iMechanica - Google - Comments

I've earned a few degrees

jasonla — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:15:24 -0500

I've earned a few degrees online through the university of phoenix having access to other universities by video seeing their classes would be great.

Another strike against Elsevier

Biswajit Banerjee — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:19:05 -0500

Via John Baez :

" El Naschie is editor in chief of the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. This journal is published by Elsevier, one of the biggest players in the science publishing business.

But here’s where things get interesting: this journal also lists 322 papers with El Naschie as an author!"

....

" Together with the rate at which El Naschie is publishing these papers in his own journal, the bizarre blend of fashionable buzzwords in their titles instantly made me suspicious. To see if my suspicions were correct, I examined some.

Let’s look at just one: ‘Anomalies free E-infinity from von Neumann’s continuous geometry’.

This paper consists of undisciplined numerology larded with impressive buzzwords. It starts with a reference to von Neumann’s continuous geometries and the work of Alain Connes, but it makes no use of these ideas. ‘E-infinity’ is apparently the name of Naschie’s ‘theory’, but he doesn’t describe this theory. In short, the title and abstract have little to do with the actual content of the paper."

How common is that sort of thing in our field?

-- Biswajit

Google rank of many webpages

RoozbehSanaei — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:34:53 -0400

blank_page

Google: 10/10

Nature.Com, Sciencemag.org: 9/10

Mit, Harvard, JHU, DUKE, caltech, stanford Webpages : 9/10

NUS,
Toronto webpages: 8/10

Wikipedia : 8/10

Wikimedia CommonsOpenwetware: 7/10

WIkitionary, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiversity :
5/10

PlosOne: 7/10

Wikispecies, MetaWiki: 6/10

Scholar.google.com:6/10!

Imechanica, Biowww.net: 5/10

Scientific American: 5/10

The google nemesis book is

Tom.Cutler — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:09:31 -0400

The google nemesis book is completely unique and
insightful step-by-step method for aspiring affiliates to promote
products via Google Adwords. There is no other manual like this on the
marketplace and this information will prove to be invaluable for
affiliates of all skill levels.

Google just have good POI!. Google relevancy is not so high!

RoozbehSanaei — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:12:03 -0400

We can define a ratio in this regard "Popularity on Investment". Just like molecular biology in comparision with Acoustics!. Or even Many Hollywood stars in comparison with others.
Google work has good POI in comparison with Elsevier. The reason is its Nature, It is a keyword based search motor, i don’t know the story of success of Google to Yahoo! and MSN but all search motors have much popularity in comparison with what they offer us. I have many problems with Keyword based search motors like Google, relevance is not so good. And google is not so intelligent. I know this is not possible with current technology.
try to find IMECHANICA with "mechanical engineers forum", it may not be too hard to find imechanica you can just use "Mechanics Forum" instead.
how about more professional topics that people dont know what keywords others use?
people use papers who have more familiar keywords!.
Have you heard about GOOGLE Spies!. Making a website popular in google without real reason!. Advertisers use this inefficiencies too much.
I can’t find what I need easily. I found too much unrelated to what I don’t want and a little related to what I want.
Another thing about Google is its investment on advertising, advertising is a money maker industry, there is no special way to check its performance, and people pay for it because they know it is important but they have not any way measure the success easily. (number of hits is not a good measure, have you recieved one of that SPAMS about how to become rich!!!)

Google Alert

Teng Li — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:55:25 -0400

I've been using Google Alert for a couple of years. Can't complain with the experience. Over the time I can also locate certain resources of interests then I can subscribe from them.

Google alert helps keep you notified with any new progress of your interest. It takes some time to find out how precise or vague your search should be, but it's quite worthy in long run.

Give a try.

That would be great but

ilandron — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:54:12 -0400

That would be great but sounds a bit fantastic. To have access to Harvard classes must be a dream of many people.

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Drivers education software

Re: Commercial publishers vs Google

Zhigang Suo — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:33:15 -0400

This apparent difference between Google and commercial publishers has the same origin: Make as much money as you can. For Google, the more people ues their free services, the more ads they can sell, and therefore the more money. For commercial publishers,the approach to making more money is less subtle. To me, the difference between them is really a difference in business models.

Commercial publication vs Google

Charles R. Steele — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:05:10 -0400

Missing from the discussion is the attitude of Google to make all readily accessable to as many as possible. In contrast the commercial publishers discovered forty years ago that a price increase causes some decrease in subscribers but a net increase in profits. So increasing profit prevails over increasing accessability.

Another point: I will be surprised if Google uses the high pressure, hard ball sales technique that librarians report from Elsevier.

Charles R. Steele

Some other factors affecting our perception of Elsevier

Mogadalai Gururajan — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:14:08 -0400

Dear Prof. Suo:

I think our perception of Elsevier (at least mine) is also coloured by some other factors, the most prominent of which is their arms dealing and their repsonse to the criticism regarding the same (as described here ). Of course, at present, I think Elsevier-Reed has decided to stop dealing with arms sales .

At the same time, our perceptions of Google is also coloured (again, at least mine) by the other goodies that one gets from Google--gmail, documents, maps, scholar, ... Everyday, for example, I start my day with the iGoogle page.

