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CollapseTue 08 January, 2008
从 Greg Linden 的文章看到的数据：Google 的 MapReduce 平均每天处理 20 Petabytes 的数据。每天能跑完 10 万个工作任务。光是 07 年 9 月，就用掉了 11081 个"机器年" ，跑了 220 万个 Mapreduce 任务。这个计算能力是惊人的。
Yahoo! 也用 Hadoop 实现了 Mapreduce , 我个人感觉和 Google 可能还有一段距离。光有计算环境还不行，还要有应用程序来实现功能，Google 已经实现了超过 1 万个应用程序，Yahoo! 有多少呢?
这方面估计微软更没戏了，要是弄个不包括 "Window" 的 Windows 服务器集群估计还能差不多，否则，光是一个视窗要耗费多少计算资源? 如果服务器规模是几万、几十万台，计算能力的浪费是惊人的。微软的对抗计划是 Dryad.
所以说啊，Google 的计算能力仍是独步武林，虽然有不服气的，但有什么办法? 这方面 Google 就是强啊
--EOF-- 补充： 更多的数据(来源):
TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher is reporting that Google, IBM and Verisign are in late stage discussions with the OpenID Foundation. This news comes on the same day that Google, Facebook and Plaxo joined the DataPortability Workgroup.
Google has been testing OpenID with its Blogger platform since late last year, but this is said to be a more general implementation across core Google properties.
OpenID was originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick, previously at LiveJournal and now at Google. It’s likely he’s pushing this internally. If he gets Google on board, then OpenID has very rosy prospects ahead.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Google currently processes over 20 petabytes of data per day through an average of 100,000 MapReduce jobs spread across its massive computing clusters. The average MapReduce job ran across approximately 400 machines in September 2007, crunching approximately 11,000 machine years in a single month. These are just some of the facts about the search giant's computational processing infrastructure revealed in an ACM paper by Google Fellows Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat.
Twenty petabytes (20,000 terabytes) per day is a tremendous amount of data processing and a key contributor to Google's continued market dominance. Competing search storage and processing systems at Microsoft (Dyrad) and Yahoo! (Hadoop) are still playing catch-up to Google's suite of GFS, MapReduce, and BigTable.
| Aug. 2004 | Mar. 2006 | Sep. 2007 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of jobs (1000s) | 29 | 171 | 2,217 |
| Avg. completion time (secs) | 634 | 874 | 395 |
| Machine years used | 217 | 2,002 | 11,081 |
map input data (TB) | 3,288 | 52,254 | 403,152 |
map output data (TB) | 758 | 6,743 | 34,774 |
reduce output data (TB) | 193 | 2,970 | 14,018 |
| Avg. machines per job | 157 | 268 | 394 |
| Unique implementations | |||
map | 395 | 1,958 | 4,083 |
reduce | 269 | 1,208 | 2,418 |
Google processes its data on a standard machine cluster node consisting two 2 GHz Intel Xeon processors with Hyper-Threading enabled, 4 GB of memory, two 160 GB IDE hard drives and a gigabit Ethernet link. This type of machine costs approximately $2400 each through providers such as Penguin Computing or Dell or approximately $900 a month through a managed hosting provider such as Verio (for startup comparisons).
The average MapReduce job runs across a $1 million hardware cluster, not including bandwidth fees, datacenter costs, or staffing.
Summary
The January 2008 MapReduce paper provides new insights into Google's hardware and software crunching processing tens of petabytes of data per day. Google converted its search indexing systems to the MapReduce system in 2003, and currently processes over 20 terabytes of raw web data. It's some fascinating large-scale processing data that makes your head spin and appreciate the years of distributed computing fine-tuning applied to today's large problems.
This is clearly just a first step in whatever Yahoo’s grand plans are around the future of their music service, but today they released some code to embed a very simple Javascript based MP3 player on any website.
The player finds MP3s on a given web page, creates a playlist and a very simple overlay to play the songs. A small play icon is placed next to every MP3 link, and the player itself hovers over the bottom left of the page. It can be expanded to show a playlist of all files on the page (Yahoo is using the XSPF format).
This is clearly just a first step in whatever they’re doing over the long term. There are hints at monetization strategies - file names are linked to Yahoo search, for example.
I spoke to Yahoo Director of Product Management Lucas Gonze, who won’t say how Yahoo plans to expand the product over time. I can imagine they’ll soon be adding other file formats, including video.
Most people have installed browser plugins that automatically play files linked from web pages. And many sites also have flash players embedded into the site (Yahoo has a Flash player too, built on the same code base). Both, though, require software downloads, even if it’s just Flash. So while this is a very simple solution offered by Yahoo, it does not require any software on the PC beyond a browser. That’s a good thing.
To see it in action, check out Ian Rogers’ blog.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
阿城的《棋王》，我是很早就看过的。但那时看过就过了，没觉得什么。因为我是小城市里长大的，那个时候信息比较闭塞。那时把《棋王》呢，基本上是当作武侠小说读，读完还觉得很不过瘾。这就完了？然后呢？王一生还不见的是天下第一嘛？恋恋不舍的。
直到王朔说他要追阿城的星。才又回过头来找阿城的东西重新读，读完又醍醐灌顶一次。嗬，早知道阿城会打全套结婚家具早就崇拜他了，我他妈现在还没全套家具呢，更别说结婚了。而且，《闲话闲说》实在太牛逼了。三联生活周刊说王朔的思想武器是《金刚经》和《时间简史》，简直胡说八道，《闲话闲说》才是嘛。
阿城的书，《棋王》《树王》《孩子王》这些，以前看过的，不用说了。《闲话闲说》和《威尼斯日记》，在网上下载到了，反复看了几遍。唯独短篇集《遍地风流》找不到。大概是涉及到文革，不让出。
现在有豆瓣，豆瓣上有阿城的小组，于是加入了。阿城的小组，现在也就400多人，还不及夏宇的小组人多。夏宇你们知道是谁吗？得，我就再普及一下，有一句天下第一的歌词：“在曾经同向的航行后，各自寂寞，原来的归原来，往后的归往后”，就是夏宇写的。喏，就是这个“夏宇”的小组，还有700多人呢。
阿城的小组里有人零零碎碎发《遍地风流》短篇集。我攒起来，做成word文档，把背景颜色调成棕色，字体改成灰色，并且调大了字号（我的电脑小，豆瓣上的字号看的我眼睛疼）。搞好了，再倒上一杯冰镇的九龙斋酸梅汤，打开一袋洽洽香花生，然后才开始看。那个好看啊，看的我直拍大腿，就是现在，忍不住爬起来写这篇博客。
好吧，再饶舌两句。
比如写gay的那个《兔子》，阿城一开始就说，晚上，在油灯下讲故事，比白天好听。果然，女生讲到“蕾丝边”的时候，别人没听懂，女孩说“她和她那个啊……”，说是说不下去了，阿城就打个省略号，然后写“……油灯，我说过了，油灯于故事功莫大焉，大家都明白了。” 哈哈。
而那个《春梦》的故事，震撼，实在震撼。我很少被震撼的。还是被震撼了。和这个故事比起来，《动物凶猛》就算不得什么了。
而《秋天》里的宋彤，实在就是影射宋彬彬嘛。
好看的太多了，说不完。我整理了个阿城趣言录，好长。
小组里发《遍地风流》这个帖子的，是一位叫“缺书店太保”的活跃分子。我记得他发完某个帖子，还惴惴不安地说：“我们这样把阿城的书拿来发，也不知道他老人家会怎么想。”哎呀，要是有实体的书卖，我是一定要再买两本的。一本自己留着，一本给老爸寄回去，洗他脑壳。可惜没有啊。
[和讯博客]
The AdSense blog has just announced changes to the AdSense referral program which I’m pretty disappointed in. In fact they anger me and leave me completely disillusioned with AdSense.
