(83,1,'2010-08-22 12:29:38','2010-08-22 16:29:38','I\'m a sucker for history, if not a good student of it, so when I get a chance, I indulge a little in the background of a subject. And that\'s what the rest of this page is about--some self-indulgence; in particular, a historical account of my meager niche on the web. So if you\'re interested such things, keep on reading along, otherwise, I\'m certain there\'s something much cooler to look at on <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs\">YouTube</a>.\r\n\r\nSpin up the wayback machine and set the dial for June, 1995. I had seen someone show off a web page or two back in the fall of \'94, but hadn\'t been too impressed by the concept of hyperlinks. Nevertheless, at a college reunion, my friends, <a href=\"http://digitalathene.com\">Steve Luminati</a> and <a href=\"http://www.joki.com/\">Tom Pixley</a>, insisted this new technology was pretty cool and guided me through the construction my own web page.\r\n\r\n\"To create a paragraph,\" said Steve, \"use the less-than sign, followed by the letter \'p\', followed by the greater-than sign. Then follow it with whatever you want to show up on the screen.\"\r\n\r\n\"Really? That\'s all there is to it?\" A few moments later: \"Wow. There it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Next I\'ll show you how to embed an image.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can show graphics? Cool!\"\r\n\r\nAnd a web addict was born.\r\n\r\nNot long later, I created my first web page and called it \"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\", the nickname and tag line I had given my desktop PC. It resided on the web server of the <a title=\"Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue U\" href=\"http://www.bio.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Biological Sciences</a> at <a title=\"Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Purdue University</a>, a single, static page among another <a title=\"WWW Growth\" href=\"http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#Growth\" target=\"_blank\">23,500 or so web sites in the world</a>. I don\'t recall too much about it other than it had a Photoshopped logo, probably some info about me, and probably some links. Basically, your standard web page at the time.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"407\" caption=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo. It greeted folks to my single, static home page during the latter half of 1995.\"]<img title=\"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/biggs2k.gif\" alt=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo\" width=\"407\" height=\"230\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOnly a few months passed before I scrapped it in favor of another design, one I entitled \"Mind \'Scapes\", which focused on my interest in science and sported snazzier graphics. Alas, this incarnation\'s life was as brief as its predecessor--I ultimately decided my web site should truly be more personal than a bunch of links about science: It should be a bunch of links about science and other things I liked. I also decided it ought to demonstrate my talents of a web developer by incorporating the two latest trends in browser technologies: JavaScript and Frames.\r\n\r\nThus was born the second generation of the \"Biggles 2000\", which divided my web site into seven areas of personal interests and incorporated it all into a \"gateway\" motif. But despite rave reviews from fellow web smiths, I abhorred my latest creation for at least two reasons: (1) It was just a bunch of links, and (2) the entire site was totally dependent on JavaScript and Frames. Oh, the irony!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"A collage representing two generations of my web site. On the left, the original Mind &#39;Scapes logo, complete with exploding brain. At the top right, two &quot;quotes&quot; from the Mind &#39;Scapes site, heavily influenced by Monty Python, of course. Below the quotes are arranged the seven &quot;personal&quot; gateways of Biggles 2000.\"]<img class=\"   \" title=\"A collage of two generations of web sites.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/web_site_collage.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v1.0 and Biggles 2000 v2.0.\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" />[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So I simplified. I removed the JavaScript and Frames; I replaced the links with actual content, including a whole slew of original artwork. I also renamed the site because I felt the name, \"Biggles 2000\", though affectionate, was a tad silly, not necessarily reflective of the professional web developer I hoped to portray at that time in my career. I returned to the name, \"Mind \'Scapes\", and lo! the fourth iteration of my web site arose from the ashes in early 1998... and there it lingered for over a dozen years.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"The logo (and greeting) for the second iteration of &quot;Mind &#39;Scapes&quot;, and the fourth iteration of my personal web site.\"]<img title=\"Mind \'Scapes: Imagination has no limits\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/mind_scapes_modern_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v2.0 logo\" width=\"400\" height=\"293\" />[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why did the fourth generation of my web site live so much longer than its ancestors? Well, first and foremost, I really liked it, as did many others. For its time, it had a very professional-looking design. The secondary pages, divided into four areas of interest, possessed a tight, crisp look and layout, each with its own color scheme and style of presentation. All artwork was my own. And content! There was actual content! Including a friendly guide to my graduate work in neuroscience, as well as links to my personal publications and games.</p>\r\nOf course, in the realm of computer technology, the young and the restless rapidly age into the old and stagnant. Within a few years, the site was mostly out-of-date. I had moved on from my graduate work, my place of employment had changed several times, and my interests had shifted. I occasionally updated the web site--for example, I replaced antiquated \"FONT\" tags with appropriate CSS--but for the most part, the site lay dormant. I never added anything about the \"Ultima V: Lazarus\" project upon which I spent five years, and I never mentioned Harvard University, my place of employment for close to a decade.\r\n\r\nPeople remarked that I should update or renovate the site, make it more \"modern\", whatever that meant. I remember one of my employees laughing in 2008: \"Your site looks so 1990\'s.\" When I asked him to explain, exactly, what made it so archaic, he shrugged, claiming not to be able to put a finger on it. But he was right. The site was a throwback, equivalent to someone my age still sporting a <a title=\"Mullets\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=mullet\" target=\"_blank\">mullet</a> and <a title=\"Parachute pants--never owned a pair.\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=parachute+pants\" target=\"_blank\">parachute pants</a>.\r\n\r\nStill, perhaps because of nostalgia, but probably more due to lack of motivation and plain laziness, the web site remained as is. Every now and then, I investigated replacing it with one of those new-fangled blog things. Unfortunately, I would get distracted... or just bored... or just... who knows? Revamping my personal web space never became a priority. After all, I developed and managed web applications for a living--no need to indulge in my own site since I spent 8 hours a day dealing with the sites of others.\r\n\r\nI\'m not certain what changed in August, 2010. If I can identify a turning point, it would be  \"<a title=\"People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://www.pr-if.org/\">The People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction</a>\", a simple web site I volunteered to help create and maintain in March, 2010. Designing and implementing this community site sparked something in me, a creative flame of web design that had been dim for many years. And I think teaching about basic web site development fanned that flame, as well.\r\n\r\nSo here it is: Generation the fifth, neither \"Biggles 2000\" nor \"Mind \'Scapes\", although cribbing from both.  It\'s dynamic, built on third-party software, already incorporated into <a title=\"Web 2.0\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0\" target=\"_blank\">Web 2.0</a>, and unlike its predecessor, pretty easy (and fun, so far) to update. Hopefully, it will continue to <a title=\"Live long and prosper\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/live_long.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">live long and prosper,</a> just as I hope to do.','About This Site','','inherit','open','open','','59-revision-22','','','2010-08-22 12:29:38','2010-08-22 16:29:38','',59,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/59-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(84,1,'2010-08-22 12:32:21','2010-08-22 16:32:21','I\'m a sucker for history, if not a good student of it, so when I get a chance, I indulge a little in the background of a subject. And that\'s what the rest of this page is about--some self-indulgence; in particular, a historical account of my meager niche on the web. So if you\'re interested such things, keep on reading along, otherwise, I\'m certain there\'s something much cooler to look at on <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs\">YouTube</a>.\r\n\r\nSpin up the wayback machine and set the dial for June, 1995. I had seen someone show off a web page or two back in the fall of \'94, but hadn\'t been too impressed by the concept of hyperlinks. Nevertheless, at a college reunion, my friends, <a href=\"http://digitalathene.com\">Steve Luminati</a> and <a href=\"http://www.joki.com/\">Tom Pixley</a>, insisted this new technology was pretty cool and guided me through the construction my own web page.\r\n\r\n\"To create a paragraph,\" said Steve, \"use the less-than sign, followed by the letter \'p\', followed by the greater-than sign. Then follow it with whatever you want to show up on the screen.\"\r\n\r\n\"Really? That\'s all there is to it?\" A few moments later: \"Wow. There it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Next I\'ll show you how to embed an image.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can show graphics? Cool!\"\r\n\r\nAnd a web addict was born.\r\n\r\nNot long later, I created my first web page and called it \"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\", the nickname and tag line I had given my desktop PC. It resided on the web server of the <a title=\"Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue U\" href=\"http://www.bio.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Biological Sciences</a> at <a title=\"Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Purdue University</a>, a single, static page among another <a title=\"WWW Growth\" href=\"http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#Growth\" target=\"_blank\">23,500 or so web sites in the world</a>. I don\'t recall too much about it other than it had a Photoshopped logo, probably some info about me, and probably some links. Basically, your standard web page at the time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"407\" caption=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo. It greeted folks to my single, static home page during the latter half of 1995.\"]<img title=\"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/biggs2k.gif\" alt=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo\" width=\"407\" height=\"230\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOnly a few months passed before I scrapped it in favor of another design, one I entitled \"Mind \'Scapes\", which focused on my interest in science and sported snazzier graphics. Alas, this incarnation\'s life was as brief as its predecessor--I ultimately decided my web site should truly be more personal than a bunch of links about science: It should be a bunch of links about science and other things I liked. I also decided it ought to demonstrate my talents of a web developer by incorporating the two latest trends in browser technologies: JavaScript and Frames.\r\n\r\nThus was born the second generation of the \"Biggles 2000\", which divided my web site into seven areas of personal interests and incorporated it all into a \"gateway\" motif. But despite rave reviews from fellow web smiths, I abhorred my latest creation for at least two reasons: (1) It was just a bunch of links, and (2) the entire site was totally dependent on JavaScript and Frames. Oh, the irony!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"A collage representing two generations of my web site. On the left, the original Mind &#39;Scapes logo, complete with exploding brain. At the top right, two &quot;quotes&quot; from the Mind &#39;Scapes site, heavily influenced by Monty Python, of course. Below the quotes are arranged the seven &quot;personal&quot; gateways of Biggles 2000.\"]<img class=\"   \" title=\"A collage of two generations of web sites.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/web_site_collage.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v1.0 and Biggles 2000 v2.0.\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nSo I simplified. I removed the JavaScript and Frames; I replaced the links with actual content, including a whole slew of original artwork. I also renamed the site because I felt the name, \"Biggles 2000\", though affectionate, was a tad silly, not necessarily reflective of the professional web developer I hoped to portray at that time in my career. I returned to the name, \"Mind \'Scapes\", and lo! the fourth iteration of my web site arose from the ashes in early 1998... and there it lingered for over a dozen years.\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"The logo (and greeting) for the second iteration of &quot;Mind &#39;Scapes&quot;, and the fourth iteration of my personal web site.\"]<img title=\"Mind \'Scapes: Imagination has no limits\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/mind_scapes_modern_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v2.0 logo\" width=\"400\" height=\"293\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why did the fourth generation of my web site live so much longer than its ancestors? Well, first and foremost, I really liked it, as did many others. For its time, it had a very professional-looking design. The secondary pages, divided into four areas of interest, possessed a tight, crisp look and layout, each with its own color scheme and style of presentation. All artwork was my own. And content! There was actual content! Including a friendly guide to my graduate work in neuroscience, as well as links to my personal publications and games.</p>\r\n\r\nOf course, in the realm of computer technology, the young and the restless rapidly age into the old and stagnant. Within a few years, the site was mostly out-of-date. I had moved on from my graduate work, my place of employment had changed several times, and my interests had shifted. I occasionally updated the web site--for example, I replaced antiquated \"FONT\" tags with appropriate CSS--but for the most part, the site lay dormant. I never added anything about the \"Ultima V: Lazarus\" project upon which I spent five years, and I never mentioned Harvard University, my place of employment for close to a decade.\r\n\r\nPeople remarked that I should update or renovate the site, make it more \"modern\", whatever that meant. I remember one of my employees laughing in 2008: \"Your site looks so 1990\'s.\" When I asked him to explain, exactly, what made it so archaic, he shrugged, claiming not to be able to put a finger on it. But he was right. The site was a throwback, equivalent to someone my age still sporting a <a title=\"Mullets\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=mullet\" target=\"_blank\">mullet</a> and <a title=\"Parachute pants--never owned a pair.\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=parachute+pants\" target=\"_blank\">parachute pants</a>.\r\n\r\nStill, perhaps because of nostalgia, but probably more due to lack of motivation and plain laziness, the web site remained as is. Every now and then, I investigated replacing it with one of those new-fangled blog things. Unfortunately, I would get distracted... or just bored... or just... who knows? Revamping my personal web space never became a priority. After all, I developed and managed web applications for a living--no need to indulge in my own site since I spent 8 hours a day dealing with the sites of others.\r\n\r\nI\'m not certain what changed in August, 2010. If I can identify a turning point, it would be  \"<a title=\"People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://www.pr-if.org/\">The People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction</a>\", a simple web site I volunteered to help create and maintain in March, 2010. Designing and implementing this community site sparked something in me, a creative flame of web design that had been dim for many years. And I think teaching about basic web site development fanned that flame, as well.\r\n\r\nSo here it is: Generation the fifth, neither \"Biggles 2000\" nor \"Mind \'Scapes\", although cribbing from both.  It\'s dynamic, built on third-party software, already incorporated into <a title=\"Web 2.0\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0\" target=\"_blank\">Web 2.0</a>, and unlike its predecessor, pretty easy (and fun, so far) to update. Hopefully, it will continue to <a title=\"Live long and prosper\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/live_long.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">live long and prosper,</a> just as I hope to do.','About This Site','','inherit','open','open','','59-revision-23','','','2010-08-22 12:32:21','2010-08-22 16:32:21','',59,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/59-revision-23/',0,'revision','',0),(85,1,'2010-08-22 13:15:48','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [1. This is a footnote], consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris ultrices mauris at erat egestas eget varius neque viverra. Maecenas in magna ligula. Integer non commodo tellus. Fusce tincidunt posuere nulla. Curabitur elit metus, convallis ac mattis blandit, semper eget turpis. Nullam sit amet justo est. Proin sit amet urna non mi gravida venenatis. Vivamus sodales elit feugiat felis semper ultrices. Suspendisse turpis lectus, convallis vel congue eu, mollis luctus augue. Duis est nisi, ornare vestibulum commodo nec, tempus sit amet felis. Cras iaculis metus non lorem porta non convallis nisl dignissim. Etiam vulputate sem ac lorem eleifend tincidunt. In porta odio ut dolor ultrices vel blandit lorem viverra.\r\n\r\nVestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Vivamus condimentum lectus consequat libero tempor at interdum justo bibendum. Phasellus nisi leo, bibendum id elementum ac, euismod in ligula. Praesent at ligula quis purus ullamcorper mollis. Phasellus in arcu ante, ut tristique purus. Quisque sit amet faucibus mauris. Aliquam erat volutpat. Cras eu augue ligula. Nullam nec leo nec dolor condimentum tempus at ut orci. Curabitur porta accumsan justo, eget condimentum nibh ornare eget. Duis vitae dolor eget est pharetra scelerisque. Donec et elementum lectus. Integer ut nisi risus. Aenean et mauris sapien, sed porta nisl.