The Value Of Irrelevance

Ask any Internet user and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: the Internet wouldn’t be the same without Google. While that may be true in some respect (and possibly most respects), it occured to me today that there is one drawback to Google’s efficiency: fewer websurfers are getting lost on the Internets.

Thanks to Google’s uber-efficient PageRank, search results are often returned with laser-like focus. While that’s great for finding information you want, it cuts down on information you found that you didn’t think you wanted. It seems I am uncovering fewer “happy accidents” when searching the web now. The instances where I unexpectedly find something new and interesting has been greatly reduced by the efficiency of Google.

Yes there’s an enormous amount of information on the web, and that data demands to be organized. Still, by relying on what the rest of the world considers important (a la PageRank) one may miss the new, unique ideas just gaining acceptance. PageRank almost guarantees your search results will be anything but cutting-edge. It values staleness. It gives results that are majority-rules. A majority-rules search engine can’t help but serve up the haystack instead of the needle.

I miss the days of unpredictable results. I miss the irrelevant results I used to get. Before Google tamed the Web, a search engine was a Russian-roulette ride through a young forest of Internet sites. Now its straight to the point, cutting out some potential magic. With all the information now on the Internet, having a human guide (or at the least a little randomness thrown in) is more valuable than ever.

Accipiter: Everything Old Is New Again

Ten years ago, I was one of the original startup employees at Accipiter, the web advertising software company. Accipiter was founded by Raleigh entrepreneur Chris Evans and soon grew on the edge of the web advertising boom.

That Accpiter company got sold to CMGI, a smoke-and-mirrors dot-bomb company that soon cratered in a big way. Accipiter became part of CMGI’s company Engage Technologies, being renamed Engage.

CMGI went bust when investors got wise to dot-com companies. (If your company ever gets bought and your New Overlords can’t stop calling the founder a “visionary,” run – don’t walk – to the exits!)

Engage’s offices on Highwoods Boulevard sat vacant for years. In 2002, someone at Engage talked management into spinning Accipiter off again. They did, and lo and behold Accipiter was reborn.

Yesterday, the new, improved Accipiter was sold once again, this time to a company called aQuantive for $30 million in cash.

No one I worked with at the original Accipiter appears to be with this Accipiter. Looks like the same name and product but an entirely different team. I find it funny to see this company’s name in the press again, so many years after it was first assimilated.

On a similar note, I wonder what Chris Evans is up to nowadays.

Arctic Ice To Be Gone in 30 Years?

At a recent dinner party, a few colleagues and I were discussing the problems of the world. Someone asked me what global problem was on my mind. I had just read Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and knew right away what my answer was: the melting of the Greenland ice shelf.

The Greenland ice shelf is melting at an unprecedented rate. Should it finally slide into the ocean, the world’s maps will have to be redrawn, to quote David King, a science advisor to Tony Blair. Sea levels would rise twenty feet overnight. A similar rise in sea levels would occur if a threatened ice sheet on western Antarctica breaks up.

Today I read that the ice surrounding the north pole in the Arctic Ccean could be gone in 30 years due to global warming. Some scientists say even 30 years is optimistic.

Hang on for some bumpy climate changes, folks.

NSA Bugged Princess Diana’s Phone

CBS News says an official British report on Princess Diana’s death claims that the American NSA was bugging Diana’s phone at the time of her death. The NSA closely cooperates with its British counterpart, GCHQ. However the report claims Diana’s bugging was done without the knowledge nor permission of GCHQ.

Interesting. I can’t imagine that Diana was a threat to anyone’s security. Unless, that is, you happen to be an arms manufacturer, particularly one who makes landmines.

A Look At Two Burning Buildings

Take a look at this YouTube clip to see how steel frame buildings usually burn. Then take a look at how WTC7 burned, which as you know was never hit by a fuel-laden airliner. As the clip says, any questions?

About every two weeks I walk right past the hole in the ground that used to be the World Trade Center. There’s a window in a building facing the site with a big peace sign in it. Next to it is another sign saying “DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC.” Seeing that sign at the scene of the biggest crime in American history gives me a little more hope in this country. Continue reading →