There are two changes:
1. Changes to Payment System
The ‘experimental’ payment system for publishers promoting AdSense is being changed back to the way it was before it was changed a year ago.
The current pay system (that is about to change) works like this:
- If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $5 within 180 days you get a payment of $5.
- If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within 180 days you get $250
- If you refer 25 people who make $100 within a 180 day period you get a bonus payment of $2000
The previous payment system (which is what things are being changed back to) is this:
If you refer someone to AdSense who makes $100 within a 180 day period you get $100.
This removes the incentive to refer anyone who is a small publisher and it removes the incentive to work hard at referring multiple publishers. In fact it removes quite a bit of incentive to use the program at all.
As someone who had always just fallen short of the $2000 bonus I can tell you that for me it always acted as a huge incentive to promote AdSense. When AdSense added the $5 and $2k bonus I thought it was genius - while the numbers may not have been right - I’m surprised that AdSense have removed incentive for publishers to refer them in this way.
But if that’s not enough - get this second change:
2. AdSense Referrals Retired for Publishers outside of North America, Latin America and Japan.
If YOU as a publisher are outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan - you’ll no longer be able to participate in the referral program.
Yes you hear me right, its about the location of you as a publisher that excludes you from participating in the AdSense referral system. It’s got nothing to do with your audience’s location, the topic you write about, the quality of your blog or any other factor - it’s about where you blog from.
I’m not privy to the reasoning for this - they simply say ‘We’ve found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions’ - but in my mind this is stupidity to the ultimate degree.
As a publisher who blogs from Australia but who has a blog on a niche topic that relates perfectly to AdSense and which has the vast majority of it’s traffic from the USA (and which has consistently referred publishers to AdSense that have converted at the $100 in 180 range) I cannot understand the reasoning for this change.
I’m just one example (I’m the example I know best) and a quick look at my stats shows me that I’ve displayed AdSense referral ads close to 20 million times. I’ve sent them tens of thousands of visitors and have been responsible for thousands of sign ups. I cannot even begin to imaging how much money those signups have made AdSense - yet today they’re telling me that they don’t feel that that kind of evangelism for them is worthwhile paying for?
I can understand the reasoning for changing payment levels if they are not converting well for AdSense, but to exclude publishers from promoting them based upon the location of the publisher is simply dumb.