\r\n\r\nNullam risus purus, vestibulum non ullamcorper nec, egestas eu odio. Aenean turpis felis, congue nec faucibus in, condimentum nec tortor. Suspendisse et purus nibh, fringilla pulvinar orci. Nam et erat justo. Donec sed urna vel erat dapibus vehicula. In scelerisque, lacus a faucibus accumsan, odio justo ullamcorper erat, ac mollis nunc lorem et felis. Pellentesque eu purus velit, non vestibulum dolor. Pellentesque ullamcorper congue libero, ac elementum sapien dapibus quis. Proin consectetur pulvinar neque, eget pretium erat lacinia vel. In mauris orci, sodales in egestas vitae, imperdiet et arcu. Integer tincidunt egestas eros, aliquam posuere tortor lacinia eget. Suspendisse at libero ac felis porta facilisis quis quis metus.\r\n\r\nDonec scelerisque erat non felis feugiat eu placerat erat placerat. Aliquam dui diam, auctor sit amet tempus ac, adipiscing eget tellus. Maecenas vitae ligula eget leo auctor feugiat sed et massa. Vivamus mi lacus, lacinia at vestibulum vel, varius vel neque. Donec in ipsum arcu, non ornare felis. Vestibulum vel velit non odio luctus facilisis. Integer nec tortor et urna auctor aliquam. Nam nec metus ut risus vestibulum laoreet. In a odio dignissim tortor interdum cursus. Maecenas vel dolor nec quam sagittis vehicula. Nulla interdum quam ut tellus elementum non posuere erat varius. Maecenas vehicula, diam in aliquet hendrerit, nulla justo pretium ligula, at tempor metus massa at nulla. In elementum vulputate dui, nec luctus mi pharetra rutrum. Duis nec ipsum ipsum, quis tempus urna. Mauris varius bibendum eros suscipit convallis. Morbi mattis auctor enim, id scelerisque leo tempus vitae.\r\n\r\nUt molestie tristique nibh. Etiam vulputate erat et lorem mollis pulvinar. Suspendisse eget ipsum vitae dolor blandit commodo. Maecenas et tellus eu libero auctor tempus et blandit neque. In scelerisque elementum est, non egestas risus semper nec. Sed lacus massa, commodo quis bibendum vel, tincidunt non dui. Morbi id arcu tortor, nec porta sapien. Vestibulum sagittis pulvinar lectus, ut facilisis enim imperdiet ut. In auctor tristique pulvinar. Etiam gravida ullamcorper est, et mattis nisl faucibus vitae. Donec a urna nec nisl mattis facilisis vulputate eu turpis. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas accumsan, ante id congue bibendum, arcu diam semper diam, a dapibus tortor tortor fringilla ante. Proin viverra porta gravida. Quisque aliquet enim ac augue hendrerit a interdum odio lobortis. Quisque tincidunt urna ac arcu aliquet eget porta libero commodo. Nam vitae turpis id sapien hendrerit hendrerit. In pretium justo nec urna imperdiet lobortis. Ut vel sapien vel risus euismod scelerisque.','Gaming','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-08-22 13:15:48','2010-08-22 17:15:48','',0,'http://www.biggles2k.com/',0,'page','',0),(86,1,'2010-08-22 13:15:10','2010-08-22 17:15:10','Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [1., consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris ultrices mauris at erat egestas eget varius neque viverra. Maecenas in magna ligula. Integer non commodo tellus. Fusce tincidunt posuere nulla. Curabitur elit metus, convallis ac mattis blandit, semper eget turpis. Nullam sit amet justo est. Proin sit amet urna non mi gravida venenatis. Vivamus sodales elit feugiat felis semper ultrices. Suspendisse turpis lectus, convallis vel congue eu, mollis luctus augue. Duis est nisi, ornare vestibulum commodo nec, tempus sit amet felis. Cras iaculis metus non lorem porta non convallis nisl dignissim. Etiam vulputate sem ac lorem eleifend tincidunt. In porta odio ut dolor ultrices vel blandit lorem viverra.\n\nVestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Vivamus condimentum lectus consequat libero tempor at interdum justo bibendum. Phasellus nisi leo, bibendum id elementum ac, euismod in ligula. Praesent at ligula quis purus ullamcorper mollis. Phasellus in arcu ante, ut tristique purus. Quisque sit amet faucibus mauris. Aliquam erat volutpat. Cras eu augue ligula. Nullam nec leo nec dolor condimentum tempus at ut orci. Curabitur porta accumsan justo, eget condimentum nibh ornare eget. Duis vitae dolor eget est pharetra scelerisque. Donec et elementum lectus. Integer ut nisi risus. Aenean et mauris sapien, sed porta nisl.\n\nNullam risus purus, vestibulum non ullamcorper nec, egestas eu odio. Aenean turpis felis, congue nec faucibus in, condimentum nec tortor. Suspendisse et purus nibh, fringilla pulvinar orci. Nam et erat justo. Donec sed urna vel erat dapibus vehicula. In scelerisque, lacus a faucibus accumsan, odio justo ullamcorper erat, ac mollis nunc lorem et felis. Pellentesque eu purus velit, non vestibulum dolor. Pellentesque ullamcorper congue libero, ac elementum sapien dapibus quis. Proin consectetur pulvinar neque, eget pretium erat lacinia vel. In mauris orci, sodales in egestas vitae, imperdiet et arcu. Integer tincidunt egestas eros, aliquam posuere tortor lacinia eget. Suspendisse at libero ac felis porta facilisis quis quis metus.\n\nDonec scelerisque erat non felis feugiat eu placerat erat placerat. Aliquam dui diam, auctor sit amet tempus ac, adipiscing eget tellus. Maecenas vitae ligula eget leo auctor feugiat sed et massa. Vivamus mi lacus, lacinia at vestibulum vel, varius vel neque. Donec in ipsum arcu, non ornare felis. Vestibulum vel velit non odio luctus facilisis. Integer nec tortor et urna auctor aliquam. Nam nec metus ut risus vestibulum laoreet. In a odio dignissim tortor interdum cursus. Maecenas vel dolor nec quam sagittis vehicula. Nulla interdum quam ut tellus elementum non posuere erat varius. Maecenas vehicula, diam in aliquet hendrerit, nulla justo pretium ligula, at tempor metus massa at nulla. In elementum vulputate dui, nec luctus mi pharetra rutrum. Duis nec ipsum ipsum, quis tempus urna. Mauris varius bibendum eros suscipit convallis. Morbi mattis auctor enim, id scelerisque leo tempus vitae.\n\nUt molestie tristique nibh. Etiam vulputate erat et lorem mollis pulvinar. Suspendisse eget ipsum vitae dolor blandit commodo. Maecenas et tellus eu libero auctor tempus et blandit neque. In scelerisque elementum est, non egestas risus semper nec. Sed lacus massa, commodo quis bibendum vel, tincidunt non dui. Morbi id arcu tortor, nec porta sapien. Vestibulum sagittis pulvinar lectus, ut facilisis enim imperdiet ut. In auctor tristique pulvinar. Etiam gravida ullamcorper est, et mattis nisl faucibus vitae. Donec a urna nec nisl mattis facilisis vulputate eu turpis. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas accumsan, ante id congue bibendum, arcu diam semper diam, a dapibus tortor tortor fringilla ante. Proin viverra porta gravida. Quisque aliquet enim ac augue hendrerit a interdum odio lobortis. Quisque tincidunt urna ac arcu aliquet eget porta libero commodo. Nam vitae turpis id sapien hendrerit hendrerit. In pretium justo nec urna imperdiet lobortis. Ut vel sapien vel risus euismod scelerisque.','Gaming','','inherit','open','open','','85-revision','','','2010-08-22 13:15:10','2010-08-22 17:15:10','',85,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/85-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(87,1,'2010-08-22 13:15:40','2010-08-22 17:15:40','Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [1. This is a footnote], consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris ultrices mauris at erat egestas eget varius neque viverra. Maecenas in magna ligula. Integer non commodo tellus. Fusce tincidunt posuere nulla. Curabitur elit metus, convallis ac mattis blandit, semper eget turpis. Nullam sit amet justo est. Proin sit amet urna non mi gravida venenatis. Vivamus sodales elit feugiat felis semper ultrices. Suspendisse turpis lectus, convallis vel congue eu, mollis luctus augue. Duis est nisi, ornare vestibulum commodo nec, tempus sit amet felis. Cras iaculis metus non lorem porta non convallis nisl dignissim. Etiam vulputate sem ac lorem eleifend tincidunt. In porta odio ut dolor ultrices vel blandit lorem viverra.\r\n\r\nVestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Vivamus condimentum lectus consequat libero tempor at interdum justo bibendum. Phasellus nisi leo, bibendum id elementum ac, euismod in ligula. Praesent at ligula quis purus ullamcorper mollis. Phasellus in arcu ante, ut tristique purus. Quisque sit amet faucibus mauris. Aliquam erat volutpat. Cras eu augue ligula. Nullam nec leo nec dolor condimentum tempus at ut orci. Curabitur porta accumsan justo, eget condimentum nibh ornare eget. Duis vitae dolor eget est pharetra scelerisque. Donec et elementum lectus. Integer ut nisi risus. Aenean et mauris sapien, sed porta nisl.\r\n\r\nNullam risus purus, vestibulum non ullamcorper nec, egestas eu odio. Aenean turpis felis, congue nec faucibus in, condimentum nec tortor. Suspendisse et purus nibh, fringilla pulvinar orci. Nam et erat justo. Donec sed urna vel erat dapibus vehicula. In scelerisque, lacus a faucibus accumsan, odio justo ullamcorper erat, ac mollis nunc lorem et felis. Pellentesque eu purus velit, non vestibulum dolor. Pellentesque ullamcorper congue libero, ac elementum sapien dapibus quis. Proin consectetur pulvinar neque, eget pretium erat lacinia vel. In mauris orci, sodales in egestas vitae, imperdiet et arcu. Integer tincidunt egestas eros, aliquam posuere tortor lacinia eget. Suspendisse at libero ac felis porta facilisis quis quis metus.\r\n\r\nDonec scelerisque erat non felis feugiat eu placerat erat placerat. Aliquam dui diam, auctor sit amet tempus ac, adipiscing eget tellus. Maecenas vitae ligula eget leo auctor feugiat sed et massa. Vivamus mi lacus, lacinia at vestibulum vel, varius vel neque. Donec in ipsum arcu, non ornare felis. Vestibulum vel velit non odio luctus facilisis. Integer nec tortor et urna auctor aliquam. Nam nec metus ut risus vestibulum laoreet. In a odio dignissim tortor interdum cursus. Maecenas vel dolor nec quam sagittis vehicula. Nulla interdum quam ut tellus elementum non posuere erat varius. Maecenas vehicula, diam in aliquet hendrerit, nulla justo pretium ligula, at tempor metus massa at nulla. In elementum vulputate dui, nec luctus mi pharetra rutrum. Duis nec ipsum ipsum, quis tempus urna. Mauris varius bibendum eros suscipit convallis. Morbi mattis auctor enim, id scelerisque leo tempus vitae.\r\n\r\nUt molestie tristique nibh. Etiam vulputate erat et lorem mollis pulvinar. Suspendisse eget ipsum vitae dolor blandit commodo. Maecenas et tellus eu libero auctor tempus et blandit neque. In scelerisque elementum est, non egestas risus semper nec. Sed lacus massa, commodo quis bibendum vel, tincidunt non dui. Morbi id arcu tortor, nec porta sapien. Vestibulum sagittis pulvinar lectus, ut facilisis enim imperdiet ut. In auctor tristique pulvinar. Etiam gravida ullamcorper est, et mattis nisl faucibus vitae. Donec a urna nec nisl mattis facilisis vulputate eu turpis. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas accumsan, ante id congue bibendum, arcu diam semper diam, a dapibus tortor tortor fringilla ante. Proin viverra porta gravida. Quisque aliquet enim ac augue hendrerit a interdum odio lobortis. Quisque tincidunt urna ac arcu aliquet eget porta libero commodo. Nam vitae turpis id sapien hendrerit hendrerit. In pretium justo nec urna imperdiet lobortis. Ut vel sapien vel risus euismod scelerisque.','Gaming','','inherit','open','open','','85-revision-2','','','2010-08-22 13:15:40','2010-08-22 17:15:40','',85,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/85-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(128,1,'2010-09-05 11:36:57','2010-09-05 15:36:57','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"175\" caption=\"The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand, old-school browser in the other.\"]<img title=\"The Modern Web Surfer\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/modern_web_surfer.jpg\" alt=\"The modern web surfer\" width=\"175\" height=\"238\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nEvery now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend asked the obligatory \"What next?\" More specifically, he said: \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, debates have risen about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes. There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand; old-school browser in the other.','publish','open','open','','the-mobile-web','','\nhttp://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/','2010-09-07 23:40:21','2010-09-08 03:40:21','',0,'http://www.biggles2k.com/?p=128',0,'post','',0),(88,1,'2010-08-22 12:39:57','2010-08-22 16:39:57','I\'m a sucker for history, if not a good student of it, so when I get a chance, I indulge a little in the background of a subject. And that\'s what the rest of this page is about--some self-indulgence; in particular, a historical account of my meager niche on the web. So if you\'re interested such things, keep on reading along, otherwise, I\'m certain there\'s something much cooler to look at on <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs\">YouTube</a>.\r\n\r\nSpin up the wayback machine and set the dial for June, 1995. I had seen someone show off a web page or two back in the fall of \'94, but hadn\'t been too impressed by the concept of hyperlinks. Nevertheless, at a college reunion, my friends, <a href=\"http://digitalathene.com\">Steve Luminati</a> and <a href=\"http://www.joki.com/\">Tom Pixley</a>, insisted this new technology was pretty cool and guided me through the construction my own web page.\r\n\r\n\"To create a paragraph,\" said Steve, \"use the less-than sign, followed by the letter \'p\', followed by the greater-than sign. Then follow it with whatever you want to show up on the screen.\"\r\n\r\n\"Really? That\'s all there is to it?\" A few moments later: \"Wow. There it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Next I\'ll show you how to embed an image.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can show graphics? Cool!\"\r\n\r\nAnd a web addict was born.\r\n\r\nNot long later, I created my first web page and called it \"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\", the nickname and tag line I had given my desktop PC. It resided on the web server of the <a title=\"Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue U\" href=\"http://www.bio.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Biological Sciences</a> at <a title=\"Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Purdue University</a>, a single, static page among another <a title=\"WWW Growth\" href=\"http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#Growth\" target=\"_blank\">23,500 or so web sites in the world</a>. I don\'t recall too much about it other than it had a Photoshopped logo, probably some info about me, and probably some links. Basically, your standard web page at the time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"407\" caption=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo. It greeted folks to my single, static home page during the latter half of 1995.\"]<img title=\"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/biggs2k.gif\" alt=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo\" width=\"407\" height=\"230\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOnly a few months passed before I scrapped it in favor of another design, one I entitled \"Mind \'Scapes\", which focused on my interest in science and sported snazzier graphics. Alas, this incarnation\'s life was as brief as its predecessor--I ultimately decided my web site should truly be more personal than a bunch of links about science: It should be a bunch of links about science and other things I liked. I also decided it ought to demonstrate my talents of a web developer by incorporating the two latest trends in browser technologies: JavaScript and Frames.\r\n\r\nThus was born the second generation of the \"Biggles 2000\", which divided my web site into seven areas of personal interests and incorporated it all into a \"gateway\" motif. But despite rave reviews from fellow web smiths, I abhorred my latest creation for at least two reasons: (1) It was just a bunch of links, and (2) the entire site was totally dependent on JavaScript and Frames. Oh, the irony!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"A collage representing two generations of my web site. On the left, the original Mind &#39;Scapes logo, complete with exploding brain. At the top right, two &quot;quotes&quot; from the Mind &#39;Scapes site, heavily influenced by Monty Python, of course. Below the quotes are arranged the seven &quot;personal&quot; gateways of Biggles 2000.\"]<img class=\"   \" title=\"A collage of two generations of web sites.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/web_site_collage.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v1.0 and Biggles 2000 v2.0.\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nSo I simplified. I removed the JavaScript and Frames; I replaced the links with actual content, including a whole slew of original artwork. I also renamed the site because I felt the name, \"Biggles 2000\", though affectionate, was a tad silly, not necessarily reflective of the professional web developer I hoped to portray at that time in my career. I returned to the name, \"Mind \'Scapes\", and lo! the fourth iteration of my web site arose from the ashes in early 1998... and there it lingered for over a dozen years.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"The logo (and greeting) for the second iteration of &quot;Mind &#39;Scapes&quot;, and the fourth iteration of my personal web site.\"]<img title=\"Mind \'Scapes: Imagination has no limits\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/mind_scapes_modern_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v2.0 logo\" width=\"400\" height=\"293\" />[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why did the fourth generation of my web site live so much longer than its ancestors? Well, first and foremost, I really liked it, as did many others. For its time, it had a very professional-looking design. The secondary pages, divided into four areas of interest, possessed a tight, crisp look and layout, each with its own color scheme and style of presentation. All artwork was my own. And content! There was actual content! Including a friendly guide to my graduate work in neuroscience, as well as links to my personal publications and games.</p>\r\nOf course, in the realm of computer technology, the young and the restless rapidly age into the old and stagnant. Within a few years, the site was mostly out-of-date. I had moved on from my graduate work, my place of employment had changed several times, and my interests had shifted. I occasionally updated the web site--for example, I replaced antiquated \"FONT\" tags with appropriate CSS--but for the most part, the site lay dormant. I never added anything about the \"Ultima V: Lazarus\" project upon which I spent five years, and I never mentioned Harvard University, my place of employment for close to a decade.\r\n\r\nPeople remarked that I should update or renovate the site, make it more \"modern\", whatever that meant. I remember one of my employees laughing in 2008: \"Your site looks so 1990\'s.\" When I asked him to explain, exactly, what made it so archaic, he shrugged, claiming not to be able to put a finger on it. But he was right. The site was a throwback, equivalent to someone my age still sporting a <a title=\"Mullets\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=mullet\" target=\"_blank\">mullet</a> and <a title=\"Parachute pants--never owned a pair.\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=parachute+pants\" target=\"_blank\">parachute pants</a>.