Thus (similar what they say about British legal system), it is not enough to be good (just), but you should also be seen to be good (just). On that count, I guess Google beats Elsevier.

Investing in Eric's business

Zhigang Suo — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:53:54 -0400

Dear Eric: Thank you very much for these comments. I'm now eagerly waiting for you to layout your business plan, and will consider investing in your business. (In fact, I'll have to pass the tips on to my wife, as she is doing all the spending and investing and bookkeeping in my family! She is an accountant.)

On a more serious note, you and I should really spend some time to talk about how to integrate your ideas and iMechaica.

Elsevier vs. Google

ericmock — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:26:26 -0400

Zhigang,
You bring up a good point but I think there is a clear distinction between Elsevier (as a representative of the publishers) and Google. Part of it is obviously perception and part of it is reality.
I would probably be considered an Elsevier-basher but in fact I have nothing against the company or it's employees (although I must say some of Dean's comments annoyed me). I think any company should be envious of Elsevier's business. It is very good, and if I had any money to invest I would certainly consider buying their stock. I also think that part of the reason Elsevier is singled out among all the publishers is, in addition to it being the biggest, that it is a public company. Now that Springer and Kluwer are held by a private investment company, they do not have to expose their business to the public.
Thus, Elsevier is basically between a rock (the researcher community) and a hard place (its shareholders) and has to make contradictory statements to keep each side happy. The problem is that at this time scholarly publishing is essentially incompatible with a for-profit business and Elsevier is in the difficult position of trying to reconcile the incompatibility. Making their shareholders happy basically amounts to them admitting they're ripping off the research community (i.e. they're making a whole lot of profit compared to the money invested and spent, they have a good ROI and operating margins). They obviously cannot use the same pitch to the research community.
On the other hand, the research community would like publishers to run an extremely tight and efficient business with no profit so that research gets disseminated as inexpensively as possible. Thus, Elsevier is forced to tell us that they are providing a service at a reasonable cost. But if we look at their financial statements, and what non-profits charge, we realize that there are inefficiencies (i.e. profits and, maybe, excessive spending) in their business.
Turning to Google, I think part of why they are so well liked is because they're new and their rise is a great story. (Elsevier's rise may also be a great story but it's long forgotten.) Plus, I think everyone sees the benefit of their business model. They are basically the new-age middle-man without the stigma. Plus, most of Google's users are not being charged for anything, making it appear to the vast majority of people that they're not out to make a profit. On the other hand, I think the people paying Google (advertisers) are not so fond of them. Google's operating margins are also ridiculously high (higher than Elsevier's, ~40%) and I am sure people paying Google are thinking that in a truly competitive advertising market they might be paying 35% less. Why there isn't more of an uproar with Google's advertisers is the clever business model Google has. The more Google helps your business the more you pay (i.e. advertisers basically pay them on commission). Thus, you can't be too upset if Google is taking a small junk of all the new revenue advertising with them is generating. Google took a big risk because a lot of people thought their scheme would not work. However, it did and they're being rewarded handsomely. However, they do run the risk of having public perception change if the services they provide start to seem expensive and there are no competitors to turn to. Plus, Google always has Microsoft to make them look good.
More later on changing the publishing business model into something like Googles. (Any takers on investing in my business plan?)

PodCorps: record important events anywhere in the world

Zhigang Suo — Mon, 28 May 2007 11:24:01 -0400

PodCorps.org is an all-volunteer team of audio/video producers who record and publish important spoken-word events anywhere in the world. Here is Jon Udell's podcast interview with Doug Kaye, the founder of PodCorps.

Re: Videotaped Lectures

Biswajit Banerjee — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:37:53 -0400

I agree completely with Zhigang that a significant portion of our history is being lost even though we have the resources to record it. The case in point are live lectures by the giants of our field. One way to store some of this history is to record conference keynote talks and to disseminate them widely. A part of the conference fees can be used to pay for the recording, storage, and dissemination of these talks.

We already record the movements and activities of millions of people automatically via cameras in public places and other devices used by the National Security Agencies of several countries. So the technology is available to record entire courses or conferences automatically. The storage and dissemination of this data is costly. But it's a matter of time when we will be able to store all the information that we would ever want to and disseminate it via the web. It just needs a visionary company like Google to start the process. Though I would prefer the control of such data to be in the hands of more than one individual or group.

This reminds me of a related thing. Many of you go to conferences. Have you ever considered blogging about the talks on iMechanica?

Biswajit

A separate post...

Ajit R. Jadhav — Tue, 22 May 2007 05:26:32 -0400

Really speaking, I am neither competent nor so much interested about the main issue of this thread, namely, the practical aspects of making available to the public the videotaped lectures of the faculty at Harvard.

Of course, generally speaking, one would be in favor of having lectures videotaped--sometimes, even academics can be so worthy that their lectures ought to be preserved as a matter of institutional heritage. Yet, I guess I am not competent enough (competent, as in "competent authority") that I should comment on the various practical aspects so well put forth above.

What I have to say is in reference to the last paragraph. I have created a separate blog entry because the relation is so indirect. Please see: http://imechanica.org/node/1440. Thanks.