AdSense - this is short sited, this will cost you money, this is stupid.
PS: The last line of the post on the AdSense blog which announces this shows just how out of touch the team that made this decision are with international publishers.
“We appreciate your support of this referral product, and hope it won’t cause you any inconvenience.”
You hope it won’t cause inconvenience? Are you serious?
Shoemoney joins the conversation with AdSense Slaps Foreign Webmasters in the Face
Update: I’m still a little confused by this decision of AdSense and have been wondering what’s behind it. One that comes to mind is that perhaps they have an oversupply of publishers and need to slow down the intake of new ones. Perhaps with the rise of so many other ad networks advertisers are finding other options to advertise with and going with AdWords less - causing an oversupply of publishers.
Not sure on that one - just the beginning of an idea.
本来我的原计划是写土摩托的情史，结果丫的一篇《崔健PK姜一朗》和三姑娘的《土摩托PK胡紫薇》彻底打乱了我的计划，我按耐不住要写写崔健。
如果说写崔健，这二位肯定写不过我，我看过崔健五次演出，采访过他四次，我是崔健的“烦死”，我有段时间天天研究崔健。这些记录，这二位是比不了的。我看崔健的演出会很激动，但我绝对不会像罗永浩老师那样哭天抹泪。我从来都是强压泪腺，咬紧嘴唇，多少次我忍住胸口的泪水，只是为了告诉我自己我不再哭。
这两个家伙谈崔健，挺有意思，土摩托老师是那种典型的你的东西不能让我接受我就怀疑你才华殆尽的思路；叶三老师主要是反驳土摩托老师，但是没反驳好，叶老师说，土摩托高大的身躯，性感而结实，我不忍心下手。叶老师你让开，我对土摩托的身体毫无兴趣，让我来。
我也不想反驳土摩托，我只想谈谈我是怎么看崔健的。也许我说得不对，但肯定比土摩托说的更接近科学依据。
有一次我采访崔健，问了他这样一个问题：“以前你创作是把自己感受到的生活写出来，现在你创作是把自己观察到的生活写出来，这种变化是否意味着你已经有些远离生活了？”崔老师停顿了一下，点了点头。我问这个问题就是因为我听到了《混子》这首歌之后感觉崔老师开始指点江山了，和他当初写《不是我不明白》身处其中的那种迷惑的魅力相距甚远。这说明了什么？说明崔老师一方面把自己当人了，另一方面开始脱离群众了。
事实上，《红旗下的蛋》是崔健最后一张谈论自己生活感受的专辑，《无能的力量》你别看他加大了批判力度，但是有些无的放矢，不如“因为我的病就是没有感觉”来的有力量。这种变化也是很正常的。好，我们再看看大的背景，照理说，崔健创造了中国摇滚之后，会出现一大批摇滚力量，比如后来的唐朝、黑豹、角膜炎三杰等等等等，他们会给中国摇滚带来新鲜的东西，让崔健变成中国摇滚的分母之一。但是，事实让人失望，后崔健时代的摇滚歌星只能用一张专辑撑门面，你一个一个数数，都是处女作很成功，接下来都哑火了（你别跟我抬杠说某某某第二张专辑不错）。所以当后崔健时代的摇滚浪头退去，《红旗下的蛋》出版了，我们看到的还是崔健，他还是标志性人物，谁也不能忽视他，然后崔健就成为旗帜了，也把他害了。
70后的同学们喜欢崔健也是很自然的，当然，那时候有一帮人开始喜欢香港的一个乐队“逼养的”。为什么70后会对“逼养的”情有独钟呢？因为那时候港台文化开始占据我们的生活，崔健的带有政治意识的摇滚对70后诱惑显然不如“逼养的”，这是典型的用弗洛伊德过渡。好像有人说：70后还没长大就死去了，这跟他们所处的年代有关，70年代前半段的人跟60后没什么区别，70年代后半段的人跟80后的人没什么区别，所以他们没有自己。如果非让他们找出一个能记得住的东西，那也就是“逼养的”了。所以每次我说“逼养的”坏话，总会有一批被“逼养的”养大的一代人跟我抬杠，你说香港那个地方能出来什么摇滚呢？我听过很多香港摇滚，包括“逼养的”，其实就是几个愤青。可是70后正好赶上内地文化断奶的阶段，90年代初期，中国大陆因为某个政治风波之后，变得萧条无比，精神空虚，文化凋零，然后港台文化进来了，年轻人都需要流行文化，有奶就可以叫娘，恰逢此时，“逼养的”进来了。当然，随之而来的还有罗大佑、齐秦、王杰、赵传……崔健在这时候不重要了，但是像罗永浩老师1975年以前生人还沿袭60年代人的口味，是很正常的，他肯定喜欢内地的愤青崔健，不喜欢香港的愤青“逼养的”。以罗老师为界限，比罗老师大的人基本上都喜欢崔健，比罗老师小的人基本上都喜欢“逼养的”（别跟我说你比罗老师小也喜欢崔健以此证明自己的特殊性，没人拿你当哑巴卖了）。也就是从“逼养的”被内地人接受开始，崔健开始走向尴尬。
从《红旗下的蛋》到《时代的晚上》中间有4年的时间，这4年间，内地的流行文化几乎被港台文化血洗了一遍，校园民谣这类风花雪月哪扛得住港台流行歌曲，内地原创力量都是瞬间闪耀，没有持久性。这段期间，在内地文化几乎等于港台文化（别他妈跟我说港台文化有什么好，等我腾出手来好好批判一下港台文化）。当然，崔健是有机会的，他的下一张专辑完全可以证明自己。但是谁也没有想到，崔健拿出了一张离我们更远的《时代的晚上》。
其实人们希望崔健能延续《新长征路上的摇滚》《解决》的路数，但是崔健没有，他为什么没有？大家想想，1991年，崔健出版《解决》的时候，大陆开始有欧美的盗版，到了1998年崔健出版《无能的力量》，欧美盗版和打口遍地都是，我们的摇滚都是打口摇滚，崔健在这期间也未能幸免，他和所有玩摇滚的中国人都被欧美摇滚俘虏了——他接受了大量欧美音乐的信息。崔健也在这时候失去了自己。
有一次采访崔健，他说他喜欢“化学兄弟”“神童”，没错，你喜欢什么并不重要，但是咱们中国人玩摇滚，都不自信，都希望从西方摇滚那里找到点什么科学依据啥的，崔健也是这样，他听得越来越多，想表达的也越来越多，这就变成了“人也多，嘴也多，讲不清道理”。《新长征路上的摇滚》《解决》之所以经典、牛逼，是崔健当时受到的欧美摇滚的影响不大，很多东西都是他琢磨出来的，后来的摇滚不是他琢磨出来的，是经验加上听力整合出来的，其他的中国摇滚傻逼们连经验都没有，只有听力，听什么玩什么。