\r\n\r\nStill, perhaps because of nostalgia, but probably more due to lack of motivation and plain laziness, the web site remained as is. Every now and then, I investigated replacing it with one of those new-fangled blog things. Unfortunately, I would get distracted... or just bored... or just... who knows? Revamping my personal web space never became a priority. After all, I developed and managed web applications for a living--no need to indulge in my own site since I spent 8 hours a day dealing with the sites of others.\r\n\r\nI\'m not certain what changed in August, 2010. If I can identify a turning point, it would be  \"<a title=\"People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://www.pr-if.org/\">The People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction</a>\", a simple web site I volunteered to help create and maintain in March, 2010. Designing and implementing this community site sparked something in me, a creative flame of web design that had been dim for many years. And I think teaching about basic web site development fanned that flame, as well.\r\n\r\nSo here it is: Generation the fifth, neither \"Biggles 2000\" nor \"Mind \'Scapes\", although cribbing from both.  It\'s dynamic, built on third-party software, already incorporated into <a title=\"Web 2.0\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0\" target=\"_blank\">Web 2.0</a>, and unlike its predecessor, pretty easy (and fun, so far) to update. Hopefully, it will continue to <a title=\"Live long and prosper\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/live_long.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">live long and prosper,</a> just as I hope to do. And because it\'s difficult for me to let go of good things, <a title=\"Mind \'Scapes\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/old_index.html\" target=\"_blank\">the old web site still haunts the web</a>. Peruse this piece of nostalgia if you wish.','About This Site','','inherit','open','open','','59-revision-24','','','2010-08-22 12:39:57','2010-08-22 16:39:57','',59,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/59-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(89,1,'2010-08-23 00:24:58','2010-08-23 04:24:58','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nAlas, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozen pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead, and the <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\">data backs me up</a> since more and more people are using the Web every year. Yes, the Web may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my web browser or site for a ninepence any time soon. [1. Though if someone would like to purchase my domain name for sizable sum of cash, I\'d be willing to listen.]','Bring out yer dead!','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that Wired magazine has deemed my efforts for naught because the Web is dead.','publish','open','open','','bring-out-yer-dead','','','2010-09-04 19:22:57','2010-09-04 23:22:57','',0,'http://www.biggles2k.com/?p=89',0,'post','',0),(90,1,'2010-08-22 23:52:28','2010-08-23 03:52:28','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful chart</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\n\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\". Not only that, the pinnacle of the web\'s usage, if you believe their graph,\n\nYes, believe it or not, the Internet, the infrastructure upon which the Web was built, is increasingly being used for other things, such as video and online gaming, while the Web is being abano\n\nVideos tend to be slightly larger downloads than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth.','','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision','','','2010-08-22 23:52:28','2010-08-23 03:52:28','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(91,1,'2010-08-22 23:53:28','2010-08-23 03:53:28','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\n\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\". Not only that, the Web is being abandoned in favor\n\nYes, believe it or not, the Internet, the infrastructure upon which the Web was built, is increasingly being used for other things, such as video and online gaming, while the Web is being abano\n\nVideos tend to be slightly larger downloads than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth.','','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-2','','','2010-08-22 23:53:28','2010-08-23 03:53:28','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(92,1,'2010-08-23 00:18:37','2010-08-23 04:18:37','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\n\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\". Not only that, according to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\n\nUnfortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular service video downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\n\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-3','','','2010-08-23 00:18:37','2010-08-23 04:18:37','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(93,1,'2010-08-23 00:20:37','2010-08-23 04:20:37','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\n\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\n\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\". Not only that, according to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\n\nUnfortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular service video downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\n\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-4','','','2010-08-23 00:20:37','2010-08-23 04:20:37','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(94,1,'2010-08-23 00:21:01','2010-08-23 04:21:01','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\". Not only that, according to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nUnfortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular service video downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\r\n\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-5','','','2010-08-23 00:21:01','2010-08-23 04:21:01','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(95,1,'2010-08-23 00:23:45','2010-08-23 04:23:45','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular service video downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-6','','','2010-08-23 00:23:45','2010-08-23 04:23:45','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(96,1,'2010-09-04 19:22:42','2010-09-04 23:22:42','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\n\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\n\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\n\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\n\nAlas, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozen pieces of spam every day.\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead, and the <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">data backs me up</a> since more and more people are using the Web every year. Yes, the Web may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my web browser or site for a ninepence any time soon. [1. Though if someone would like to purchase my domain name for sizable sum of cash, I\'d be willing to listen.]','Bring out yer dead!','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that Wired magazine has deemed my efforts for naught because the Web is dead.','inherit','open','open','','89-autosave','','','2010-09-04 19:22:42','2010-09-04 23:22:42','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(97,1,'2010-08-23 00:24:58','2010-08-23 04:24:58','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to throw my sword into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular service video downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-7','','','2010-08-23 00:24:58','2010-08-23 04:24:58','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(98,1,'2010-08-09 19:09:02','2010-08-09 23:09:02','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Hello world!\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/helloWorld.jpg\" alt=\"Hello world!\" width=\"100\" height=\"149\" />A suitable greeting from any developer and I am no exception. Although this is not my first blog post, this is my first <em>personal</em> post, and represents the first time I have updated my corner of the web in, oh, probably ten years, if not more. See, I\'ve been so busy developing web sites and applications for other entities that I neglected my own turf. That, and I found my original site rather difficult to scale, it being of purely static design when such things were still in vogue.\r\nAlso, I must admit, I really liked the old look and layout. As did a lot of others. I didn\'t see any reason to change things.\r\n\r\nNonetheless, there comes a time one must leave the nest, take flight, and soar toward that next great adventure. So here I am, dabbling in the fine art of blogging and dynamically generated content, using not text editors and slabs of custom-generated code, but graphical UIs and third-party software (<strong>*gasp*</strong> code I did not write!) to update my site. There\'s not much here, but bit by bit, post by post, this site will grow. Why not join me in this new endeavor?','Hello world!','','inherit','open','open','','1-revision-5','','','2010-08-09 19:09:02','2010-08-09 23:09:02','',1,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/1-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(99,1,'2010-08-23 09:07:18','2010-08-23 13:07:18','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nFortunately, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozens pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead. It may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my browser or web site for a ninepence any time soon.','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-8','','','2010-08-23 09:07:18','2010-08-23 13:07:18','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(100,1,'2010-08-23 09:15:52','2010-08-23 13:15:52','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nAlas, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozen pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead, and the <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">data backs me up</a> since more and more people are using the Web every year. Yes, the Web may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my web browser or site for a ninepence any time soon. [1. Though if someone would like to purchase my domain name for sizable sum of cash, I\'d be willing to listen.]','Bring out yer dead!','','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-9','','','2010-08-23 09:15:52','2010-08-23 13:15:52','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(123,1,'2010-08-23 11:35:50','2010-08-23 15:35:50','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nAlas, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozen pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead, and the <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">data backs me up</a> since more and more people are using the Web every year. Yes, the Web may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my web browser or site for a ninepence any time soon. [1. Though if someone would like to purchase my domain name for sizable sum of cash, I\'d be willing to listen.]\r\n','Bring out yer dead!','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that Wired magazine has deemed my efforts for naught because the Web is dead.','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-11','','','2010-08-23 11:35:50','2010-08-23 15:35:50','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(101,1,'2010-08-23 09:08:30','2010-08-23 13:08:30','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Hello world!\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/helloWorld.jpg\" alt=\"Hello world!\" width=\"100\" height=\"149\" />A suitable greeting from any developer and I am no exception. Although this is not my first blog post, this is my first <em>personal</em> post, and represents the first time I have updated my corner of the web in, oh, probably ten years, if not more. See, I\'ve been so busy developing web sites and applications for other entities that I neglected my own turf. That, and I found my original site rather difficult to scale, it being of purely static design when such things were still in vogue.\r\nAlso, I must admit, I really liked <a title=\"Ye olde Mind \'Scapes\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/old_index.html\" target=\"_blank\">the old look and layout</a>. As did a lot of others. I didn\'t see any reason to change things.\r\n\r\nNonetheless, there comes a time one must leave the nest, take flight, and soar toward that next great adventure. So here I am, dabbling in the fine art of blogging and dynamically generated content, using not text editors and slabs of custom-generated code, but graphical UIs and third-party software (<strong>*gasp*</strong> code I did not write!) to update my site. There\'s not much here, but bit by bit, post by post, this site will grow. Why not join me in this new endeavor?','Hello world!','','inherit','open','open','','1-revision-6','','','2010-08-23 09:08:30','2010-08-23 13:08:30','',1,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/1-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(102,1,'2010-08-20 00:10:51','2010-08-20 04:10:51','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"247\" caption=\"Sidney and me--I&#39;m the one on the couch, being directed by the one on the floor.\"]<img class=\"  \" title=\"Sidney and Mike.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/me_with_sidney.jpg\" alt=\"Sidney and Mike--Mike is on the couch.\" width=\"247\" height=\"191\" />[/caption]\r\n<h2><a id=\"theBasics\" name=\"theBasics\">The Basics</a></h2>\r\nI am of species <em>geek</em>, specifically of genus <em>Computer</em>.  Although no person, not even yours truly, can completely fit into a single stereotype, should you wish to form an overall vision of my persona, then the above description, courtesy of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature\">binomial nomenclature</a>, suits me best. More to the point, I like geeky things, things like computers, technology, gadgets, programming, books, science, Star Wars, Star Trek, video games, board games, Dungeons and Dragons--you know, that kind of stuff. I also like dogs. People can be nice, too. (Speaking of which, I am often told I am of species <em>guy</em> of genus <em>Nice</em>. You can be the judge.)\r\n<h2><a id=\"profExp\" name=\"profExp\">Professional Experience</a></h2>\r\n<blockquote>\"The brain is a wonderful organ.  It starts working the  moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into  the office.\"  <strong>~Robert Frost</strong></blockquote>\r\nI\'ve been in the field of web application development and management for nearly a dozen years. If you count the time I spent hacking away at web sites while I was supposed to be finishing a Ph.D. in neuroscience... Well, then add a few more years to the tally. I am most familiar with the <a title=\"LAMP\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_%28software_bundle%29\" target=\"_blank\">LAMP</a> environment, particularly in writing programming prose with <a title=\"Perl - A beautiful language\" href=\"http://www.perl.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Perl</a> and/or <a title=\"PHP - The other Perl\" href=\"http://www.php.net/\" target=\"_blank\">PHP</a>, complemented by HTML, CSS, and Javascript on the front end, and either <a title=\"MySQL - Been there since the beginning\" href=\"http://www.mysql.com/\" target=\"_blank\">MySQL</a> or <a title=\"Oracle - The Other MySQL\" href=\"http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Oracle</a> databases (or sometimes, both) on the back end. Despite my preference for the (mostly) open-source world, I have also dabbled in Microsoft\'s realm, at one time coding <a title=\"ASP\" href=\"http://www.asp.net/\" target=\"_blank\">ASP</a> applications that utilized <a title=\"Microsoft SQL Server\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft SQL Server</a>.\r\n<h3>Managerial</h3>\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"We have met the enemy and he is us.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/ph_boss.gif\" alt=\"Our favorite boss, from Dilbert.\" width=\"77\" height=\"77\" />Lo! I have seen the enemy and he is me. I never thought it would happen, but three years ago I stepped into the field of management... voluntarily. I oversee a team of six web developers at <a title=\"Harvard University\" href=\"http://www.harvard.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Harvard University</a>, a small-town bastion of academe, widely known through its mention in <a title=\"The Da Vinci Code\" href=\"http://www.danbrown.com/#/davinciCode\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Brown novels</a> and the TV show, <a title=\"Fringe\" href=\"http://www.fox.com/fringe/\" target=\"_blank\">Fringe</a>. Our award-winning team is part of the <a title=\"ATG\" href=\"http://atg.fas.harvard.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Academic Technology Group</a>, and we oversee dozens of online applications, including course evaluations,  the course planner, a suite of instructional tools, a plethora of databases, and the University\'s portal. Being academia, our technological environment is varied and vast, ranging from LAMP to Java to Microsoft ASP. We even have some <a title=\"Apache Cocoon - XML on steroids\" href=\"http://cocoon.apache.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Cocoon</a> servers running.\r\n\r\nI must admit that I\'m very happy in my position, and that\'s primarily due to the people I manage: A great group  who are smart, creative, cooperative, humorous, and satisfied with their work environment. I\'m very fortunate to be leading them and hopefully, they feel the same way about leading me.\r\n<h3>Web Development and Administration</h3>\r\nPrior to my role in management, I spent eight years as a professional software developer for Harvard, designing, implementing, and more often than not, maintaining legacy web applications. I focused primarily on instructional software used by faculty, staff, and students in their course web sites. For each application that I wrote, I was there from start to finish, often writing up the requirements, designing the underlying architecture and data models, then bringing the whole thing to life with well-documented and modular code. I was also part of the committee that helped designed the University\'s proprietary course platform.\r\n\r\nIn addition to the coding, I also assisted in maintaining the application servers themselves (good ol\' <a title=\"Apache\" href=\"http://www.apache.org\" target=\"_blank\">Apache</a>!) configuring them when necessary. Indeed, prior to my stint at Harvard, I held the title of webmaster at a now defunct company, called Xchange, overseeing and developing within a <a title=\"Microsoft ISS\" href=\"http://www.iis.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft ISS</a> environment. And prior to that, I was the webmaster for the Departments of <a title=\"Department of Mathematics, Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.math.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Mathematics</a> and <a title=\"Department of Statistics, Purdue University\" href=\"http://statistics.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Statistics</a> at Purdue University.