 He replied "from the past one week." "My digestive system is mainly rudimentary, it has no function as such. It had been deactivated when I became a mutant." "I don't know what's triggering it now"

 Kapur asked, "Can you explain more specifically what type of mutant you are?"

 "Well let me show you my skin", so saying he uncovered his arm. The arm was a dark shade of green. "This is no skin disease, this is my power my better part. Humans as well as these evolved humans are basically slaves. All of them have to depend on some other organism for food. They are as good as dead without other species."

 "I made myself an autotroph, to get rid of the daily headache of eating. I just have to move around in the sunlight to feed myself. However I do take raw minerals and vitamins once a year. It is abundantly available in the soil and I don't depend on any living creature. I have a few plant genes to produce the essential amino acids."

 "How do you convert sunlight into energy?"

 "I have plant genes to produce enough chlorophyll in my skin. Just the way you have melanin I have chlorophyll pigment." "The chloroplasts coupled with the mitochondria produce as much ATP as I would get by eating three meals."

 "I will be able to treat you better, if you can explain how your digestive system was deactivated?"

 "The useful genes of the cells of the digestive system were hetero-chromatinised. It was a proper job, I did not have any problems for the past year I have been a mutant."

  "Mail me your genome map, I prefer it to be in database format rather than analyzed format."

 It was a few minutes before the genome map could squeeze itself through the slow broadband. Kapur put the tele-examiner on an analysis mode. The 23 chromosomes were now visible on the screen. He commanded "seventh chromosome details."  Instantaneously the seventh chromosome was enlarged showing the various zones of introns and exons. Kapur was concentrating on the arrangement rather than finding spontaneous mutations.

 He went onto look for genes that showed any sensitivity. He was rather surprised to see none. It was like one of those genomes of evolved humans. He rather stealthily saved the genome. It was surely against medical ethics. But who cared, as long it was not used for any other purposes other than for ones personal collection. It was one of his pass time jobs to trick the stupid computer. He had written a viral bug to overcome the computers inability to save genome maps.

 The Tele-examiner was soon lining up relevant data. The procedure had been rather simple. The cells had been treated with heterocromatinactivase for a period of 3-days and a mild antibiotic had been used to kill all the other cells of the digestive system. Now it was quiet clear to Kapur that a few cells resistant to the antibiotic had survived and grown into the tissue that was now causing the entire problem. The resistant cells were expressing the genes on the fifteenth chromosome in the cd8 zone. These genes were producing acid. This acid had been the cause of the gastric problems of the autotroph.

 It was quiet a complicated problem, which may necessitate a surgical removal of cells if the tissue was a multiple drug resistant strain. However, he said, "I will have to perform a surgery, a twentieth century technique by which those cells have to be cut out of your body."

  The autotrophic man was surely petrified at the idea of having to be cut open. It was the worst nightmare of medicine. Although human ancestors were known to have conducted innumerable surgeries, very few doctors were still capable of performing surgeries. He went on to ask, "Are you certified to perform surgeries?"

 Kapur had gone on to study surgery mainly because he had failed to get admission for any other specialization. The evolved humans were far more brilliant than ordinary humans and no reservation was allocated for human candidates. He had regretted taking up surgery all his life except on this occasion. He had in front of him the best opportunity to make himself popular with the mutants. He went on to mail his patient his entire career profile authorized by the medical superintends. The patients were allowed to know anything about the doctor as per the new doctor-patients relationship laws.

 "I am quiet satisfied with your profile. You can perform my surgery, but be a little civilized in the techniques you use."

 Kapur replied, "Doctors are not a bunch of primitive barbarians. You don't have to keep reminding me."

 "Well then, you can go ahead with the surgery, I believe my home-medico robot is capable of providing you all the weapons you need to cut me open."

 Kapur decided to type in the commands to avoid the risk of the computer mistaking his voice commands. He began the medical procedure by typing in the commands to deactivate the nerves of the digestive system and skin. Then he stopped the flow of blood to these parts as well. The home medico was sterilizing the surgical equipment for the past few seconds and was now ready to go. The incision was nearly 1mm big. It was quiet big for the home medico to send in its army of surgerers (robotic surgeons). These surgerers were equipped with both conventional metal equipment and mild LASER's. Dr.Kapur watched in fascination as the surgerers began killing the overgrown cells. It was like watching one of those twentieth century humans clearing a hillside of plants.