土摩托说，崔健想突破自己，每次突破都失败了，并且拿鲍勃·迪伦作例子说明崔健的失败，毫-无-科-学-依-据！我就不能接受那些出国几年后回来后半生不熟地评论文化的人，不中不洋的。如果崔健忘掉西方摇滚，他能成为一个更牛逼的摇滚音乐家；如果土摩托忘掉总拿西方摇滚做科学依据的恶习，他能成为最牛逼的乐评人。我这么说的意思是，土摩托这么分析崔健是不对的，毕竟崔老师是中国人，他折腾半天还得用中国话唱摇滚。接受大量西方摇滚的崔健难免不受西方摇滚的影响，并且在美学上被西方摇滚牵着鼻子走。你想想，一个从大山里一步走进城市的人，可不要天天换时髦衣服穿吗，爱美之心人皆有之，审美之心也人皆有之。我相信崔健每听到一张西方摇滚乐唱片，都能被刺激一下。你看现在中国最牛逼的制作人，不都是扒人家西方的东西吗，有本事你少听几张，不行，那种民族自卑感会让他们自己觉得特无知。
改革开放之后，我们内心普遍多的一个东西就是民族自卑感，这东西在电影和音乐上表现得尤为明显，越是商业的东西，我们自卑感越强，越没有归属感。我为什么后来不写乐评了，就是觉得天天评论这些民族自卑感的人是件挺傻逼的事情，你说你玩的那些东西我都能听到原版的，干吗听你这些二道贩子做的一锅夹生饭呢？
崔健进入了迷失的季节，他以为吸取到了高浓度营养，其实他在一步步丢失自我。我知道崔老师是个进步青年，想突破自己，但是别拿西方的那些东西当坐标，一拿西方的东西当标准，就会乱套。因为这里要有一个吸收消化的过程，密集的西方文化的冲击，还让我们有时间吸收消化吗？都变成了吃冰棍拉冰棍——没化——没文化。
我相信崔健是想捍卫摇滚的纯洁，那么他就不该去听太多的西方摇滚乐，西方摇滚乐在70年代就死了，70年代之后才真正是“没有新的语言，也没有新的方式”，崔健真没必要“与时俱进”，他只需知道约翰·列农和“滚石”就足矣。
以上是崔健老师迷失自我之一。
之二是他的思想的迷失。其实不光是崔老师，整个中国人在90年代后都他妈的迷失了。不是谈论政治，我还是有点慌张，1990年是个分水岭，经济的高速发展，让我们都糊涂了，本来按照西方的发展史，这是一个漫长的过程，但是我们在几年间就走过了西方几十年的历史，就是神仙在这时候都会蒙的，更何况人呢。我曾经问过崔健这样一个问题：“你的成功是否来自政府对你的限制和压力？”崔健回答：“我认为你这么想是对我的侮辱。”那好，我收回这个问题。事实上呢？
崔健的很大一部分魅力来自他的叛逆，这种叛逆的反作用力确实来自对他的压抑，生活中的和官方的。当这两样东西慢慢消解之后，我们看到了崔健的自由，自由的崔健就不是“不是我不明白”了，是糊涂了。叛逆必须有一个对手，当对手不跟你玩了或者不存在了，你不就是玩空手道了吗。你还觉得好玩么？这个问题也出在罗大佑身上。当年罗大佑多么叛逆，但是自从台湾岛上出现蓝绿两个阵营，罗老师（此处不是罗永浩老师）便不知所措了。你想想，他当年骂国民党，现在他再骂国民党，就意味着站错队伍。所以他只能转过头骂民进党，所以是那么的无的放矢。
崔健当年因为走过来走过去没有根据地，所以才有那么多感觉，现在给你根据地，你的地盘你作主，结果你发现你不会做主，你只会叛逆，结果就玩不好了。倒是周杰伦这样的二逼，虚假的叛逆，真实得投机，才会在自己的地盘上作主。回到我问崔健的那个问题，其实我并没有小看崔健，也没有侮辱他，这是事实。既然你把自己弄得很叛逆，你就要承受一脚踩空，孤独的飞了的那种无助的感受。崔健的自由越来越大，就越找不到对手，他找不到对手就不知道该怎么出招。他后来的两张专辑，感觉他一直在使蛮劲儿，变成了唐吉诃德。
我反对土摩托说崔健才华殆尽的说法，这种说法没有任何科学依据。崔健是迷失在这个混乱的现实中，他的才华被更表面化的光怪陆离干扰了，并且像草一样不能自拔，他可以站在一边观察一切，但是他无法把他观察到的一切讲清楚，他只能做一个皮毛上的描述。何止崔健啊，连我们的政治家、经济学家、社会学家都讲不清楚现在这个年代是怎么回事，你又能要求崔健说什么呢？
之三是崔健的性格，每个人的性格都有局限，崔健也不例外，他同样迷失在自己的性格中，他喜欢较劲，跟自己较劲，跟商业较劲，跟听众较劲，跟所有人较劲。人在较劲的时候往往显得很傻，会放弃智慧的东西。我不希望崔健妥协，但是希望能看到一个智慧的崔健，但是他的牛劲儿告诉我，当崔健PK崔健的时候，他把智慧的东西打没了。
本来我的原计划是写土摩托的情史，结果丫的一篇《崔健PK姜一朗》和三姑娘的《土摩托PK胡紫薇》彻底打乱了我的计划，我按耐不住要写写崔健。
如果说写崔健，这二位肯定写不过我，我看过崔健五次演出，采访过他四次，我是崔健的“烦死”，我有段时间天天研究崔健。这些记录，这二位是比不了的。我看崔健的演出会很激动，但我绝对不会像罗永浩老师那样哭天抹泪。我从来都是强压泪腺，咬紧嘴唇，多少次我忍住胸口的泪水，只是为了告诉我自己我不再哭。
这两个家伙谈崔健，挺有意思，土摩托老师是那种典型的你的东西不能让我接受我就怀疑你才华殆尽的思路；叶三老师主要是反驳土摩托老师，但是没反驳好，叶老师说，土摩托高大的身躯，性感而结实，我不忍心下手。叶老师你让开，我对土摩托的身体毫无兴趣，让我来。
我也不想反驳土摩托，我只想谈谈我是怎么看崔健的。也许我说得不对，但肯定比土摩托说的更接近科学依据。
有一次我采访崔健，问了他这样一个问题：“以前你创作是把自己感受到的生活写出来，现在你创作是把自己观察到的生活写出来，这种变化是否意味着你已经有些远离生活了？”崔老师停顿了一下，点了点头。我问这个问题就是因为我听到了《混子》这首歌之后感觉崔老师开始指点江山了，和他当初写《不是我不明白》身处其中的那种迷惑的魅力相距甚远。这说明了什么？说明崔老师一方面把自己当人了，另一方面开始脱离群众了。
事实上，《红旗下的蛋》是崔健最后一张谈论自己生活感受的专辑，《无能的力量》你别看他加大了批判力度，但是有些无的放矢，不如“因为我的病就是没有感觉”来的有力量。这种变化也是很正常的。好，我们再看看大的背景，照理说，崔健创造了中国摇滚之后，会出现一大批摇滚力量，比如后来的唐朝、黑豹、角膜炎三杰等等等等，他们会给中国摇滚带来新鲜的东西，让崔健变成中国摇滚的分母之一。但是，事实让人失望，后崔健时代的摇滚歌星只能用一张专辑撑门面，你一个一个数数，都是处女作很成功，接下来都哑火了（你别跟我抬杠说某某某第二张专辑不错）。所以当后崔健时代的摇滚浪头退去，《红旗下的蛋》出版了，我们看到的还是崔健，他还是标志性人物，谁也不能忽视他，然后崔健就成为旗帜了，也把他害了。
70后的同学们喜欢崔健也是很自然的，当然，那时候有一帮人开始喜欢香港的一个乐队“逼养的”。为什么70后会对“逼养的”情有独钟呢？因为那时候港台文化开始占据我们的生活，崔健的带有政治意识的摇滚对70后诱惑显然不如“逼养的”，这是典型的用弗洛伊德过渡。好像有人说：70后还没长大就死去了，这跟他们所处的年代有关，70年代前半段的人跟60后没什么区别，70年代后半段的人跟80后的人没什么区别，所以他们没有自己。如果非让他们找出一个能记得住的东西，那也就是“逼养的”了。所以每次我说“逼养的”坏话，总会有一批被“逼养的”养大的一代人跟我抬杠，你说香港那个地方能出来什么摇滚呢？我听过很多香港摇滚，包括“逼养的”，其实就是几个愤青。可是70后正好赶上内地文化断奶的阶段，90年代初期，中国大陆因为某个政治风波之后，变得萧条无比，精神空虚，文化凋零，然后港台文化进来了，年轻人都需要流行文化，有奶就可以叫娘，恰逢此时，“逼养的”进来了。当然，随之而来的还有罗大佑、齐秦、王杰、赵传……崔健在这时候不重要了，但是像罗永浩老师1975年以前生人还沿袭60年代人的口味，是很正常的，他肯定喜欢内地的愤青崔健，不喜欢香港的愤青“逼养的”。以罗老师为界限，比罗老师大的人基本上都喜欢崔健，比罗老师小的人基本上都喜欢“逼养的”（别跟我说你比罗老师小也喜欢崔健以此证明自己的特殊性，没人拿你当哑巴卖了）。也就是从“逼养的”被内地人接受开始，崔健开始走向尴尬。