\r\n\r\nWebmaster... a title I truly miss, both for its grandiose and the necessity to be a jack-of-all-trades. As a webmaster, I was not only administering the servers, but designing web pages, coding applications, maintaining databases, and generally just having a damn good time. Ah, days of youth, how we miss ye!\r\n<h3>Game Design and Development</h3>\r\n<a href=\"http://www.u5lazarus.com/\"><img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Ultima V: Lazarus\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/u5_lazarus_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Ultima V: Lazarus\" width=\"150\" height=\"130\" /></a>We all have hobbies, and I dabble in game development when I get a chance. Indeed, I spent five years co-producing <a title=\"Ultima V: Lazarus\" href=\"http://www.u5lazarus.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Ultima V: Lazarus</a>, a remake of a classic role-playing game that rivaled its commercial counterparts in scale and complexity. I helped lead a international team of programmers, level designers, writers,  artists, musicians, and general enthusiasts in a quest to retell <a title=\"Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_V:_Warriors_of_Destiny\" target=\"_blank\">Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny</a> as a modification of the <a title=\"Dungeon Siege\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/games/dungeonsiege/\" target=\"_blank\">Dungeon Siege</a> engine. In addition to leadership duties, my main contributions were developing the back story, implementing the skills and healing algorithms, and designing and developing the NPC conversation engine, one of the pinnacle features of the game.\r\n\r\nThat was not my first telling of an Ultima tale. I\'m responsible for one of the first adventure games written in dynamic HTML, back when the acronym DHTML was as hot a buzzword as HTML5 is now. <a href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/darkcore/\" target=\"_blank\">Ultima: The Dark Core</a> was an experiment in JavaScript, a new and shiny scripting engine offered by <a title=\"Netscape\" href=\"http://browser.netscape.com/releases\" target=\"_blank\">Netscape</a>. Over a decade later, you can still play it in the most recent version of Internet Explorer (though the game is bound to thrash the browser after the first few moves).\r\n\r\nNowadays, I\'m  experimenting with the ancient art form of <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\" target=\"_blank\">Interactive Fiction</a>, often referred as \"text adventures\". It\'s a unique challenge of game design, writing, and programming that I enjoy. I have a couple of small works out there, courtesy of my endeavors in Interactive Fiction Month, and eventually I\'ll share them with the world.\r\n<h3>Teaching</h3>\r\nWorking at Harvard has given me an opportunity to instruct at its <a title=\"Harvard Extension School\" href=\"http://www.dce.harvard.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Extension</a> and <a title=\"Harvard Summer School\" href=\"http://www.summer.harvard.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Summer</a> schools. For the past two years, I\'ve assisted <a title=\"Professor David Heitmeyer\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/david.heitmeyer\" target=\"_blank\">Professor David Heitmeyer</a> in welcoming students, both young and old, into the world of web development. \"<a title=\"Fundamentals of Web Site Development\" href=\"http://www.extension.harvard.edu/courses/csci.jsp#e-12\" target=\"_blank\">Fundamentals of Web Site Development</a>\" covers a range of topics, introducing students to the building blocks of web pages (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, multimedia) and eventually incorporating these blocks with the more complex and dynamic tool sets that are out there. Cliched as it sounds, teaching others is a rewarding experience and it helps me keep abreast of this ever-changing technological field.','About Me','','inherit','open','open','','10-revision-38','','','2010-08-20 00:10:51','2010-08-20 04:10:51','',10,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/10-revision-38/',0,'revision','',0),(127,1,'2010-08-23 11:39:02','2010-08-23 15:39:02','I\'m a sucker for history, if not a good student of it, so when I get a chance, I indulge a little in the background of a subject. And that\'s what the rest of this page is about--some self-indulgence; in particular, a historical account of my meager niche on the web. So if you\'re interested such things, keep on reading along, otherwise, I\'m certain there\'s something much cooler to look at on <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs\">YouTube</a>.\r\n\r\nSpin up the wayback machine and set the dial for June, 1995. I had seen someone show off a web page or two back in the fall of \'94, but hadn\'t been too impressed by the concept of hyperlinks. Nevertheless, at a college reunion, my friends, <a href=\"http://digitalathene.com\">Steve Luminati</a> and <a href=\"http://www.joki.com/\">Tom Pixley</a>, insisted this new technology was pretty cool and guided me through the construction my own web page.\r\n\r\n\"To create a paragraph,\" said Steve, \"use the less-than sign, followed by the letter \'p\', followed by the greater-than sign. Then follow it with whatever you want to show up on the screen.\"[1. I\'ve always been curious about how people remember exact quotations of discussions that they have had. Do they record them? Do they have photographic memories? I don\'t, so the conversation I present is paraphrased--and by paraphrased, I mean I remember it happening, but I\'m completely making the words up.]\r\n\r\n\"Really? That\'s all there is to it?\" A few moments later: \"Wow. There it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Next I\'ll show you how to embed an image.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can show graphics? Cool!\"\r\n\r\nAnd a web addict was born.\r\n\r\nNot long later, I created my first web page and called it \"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\", the nickname and tag line I had given my desktop PC[2. Based on the old PC company, Gateway 2000, and my favorite sci-fi show at the time, <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>. See how it all fits together?]. It resided on the web server of the <a title=\"Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue U\" href=\"http://www.bio.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Biological Sciences</a> at <a title=\"Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Purdue University</a>, a single, static page among another <a title=\"WWW Growth\" href=\"http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#Growth\" target=\"_blank\">23,500 or so web sites in the world</a>. I don\'t recall too much about it other than it had a Photoshopped logo, probably some info about me, and probably some links. Basically, your standard web page at the time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"407\" caption=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo. It greeted folks to my single, static home page during the latter half of 1995.\"]<img title=\"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/biggs2k.gif\" alt=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo\" width=\"407\" height=\"230\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOnly a few months passed before I scrapped it in favor of another design, one I entitled \"Mind \'Scapes\"[3. The \"\'Scapes\" portion being a combination of land<em>scapes</em> and e<em>scapes</em>. Never said I was original.], which focused on my interest in science and sported snazzier graphics. Alas, this incarnation\'s life was as brief as its predecessor--I ultimately decided my web site should truly be more personal than a bunch of links about science: It should be a bunch of links about science and other things I liked. I also decided it ought to demonstrate my talents of a web developer by incorporating the two latest trends in browser technologies: JavaScript and Frames.\r\n\r\nThus was born the second generation of the \"Biggles 2000\", which divided my web site into seven areas of personal interests and incorporated it all into a \"gateway\" motif. But despite rave reviews from fellow web smiths, I abhorred my latest creation for at least two reasons: (1) It was just a bunch of links, and (2) the entire site was totally dependent on JavaScript and Frames. Oh, the irony!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"A collage representing two generations of my web site. On the left, the original Mind &#39;Scapes logo, complete with exploding brain. At the top right, two &quot;quotes&quot; from the Mind &#39;Scapes site, heavily influenced by Monty Python, of course. Below the quotes are arranged the seven &quot;personal&quot; gateways of Biggles 2000.\"]<img class=\"   \" title=\"A collage of two generations of web sites.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/web_site_collage.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v1.0 and Biggles 2000 v2.0.\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nSo I simplified. I removed the JavaScript and Frames; I replaced the links with actual content, including a whole slew of original artwork. I also renamed the site because I felt the name, \"Biggles 2000\", though affectionate, was a tad silly, not necessarily reflective of the professional web developer I hoped to portray at that time in my career. I returned to the name, \"Mind \'Scapes\", and lo! the fourth iteration of my web site arose from the ashes in early 1998... and there it lingered for over a dozen years.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"The logo (and greeting) for the second iteration of &quot;Mind &#39;Scapes&quot;, and the fourth iteration of my personal web site.\"]<img title=\"Mind \'Scapes: Imagination has no limits\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/mind_scapes_modern_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v2.0 logo\" width=\"400\" height=\"293\" />[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why did the fourth generation of my web site live so much longer than its ancestors? Well, first and foremost, I really liked it, as did many others. For its time, it had a very professional-looking design. The secondary pages, divided into four areas of interest, possessed a tight, crisp look and layout, each with its own color scheme and style of presentation. All artwork was my own. And content! There was actual content! Including a friendly guide to my graduate work in neuroscience, as well as links to my personal publications and games.</p>\r\nOf course, in the realm of computer technology, the young and the restless rapidly age into the old and stagnant. Within a few years, the site was mostly out-of-date. I had moved on from my graduate work, my place of employment had changed several times, and my interests had shifted. I occasionally updated the web site--for example, I replaced antiquated \"FONT\" tags with appropriate CSS--but for the most part, the site lay dormant. I never added anything about the \"Ultima V: Lazarus\" project upon which I spent five years, and I never mentioned Harvard University, my place of employment for close to a decade.\r\n\r\nPeople remarked that I should update or renovate the site, make it more \"modern\", whatever that meant. I remember one of my employees laughing in 2008: \"Your site looks so 1990\'s.\" When I asked him to explain, exactly, what made it so archaic, he shrugged, claiming not to be able to put a finger on it. But he was right. The site was a throwback, equivalent to someone my age still sporting a <a title=\"Mullets\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=mullet\" target=\"_blank\">mullet</a> and <a title=\"Parachute pants--never owned a pair.\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=parachute+pants\" target=\"_blank\">parachute pants</a>[4. I never wore the latter, but had the former.].\r\n\r\nStill, perhaps because of nostalgia, but probably more due to lack of motivation and plain laziness, the web site remained as is. Every now and then, I investigated replacing it with one of those new-fangled blog things. Unfortunately, I would get distracted... or just bored... or just... who knows? Revamping my personal web space never became a priority. After all, I developed and managed web applications for a living--no need to indulge in my own site since I spent 8 hours a day dealing with the sites of others.\r\n\r\nI\'m not certain what changed in August, 2010. If I can identify a turning point, it would be  \"<a title=\"People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://www.pr-if.org/\">The People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction</a>\", a simple web site I volunteered to help create and maintain in March, 2010. Designing and implementing this community site sparked something in me, a creative flame of web design that had been dim for many years. And I think teaching about basic web site development fanned that flame, as well.\r\n\r\nSo here it is: Generation the fifth, neither \"Biggles 2000\" nor \"Mind \'Scapes\", although cribbing from both.  It\'s dynamic, built on third-party software, already incorporated into <a title=\"Web 2.0\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0\" target=\"_blank\">Web 2.0</a>, and unlike its predecessor, pretty easy (and fun, so far) to update. Hopefully, it will continue to <a title=\"Live long and prosper\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/live_long.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">live long and prosper,</a> just as I hope to do. And because it\'s difficult for me to let go of good things, <a title=\"Mind \'Scapes\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/old_index.html\" target=\"_blank\">the old web site still haunts the web</a>. Peruse this piece of nostalgia if you wish.\r\n','About This Site','','inherit','open','open','','59-revision-26','','','2010-08-23 11:39:02','2010-08-23 15:39:02','',59,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/59-revision-26/',0,'revision','',0),(103,1,'2010-08-23 09:19:36','2010-08-23 13:19:36','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"154\" caption=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\"]<img title=\"Don\'t fear the reaper.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/web_is_dead.jpg\" alt=\"The Web is dead. Read it and reap.\" width=\"154\" height=\"209\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOf all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_self\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> has deemed my efforts for naught because the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\" target=\"_blank\">Web is dead</a>. No bones about it, when the Web answered the knock at its door, the Grim Reaper appeared in the form of mobile apps. And <em>Wired</em>\'s got a <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a> and a <a title=\"The Web is dead: A debate!\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip_debate/\" target=\"_blank\">debate featuring good ol\' Tim O\'Reilly</a> to prove it.\r\n\r\nNormally I ignore such proclamations, especially from the same doomsayers who (1) publish the article on the medium they declare dead and (2) within the past 12 years, predicted that both the <a title=\"Push! (Kiss your web browser good-bye...)\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html\" target=\"_blank\">web browser</a> and the <a title=\"The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory\" target=\"_self\">scientific method</a> would undergo similar fates. But the proclamation has sent a storm through the blogosphere, and as a \"maturing\" Webmaster who started a blog to comment on such things, I feel it is my duty to thrust my scythe into the fray.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I don\'t believe the Web is even near comatose and, if you examine <em>Wired</em>\'s article for a bit, it\'s fairly clear that they don\'t believe the Web is completely dead, either. Rather, they assert the Web is no longer the wild west that it used to be. Folks are abandoning their private ranches and settling down into larger communities, such as <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube</a>. Folks also aren\'t relying on web browsers as their workhorse of choice; instead, they\'ve chosen, or appear to be choosing, specialized software on their mobile devices to get at their content--i.e. \"there\'s an app for that.\" Indeed, <em>Wired</em> asserts, the Web is simply becoming one  point of interest on a much larger landscape, something that they call \"the Internet\": According to the aforementioned <a title=\"Chart of the web\'s demise\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/18-09/ff_webrip_chart2.jpg\" target=\"_self\">colorful graph</a>, the Web is increasingly being abandoned in favor of other Internet features such as video, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the mysterious \"Other\" category.\r\n\r\nAlas, if one takes a closer look at the graph, such as <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing did</a>, one might notice that <em>Wired</em> focuses on the proportion of Web traffic to Internet traffic as a whole. Keeping this in mind, it\'s no surprise that the increasingly popular services of downloading videos and peer-to-peer file sharing (which is often used to download videos) are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. After all, videos tend to be slightly larger in size than web pages, in much the same way that the Sun is slightly larger than the Earth. And if one is to believe the graph, then it appears that email died off a few years ago, which I find confusing since I still receive a dozen pieces of spam every day.\r\n<blockquote>\"I\'m not dead.\" -- The Dead Body That Claims It Isn\'t, <strong>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</strong></blockquote>\r\nSo I\'m sticking to my belief that Web is not dead, and the <a title=\"Is the Web really dead?\" href=\"http://boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html\" target=\"_blank\">data backs me up</a> since more and more people are using the Web every year. Yes, the Web may have matured and it may be finding a new niche among the countless other applications on the Internet, but the Web is still happy and healthy and alive. When the clarion call of \"Bring out yer dead!\" reaches my door, I won\'t be throwing out my web browser or site for a ninepence any time soon. [1. Though if someone would like to purchase my domain name for sizable sum of cash, I\'d be willing to listen.]','Bring out yer dead!','Of all the rotten luck! No sooner do I publish my new, fancy, dynamic site than I discover that Wired magazine has deemed my efforts for naught because the Web is dead.','inherit','open','open','','89-revision-10','','','2010-08-23 09:19:36','2010-08-23 13:19:36','',89,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/89-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(124,1,'2010-08-30 23:00:05','2010-08-31 03:00:05','<img class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','While a musician chats up my associates, I become enraptured with his business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited four URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire.','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-15','','','2010-08-30 23:00:05','2010-08-31 03:00:05','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(104,1,'2010-08-22 14:31:01','2010-08-22 18:31:01','I\'m a sucker for history, if not a good student of it, so when I get a chance, I indulge a little in the background of a subject. And that\'s what the rest of this page is about--some self-indulgence; in particular, a historical account of my meager niche on the web. So if you\'re interested such things, keep on reading along, otherwise, I\'m certain there\'s something much cooler to look at on <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs\">YouTube</a>.