 The home medico had cleaned up all the dead cells and was ready to leave the body. Kapur typed in a command to scan the stomach for any remaining cells. The scan was not able to detect any living cells. So Kapur commanded the surgerers to move out. The surgerers were out through the hole and into the sterilizing chamber of the home medico within seconds. The autotroph was gaping at the large hole that had been cut into him. Soon the home medico had stimulated the surrounding cells with growth hormones. The tissue was back in place within seconds. The surgery had been finished within ten minutes.

 The autotroph rather happily replied, "Thank you doctor it has been a pleasure getting operated by you. I am to follow any special medication or something like that?"

 Kapur replied, "As such you don't need any medication. But in case of any infection your body sensors should be able to release the necessary antibiotics. You will have to pay me 100n^ for my services. If you have a insurance just send my office the details of the procedure."

 The autotroph thanked the doctor once again and soon the tele-viewer connection was gone. Kapur was rather pleased at having done a surgery on mutant. After all it was the first one in his career of hundred and fifty years. He hoped the next doctor's report would recommend him to some city hospital. Very soon he fell asleep dreaming about the distant city life.

With those tiny little yellow flowers spread out all over the green sparkling background. It was neatly folded and held in place by sticky tape. Attached to it was a white label with the prettiest of flowers printed on it, where in a simple message was written, "Wish you a Happy Birthday". I could not remember whose handwriting it was even if I had seen it before. It had the pleasant smell of fragrant roses. It was a perfect birthday gift at least from the outside except for the sender's name.

Let me be frank, I was more surprised than happy to see a birthday gift. Not that I did not remember it was my birthday. How could anybody forget September the 11th? But I did not know anybody in the city; I had come in just a week ago. Being an Indian by birth I had not yet made many friends in Washington. I had not seen the delivery boy, mainly because I was a little late in opening the door. So I could not ask him where it had come from. I was sure neither mum nor dad would have sent it; they would rather send a card or just ring up.

Seeing it lying harmlessly in front of my door, I had a sense of foreboding, something less of fear. I was not sure what it might contain? May be it was a harmless piece of china or may be a book from a colleague. Somehow I could not will myself to pick it up from the porch. Working for the government had its own disadvantages. If you worked for a senator lobbying for an anti terrorist bill you had more reason to be paranoid than others.

I had my own theories as to what it might contain. What if it was a bomb that would go off once I touched it. Or may be it contained deadly Anthrax. It would not have been difficult for a terrorist organization to get a list of people born on a particular day especially those who carelessly proclaim it on the Internet. It would be a very good idea to start a wide spread panic targeting a particular person in a group. Moreover the personal approach would make such a person more vulnerable.

On first impulse I switched on the television and started surfing the channels. The news headlines were on. The president had warned everyone of a possible terrorist attack. Security had been beefed up at all the airports and parking lots. But there was no mention of any letter bombs at least not in this broadcast. I could imagine them reading out in the next news headlines how hundreds had been killed by letter bombs in what apparently were birthday gifts and anniversary greetings. The prospects of being killed on ones own porch was a very unnerving one. It would send a clear message "we shall come and get you in your cozy little homes"

My first thought was to ring up 9 11 and let them handle it from there. Some how I felt a little childish. I did not want them unnecessarily worried with all the work they were already up to. Instead I rang up Ellie, she took her own time to answer. I was feverishly hoping she would pick it up and quick. May be she was still in the bed. To my great relief she picked it up on the umpteenth ring. She sleepily shouted a "hello".

"Good morning Ellie, It's me, Sushma".

May be she could not remember who or what the hell this Sushma was. So before she could ask me which or what Sushma, I hurriedly added, "Remember I just moved in from New Delhi, Sushma…. Sushma Bhardwaj."

I could some how hear those rusty gates moving in her brain before she could manage to say, "O! Yes, Sushma"

It was my turn to think what to say. "I found myself foolishly telling her how I was in a life threatening situation." I half expected she would burst out laughing. Some how she overcame her laugh and asked, "Where are you staying Sushma?" may be it was just my imagination I could make out a slight trace of fear in the edge of her voice. I reminded her that I was staying just a floor below her in number13. "I am coming down don't even go near it."

I kept the door open for her as she slowly moved past the menace into the safety of my house.

"Sushma are you sure it has not been sent by your parents or friends."

I timidly replied "well I have not given my new address to any of my friends and I only gave the office address to my parents. So there is no chance they could have sent it. And moreover I have got my own mailbox."

"Did you tell anybody in the office that today is your birthday?"

"I have hardly talked to anyone personally apart from you. The only place I remember giving this address is in the office website."

"Sushma lets ring up 911, why take the risk when you can avoid it"

Our fears combined together were growing exponentially. Moreover we were worried about it being a time bomb. I hardly remember whom it was that called at the end.

