Does Google = God? 294
lgreco writes "In an op/ed for the NYT, Thomas Friedman wonders "Is Google God?" Interesting article that disseminates things mostly known to and hopefully well understood by the Slashdot readership. The fact that such commentary made it to the NYT op/ed pages is remarkable." It's the NYT, so a free registration is required.
Google IS God (Score:4, Insightful)
you can be god, too:
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/opinion/
Re:Google IS God (Score:4, Informative)
the broken link ware useless, anyway, so try here [google.com]
sorry for any confusion caused.
Re:Google IS God (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Google IS God (Score:2)
Re:Google IS God (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Google IS God (Score:5, Funny)
ODDLY ENOUGH (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, google is god (Score:5, Interesting)
Hitchikers Guide 2 Galaxy (Score:5, Interesting)
cu,
Lispy
Re:Hitchikers Guide 2 Galaxy (Score:5, Informative)
Be sure to check out an Entry for Earth [bbc.co.uk].
Many thanks to the BBC for keeping this running.
To paraphrase Monty Python... (Score:2)
It's only a search engine.
Let us search with Google!
+1
Re:Yes, google is god (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Google is an emerging AI. Most AI research (like OpenCyc [opencyc.com]) involves a rule-engine and a HUGE data set. Eventually, the manual data entry (and fact-checking) of new rules is a huge road block.
I think Google's huge database of knowledge (the Internet) could be tied to an AI engine front-end. Suddenly, the data entry of new rules is massively parallelized! Sure the Internet is full of spam, ads, pr0n, lies, missing data, and conflicting statements, but Google's PageRank already does a good job of filtering these out. The Internet's redundant "multipe truth" nature is self-correcting. Human intelligences must face those same knowledge-input problems, too.
So be careful what you say on the Internet, because Google Is Watching...
Re:Yes, google is god (Score:3, Interesting)
I think P2P networks are more likely to form an AI than Google is. As P2P networks improve in finding relationships between data on diff
Article via CNN (Score:5, Informative)
No, google is inferior (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No, google is inferior (Score:2)
O Mighty Google... (Score:5, Funny)
Stop you heathen!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
I asked it. (Score:2)
I also asked Googlefight [googlefight.com].
In light of the overwhelming evidence, I'd say "Yes."
The tongue of the savage foreign hordes (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans may speak funny but generally its still known as english. Amazingly it's actually spoken outside of the US as well.
Syntax Error (Score:3, Funny)
Does Google == God? Yes. Could change...but not likely
Re:Syntax Error (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, if you believe that God is real, or at least a float, then the specific test that God == 0.000000 is likely to come back true. Now, the real question is whether having strcmp("Google", "God") > 0 being true is a serious theological problem.
Perhaps a bit more detail?... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, my first reaction to the question "Is Google God?" is "No... Next topic!" Presumably the article is asking something at least slightly more compelling or interesting, but we have no idea of what that might be.
The site is supposed to be news for nerds... not sound bites for nerds. Although I guess that is a lot of what passes for news in the States.
Read the article :) (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they go on rambling that this will allow the bad guy to touch "more" the U.S. (what of the rest of the western world...?) and allow them unite quicker and better.
I think this is a "slow news" sunday, thus this [devoid of content] article went on slashdot...
Re:Read the article :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Howabout This article = FUD (Score:2)
Re:Howabout This article = FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
He is worried about a return to isolationist tendencies of the early 1900s. Is is worried, because it is no longer possible to isolate ourselve from the world. Of course, it was a bad idea back then, but th
This is a fluff article. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't give so much credit (Score:5, Funny)
Thomas Friedman is the official gargoyle of the state. He's not a tech by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect he just lost a bet with someone who said he couldn't write an article without mentioning 9/11.
Eighth Beatitude... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Eighth Beatitude... (Score:2)
Of all the times and places for that to happen.
Re:This is a fluff article. (Score:5, Funny)
And it will be called "the great duck tape disaster of 2032"...!
Re:This is a fluff article. (Score:5, Insightful)
Verisign operating much of the Internet's infrastructure??? Please, spare me.
So, the article concludes that Google and Wi-Fi will bring the world together in omniscience all the while there are dark forces at work plotting to destroy us.
After reading this op-ed piece, The World Weekly news or the Onion seems a more credible source for gaining insights into world perspectives....
Re:This is a fluff article. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, to the non-techie Verisign's two services are critical to their use of the Internet. The non-techie can't navigate the Internet without DNS, and they're gonna walk away from any site with a self-issued SSL cert because of the scary browser warnings...