\r\n\r\nSpin up the wayback machine and set the dial for June, 1995. I had seen someone show off a web page or two back in the fall of \'94, but hadn\'t been too impressed by the concept of hyperlinks. Nevertheless, at a college reunion, my friends, <a href=\"http://digitalathene.com\">Steve Luminati</a> and <a href=\"http://www.joki.com/\">Tom Pixley</a>, insisted this new technology was pretty cool and guided me through the construction my own web page.\r\n\r\n\"To create a paragraph,\" said Steve, \"use the less-than sign, followed by the letter \'p\', followed by the greater-than sign. Then follow it with whatever you want to show up on the screen.\"[1. I\'ve always been curious about how people remember exact quotations of discussions that they have had. Do they record them? Do they have photographic memories? I don\'t, so the conversation I present is paraphrased--and by paraphrased, I mean I remember it happening, but I\'m completely making the words up.]\r\n\r\n\"Really? That\'s all there is to it?\" A few moments later: \"Wow. There it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Next I\'ll show you how to embed an image.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can show graphics? Cool!\"\r\n\r\nAnd a web addict was born.\r\n\r\nNot long later, I created my first web page and called it \"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\", the nickname and tag line I had given my desktop PC[2. Based on the old PC company, Gateway 2000, and my favorite sci-fi show at the time, <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>. See how it all fits together?]. It resided on the web server of the <a title=\"Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue U\" href=\"http://www.bio.purdue.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Biological Sciences</a> at <a title=\"Purdue University\" href=\"http://www.purdue.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Purdue University</a>, a single, static page among another <a title=\"WWW Growth\" href=\"http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/#Growth\" target=\"_blank\">23,500 or so web sites in the world</a>. I don\'t recall too much about it other than it had a Photoshopped logo, probably some info about me, and probably some links. Basically, your standard web page at the time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"407\" caption=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo. It greeted folks to my single, static home page during the latter half of 1995.\"]<img title=\"Biggles 2000: The Gateway to the Next Generation\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/biggs2k.gif\" alt=\"The original Biggles 2000 logo\" width=\"407\" height=\"230\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nOnly a few months passed before I scrapped it in favor of another design, one I entitled \"Mind \'Scapes\"[3. The \"\'Scapes\" portion being a combination of land<em>scapes</em> and e<em>scapes</em>. Never said I was original.], which focused on my interest in science and sported snazzier graphics. Alas, this incarnation\'s life was as brief as its predecessor--I ultimately decided my web site should truly be more personal than a bunch of links about science: It should be a bunch of links about science and other things I liked. I also decided it ought to demonstrate my talents of a web developer by incorporating the two latest trends in browser technologies: JavaScript and Frames.\r\n\r\nThus was born the second generation of the \"Biggles 2000\", which divided my web site into seven areas of personal interests and incorporated it all into a \"gateway\" motif. But despite rave reviews from fellow web smiths, I abhorred my latest creation for at least two reasons: (1) It was just a bunch of links, and (2) the entire site was totally dependent on JavaScript and Frames. Oh, the irony!\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"A collage representing two generations of my web site. On the left, the original Mind &#39;Scapes logo, complete with exploding brain. At the top right, two &quot;quotes&quot; from the Mind &#39;Scapes site, heavily influenced by Monty Python, of course. Below the quotes are arranged the seven &quot;personal&quot; gateways of Biggles 2000.\"]<img class=\"   \" title=\"A collage of two generations of web sites.\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/web_site_collage.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v1.0 and Biggles 2000 v2.0.\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nSo I simplified. I removed the JavaScript and Frames; I replaced the links with actual content, including a whole slew of original artwork. I also renamed the site because I felt the name, \"Biggles 2000\", though affectionate, was a tad silly, not necessarily reflective of the professional web developer I hoped to portray at that time in my career. I returned to the name, \"Mind \'Scapes\", and lo! the fourth iteration of my web site arose from the ashes in early 1998... and there it lingered for over a dozen years.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\" caption=\"The logo (and greeting) for the second iteration of &quot;Mind &#39;Scapes&quot;, and the fourth iteration of my personal web site.\"]<img title=\"Mind \'Scapes: Imagination has no limits\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/mind_scapes_modern_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Mind \'Scapes v2.0 logo\" width=\"400\" height=\"293\" />[/caption]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why did the fourth generation of my web site live so much longer than its ancestors? Well, first and foremost, I really liked it, as did many others. For its time, it had a very professional-looking design. The secondary pages, divided into four areas of interest, possessed a tight, crisp look and layout, each with its own color scheme and style of presentation. All artwork was my own. And content! There was actual content! Including a friendly guide to my graduate work in neuroscience, as well as links to my personal publications and games.</p>\r\nOf course, in the realm of computer technology, the young and the restless rapidly age into the old and stagnant. Within a few years, the site was mostly out-of-date. I had moved on from my graduate work, my place of employment had changed several times, and my interests had shifted. I occasionally updated the web site--for example, I replaced antiquated \"FONT\" tags with appropriate CSS--but for the most part, the site lay dormant. I never added anything about the \"Ultima V: Lazarus\" project upon which I spent five years, and I never mentioned Harvard University, my place of employment for close to a decade.\r\n\r\nPeople remarked that I should update or renovate the site, make it more \"modern\", whatever that meant. I remember one of my employees laughing in 2008: \"Your site looks so 1990\'s.\" When I asked him to explain, exactly, what made it so archaic, he shrugged, claiming not to be able to put a finger on it. But he was right. The site was a throwback, equivalent to someone my age still sporting a <a title=\"Mullets\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=mullet\" target=\"_blank\">mullet</a> and <a title=\"Parachute pants--never owned a pair.\" href=\"http://www.google.com/images?q=parachute+pants\" target=\"_blank\">parachute pants</a>[4. I never wore the latter, but had the former.].\r\n\r\nStill, perhaps because of nostalgia, but probably more due to lack of motivation and plain laziness, the web site remained as is. Every now and then, I investigated replacing it with one of those new-fangled blog things. Unfortunately, I would get distracted... or just bored... or just... who knows? Revamping my personal web space never became a priority. After all, I developed and managed web applications for a living--no need to indulge in my own site since I spent 8 hours a day dealing with the sites of others.\r\n\r\nI\'m not certain what changed in August, 2010. If I can identify a turning point, it would be  \"<a title=\"People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://www.pr-if.org/\">The People\'s Republic of Interactive Fiction</a>\", a simple web site I volunteered to help create and maintain in March, 2010. Designing and implementing this community site sparked something in me, a creative flame of web design that had been dim for many years. And I think teaching about basic web site development fanned that flame, as well.\r\n\r\nSo here it is: Generation the fifth, neither \"Biggles 2000\" nor \"Mind \'Scapes\", although cribbing from both.  It\'s dynamic, built on third-party software, already incorporated into <a title=\"Web 2.0\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0\" target=\"_blank\">Web 2.0</a>, and unlike its predecessor, pretty easy (and fun, so far) to update. Hopefully, it will continue to <a title=\"Live long and prosper\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/live_long.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">live long and prosper,</a> just as I hope to do. And because it\'s difficult for me to let go of good things, <a title=\"Mind \'Scapes\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/old_index.html\" target=\"_blank\">the old web site still haunts the web</a>. Peruse this piece of nostalgia if you wish.','About This Site','','inherit','open','open','','59-revision-25','','','2010-08-22 14:31:01','2010-08-22 18:31:01','',59,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/59-revision-25/',0,'revision','',0),(106,1,'2010-08-29 17:41:45','2010-08-29 21:41:45','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this individual\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page. Conspicuously absent was his email address.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Internet that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others?</em> Then I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window where to find','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision','','','2010-08-29 17:41:45','2010-08-29 21:41:45','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(107,1,'2010-08-29 18:09:27','2010-08-29 22:09:27','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this individual\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page. Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[1. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to its RSS feed and my own Twitter feed. [2. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Internet that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to point people, but a single path of communication simply is not. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply a fork in the Internet\'s communication protocol.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-2','','','2010-08-29 18:09:27','2010-08-29 22:09:27','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(108,1,'2010-08-29 18:25:12','2010-08-29 22:25:12','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this individual\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page. Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[1. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to its RSS feed and my own Twitter feed. [2. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve determined that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it. The usefulness of Facebook is different for each individual. As is the usefulness of Twitter. And therefore, both are completely useless to a lot of people.\n\nLike many folks, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love it because it\'s connected me to long-lost friends. I hate it because of Farmville and because I really don\'t care if you\'ve just read a great novel while on the toilet (but I mostly hate it because of Farmville).\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start exploring these well-traveled trails of communication.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-3','','','2010-08-29 18:25:12','2010-08-29 22:25:12','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(109,1,'2010-08-29 22:33:25','2010-08-30 02:33:25','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental issue; basically, he\'s not much of a musician.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it.\n\nTake me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook. I love it because it\'s connected me to long-lost friends. I hate it because of Farmville and because I really don\'t care if you\'ve just read a great novel while on the toilet (but I mostly hate it because of Farmville).\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start exploring these well-traveled trails of communication.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-4','','','2010-08-29 22:33:25','2010-08-30 02:33:25','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(110,1,'2010-08-29 23:00:23','2010-08-30 03:00:23','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental issue; basically, he\'s not much of a musician.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I connect to them in an instant with Facebook, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t, next to Google, they are currently the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs; however, should I stick to a single URL, it had better make others.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-5','','','2010-08-29 23:00:23','2010-08-30 03:00:23','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(111,1,'2010-08-29 23:02:04','2010-08-30 03:02:04','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental issue; basically, he\'s not much of a musician.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I connect to them in an instant with Facebook, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t, next to Google, they are currently the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs; however, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-6','','','2010-08-29 23:02:04','2010-08-30 03:02:04','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(112,1,'2010-08-30 08:17:36','2010-08-30 12:17:36','After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental issue; basically, he\'s not much of a musician.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertising have been around. But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I connect to them in an instant with Facebook, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t, next to Google, they are currently the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs; however, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-7','','','2010-08-30 08:17:36','2010-08-30 12:17:36','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(114,1,'2010-08-30 19:17:54','2010-08-30 23:17:54','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself; the card cited not one, not two, not three, but <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire. In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental issue; basically, he\'s not much of a musician.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over in my fingers within that particular bar, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, but a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication has been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what you make of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t, next to Google, they are currently the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-8','','','2010-08-30 19:17:54','2010-08-30 23:17:54','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(115,1,'2010-08-30 22:47:21','2010-08-31 02:47:21','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t, next to Google, they are currently the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-9','','','2010-08-30 22:47:21','2010-08-31 02:47:21','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(116,1,'2010-08-30 22:48:20','2010-08-31 02:48:20','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-10','','','2010-08-30 22:48:20','2010-08-31 02:48:20','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(117,1,'2010-08-30 22:49:07','2010-08-31 02:49:07','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-11','','','2010-08-30 22:49:07','2010-08-31 02:49:07','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(118,1,'2010-08-30 23:01:21','2010-08-31 03:01:21','<img class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\n\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\n\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\n\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\n\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\n\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\n\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\n\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','While a musician chats up my associates, I become enraptured with his business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited four URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire.','inherit','open','open','','105-autosave','','','2010-08-30 23:01:21','2010-08-31 03:01:21','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(119,1,'2010-08-30 22:50:15','2010-08-31 02:50:15','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','While a musician chats up my associates, I become enraptured with his business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited four URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire.','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-12','','','2010-08-30 22:50:15','2010-08-31 02:50:15','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(120,1,'2010-08-30 22:57:44','2010-08-31 02:57:44','<img class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','While a musician chats up my associates, I become enraptured with his business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited four URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire.','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-13','','','2010-08-30 22:57:44','2010-08-31 02:57:44','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(121,1,'2010-08-30 22:59:02','2010-08-31 02:59:02','<img class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Social networking\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/social_icons.gif\" alt=\"Social networking icons\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" />After leaving the stage at our local dive bar, a touring musician meandered over to our table, sat down, and dropped his business card among our food and drinks. While he chatted up my associates, I became enraptured with the business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited <em>four </em>URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire: In addition to his home page, the musician had listed his Facebook page, his MySpace page, and, of course, his Twitter page.[1. Normally, I would link to the musician\'s pages, but this musician has a fundamental flaw: Although he can apparently write music, he somehow can\'t play it.] Conspicuously absent, much to my amusement, was his email address.[2. But email is sooo passé.]