从《红旗下的蛋》到《时代的晚上》中间有4年的时间，这4年间，内地的流行文化几乎被港台文化血洗了一遍，校园民谣这类风花雪月哪扛得住港台流行歌曲，内地原创力量都是瞬间闪耀，没有持久性。这段期间，在内地文化几乎等于港台文化（别他妈跟我说港台文化有什么好，等我腾出手来好好批判一下港台文化）。当然，崔健是有机会的，他的下一张专辑完全可以证明自己。但是谁也没有想到，崔健拿出了一张离我们更远的《时代的晚上》。
其实人们希望崔健能延续《新长征路上的摇滚》《解决》的路数，但是崔健没有，他为什么没有？大家想想，1991年，崔健出版《解决》的时候，大陆开始有欧美的盗版，到了1998年崔健出版《无能的力量》，欧美盗版和打口遍地都是，我们的摇滚都是打口摇滚，崔健在这期间也未能幸免，他和所有玩摇滚的中国人都被欧美摇滚俘虏了——他接受了大量欧美音乐的信息。崔健也在这时候失去了自己。
有一次采访崔健，他说他喜欢“化学兄弟”“神童”，没错，你喜欢什么并不重要，但是咱们中国人玩摇滚，都不自信，都希望从西方摇滚那里找到点什么科学依据啥的，崔健也是这样，他听得越来越多，想表达的也越来越多，这就变成了“人也多，嘴也多，讲不清道理”。《新长征路上的摇滚》《解决》之所以经典、牛逼，是崔健当时受到的欧美摇滚的影响不大，很多东西都是他琢磨出来的，后来的摇滚不是他琢磨出来的，是经验加上听力整合出来的，其他的中国摇滚傻逼们连经验都没有，只有听力，听什么玩什么。
土摩托说，崔健想突破自己，每次突破都失败了，并且拿鲍勃·迪伦作例子说明崔健的失败，毫-无-科-学-依-据！我就不能接受那些出国几年后回来后半生不熟地评论文化的人，不中不洋的。如果崔健忘掉西方摇滚，他能成为一个更牛逼的摇滚音乐家；如果土摩托忘掉总拿西方摇滚做科学依据的恶习，他能成为最牛逼的乐评人。我这么说的意思是，土摩托这么分析崔健是不对的，毕竟崔老师是中国人，他折腾半天还得用中国话唱摇滚。接受大量西方摇滚的崔健难免不受西方摇滚的影响，并且在美学上被西方摇滚牵着鼻子走。你想想，一个从大山里一步走进城市的人，可不要天天换时髦衣服穿吗，爱美之心人皆有之，审美之心也人皆有之。我相信崔健每听到一张西方摇滚乐唱片，都能被刺激一下。你看现在中国最牛逼的制作人，不都是扒人家西方的东西吗，有本事你少听几张，不行，那种民族自卑感会让他们自己觉得特无知。
改革开放之后，我们内心普遍多的一个东西就是民族自卑感，这东西在电影和音乐上表现得尤为明显，越是商业的东西，我们自卑感越强，越没有归属感。我为什么后来不写乐评了，就是觉得天天评论这些民族自卑感的人是件挺傻逼的事情，你说你玩的那些东西我都能听到原版的，干吗听你这些二道贩子做的一锅夹生饭呢？
崔健进入了迷失的季节，他以为吸取到了高浓度营养，其实他在一步步丢失自我。我知道崔老师是个进步青年，想突破自己，但是别拿西方的那些东西当坐标，一拿西方的东西当标准，就会乱套。因为这里要有一个吸收消化的过程，密集的西方文化的冲击，还让我们有时间吸收消化吗？都变成了吃冰棍拉冰棍——没化——没文化。
我相信崔健是想捍卫摇滚的纯洁，那么他就不该去听太多的西方摇滚乐，西方摇滚乐在70年代就死了，70年代之后才真正是“没有新的语言，也没有新的方式”，崔健真没必要“与时俱进”，他只需知道约翰·列农和“滚石”就足矣。
以上是崔健老师迷失自我之一。
之二是他的思想的迷失。其实不光是崔老师，整个中国人在90年代后都他妈的迷失了。不是谈论政治，我还是有点慌张，1990年是个分水岭，经济的高速发展，让我们都糊涂了，本来按照西方的发展史，这是一个漫长的过程，但是我们在几年间就走过了西方几十年的历史，就是神仙在这时候都会蒙的，更何况人呢。我曾经问过崔健这样一个问题：“你的成功是否来自政府对你的限制和压力？”崔健回答：“我认为你这么想是对我的侮辱。”那好，我收回这个问题。事实上呢？
崔健的很大一部分魅力来自他的叛逆，这种叛逆的反作用力确实来自对他的压抑，生活中的和官方的。当这两样东西慢慢消解之后，我们看到了崔健的自由，自由的崔健就不是“不是我不明白”了，是糊涂了。叛逆必须有一个对手，当对手不跟你玩了或者不存在了，你不就是玩空手道了吗。你还觉得好玩么？这个问题也出在罗大佑身上。当年罗大佑多么叛逆，但是自从台湾岛上出现蓝绿两个阵营，罗老师（此处不是罗永浩老师）便不知所措了。你想想，他当年骂国民党，现在他再骂国民党，就意味着站错队伍。所以他只能转过头骂民进党，所以是那么的无的放矢。
崔健当年因为走过来走过去没有根据地，所以才有那么多感觉，现在给你根据地，你的地盘你作主，结果你发现你不会做主，你只会叛逆，结果就玩不好了。倒是周杰伦这样的二逼，虚假的叛逆，真实得投机，才会在自己的地盘上作主。回到我问崔健的那个问题，其实我并没有小看崔健，也没有侮辱他，这是事实。既然你把自己弄得很叛逆，你就要承受一脚踩空，孤独的飞了的那种无助的感受。崔健的自由越来越大，就越找不到对手，他找不到对手就不知道该怎么出招。他后来的两张专辑，感觉他一直在使蛮劲儿，变成了唐吉诃德。
我反对土摩托说崔健才华殆尽的说法，这种说法没有任何科学依据。崔健是迷失在这个混乱的现实中，他的才华被更表面化的光怪陆离干扰了，并且像草一样不能自拔，他可以站在一边观察一切，但是他无法把他观察到的一切讲清楚，他只能做一个皮毛上的描述。何止崔健啊，连我们的政治家、经济学家、社会学家都讲不清楚现在这个年代是怎么回事，你又能要求崔健说什么呢？
之三是崔健的性格，每个人的性格都有局限，崔健也不例外，他同样迷失在自己的性格中，他喜欢较劲，跟自己较劲，跟商业较劲，跟听众较劲，跟所有人较劲。人在较劲的时候往往显得很傻，会放弃智慧的东西。我不希望崔健妥协，但是希望能看到一个智慧的崔健，但是他的牛劲儿告诉我，当崔健PK崔健的时候，他把智慧的东西打没了。
As I'm fond of saying - the only thing a DBA has to get right is recovery. In order to do that, they need the backups.
I really liked that screen - very funny.
I’m very excited to announce that Spinn3r 2.1 is now available.
A number of major new features have been implemented in this release which has taken us more than three months of hard work to get out the door.