Google Search (Score:4, Informative)
some of the winners:
Google is God, Don't Piss Her Off
All Things Spiritual - Home of Google God! Pictures of Angels
Cold Fury: Good God Google
and last but not least: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Panopticon [oreillynet.com]
Still Waiting... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Still Waiting... (Score:2)
Re:Still Waiting... (Score:2)
Re:Still Waiting... (Score:2)
Damn, can't escape Google, can you...maybe it is God.
Re:Still Waiting... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the post, God = Google therefore... ok.
It's pretty deep stuff and requires a few readings before you start to enjoy it. The time wasting and hopelessness says a lot about K5 (/. doesn't take itself seriously enough to be included in a comparison to this book.)
Re:Still Waiting... (Score:2)
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
I thought this article was supposed to be about Google and God, but it was more about wi-fi and how wi-fi combined with Google will allow you to "find anything, anywhere, anytime". But it THEN goes on about how broadband adoption will allow al-Qaeda will be able to more easily send recruitment videos using video-on-demand. Of course, it mentions 9/11, as expected. It also says that America has to take "it" seriously. Oh, and it states a couple of interesting statistics. Yay. There, now you don't need to RTFA.
Friedman (Score:2)
Real point of the piece (Score:5, Insightful)
Note the last paragraph about the effectiveness of Osama bin Laden's recruiting videos, and the possibility of targeting them precisely via broadband video. Brrrrrr.
GW Bush reacts. (Score:5, Funny)
GW Bush: Get me some of that broadband video! I'm so sick of targeting Ossama Bin Laden only to hit a camel in the ass. That Google [google.com] thing sucks. 2,900 answers but not one of them knows where I can find that asshole.
Real point: Friedman's fear and loathing (Score:5, Interesting)
And that brings me to the point of this column: While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us -- whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet -- more than ever.
The point is more fear and paranoiac fantasies as only Thomas Friedman can spin, with an evil-doer under every rock, a terrorist behind every tree and, now, a rabid, sweaty-toothed madman coming to get us behind every keyboard.
From his lofty perch high atop the NY Times, Friedman has seen a career revival thanks to 9/11, winning a Pulitzer for his turgid writing about the event and its effects. When Friedman gets basic facts just plain wrong, it makes you wonder how much else he gets wrong, or otherwise intentionally distorts or misrepresents just so he can make everyone see the world through his lens where terrorists will get all of us.
Examples?
VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure...
and
A domain request is anytime anyone types in .com or .net
Really? The last time I checked VeriSign was only responsible for maintaining the .com and .net registries, as well as most SSL certificate services. There are 243 country code top-level domains [iana.org], plus the .org TLD [pir.org], not just .com and .net. The way Friedman makes it sound it's as if there's nothing else out there, and I'm not sure which is worse: that he was too lazy or too apathetic to talk to anyone other than VeriSign to get a basic understanding of the Internet to accurately write about it for his many non-technical readers.
These are basic facts and are simple to check. Any journalism student can do this so why doesn't Friedman?
Given his penchant for hyperbole in overstating the negative consequences of everything and minimizing the positives, it's no surprise that Friedman has completely missed the fact that the same technologies he fears are just as capable of opening up communications. He says that while the world is growing more integrated and what the world thinks about the USA will matter more, the USA is becoming ideologically isolationist and it doesn't need to heed what the rest of the world tells it. Proliferation of the Internet facilitates the free exchange of ideas that can result in better understanding and relations with the rest of the world, which Friedman apparently believes is full of nothing but some sort of irrational monolithic hatred.
When Friedman takes such a reductionist view of the world that amounts to Us vs. Them, is it any wonder that all Friedman can see are terrorists, terrorists everywhere and not a refuge in sight.
When the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
His point remains valid (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes this is a good thing. If I am curious about ultralight aircraft, or antique radios, or some other hobby with a limited number of enthusiasts I can quickly find a lot of information, join a group, and get involved.
But it also means that if my interests tend more toward alt.suicide.holiday or thinking the Jews have taken
Except Google bans political/issue advertising (Score:2)
Times Editorialists? Two in one day? (Score:2)
More! More!
US == English? (Score:2, Insightful)
So what is that supposed to mean? Only the english language is used in US searches or that outside the US there are no english searches? Maybe the assumption is that an english submission must be US-based.
I stopped reading the article at that point. I'm like that. Maybe I have some kind of disorder.