\r\n\r\nWhile I flipped the card over and over within that particular establishment, I recalled that just a few hours before, I had noticed that one of  my other favorite drinking holes had plastered upon its window addresses  to its <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Facebook)\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a> and <a title=\"Charlie\'s Kitchen (on Twitter)\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/charlieskitchen\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> accounts. Then I remembered that my own blog provides a link to <a title=\"RSS feed\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/blog/?feed=rss2\">its RSS feed</a> and <a title=\"My Twitter feed\" href=\"http://twitter.com/biggles2k\" target=\"_blank\">my own Twitter feed</a>. [3. Though they are subtle, at best. Hover over the little corners beneath the big brain at the top of my page.] And should some interested readers wish to do so, they can share my posts on nearly a dozen social networks.\r\n\r\n<em>Really?</em> my aging self thought. <em>Has it come to this? Is our attention so divided amongst the Web that we must throw out as many URLs as possible in order to capture the attention of others? What happened to the single URL, the single web site?</em>\r\n\r\nI continued to think about it--perhaps a little bit more slowly than usual since the thoughts swam among a few beers--and decided that although a single URL may be good enough to which to direct people, a single path of communication, of which a URL represents, simply is not sufficient. Not necessarily an original thought, of course: Multiple avenues of communication have been the domain of advertisers for, well, as long as advertisers have been around.[4. A.k.a the dawn of civilization.] But I had always considered the Web as just one fork in our many paths of communication. Now it seems that the Web itself has forked. Not necessarily surprising since, after all, the Web itself is simply one fork among many in the Internet.\r\n\r\nThus I began thinking about each path and what lay at the end of it, and I\'ve concluded that like many explorations in life, the end of these paths is what one makes of it. Take me, for example. I\'ve found Twitter to be completely useless, much in the same way I found RSS feeds useless: Information overload. I\'ve tried following some Twitter feeds, but I encountered the same problem when I tried condensing various news sources within an RSS aggregator. Even when I\'d check in regularly, I\'d find myself spending a ridiculous amount of time sorting through information that I just didn\'t care about it. For me, it\'s equivalent to having an Instant Messenger client displaying the conversations of all of my buddies even when I\'m not participating.\r\n\r\nFacebook suffers the same flaw. My news feed is an onslaught of information I don\'t need to know. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I can connect to them in an instant, but I\'m not that concerned about a friend\'s preference of pumpkin seed milk over soy milk, nor their efforts in any <a title=\"Zynga--I hesitate to link to them\" href=\"http://www.zynga.com/games/\" target=\"_blank\">name-a-Zynga-game-here</a>.\r\n\r\nYet despite my abhorrence, these two venues thrive and will continue to thrive. Some decry them as fads; I think they might be here to stay. Even if they don\'t survive, they are currently two of the main avenues for promoting and receiving information over the Web.  And good Webmasters will know how to take advantage of them.\r\n\r\nSo what is an aging Webmaster, such as myself, to do? Reluctantly, curmudgeonly, I have realized I need to start re-exploring these well-traveled trails of communication. This doesn\'t mean I have to pepper my business card with four URLs. Nevertheless, should I stick to a single URL, it had better take advantage of the other URLs that are out there.','URLs: Is too much never enough?','While a musician chats up my associates, I become enraptured with his business card, not because of its design nor because of the musician himself, but because the card cited four URLs through which one could follow this fellow\'s repertoire.','inherit','open','open','','105-revision-14','','','2010-08-30 22:59:02','2010-08-31 02:59:02','',105,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/105-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(125,1,'2010-08-16 23:46:44','2010-08-17 03:46:44','<img class=\"alignright\" title=\"Shakespeare in blog\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/about/shakespeare_blog.jpg\" alt=\"To blog or not to blog\" width=\"150\" height=\"143\" />What to blog about?\r\n\r\nA daunting question, to say the least, and I thought about how to answer it. And I thought and I thought, then I set those thoughts on the back burner where they simmered for years. And I mean <em>years</em>, for I\'ve been thinking about sharing thoughts world-wide before the term \"blog\" became fashionable. I just never found the time, the motivation, the <em>chutzpah, </em>so to speak, to follow through with the dream. And I never could answer that damn question.\r\n\r\nSo, finally, after a decade, I have decided not to answer it.\r\n\r\nRather, I will do what countless of others will do: Spew random musings that I find of interest into the ether. Hardly unique, but the fact of the matter is that every topic that can be blogged about is probably being blogged about. Oh, I suppose there\'s still a little room out there for a literary analysis of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nth_Man:_The_Ultimate_Ninja\">The Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja</a>, but every other idea is already out there, for better or worse.  What <em>isn\'t</em> being blogged about it is what is on my mind. And, coincidentally, that\'s what I can write best about, for better or worse.\r\n\r\nWhich brings us back to the original question and its lack of answer. Herein you will find not total randomness, but assorted randomness, stuff that fills the trunks in the attic up there in my own little cerebral cortex: Interactive fiction, books, movies, games, web development, technology--that sort of stuff.\r\n\r\nSo welcome to my mind. Enter at your own risk.','About','','inherit','open','open','','2-revision-9','','','2010-08-16 23:46:44','2010-08-17 03:46:44','',2,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/2-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(122,1,'2010-08-23 09:21:51','2010-08-23 13:21:51','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Hello world!\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/helloWorld.jpg\" alt=\"Hello world!\" width=\"100\" height=\"149\" />A suitable greeting from any developer and I am no exception. Although this is not my first blog post, this is my first <em>personal</em> post, and represents the first time I have updated my corner of the web in, oh, probably ten years, if not more. See, I\'ve been so busy developing web sites and applications for other entities that I neglected my own turf. That, and I found my original site rather difficult to scale, it being of purely static design when such things were still in vogue.\r\nAlso, I must admit, I really liked <a title=\"Ye olde Mind \'Scapes\" href=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/old_index.html\" target=\"_blank\">the old look and layout</a>. As did a lot of others. I didn\'t see any reason to change things.\r\n\r\nNonetheless, there comes a time one must leave the nest, take flight, and soar toward that next great adventure. So here I am, dabbling in the fine art of blogging and dynamically generated content, using not text editors and slabs of custom-generated code, but graphical UIs and third-party software (<strong>*gasp*</strong> code I did not write!) to update my site. There\'s not much here, but bit by bit, post by post, this site will grow. Why not join me in this new endeavor?','Hello world!','A suitable greeting from any developer and I am no exception. Although this is not my first blog post, this is my first personal post, and represents the first time I have updated my corner of the web in, oh, probably ten years, if not more.','inherit','open','open','','1-revision-7','','','2010-08-23 09:21:51','2010-08-23 13:21:51','',1,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/08/1-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(129,1,'2010-09-05 11:01:59','2010-09-05 15:01:59','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend who wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your web skills like PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, stands.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing waves are slamming onto the Internet\'s shores. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. The New Media Consortium has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" since at least 2009.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision','','','2010-09-05 11:01:59','2010-09-05 15:01:59','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(130,1,'2010-09-05 11:03:07','2010-09-05 15:03:07','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend who wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your web skills like PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, stands.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing waves are slamming onto the Internet\'s shores. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. The New Media Consortium has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" since at least 2009.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-2','','','2010-09-05 11:03:07','2010-09-05 15:03:07','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(131,1,'2010-09-05 11:03:15','2010-09-05 15:03:15','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend who wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your web skills like PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, stands.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing waves are slamming onto the Internet\'s shores. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. The New Media Consortium has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" since at least 2009.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-3','','','2010-09-05 11:03:15','2010-09-05 15:03:15','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(132,1,'2010-09-05 11:36:36','2010-09-05 15:36:36','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are soon to come. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\n\nAs a web developer, I can\'t ignore this trend, but I also don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to native apps--or, in programming parlance, shift my eyes from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications are here to stay. What\'s changing are the devices with which web applications interact. That\'s not to say web application development won\'t change. We web developers will need to be cognizant of mobile devices, especially their interfac','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-4','','','2010-09-05 11:36:36','2010-09-05 15:36:36','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(133,1,'2010-09-07 23:43:26','2010-09-08 03:43:26','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"175\" caption=\"The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand, old-school browser in the other.\"]<img title=\"The Modern Web Surfer\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/modern_web_surfer.jpg\" alt=\"The modern web surfer\" width=\"175\" height=\"238\" />[/caption]\n\nEvery now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a� friend asked the obligatory \"What next?\" More specifically, he said: \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.� <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\n\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.� Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up� on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\n\nNevertheless, debates have risen about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes. There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand; old-school browser in the other.','inherit','open','open','','128-autosave','','','2010-09-07 23:43:26','2010-09-08 03:43:26','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(134,1,'2010-09-05 11:36:57','2010-09-05 15:36:57','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are soon to come. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a web developer, I can\'t ignore this trend, but I also don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to native apps--or, in programming parlance, shift my eyes from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications are here to stay. What\'s changing are the devices with which web applications interact. That\'s not to say web application development won\'t change. We web developers will need to be cognizant of mobile devices, especially their interfaces, and by that, I mean the touchscreen.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-5','','','2010-09-05 11:36:57','2010-09-05 15:36:57','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(135,1,'2010-09-05 13:09:50','2010-09-05 17:09:50','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are soon to come. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a web developer, I can\'t ignore this trend, but I also don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to native apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, are here to stay. What\'s changing are the number of devices with which web applications interact.\r\n\r\nThat\'s not to say web application development itself won\'t change. We web developers will need to be cognizant of mobile devices, especially their interfaces, and design accordingly.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-6','','','2010-09-05 13:09:50','2010-09-05 17:09:50','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(136,1,'2010-09-05 13:43:33','2010-09-05 17:43:33','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile applications will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interwebs, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their \"official\" apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to native apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nThe debate, then, is about where all of this is heading. Some folks believe apps will trump web applications, others believe in the opposite.\r\n\r\nWhat is changing are the types of devices with which web applications may want interact.\r\n\r\nThat\'s not to say web application development itself won\'t change. We web developers will need to be cognizant of mobile devices, especially their interfaces, and design accordingly.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-7','','','2010-09-05 13:43:33','2010-09-05 17:43:33','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(137,1,'2010-09-05 14:42:11','2010-09-05 18:42:11','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their \"official\" apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\n\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\n\nThe debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets out there. You know, the ones that have been around for awhile, such as personal computers and video game consoles.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-8','','','2010-09-05 14:42:11','2010-09-05 18:42:11','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(138,1,'2010-09-05 14:45:03','2010-09-05 18:45:03','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory \"What next?\" question, more specifically, \"If I want to change my career, I\'m not certain what programming skills I should focus on.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed lip. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their \"official\" apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\n\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\n\nThe debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets (e.g. personal computers and laptops) that remain out there. Also likely is that web applications and mobile market will overlap','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-9','','','2010-09-05 14:45:03','2010-09-05 18:45:03','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(139,1,'2010-09-07 19:10:37','2010-09-07 23:10:37','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered about the obligatory \"What next?\" question. More specifically, he said. \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\n\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\n\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\n\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\n\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\n\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\n\nThe debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to Web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-10','','','2010-09-07 19:10:37','2010-09-07 23:10:37','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(140,1,'2010-09-07 19:11:32','2010-09-07 23:11:32','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered about the obligatory \"What next?\" question. More specifically, he said. \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nThe debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to Web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-11','','','2010-09-07 19:11:32','2010-09-07 23:11:32','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(141,1,'2010-09-07 19:11:39','2010-09-07 23:11:39','Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered about the obligatory \"What next?\" question. More specifically, he said. \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nThe debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to Web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-12','','','2010-09-07 19:11:39','2010-09-07 23:11:39','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(142,1,'2010-09-07 19:52:06','2010-09-07 23:52:06','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"175\" caption=\"The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand; old-school browser in the other.\"]<img title=\"The Modern Web Surfer\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/modern_web_surfer.jpg\" alt=\"The modern web surfer\" width=\"175\" height=\"238\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nEvery now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend asked the obligatory \"What next?\" More specifically, he said: \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, debates have risen about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes. There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-13','','','2010-09-07 19:52:06','2010-09-07 23:52:06','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(143,1,'2010-09-07 19:54:07','2010-09-07 23:54:07','[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"175\" caption=\"The modern web surfer: Mobile device in one hand, old-school browser in the other.\"]<img title=\"The Modern Web Surfer\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/modern_web_surfer.jpg\" alt=\"The modern web surfer\" width=\"175\" height=\"238\" />[/caption]\r\n\r\nEvery now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend asked the obligatory \"What next?\" More specifically, he said: \"I want to change jobs, but I\'m not certain what programming languages are considered an asset anymore.