We’ve also finished up another stage of our backend and are planning on buying a few more toys in 2008 which should make things interesting moving forward.
Read the full post on the Spinn3r blog.
By Tim O'Reilly
I was looking the other day at our internal sales reports, and thought I'd offer a few random reflections based on our changing mix of bestsellers. This is anecdotal data, and for O'Reilly books only, not to be confused with my State of the Computer Book Market posts. (Mike Hendrickson and I are working on one of those as well.) Nor is this a complete list of our bestsellers. It's a list of books that say something to me about the changing mix of needs and interests among our customers.
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition. Published just before the holidays, this book sold out of its 50,000 copy first printing in a matter of days. It's topped the Bookscan bestseller lists (which are based on point-of-sale reports from more than 60% of US bookstores) since it appeared. This is not news, as every new edition of this book has managed the same feat. But what really struck me this time was how much distance it put between itself and the top book on Windows (Windows Vista for Dummies.)
Shortly after Vista for Dummies was released, it hit a peak of about 1250 copies a week. By contrast, Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition, hit a peak of almost 4500 copies a week. To be sure, the Leopard peak was right before Christmas, while the Vista initial sales peak was back in March, so there's some inflation of the Mac OS X numbers by holiday buying. But it still says something about how much the market has changed. In the fourth quarter of 2007, the total size of the market for books on Mac operating systems was about 60% the size of the market for books on Windows! What's more, Switching to the Mac, Tiger Edition saw its sales increase steadily all year, which is very unusual for a two year old book.
iPhone: The Missing Manual. Ok. Duh. But it's worth noting that this is the first time a book on a phone has been a top computer book bestseller. The only other handheld computer of any kind to generate bestselling books was the original PalmPilot. I've written previously about why the iPhone is not just a breakthrough phone but a breakthrough computing device, to previous phones as Excel was to Lotus 1-2-3. We really are on the edge of a new ambient computing paradigm that will end the personal computer era even more convincingly than the internet itself did.
Essential Actionscript 3.0 and Programming Flex 2. A lot of people have missed just how much Flash is on a roll. Ajax books have slowed down considerably, while books on Macromedia's Adobe's web technologies are really moving. (Adobe's domination of the photo market needs no special callout. Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual and Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual were both among our top sellers for the year, along with Photoshop CS3 One on One.)
I noted that the AJAX meme seems to be waning, but that doesn't mean that the underlying technologies of AJAX are suffering. Javascript: The Definitive Guide continues to be one of our all time bestsellers. While a host of languages battle it out on the server side, Javascript (and its cousin Actionscript) dominate client side programming.
For what it's worth, I continue to be bemused by the failure of the open source community to embrace Javascript as one of its greatest successes. You rarely hear it mentioned in the same breath as other iconic open source projects.
I remember back when SOAP, UDDI and all the rest of the corporate web services stack was introduced, many people in the open source community saw it as an attempt to recapture the web, making it complex enough to be an enterprise software play. But those complex stacks never caught on. Adam Trachtenberg's cover quote says it all: "RESTful Web Services ... provides a practical roadmap for constructing services that embrace the Web, instead of trying to route around it."
A recent Evans Data study found that 75% of developers are self-taught or learned on the job. As the industry matures, developers are looking to increase their insight and their skills, not just pick up the latest technology. Beautiful Code, a collection of essays by master programmers about how they solved particularly hard problems, must have hit a nerve. It was our #9 bestselling title for the year, and the number one software engineering title industry-wide according to our analysis of Bookscan figures.
I've argued for years that the secret sauce of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, one way or the other. Algorithmic interpretation of aggregated human interaction is one key technique. The various algorithms involved overlap heavily with the field of machine learning, but we preferred to title our book on the subject Programming Collective Intelligence. It was one of our sleeper titles for the year. Brick and mortar stores still don't know what to do with it because, like many breakthrough titles, it is the start of a new category rather than one more entry into an existing one.
I was probably most surprised when I saw Programming WCF Services on our list of top performing books for the year. If you're steeped in open source, you might never have heard of Windows Communications Foundation, Microsoft's approach to building SOA applications on Windows. And you might not care. But you'd be making a mistake. Don't count Microsoft out of the Web services game yet! They still have a brilliant, passionate developer community, and as a company have tremendous resources, persistence, and talent. And now that they have real competition, I expect them to reinvent themselves. (For that matter, Head First C# was the top selling programming language title in Bookscan last week, except for Javascript: The Definitive Guide. And C# continues to gain significantly on Java in terms of book sales.)
Steve Talbott's Devices of the Soul wasn't one of our bestsellers last year, but I believe it was one of our most important and thought-provoking books. (It was also one of Amazon's top picks for the year, along with Beautiful Code.) Like its 1995 predecessor, The Future Does Not Compute, it is a contrarian book, which challenges our assumptions about the technological future, and urges us to value what distinguishes us from our machines.
I wrote recently in a different context that "Figuring out the right balance of man and machine is one of the great challenges of our time. We're increasingly building complex systems that involve both, but in what proportion?" Steve has a unique take on this problem, far from the cutting edge of Web 2.0. He argues that in adapting ourselves to computers, we may be ignoring essential parts of ourselves that don't fit the computational paradigm.
As a former classicist, I can't help loving Steve's opening trope, which tells the story of Odysseus' deceit of the Cyclops in his cave. He then takes the very term "technology" back to its Greek roots, with a meditation on the double meaning of the terms "techne" and "mechane":
I'd like you to think for a moment of the various words we use to designate technological products. You will notice that a number of these words have a curious double aspect: they, or their cognate forms, can refer either to external objects we make, or to certain inner activities of the maker. A "device," for example, can be an objective, invented thing, but it can also be some sort of scheming or contriving of the mind, as when a defendant uses every device he can think of to escape the charges against him. The word "contrivance" shows the same two-sidedness, embracing both mechanical appliances and the carefully devised plans and schemes we concoct in thought. As for "mechanisms" and "machines," we produce them as visible objects out there in the world even as we conceal our own machinations within ourselves. Likewise, an "artifice" is a manufactured device, or else it is trickery, ingenuity, or inventiveness. "Craft" can refer to manual dexterity in making things and to a ship or aircraft, but a "crafty" person is adept at deceiving others.This odd association between technology and deceit occurs not only in our own language, but even more so in Homer's Greek, where it is much harder to separate the inner and outer meanings, and the deceit often reads like an admired virtue. The Greek techne, from which our own word "technology" derives, meant "craft, skill, cunning, art, or device"—all referring without discrimination to what we would call either an objective construction or a subjective capacity or maneuver.
If there's one book on this list that you read that you would have otherwise have missed, make it this one. Or you can follow Steve's meditations on man and machine on his netfuture mailing list. But I digress.