Re:US == English? (Score:2)
www.google.co.uk [google.co.uk] is another English interface, but unlike www.google.com [google.com] it offers a mode to search only UK sites. It's likely presumed that English-speaking users use their own localized Google site rather than the USA site for better performance.
Er, no.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's not my point. My point is the comparison is quite ludicrous.
There is the disclaimer "little bit" in there, but even so, it feels a lot like Beowulfian "flyting" in the nasty "pay attention to me!" sense. Google may be wireless, but only when it piggy-backs on another, even vaster service, and even so, it's only such part of the time. Not to mention, as ability goes, it's not exactly omnipotent. And anyone who worships Google in more than a "Hey, I've got the toolbar" kind of way should probably reconsider their choice of deity. As dieties go, Google is probably a bit more deserving than some other common choices today, of course, but is still on the "Not such a great idea" side of the choices of "things, Things, dieties, and God's to worship."
Re:Er, no.. (Score:2)
Re:Er, no.. Sensationalist and idiotic to boot (Score:2)
When I was a kid, I thought I knew everything and I connected to other people without wires. It's called a paper-cup-and-string telephone. I guess that makes me a little bit like God, too. An idiotic argument, but I hope you see my point.
Scroll back a little, because Tommy-boy is very sensationalist [slashdot.org].
Since this Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace fellow ascribes omniscience as a quality of Google, let's examine that.
I take your point about the "little bit" caveat. The only problem is that you can't be a "l
What's with the scaremongering? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get your panties in a wad, United States. Better start fearing your domestic Police State To Be!
OMFG! There's a knife next to my plate! What if a terrorist had sat down here!
Really an attempt to spread fear? (Score:2, Interesting)
If I was a more suspicious person (or paranoid) I would think this was really an veiled attempt to scare people into being afraid of the big-bad Internat and its ability to link like minded people of various hatreds to each other in ways not before seen. Want to get permission to crack down on free-speach on the Internet?
Drugs are bad mmmkay? (Score:5, Funny)
Drugs will do that to you sometimes, but the important thing is not to try and write articles and stuff in that "bent" state of mind. In my case, these delusions of grandeur usually pass in a few hours time. A good night's sleep should help too.
Peace \\//
My first thoughts [German, English Translation] (Score:3, Funny)
I hope the English translation is precise enough to preserve my argument.
cnn.com: Is Google God?
Slashdot|Does Google = God?
In a nice column in the New York Times (article at the same time taken over of CNN ) the question is set up whether google God is.
Naturally polemiken have again and again economic situation, if the reality is too contradictory or the purse calls thereafter, to fast still press a few lines into the next expenditure.
Why should Google be God?
Google supplies as well as all answers, if one knows the question. Here is the first thought error, because Google can only strengthen, which eh is already present. I have each day in my log file hit of retrieval queries, which are completely sense-free.
Google steers nothing to this pool however at 1986 a google on the existing techniques - Usenet, Gopher, ftp - jokeless would have been and a completely grotesque view into the world would have revealed. The way, as google will possibly determine the everyday life in the future, should be reason of enough to up-save the picture of the all-powerful Google still another little.
Google does not verify information. A little HTML Bastlerei is sufficient, in order to place * its * to view of the things in the net. The democratic beginning of google, through PAGE-climb the linking foot people on it co-ordinate to let, which sides are read worthy now, nothing changes in the fact that one makes oneself dependent on the majority and not by the truth.
If I would ascend over night at place 1 of any search words, then nothing would change in the coming day. Neither I nor my tools google have here the breath of a power.
Is a book God?
Who writes, remains (closely: publish or perish) is the antiquity variant of "google is God". Only indirect power each writing (googlebaren) person lies in the chance to change the collective memory little. Possibly and perhaps only for short time. Also over the thought of the eternity the connection God and Google could not be designed.
What is power?
Friedman sees a power in the connection of up-to-date available technologies (google via WAP or other wireless DEVICES). It does not create it to bind the actual time of the exercise of power to google. It would be already for it power (power in the sense of goettlicher power?), if I can in a 5-Millionen-Dollar-Quiz Show with google find out, which request was the last one of our dear Wolfgang Goethe?
If I chatte, besides always the google runs toolbar. It is an indication of attention opposite other persons, if one reads oneself in into its Hobbies and can them the feeling give to be interested in their requests. It is also fraud or espionage on my account, depends on circumstances. This is not divine action, this is also not striving for such a status.
Is Larry PAGE God?