\"\r\n\r\nSince my friend has a history of web development, I answered, \"Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web applications aren\'t going anywhere soon.\"\r\n\r\nA pause. A pursed set of lips. \"I\'m not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there.\"\r\n\r\nOthers certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title=\"Wired Magazine\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title=\"The Web is dead\" href=\"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1\">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>, the <a title=\"Microsoft - As if you couldn\'t guess this URL\" href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/\">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title=\"Android Marketplace\" href=\"http://www.android.com/\">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title=\"Chrome Web Store\" href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/\">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title=\"Apple (not Apple Computers)\" href=\"http://www.apple.com/\">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title=\"Tiobe Programming Community Index\" href=\"http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html\">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web\'s most popular programming language, remained inert.\r\n\r\nThere is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet\'s shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title=\"New Media Consortium\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/\"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as \"Technologies to Watch\" in their <a title=\"Horizon Project\" href=\"http://www.nmc.org/horizon\">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title=\"Twitter\" href=\"http://www.twitter.com/\">Twitter</a> mobile usage has \"<a title=\"Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps\" href=\"http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/\">skyrocketed</a>\" since the company released their mobile apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title=\"The New Billion\" href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja\">an article</a> by the <a title=\"Boston Consulting Group\" href=\"http://www.bgc.com/\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That\'s a lot, even in Internet terms.\r\n\r\nAs a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn\'t ignore it and realistically, I can\'t.  Nevertheless, I don\'t believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn\'t given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title=\"Safari Dev Center\" href=\"http://developer.apple.com/safari/\">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, debates have risen about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title=\"Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?\" href=\"http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php\">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes. There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets that remain out there (e.g. personal computers and laptops). Keeping that in mind, good web application developers, including <a title=\"World Wide Web Consortium\" href=\"http://www.w3c.org\">those in charge of writing web standards</a>, need to keep an eye on mobile technologies, especially the interfaces. [1. That\'s right. I\'m talking about you, touchscreens!] In the future, the best web applications will provide the optimum experience to web surfers regardless if they use their mobile device or their old-school browser as their board.','The Mobile Web','','inherit','open','open','','128-revision-14','','','2010-09-07 19:54:07','2010-09-07 23:54:07','',128,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/128-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(170,1,'2010-10-22 17:38:42','2010-10-22 21:38:42','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge upon the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene. Fortunately, the past week has given me a brief respite, and I\'ve started checking out the entries.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competition in previous years, I have never written down my thoughts about my experience. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play[1. Some of them? Hopefully all of them?]</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">game reviews already available</a>, most of them very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I will aspire mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.[2. No guarantees on any of this, I\'m sad to say.]\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh[3. Full disclosure. I am a personal acquaintance of the author, but I\'m recommending his game because <strong>it is good</strong>, not because I know him]. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, which--for those interested in how I \"rate\" a game-- are my two main criteria for what constitutes a good, and therefore fun, piece of IF. In a nutshell, \"well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation. You might wonder if there can be a difference, but trust me, you can have a beautifully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a technically elegant game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular reviewer\'s matrix.\r\n\r\nQuite honestly, I\'m not certain what to attain publishing reviews. Certainly not fame or glory. But perhaps by studying the games of others, I will be better prepared when I gather up both the time and courage to submit a game of my own.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','The annual Interactive Fiction Competition has been live for almost a month. Herein I state my intention to review some, if not all, of the games I play.','publish','open','open','','ifcomp-2010','','','2010-10-22 17:54:45','2010-10-22 21:54:45','',0,'http://www.biggles2k.com/?p=170',0,'post','',0),(146,1,'2010-09-15 23:34:39','2010-09-16 03:34:39','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst Hadley Reynolds as saying, \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary.\"  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but a 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could recreate Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. Feross lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, incidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight of hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only imagine how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the thousands of   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to know how search advertising will be affected. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','publish','open','open','','googles-instant-magic-trick','','\nhttp://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323','2010-09-17 09:33:20','2010-09-17 13:33:20','',0,'http://www.biggles2k.com/?p=146',0,'post','',0),(147,1,'2010-09-14 23:20:49','2010-09-15 03:20:49','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant. And Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. The <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. A job offer over Twitter. Which reminds me, I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology implemented in its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. The trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. And even the technology behind this isn\'t new. Google\'s word-completion relies on a common web technology known as \"Ajax\", which is what permits Google to quietly find words while you type.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision','','','2010-09-14 23:20:49','2010-09-15 03:20:49','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(149,1,'2010-09-15 09:17:09','2010-09-15 13:17:09','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. The <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. A job offer over Twitter. Which reminds me, I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\n\nI am, of course, simplifying the process and the effort that went into developing this. By quietly querying their search engines every time you type a character or two, Google has increased the traffic to their servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know, but if typing in the five letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many hits on Google computers, one can only image how searching for \"Google instant and mind reading\" impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion searches they get every day. You get the idea','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-3','','','2010-09-15 09:17:09','2010-09-15 13:17:09','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(148,1,'2010-09-14 23:24:23','2010-09-15 03:24:23','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. The <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. A job offer over Twitter. Which reminds me, I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology implemented in its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. The trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. Even the technology behind this isn\'t new. Google\'s word-completion relies on a common web technology known as <a title=\"AJAX Tutorial\" href=\"http://www.w3schools.com/Ajax/Default.Asp\">AJAX</a>, which is what permits Google to quietly find words while you type.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-2','','','2010-09-14 23:24:23','2010-09-15 03:24:23','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(150,1,'2010-09-15 09:41:53','2010-09-15 13:41:53','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Jonathon Effrat, a product managerf, implores us that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. A job offer over Twitter... which reminds me, I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\n\nI am, of course, simplifying the process and the effort that went into developing this. By quietly querying their search engines every time you type a character or two, Google has increased the traffic to their servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know, but if typing in the five letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many hits on Google computers, one can only image how searching for \"Google instant and mind reading\" impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion searches they get every day. You get the idea.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-4','','','2010-09-15 09:41:53','2010-09-15 13:41:53','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(151,1,'2010-09-15 09:42:51','2010-09-15 13:42:51','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. A job offer over Twitter... which reminds me, I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, simplifying the process and the effort that went into developing this. By quietly querying their search engines every time you type a character or two, Google has increased the traffic to their servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know, but if typing in the five letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many hits on Google computers, one can only image how searching for \"Google instant and mind reading\" impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion searches they get every day. You get the idea.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-5','','','2010-09-15 09:42:51','2010-09-15 13:42:51','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(152,1,'2010-09-15 15:13:24','2010-09-15 19:13:24','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\n\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every  day. You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\n\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the the ultimate result of this marvelous feat of engineering This may also be a reason why I am having a hard time defining . According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of the new technology is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\n\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will it sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer, it could be in how its search advertisements are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-6','','','2010-09-15 15:13:24','2010-09-15 19:13:24','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(153,1,'2010-09-15 15:14:12','2010-09-15 19:14:12','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, Google Instant, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders’  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users’ minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There’s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every  day. You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will it sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer, it could be in how its search advertisements are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-7','','','2010-09-15 15:14:12','2010-09-15 19:14:12','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(154,1,'2010-09-15 15:21:44','2010-09-15 19:21:44','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\n\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every  day. You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\n\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\n\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-8','','','2010-09-15 15:21:44','2010-09-15 19:21:44','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(155,1,'2010-09-15 21:02:41','2010-09-16 01:02:41','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\n\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\n\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-9','','','2010-09-15 21:02:41','2010-09-16 01:02:41','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(156,1,'2010-09-15 22:03:12','2010-09-16 02:03:12','<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-10','','','2010-09-15 22:03:12','2010-09-16 02:03:12','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(158,1,'2010-09-15 22:04:52','2010-09-16 02:04:52','<img class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-12','','','2010-09-15 22:04:52','2010-09-16 02:04:52','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(157,1,'2010-09-15 22:04:23','2010-09-16 02:04:23','<img class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-11','','','2010-09-15 22:04:23','2010-09-16 02:04:23','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(159,1,'2010-09-15 22:07:27','2010-09-16 02:07:27','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-13','','','2010-09-15 22:07:27','2010-09-16 02:07:27','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(160,1,'2010-09-15 22:09:38','2010-09-16 02:09:38','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-14','','','2010-09-15 22:09:38','2010-09-16 02:09:38','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(166,1,'2010-09-15 23:33:46','2010-09-16 03:33:46','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst Hadley Reynolds as saying, \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary.\"  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but a 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. Feross lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, incidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit.\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the thousands of   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\n\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\n\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to know how search advertising will be affected. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-20','','','2010-09-15 23:33:46','2010-09-16 03:33:46','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-20/',0,'revision','',0),(161,1,'2010-09-15 22:10:30','2010-09-16 02:10:30','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-15','','','2010-09-15 22:10:30','2010-09-16 02:10:30','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(162,1,'2010-09-15 22:10:34','2010-09-16 02:10:34','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n\r\nI am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-16','','','2010-09-15 22:10:34','2010-09-16 02:10:34','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(163,1,'2010-09-15 22:16:18','2010-09-16 02:16:18','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-17','','','2010-09-15 22:16:18','2010-09-16 02:16:18','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-17/',0,'revision','',0),(164,1,'2010-09-15 22:16:49','2010-09-16 02:16:49','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-18','','','2010-09-15 22:16:49','2010-09-16 02:16:49','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-18/',0,'revision','',0),(165,1,'2010-09-15 23:18:47','2010-09-16 03:18:47','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary\".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-19','','','2010-09-15 23:18:47','2010-09-16 03:18:47','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-19/',0,'revision','',0),(167,1,'2010-09-17 09:33:07','2010-09-17 13:33:07','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\n\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst Hadley Reynolds as saying, \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary.\"  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\n\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but a 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could recreate Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. Feross lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\n\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\n\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, incidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\n\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight of hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit.\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only imagine how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the thousands of   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\n\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\n\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to know how search advertising will be affected. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-autosave','','','2010-09-17 09:33:07','2010-09-17 13:33:07','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(168,1,'2010-09-15 23:34:39','2010-09-16 03:34:39','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst Hadley Reynolds as saying, \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary.\"  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but a 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could recreate Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. Feross lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, incidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight of hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the thousands of   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to know how search advertising will be affected. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-21','','','2010-09-15 23:34:39','2010-09-16 03:34:39','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-21/',0,'revision','',0),(169,1,'2010-09-15 23:49:22','2010-09-16 03:49:22','With much pomp and proclamation, <a title=\"Google - as if you don\'t know the URL\" href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title=\"Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.google.com/instant\">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it\'s indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title=\"Introducing Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded\">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching \"should feel like magic, and we\'re getting closer to that.\" Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title=\"Google search adds touch of mind reading\" href=\"http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/\">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant \"is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders\'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users\' minds\". <a title=\"Google Instant Mind Readers\" href=\"http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm\">Other</a> <a title=\"Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!\" href=\"http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp\">blogs</a> and <a title=\" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant\" href=\"http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323\">reports</a> <a title=\"And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?\" href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095\">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, \"There\'s even a psychic element to it.\"\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Google magic\" src=\"http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png\" alt=\"Google\'s instant magic trick\" width=\"275\" height=\"95\" />\r\n\r\nJoking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google\'s co-founders, remarked, \"It\'s a little bit of a new dawn in computing.\"  The <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm\">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst Hadley Reynolds as saying, \"the  speed and streaming aspects of Google\'s understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary.\"  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title=\"Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1\">New York Times</a>, said, \"It\'s been awhile since there\'s been a game changer in search, and this is.\" Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google\'s competitors.\r\n\r\nTrue enough. Google\'s competitors didn\'t replicate the technology, but a 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title=\"Feross Aboukhadijeh\" href=\"http://www.feross.org/\">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title=\"\'YouTube Instant\' creator, 19, finds instant fame\" href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2\">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could recreate Google\'s mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title=\"YouTube Instant\" href=\"http://ytinstant.com/\">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. Feross lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]\r\n\r\nSo what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.\r\n\r\nYes, that\'s what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type \"G\" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, \"<a title=\"Gmail\" href=\"http://www.gmail.com/\">Gmail</a>\", showed up as my first result). Add an \"o\" or two and \"<a title=\"Goggle Maps\" href=\"http://maps.google.com\">Google Maps</a>\" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an \"f\" and a \"y\" and you\'re treated with images of one of <a title=\"Goofy!\" href=\"http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg\">Disney\'s famous characters</a> whose name, incidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.\r\n\r\nLest you think my opinion overly harsh, let\'s step back and examine the sleight of hand that Google is performing. Let\'s repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type \"G\" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with \"Gmail\" as the first result. Continue with an \"o\" or two and \"Google Maps\" makes its appearance. Add \"fy\" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it\'s had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its \"completed\" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit.\r\n<blockquote>\"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>\r\nI am, of course, oversimplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don\'t know. But   if typing in the five  letters of \"Goofy\" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for \"Google   instant mind reading\"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the thousands of   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title=\"Google Instant, behind the scenes\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html\">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, \"revolutionary\" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title=\"Search: now faster than the speed of type\" href=\"http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html\">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title=\"End of the Universe\" href=\"http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html\">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it\'s apparently a big <a title=\"11 hours saved per second\" href=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg\">selling point</a>.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it\'s search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to know how search advertising will be affected. According to <a title=\"Google seeks to speed up web searches\" href=\"http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/\">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won\'t change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title=\"Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?\" href=\"http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm\">another report</a>, Google doesn\'t seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title=\"Bing\" href=\"http://www.bing.com\"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.','Google\'s instant magic trick','Wherein we peak behind the curtain of Google\'s latest search innovation.','inherit','open','open','','146-revision-22','','','2010-09-15 23:49:22','2010-09-16 03:49:22','',146,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/09/146-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(174,1,'2010-10-22 17:18:43','2010-10-22 21:18:43','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the IF scene.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-4','','','2010-10-22 17:18:43','2010-10-22 21:18:43','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(175,1,'2010-10-22 17:19:04','2010-10-22 21:19:04','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-5','','','2010-10-22 17:19:04','2010-10-22 21:19:04','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(171,1,'2010-10-22 16:28:06','2010-10-22 20:28:06','Back in the early \'80s, prior to undergoing the adolescent ritual known as \"High School\", I was delivered to a friend\'s house for an afternoon. Although my memory of the overall visit is fuzzy, we probably did the usual things: Romp around outside, play with some action figures (most likely G.I. Joe), and watch TV. What isn\'t fuzzy is eventually we wandered down to their family room--perhaps to watch the aforementioned TV--where the Apple //e resided. And there, lying open next to the computer, was a box of software styled gray with white lines. The cover art depicted a dungeon door slowly swinging open to reveal a mysterious light embedded within the title of what was obviously a game.\n\nAt that time, and even now, computer games and/or anything with dungeons and/or dragons immediately intrigued me. \"What\'s that?\" I asked.\n\n\"It\'s a text adventure,\" he said, slipped out the disks, and he fired it up.\n\nNo graphics greeted me, no sound, only a sprawl of text, 80 characters to a line, most of it meta-information about the game itself. But below this, I read\n\nThat\'s how I remember it, anyway.\n\nRegardless of my memory\'s accuracy, Interactive Fiction (often known as \"Text Adventures\")','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision','','','2010-10-22 16:28:06','2010-10-22 20:28:06','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(172,1,'2010-10-22 17:00:57','2010-10-22 21:00:57','Back in the early \'80s, prior to undergoing the adolescent ritual known as \"High School\", I was delivered to a friend\'s house for an afternoon. Although my memory of the overall visit is fuzzy, we probably did the usual things: Romp around outside, play with some action figures (most likely G.I. Joe), and watch TV. What isn\'t fuzzy is eventually we wandered down to their family room--perhaps to watch the aforementioned TV--where the Apple //e resided. And there, lying open next to the computer, was a box of software styled gray with white lines. The cover art depicted a dungeon door slowly swinging open to reveal a mysterious light embedded within the title of what was obviously a game.\r\n\r\nAt that time, and even now, computer games and/or anything with dungeons and/or dragons immediately intrigued me. \"What\'s that?\" I asked.\r\n\r\n\"It\'s a text adventure,\" he said, slipped out the disks, and he fired it up.\r\n\r\nNo graphics greeted me, no sound, only a sprawl of text, 80 characters to a line, most of it meta-information about the game itself. But below this, I read the following lines of prose, which have become immortalized in computer game history:\r\n\r\n<pre>\r\nBlah blah blah\r\n</pre>\r\n\r\nThat\'s how I remember it, anyway.\r\n\r\nRegardless of my memory\'s accuracy, Interactive Fiction (often known as \"Text Adventures\")','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-2','','','2010-10-22 17:00:57','2010-10-22 21:00:57','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(173,1,'2010-10-22 17:01:02','2010-10-22 21:01:02','Back in the early \'80s, prior to undergoing the adolescent ritual known as \"High School\", I was delivered to a friend\'s house for an afternoon. Although my memory of the overall visit is fuzzy, we probably did the usual things: Romp around outside, play with some action figures (most likely G.I. Joe), and watch TV. What isn\'t fuzzy is eventually we wandered down to their family room--perhaps to watch the aforementioned TV--where the Apple //e resided. And there, lying open next to the computer, was a box of software styled gray with white lines. The cover art depicted a dungeon door slowly swinging open to reveal a mysterious light embedded within the title of what was obviously a game.\r\n\r\nAt that time, and even now, computer games and/or anything with dungeons and/or dragons immediately intrigued me. \"What\'s that?\" I asked.\r\n\r\n\"It\'s a text adventure,\" he said, slipped out the disks, and he fired it up.\r\n\r\nNo graphics greeted me, no sound, only a sprawl of text, 80 characters to a line, most of it meta-information about the game itself. But below this, I read the following lines of prose, which have become immortalized in computer game history:\r\n\r\n<pre>\r\nBlah blah blah\r\n</pre>\r\n\r\nThat\'s how I remember it, anyway.\r\n\r\nRegardless of my memory\'s accuracy, Interactive Fiction (often known as \"Text Adventures\")','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-3','','','2010-10-22 17:01:02','2010-10-22 21:01:02','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(176,1,'2010-10-22 17:24:07','2010-10-22 21:24:07','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\n\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, some informative and analytic, and some not-as-much.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-6','','','2010-10-22 17:24:07','2010-10-22 21:24:07','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(177,1,'2010-10-22 17:30:45','2010-10-22 21:30:45','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\n\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\n\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others: <a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a>','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-7','','','2010-10-22 17:30:45','2010-10-22 21:30:45','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(178,1,'2010-10-22 17:37:45','2010-10-22 21:37:45','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\n\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\n\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspect of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of the matrix.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-8','','','2010-10-22 17:37:45','2010-10-22 21:37:45','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(179,1,'2010-10-22 17:38:38','2010-10-22 21:38:38','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular matrix.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-9','','','2010-10-22 17:38:38','2010-10-22 21:38:38','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(180,1,'2010-10-22 17:38:42','2010-10-22 21:38:42','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular matrix.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-10','','','2010-10-22 17:38:42','2010-10-22 21:38:42','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(181,1,'2010-10-22 17:39:07','2010-10-22 21:39:07','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular matrix.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-11','','','2010-10-22 17:39:07','2010-10-22 21:39:07','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(182,1,'2010-10-22 17:39:11','2010-10-22 21:39:11','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors before, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I hope mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular matrix.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-12','','','2010-10-22 17:39:11','2010-10-22 21:39:11','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(183,1,'2010-10-22 17:43:45','2010-10-22 21:43:45','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene. Fortunately, the past week has given me a brief respite, and I\'ve started checking out the entries.\r\n\r\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors in previous years, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play[1. Some of them? Hopefully all of them?]</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I will aspire mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, my two major criteria for what constitutes a good game. \"Well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. Trust me, you can have a wonderfully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a beautifully programmed game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular matrix.\r\n\r\nQuite honestly, I\'m not certain what to attain through this. Certainly not fame or glory. But perhaps by studying the games of others, I will be better prepared when I gather up the courage to submit a game of my own.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-13','','','2010-10-22 17:43:45','2010-10-22 21:43:45','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(184,1,'2010-10-22 17:48:22','2010-10-22 21:48:22','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge in the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene. Fortunately, the past week has given me a brief respite, and I\'ve started checking out the entries.\n\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors in previous years, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play[1. Some of them? Hopefully all of them?]</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">literature already available</a>, most of it very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I will aspire mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\n\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh[2. Full disclosure. I am a personal acquaintance of the author, but I\'m recommending his game because it is good, the best I have played so far.]. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, which--for those interested in how I \"rate\" a game-- are my two main criteria for what constitutes a good, and therefore fun, game. In a nutshell, \"well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation of the game. You might wonder if there can be a difference, but trust me, you can have a beautifully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a technically elegant game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular reviewer\'s matrix.\n\nA final Quite honestly, I\'m not certain what to attain through this. Certainly not fame or glory. But perhaps by studying the games of others, I will be better prepared when I gather up the courage to submit a game of my own.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-14','','','2010-10-22 17:48:22','2010-10-22 21:48:22','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(185,1,'2010-10-22 17:50:29','2010-10-22 21:50:29','The annual <a title=\"The 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifcomp.org/\">Interactive Fiction Competition</a>, edition the 16th, has been underway for nearly a month, but vacation and classes and, well, let\'s face it, life in general, have delayed my chance to download and start evaluating the 25 (26?) new games to emerge upon the <a title=\"Interactive Fiction\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction\">IF</a> scene. Fortunately, the past week has given me a brief respite, and I\'ve started checking out the entries.\n\nAlthough I have played and judged the competitors in previous years, I have never written down my thoughts. I\'m hoping that by announcing in this very post that <strong>I will, indeed, review the games that I play[1. Some of them? Hopefully all of them?]</strong>, that I will actually take some time and effort to contribute to the <a title=\"ifwiki.org: 16th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition\" href=\"http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2010\">game reviews already available</a>, most of them very insightful and informative, and some not-so-much. I will aspire mine to be the former, with one post per review when time permits.\n\nIn the meantime, I\'ll simply say that out of the half-dozen games that I have played, only one has stood out among the others:  <em><a title=\"The Warbler\'s Nest\" href=\"http://jmac.org/warbler/\">The Warbler\'s Nest</a></em> by Jason McIntosh[2. Full disclosure. I am a personal acquaintance of the author, but I\'m recommending his game because <strong>it is good</strong>, not because I know him]. It\'s well-written and well-crafted, which--for those interested in how I \"rate\" a game-- are my two main criteria for what constitutes a good, and therefore fun, piece of IF. In a nutshell, \"well-written\" refers to the literary aspects of the game, and \"well-crafted\" refers to the technical implementation. You might wonder if there can be a difference, but trust me, you can have a beautifully written piece of IF that is horribly bug-ridden; and you can have a technically elegant game that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I have seen and played both. And within each year\'s competition, you can usually find games that span all corners of my particular reviewer\'s matrix.\n\nQuite honestly, I\'m not certain what to attain through this. Certainly not fame or glory. But perhaps by studying the games of others, I will be better prepared when I gather up the courage to submit a game of my own.','Interactive Fiction Competition 2010','','inherit','open','open','','170-revision-15','','','2010-10-22 17:50:29','2010-10-22 21:50:29','',170,'http://www.biggles2k.com/2010/10/170-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),