What's notably missing from the bestseller lists: books on programming languages (besides Javascript). The top programming language books in last week's bookscan report were Learning Python, followed closely by the just-released Head First C#. Books on Java, Perl, PHP, and yes, even Ruby, are well down the list. Books on Linux, MySQL, and security ditto. In the professional computer area, networking, software engineering, and database books that weren't specific to any particular database product were the overall winners. (More on that when Mike and I get to "The State of the Computer Book Market.") It seems to me that increasingly, professionals are going online to find many types of content that they used to find in books.
Tell me: what books made you pay attention in 2007? You may not have access to sales figures, but you know what matters to you. What books did you find most useful? (Not just ours, but from any competitor.) For that matter, what online resources did you find useful instead of books? What woke you up, and made you think "wow, it's a whole new world?"
1. Obama
2. McCain
3. Paul
That’s the design rankings of candidate sites according to the accumulated ratings of pages tagged “election” at CommandShift3 (the Hot or Not of web sites):
According to CS3’s Amit Gupta, these are cross-site rankings (i.e. most of the battles occurred between an election-tagged site and a site tagged something else) which might eliminate some of the political bias you’d expect.
Keep in mind that, like Hot or Not, these ratings measure the superficial look of the contenders, not any sort of real substance. The most functional sites probably don’t win a lot of sleek home page contests.
1. Obama
2. McCain
3. Paul
That’s the design rankings of candidate sites according to the accumulated ratings of pages tagged “election” at CommandShift3 (the Hot or Not of web sites):
According to CS3’s Amit Gupta, these are cross-site rankings (i.e. most of the battles occurred between an election-tagged site and a site tagged something else) which might eliminate some of the political bias you’d expect.
Keep in mind that, like Hot or Not, these ratings measure the superficial look of the contenders, not any sort of real substance. The most functional sites probably don’t win a lot of sleek home page contests.
"However, those aspects are well dealt with in Oracle Wait Interface: A Practical Guide to Performance Diagnostics and Tuning by multiple authors. I usually don't get along with Oracle Press books, but this is much better than most ..."
He wanted to know if I'd like to take a look at any of their recent releases. I replied that I didn't mind as long as he realised that a) I'm pretty busy and have a growing pile of unread books to attend to and b) I couldn't guarantee what I might say about the book, but would give an honest appraisal. We agreed I would pick a couple of books from a list and they would send me complimentary copies. The two books were :-
Oracle Database 11g New Features by Robert Freeman (with Arup Nanda)
and
Oracle ASM Under-the-Hood and Practical Deployment Guide by Nitin Vengurlekar, Murali Vallath and Rich Long.
I picked these two as hopefully including some information that would be new to me. The list of authors on the latter is a complete coincidence, but I think it might make sense for me to avoid reviewing it. It's a shame, though, because I remember Lutz Hartmann raving about it to me at Openworld after I'd picked it as one of interest. (I noticed recently that Jason Arneil has a review of this book on his blog. I suppose Oracle Press are keen to use the blogging community for free publicity, or perhaps it's just a coincidence.)
The 11g New Features book turned up a few weeks ago and, despite being determined to leave it until I'd caught up on some other books, I couldn't resist taking a look and found myself finishing it over the course of a couple of evenings. I must confess it only served to confirm my previous judgements of Oracle Press books, although perhaps the contents seemed more accurate than I've been used to. The main problems I'd highlight are :-
1) It seems very light and fluffy, but I accept it might not seem that way to someone less experienced. It's almost impossible for me to judge that accurately despite previous experience recommending books to course attendees. Suffice to say that I know some people like light reading material, but I was left feeling unsatisfied on finishing the book, as though I'd wasted my time trawling through it.
2) I'm not sure what the purpose of the book is. There's an 11g New Features Guide which is free to download (and print a copy if you prefer reading from paper, as I do). Which begs the question, why would anyone want to pay good money for a book that's a distillation of the vendor documentation? Well, I think you could make the same argument about all Oracle-related books, unless they can add either
a) Practical and independent advice based on substantial experience of how the features work in practice, but that's a little difficult for any New Features book; orThere is an attempt to address a) in Arup Nanda's comments that are scattered throughout the book, highlighting the features he views as the most important and why, but it was too small a part of the book for me and when there is more information like this in free online resources that in a book that you need to pay for, it's disappointing. I found myself asking the question - who is this book for? If it's for experienced DBAs to get up to speed on 11g, then it simply isn't substantial enough. If it's for inexperienced DBAs, then wouldn't they be better either learning the fundamentals first and picking up 11g from online resources, or just waiting for an 11g DBA book to appear. Even then, maybe the 2-day DBA guide would be as useful?
b) Information that's not exposed in the documentation but has been worked out through investigation.
On the plus side, I do think the presentation aspects of the book are better than Oracle Press books I've read in the past and I welcomed the trimming of the lengthy author dedications at the start of the book. (I remember buying one Oracle Press book that had 20-30 pages of the stuff!) I also found it very readable and slightly less overbearingly friendly than similar books I've read in the past, so I have no complaint with the writing.
In essence, I didn't find myself hating the book as I read it (which is not unknown) or despairing at constant technical errors. Unfortunately, reading this book felt like eating a Big Mac, rather than a steak.
See, this is why I should stick to my guns and not review books, because I nearly always find them disappointing, but I felt it was rude to say no and I still want to be able to praise those books that I enjoy. After reading this, I was quite annoyed with myself for not reading Tapio's Indexing book on those two evenings
“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.” -Walter Chrysler
“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.” -Walter Chrysler
Merlin’s Mindful Eating and Keeping Weight Off reminded me of the best tool I’ve found for prompting mindfulness in virtually any situation.
It’s the Powerseed, and while it is marketed primarily for weight loss, it turns out to be a useful reminder/timer for virtually any activity where mindfulness is important. It’s a sleek, battery-powered pod about as big as the end of your thumb. It offers both visual and audible queues, and operates in a couple of different coaching modes. The basic idea is that it is a discrete coach that prompts you to “check-in” with yourself. It signals both short and long regular intervals, which are useful for being aware of time passing, as well as performing different routines are each mark.
I’ve had mine for sometime time now, long enough that I had to figure out how to change the battery. According to the product’s website, it’s not currently available, but my understanding is that the inventor is updating the ‘seed with battery and other improvements so perhaps it will be back soon.
Another approach you might consider is computer-dependent, but more flexible. I also use Red Sweater Software’s FlexTime as a handy tool for regular-interval cueing. See Merlin’s early peek at it for more detail, and from a slightly different perspective.
Either way, tuning-in is a Good Thing.