If I look for in Google for President United States trust I to Dubya to be led and not too whitehouse.com or to Osama are Ladin. That I owe to the integrity of the people of Google Inc., which often gave reason in the past already to criticism. Keyword xenu.net. If in this whole Konstrukt someone makes has, then it is the administrator of the Google data base, which could return as desired search results. That is power, if at all.
Be Afraid... be very very afraid (Score:3, Insightful)
and that very soon there will be a senate commitee on Google and search engines?
stop! just think about that for a while...
Uh-oh! (Score:2)
EEP!
Is Thomas Friedman a simplistic hack? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've read Thomas Friedman's book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", and I can say the answer to that question is yes.
Thomas Friedman has a basic understanding that the 1990's saw major changes in the technological and social structure of the world. He uses this to make up sweeping trite statements about things that he doesn't really understand. Some of his statements are true, but he sugarcoats them and puts them in impressive terms that make them seem more impressive than they are.
For example, he has the famous statement: "Two nations with McDonald's have never gone to war with each other". Yes, that is true, but it actually means "advanced industrialized democracies don't go to war with each other", or perhaps "nation states no longer go to war with each other". But he puts it in flashy terms, and sounds like it is a magical formula.
"Is Google God" is his flashy way of saying "Is the internet a source of near endless information?". When you put it in those terms, then, well, yes, it is. But he gets away with being a serious writer by changing his words around and seeming to say something new.
It's people like him that make me wonder why Slashdotters ever bothered to complain about Jon Katz.
pssst! (Score:2)
The sum of Google, GE, AOL/TW, MSN/NBC, McDonalds and Disney, integrated from 1990 to the infinite future is GOD.
Don't tell anyone!
Re:Is Thomas Friedman a simplistic hack? (Score:2)
Re:Is Thomas Friedman a simplistic hack? (Score:5, Informative)
One thing you must understand about Friedman is that he is a journalist originally schooled in Middle-Eastern studies, who served as a correspondant to Lebanon during the Beirut war, and as a correspondant to Israel during the first Intifadah. These reports earned him two Pulitzer prizes during the 1980s, and are summarized in From Beirut to Jerusalem. Quite simply, it is a excellently-crafted book which has deep insights into the mindsets of the Middle Eastern peoples, developed over years of education and years more direct first-hand reporting experience during some of the most tumultous events in the Middle East in recent history. (Not that the book is without its limitations; many times his own bias as an American Jew shows through. But it is still excellent.)
Since that time, Friedman has been moved out of Middle Eastern reporting, and has gone on to other duties at the NYT. From that reporting came his two most recent books, including The Lexus and the Olive Tree. His insights in these works are not as near as deep as in From Beirut to Jerusalem, and I did not care for them much at all.
However, you are completely off-base if you think that Friedman is a hack. In essenece, you are taking quotes completely out of context, and seem to forget that pages and pages of interpretation and elucidation surround those flashy quotes. To take another example, in From Beirut to Jerusalem, he describes his first-hand witness of the aftermath of the massacre at Hama in Syria, where Assad slaughtered tens of thousands of his own people. (A story he broke, incidentally, as the first international correspondent to arrive at the scene.) In 30 pages of text, he describes in great detail the historical background of modern-day Syria, leading up to the slaughter at Hama, and his own first-hand account of what he saw there. His punchline -- describing the rules of Middle Eastern politics as "Hama Rules" or "no rules at all", is a distinctive stylistic flourish to summarize a concept, based in fact and in interpretation. One may dispute the universality of such claims, but in no way can one dispute the strength of Friedman's knowledge of the history of the region.
When the insight is deep (as is often the case in his writing on the Middle East), then the impact of the writing can be powerful indeed. In the case of his more recent writings, where he is (as he himself admits) writing as a non-expert, the impact is far less substantial.
The real point of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the real point of the article is that in an increasingly linked world, it is more important than ever to be good world citizens.
Lord Rees Moag and James Davidson make this point in their book 'Sovereign Individual": large countries become increasingly vulnerable to small countries and organized groups because of the threats of cyber attacks, etc.
As this article points out, with the free flow of information, small groups can share information and form larger political and action groups.
Not to be political, but I was against the recent Iraq War because I think that it is a very bad idea to alienate other countries when we largely depend on the global "dollar standard" for hoarding money and purchasing oil to prop up our economy. I am a more than a little concerned that our turning our backs on the UN will cause us all kinds of problems in the future. (BTW, the US has vetoed 35 UN security council resolutions ssince 1970 - so, it was not so atypical for Russia, France, and Germany to threaten to veto one of our resolutions.