They arrived quickly they were very efficient. Two men arrived wearing what looked like space suits. They first got the entire block emptied while they were checking it with some instruments. After preliminary checkup they were sure it did not contain any explosives. They took both of us directly to the hospital along with deadly gift sealed inside a box. We were vaccinated for all sorts of viral agents while our blood samples were being checked in some other lab. Both of us were seated on a bench in the lobby with half a dozen agents. After about half an hour later they arrived at our bench holding a tiny teddy bear. They were unmistakably happy that it had turned out to be harmless. I was given my birthday present and we were told to be a little less paranoid and sent home.

The smell of the hospital followed me home. May be they had sprayed a lot of chemicals all around. I had hoped they would have left the house alone. But I could not have been more wrong. All the work I had put in to arrange the house after I had arrived be now in vain. I got into the kitchen and started out with the business of making breakfast at 11'oclock. On the way back I had called into the office and told them I would be coming the next day.

I had finished eating and was clearing the table when the cell began to ring. I could not make out the number. It had to be some salesman or something. May be the mysterious birthday gift would get itself explained. I normally did not get calls during office hours. I nervously chewed in a hello. I could only hear the line going dead on the other end. I came back to the table and picked up the teddy. It was machine made, may be bought in one of those fancy gift stores. It had a brown velvety skin. A red ribbon was tied below its head. Surprisingly it did not have a neck. One of its ears was a little twisted. So naturally I tried to turn it a little and make it straight. Suddenly there was a hissing noise and some kind of spray was coming out of the teddy. My heart skipped a beat or two. I threw the teddy into the kitchen and fell down in a heap.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. I later learned that Ellie had found me lying unconscious on the carpet and brought me to the hospital. I had survived because of the multiple vaccinations I had had earlier in the day. The spray sample found on the teddy was found to contain a deadly combination of weapon grade anthrax and chloroform. The two components were stored in separate containers in my sweet teddy's belly. It had been hoped that after I inhaled the spray I would go unconscious so that I could not report the incident and get treated. The officers who had checked the teddy were glad that I was alive and luckily no other such incidents were found to have occurred anywhere else. They were surely feeling guilty at not having done a detailed investigation once they had seen the teddy and assumed it to be a genuine birthday gift. If not anything else this incident made me a million times more paranoid. Well it was just another September 11th for me.

Would you be ready to be paid per tag??

The very concept of pay per post is still in its infancy, but the pros and cons are being still under debate.Few of the arguments run as follows

Many sites have come up that are supposed to pay you per post such as PayPerPost.But have they defeated the very purpose of blogging!!.Well i am no authority on the purpose of blogging-but the commercialization of blogging will lead to decrease in credibility of the blogo-sphere.

However, the claim of these services is that they are only using the energies of the bloggers to promote products which are actually good!!. How good these products are is not the question--the question is whether such blogging can be considered as splogging or spam blogging. These will lead to messing up of the feed providing services by increasing the content by many folds. And whats more it will be repetitive content.

Some may even contend that displaying of context specific advertisements is also wrong. These ads will in turn be promoted by the blogs content--isn't it?? The very foundation of the internet is slowly based on advertisements. As more and more services become free, the dependence on advertisements is bound to increase.

Will the next wave see the creation of paid to tag services is to be seen?? The paid to tag service would involve specifying the url, tags to be used, may be even the time at which the url has to be tagged. It will become increasingly difficult to separate out spam tagging or spagging or spammaging or whatever it is that it is called from real bookmarking.

Most of the spam tagging that occurs today is done by overzealous bots. These get caught either due their rate of tagging or narrow range of tagging. The idea of paid to tag is rather better compared to paid to blog!! in the sense that you are not compelled to be positive about the product, unless off course they ask you to add good words about their site in the notes.

The main criteria for setting up such a service would be to set the ratio of amount to number of tags.May be a dollar for every 10 tags would be a reasonable starting point. But again will this be a breach of trust--many people have added you to their networks or watchlist as in delicious or simpy?

However, for now the bots seem to be doing the job of spammaging or spam tagging very well. Their only aim is to improve the search engine rankings. The idea may however, change if the
Networks that exist among the users has to be exploited or rather used!!

How come my blog posts dont have title?? it is because the create new posts page of blogspot for this blog does not show any box to add the title. So i am trying this mailing method to see what hapens. And you know the result anyway..heehe


So if i fail please let me know how to overcome this problem. Other blogs dont have this problem though--so its not anything to with my browser.