Earlier on this blog, we shared some exciting early results from our firm's implementation of prediction markets. At last Friday's meeting of the American Economic Association, we shared the results of a deeper study, "Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence From Google," that uses prediction markets to show how organizations process information and respond to external events. Here are some interesting findings:
- Traders in the same location tend to make the same trades at the same time. The trades of cubemates within a small radius is the best predictor we found. By using a record of historical office changes, we could observe that the correlation begins shortly after people are seated nearby. It makes sense, because the physical proximity enables easy communication. As Eric Schmidt (our CEO) and Hal Varian (now our Chief Economist) advised in 2005: "The best way to make communication easy is to put team members within a few feet of each other. No telephone tag, no e-mail delay, no waiting for a reply." As you can see below, our finding about the importance of proximity holds, even once we account for many other factors.
- Although we did find strong correlations among professional and social contacts, these were substantially weaker than the correlations for micro-geography. We also measured the influence that people on similar projects, in similar places in the organization and with similar demographic characteristics exert on each other. This helped establish that geographic proximity -- and not some other type of similarity -- was responsible for the correlations we saw.
- Despite the markets' strong forecasting abilities, there is a slight optimistic bias driven mainly by new employees. On average, outcomes that were good for Google were overpriced by 20%. This bias was strongest on days after appreciations in Google stock and, ironically, for outcomes under our own control! We also find biases against extreme outcomes and short selling. Given a range of five outcomes, the middle ones were typically overpriced and unprofitable by comparison with the outliers.
假如你也是卖生姜的，和我们家门口菜场里的那个小姑娘一样，那么一天下来，你打算怎么数这些一元硬币（好像卖生姜的收到的主要都是硬币）？天啊，好几百个，这可真是一个数钱数到手抽筋的活。
这个小姑娘颇让我吃惊，她用的方法很特别。她先在电子秤上“滴滴滴”的输入了一个单价：16.6元每公斤，然后把一元的硬币堆在电子秤上。于是，立刻瞬间，电子秤立刻显示了金额，这个金额就是准确的一元硬币的个数。
太了不起了！
先别跳起来：“有什么夸张吗，这种小儿科，任谁都会，你也太没见识了吧？”我给你讲两个故事，也许你会同意这个方法确实了不起。
阿基米德是古希腊的著名学者，有一次，国王交给他一个任务，检验王冠是否为纯金的，条件是不许破坏它。在当时技术水平下，这是极具挑战性的。阿基米德为之苦思冥想寝食不安，就是想不出办法来。一天阿基米德去洗澡，当他浸入盛满水的浴缸中时，灵机一动，豁然贯通：将王冠浸入盛满水的容器中，溢出水的体积正好等于王冠的体积，然后将王冠的重量除以溢出水的重量，就算出了王冠的比重，与纯金的比重相比较，不就可以检验王冠是否为纯金了吗？而且这样做对王冠丝毫无损。阿基米德大喜过望，据说他从浴缸中一跃而起，赤身露体跑到街上大叫：“尤里卡（我找到了）！尤里卡！”
这个故事我想大部分人都听过，这个方法，就是把黄金的重量，通过恒定的密度，“转换”为体积。这种“转换”，被后人起了很多名字：“突破性思考”，弥补“缺失的链节”等等，都是用来夸赞阿基米德的“转换”。甚至后来，一个世界性的发明博览会就以这句“尤里卡”命名。
阿基米德是最伟大的发明家之一，而卖生姜的小姑娘做了同样的事情。她把一元硬币的重量，通过恒定的单个净重，“转换”为硬币个数。只是她没有跑到街上大叫“恶行者了（我找到了）！恶行者了！”而已啊。
另一个故事是现代的。
2007年10月9日，几十名福建农林大学学生，拿着17个募捐箱挨个宿舍跑，为给班上女同学小吴凑手术费。一天下来，正当他们为募集了3万多元钱而倍感欣喜时，10月10日上午7点，他们却接到小吴去世的消息，并得知其父母下午就要将小吴火化，然后回家安葬。为了把募集来的钱，顺利交到小吴父母手中，3名同学赶到银行，准备将100多斤，总计3000多元的硬币兑换成大额纸币，没想却遭到银行拒绝。无奈之下，小陈他们找到该银行另一分理处，并表明这是捐款时，柜台职员也表示无能为力。
看到了吧，这个方法可不是“小儿科”，银行这种天天数钱的机构，不愿意对付这区区3000元的硬币，即便明知这是善款。这种卖生姜小姑娘5分钟对付完的事情，银行显然觉得超出了他们的能力。看来，这个方法真是不简单啊！
不信，下次存钱的时候，也许你可以问问柜员：一元钱多少钱一斤？
The Guardian’s series on great buildings
Scott Matthewman writes:
In the UK, the Guardian newspaper has been bundling a free poster each day highlighting one of the world’s great modern buildings. They started with some of the most obvious, the Empire State, Sydney Opera House, etc. and today have included the 1930s-built Arnos Grove station on the London Underground.
As well as including original design blueprints, the posters contain a wealth of information putting the design of each building into historical context, most of which is also online (there’s a Flash-based interactive presentation of some of the buildings in the series available from that address, too).
I particularly thought you might enjoy the five design principles that WS Graff-Baker stuck to when designing new train carriages for the Underground:
1. Will it work? 2. Is it as simple as possible? 3. Could it easily be maintained in service? 4. Can it be manufactured? 5. Does it look well?
Something tells me you guys would have got on well with him.
Saying more by saying less
Neal Shaffer writes:
Thought you might take an interest in this post I just put up, as it deals generally with some of the same issues you tackle now and then on SVN:
Saying more by saying less: “Since you usually can’t simply dispatch with the fool, either online or in person, what do you do? You let him have his say, and leave it at that.”
Bad support info
Jose Espinal writes:
Getting Real and video gamesI would definitely like you to check this (Amusing But Sad Video Shows Verizon Reps Misquoting Rates 93 Percent of the Time) out.
I used to work for a communications company in a call center and the same happened with my colleagues, what happens is just some people don’t take their time to get to know the system they’re working nor they don’t know how to use it to look-up this type of information.
Miguel Javier writes:
I’m a few minutes into this video interview with Valve and they talked about using a shorter release cycle for their games using ‘episodes’.
I think a lot of what they said sounds Getting Real, and it’s a good contrast to Bungie that just broke off from Microsoft because they were already exhausted from working on one game all these years (Halo 1, 2 and 3).
F-book
Hugh Bien writes:
For people who drop the f-bomb a lot, I thought you’d enjoy this book (NSFW).
Have an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.
The Guardian’s series on great buildings
Scott Matthewman writes:
As well as including original design blueprints, the posters contain a wealth of information putting the design of each building into historical context, most of which is also online (there’s a Flash-based interactive presentation of some of the buildings in the series available from that address, too).
I particularly thought you might enjoy the five design principles that WS Graff-Baker stuck to when designing new train carriages for the Underground:
1. Will