-Mark
What a bunch of crap. (Score:2)
Verisign operates "much of the internet's infrastructure?". The hell it does. 9 billion domain requests a day? I doubt that too.
That America has to be careful because the internet lets like minded people who hate the US get together more easily? Man, if anything shows the collective fear of attack the US has always had, this is it. Is that the only thing you guys can think of? That someone is going to attack
If Google = God (Score:2)
History (Score:2)
rus
OMG! (Score:5, Funny)
google is god = 157049 results
google is evil = 204364 results
Conclusion : Google is NOT God, Google is EVIL!! We are doomed!!
Re:OMG! (Score:2)
Re:OMG! (Score:2)
Google is a good god
Google is an evil god
Whew! That was a close one.
Several Other Results (Score:3, Interesting)
google is a search engine = about 1,630,000 results
google sucks = about 137,000 results
google is Shiva = about 9,440 results
google is a tuna fish sandwich = about 851
Somewhat circular, but that aside, I think Google's nature is reasonably clear.
No, but Google IS Multivac... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the sixties and early seventies, people were awed but poorly informed about computers. The commonest question that "lay" friends and relatives would ask me is "But what do you DO with a computer? Do you ask it questions?" That seemed bizarrely naive to me, and I would try to explain that it was more like playing with an electric train set, and that, outside of jokes, or Asimov's "Multivac" stories, you didn't "ask questions" of a computer.
Well, Google may not be Multivac, but it sure is a lot more like Multivac than H. G. Well's space gun or Cavorite sphere is like Project Apollo. You don't normally phrase the questions as questions, and it doesn't provide interpretative, English-language "answers," but it certainly is an awesome and it may not be omniscient but it's an order of magnitude more "scient" than anything else I've seen.
And, yes, it FINALLY looks as if "flat TV you can hang on a wall" is not only here, but I expect I'll be buying one within the next five years or so.
No helicars or voice typewriters yet, though.
(No, ViaVoice is NOT a good realization of the "voicewriter" fantasy. Oh, and for the record, to me, "Ask Jeeves" does NOT feel like Multivac at all, but Google does. I can't say why, that's just the way it strikes me.)
Re:No, but Google IS Multivac... (Score:3, Interesting)
Does Google = God (Score:2, Funny)
"Jimmy Goggles the God" (Score:2)
I said in another post that Google reminded me of Isaac Asimov's Multivac... but Google together with the Internet also reminds me of H. G. Well's _World Brain_. Except of course that Wells foresaw it as a dignified, high-minded intellectual enterprise, a modernized kind of F
No (Score:2)
Time to short Google (Score:3, Insightful)
When people go around saying "Google is God", you know it's time to short their stock... oh shoot, they haven't even gone public yet!
If Microsoft's upcoming squashes Google, does that mean Microsoft is the new god? Or is it Satan?
And what does it tell you that despite its vastly superior powers, that nobody has equated Microsoft to God in the NY Times?
Just reading the tea leaves,
--LP
Friedman (Score:3, Insightful)
Friedman has written three [amazon.com] books that generally focus on economics and globalization. He's won three [nytimes.com] Pulitzer prizes. A few of the other posts are knocking this article as fluff, or knocking Friedman in general. Whatever your personal views, people listen to him.
What's striking to me is that he writes on large political-type issues - globalization, 9/11, Isreal. He's not a tech writer. The fact that he took the trouble to go tour Google and then write a column about it is evidence of how entrenched Google is in his non-techie world.
Yeah, the article is fluff. It's nothing but Friedman's impression and opinions. But it ran on the print version of the New York Times. If it ran on CNet, I'd blow it off. In NYT's op/ed, it's another story.
JJ
10,000 Monkeys Can't Be Wrong (Score:2)
Master: "What does a sacred Chaos say?"
Student: "Mu"
Isn't it ironic? (Score:3, Funny)
(shaking head)
Re:Isn't it ironic? (Score:2)
"Neitzche is dead" - God
2/3rds of a god.... (Score:2, Funny)
Gods = Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.
google = omnipresent (accessible anywhere)
omniscient (knows every fraggin thing)
but still not omnipotent
when it starts creating global cathastrophes or ressurecting people, please warn me....
(sorry for my bad english)
Re:2/3rds of a god.... (Score:2)
No, but Google is impotent which is very close to omnipotent.
Nope (at least not yet). (Score:3, Funny)
No, but (Score:2)
Curious, I just dreamt that Google was the Devil (Score:3, Funny)
I awoke this morning from a dream where Google was powered by some ancient, evil, seductive force. Just as I often am in real life, in my dream I found myself curious about some random issue, and decided to research it via Google. In this instance, I was curious about what the lives of precious-stone-traders/exchangers were like, how they travelled, and how they moved their goods.
When I opened a browser to http://www.google.com, I suddenly found myself transported to a dark room, one which felt, smelt, and looked as though it was within a long abandoned motel in a rainy, cold, climate. A grimy stone slab of roughly 4:3 dimensions lay on a table before me, glistening with condensation.
A beautiful woman appeared, dressed seductively in red and black, and bade me to enter my query. Somehow, I knew to put my fingertip to the slab, and the moment I made contact, wispy shadows swirled out from within its crevices and surrounded my fingertip. They nipped at it, they pierced the skin, and with my blood, I scrawled out, "precious stone jewel exchange trader carrier lifestyle travel".
The shadows at once covered my bloody query, writhed and congealed and when they finally withdrew, I found that the writing had been rearranged to read, "I'm feeling lucky". I screamed in terror and pounded on the message with my fists, sending dark red droplets flying from the stone.
I looked up to see the woman smiling. When I returned my gaze to the stone slab, I saw the shadows slowly etching out a shape, simple, symmetrical. Trickles of black ran down the face of the stone from its far side, creating soft curves. It... it was a vase, with a notch in its base. It slowly filled with color, a light sort of beige, taking on a photographic quality and it was then that I realized... it wasn't a vase, it was a top-down view of some chick taking it up the ass.
Re:Curious, I just dreamt that Google was the Devi (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Curious, I just dreamt that Google was the Devi (Score:2, Funny)
God? (Score:4, Interesting)
What a goofy term. The answer is necessarily yes and no at the same time because God means something different to everyone.
To me, God is a name for entropy, the thing that makes life random, though only because we cannot detect and account for it in a meaningful fashion, in most cases. The devil is in the details, and it don't get any more detailed than entropy. Mind you, I think the Devil and God are just different sides of the same thing; entropy that hurts you, and entropy that works in your favor.
Google is the opposite of entropy. It helps us bring order to chaos. It's a really good automatically generated index (while Yahoo and DMOZ and similar sites are tables of contents) and nothing more.
Now if you want to get into a more metaphysical discussion, google helps make us more than we are because knowledge is power but only if you can get your hands on it and use it. Google puts more information at our fingertips. Someday when we're communicating with our computer implants via thought (or perhaps subvocalization, at least sooner than thought) it's going to be an indexing system (or several of them) that lets us make concise queries and get a relevant answer back, just as it is today, and that certainly seems godlike. Imagine being stuck in bumfuck nowhere and being able to just sort of ask the air what to do. Talk about talking to god. Of course, you're just accessing a network, but what is God anyway? Which just brings us back to how silly the name of the article is.
Reality Check (Score:3, Interesting)
AllTheWeb indexes more documents.
Microsoft has decided to compete with Google.
Yes Google is a cool search engine, but come on folks, you get the same top ten results from even the weakest sites.
Google is a Bishop, at Best (Score:2, Interesting)
"go to hell" (Score:2)
Doesn't anyone remember a while back when you could search for "go to hell" and it would send you to microsoft.com?
The top of this article about it [computerworld.com] says:
Could Bill Gates really be the devil?
maybe the NYT is on to something here..
-metric
NO (Score:2)
Will Google some day end?
Can Google create anything except web pages?
Can Google give an answer to anything that man hasn't yet solved and or documented?
Can Google stop all the freaking spam that I get, or at least tell them that my penis size is fine?
Can Google turn the economy around so that most of my friend out of work can get a job?
Can Google give me a version of Wine that runs well with RedHat 9 and ATI? Ahh I have an answer to that one... NO!!!!
Is the '=' for assignment or equality..? (Score:2, Funny)
Cartoon about Friedman and Google (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google is still too buggy (Score:3, Funny)
2B or (not 2B) = FF
Or 'true', if you prefer a boolean value. I think you'll find a calculator is a better tool than a search engine for that kind of question...
Re:comparison operator (Score:2)
No it won't. It will always return the value of god, which may or may not be true depending on your beliefs.
god=0;
if (google=god) { this will never run }
God was written in VB??!! (Score:2, Funny)
God doesn't work, period. (Score:2, Funny)