用着无线网，面对着浏览器，看几篇牛B网站杂志的英文文章，然后看到山西的黑砖场，一下子又想起这个老外对北京的感受──Surreal。在北京人模狗样地混着，另一面自己家乡又发生这种现代奴隶制，离北京也不超过800公里，两种生活一下子冲进大脑，像两支箭一样正面碰撞，让人完全不知道该怎么说话。

我来自差不多最穷的村子，知道村子里的许多恶事，包括私刑致死在内都有，大户人家的势力，干部的势力，现在出这种事完全可以想像。只是不服气为什么正常的生活也有20多年了，怎么还会出这么恶毒的事情，连残疾人和小孩也要骗，也要害他们。那么多人经手，就没人敢说，就没人报告，这还是正常的社会么。

一下子也不用想什么济世良方了，只要以直报怨，以血还血，做下恶事的，就让他们承受10倍100倍的恶。谁说的这样，他赚10万，你罪1万，那是惩罚么？那是奖励。出这么大的事，那些大小官都还呆着，没一个自杀，这就是奖励。我知道肯尼迪为了让黑人上学，都敢派部队去跟地方打仗，子弟兵怎么不派过去。下级不是服从上级么，全免了再说啊。

最后又搞到坏人心中暗喜，好人心里滴血，你们就高兴了，因为你们都是坏人。

我是河南人，又是传说中的山西洪洞移民，全碰一块，真叫人愤怒。

曾看过 Peter Voss 的一篇文章：《Advanced Intelligence: SI, IA, and the Global Brain》，借用他文章中的观点，我也将信息技术的发展，简单的归纳为三个主要方向：连接、智能、界面。本文先讲连接这一部分。

连接速度决定了信息传递的速度，而连接率决定了信息传递的范围

人的思想可以通过文字、语言的形式表现出来，形成有价值的信息。信息的传递，从对话，到信件，到电话，到电子邮件，再到即时通信软件。信息通过某种渠道的传递过程，即形成了网络。网络的本质，我认为是信息的流动。

从某种程度上讲，信息流动的慢，即互动性弱；信息流动的快，即互动性强。新浪网那么多编辑，每天那么多新闻，有那么多网民在看，一篇新闻出来，基本上没有时间差，立即会被网民读到，而且被越来越多的网民读到。这些信息还会在其他非计算机网络中被传递，越传越广。

这里隐藏着网络的两大基石：连接速度和连接率。从点到线，从线到面。连接速度决定了信息传递的速度，而连接率决定了信息传递的范围。这里的网络不仅仅是指计算机网络，还包括电视网络、电话和移动通信网络、邮政网络、人-人的网络。

连接速度和连接率相互促进。渐渐的量变产生的质变，并且在整个过程中延伸出无数应用，不断地改变人们使用网络的方式。

比如我现在通过一些音乐网站听音乐，本地不存放 mp3 文件；通过 P2P 技术，下载 HDTV 高质量电影也在分秒间完成。当连接速度普遍达到一个高度，我们便不需要系统、软件、硬盘这些东西，在这种意义上，我才觉得 WebOS 是有前途的。我们需要的只是一个（或多个）具有身份识别的终端。

UGC(User Generated Content) 被认为是 Web 2.0 的本质。实际上，Web 2.0 让信息传递的更快了，或者说，计算机网络的互动性更强了。UGC 让所有人的思想、智慧在更大的范围内更快的传播。说白了，不管 Web 1.0 还是 Web 2.0，你能将信息以最快的速度传递给最多的人，你就是最牛的。

为什么信息传递的越快越好？因为信息在传递过程中能够增值。这个话题，以后有机会再另写博文。

还有一个有意思的相关话题是 Global Brain。无论是全球人口还是全球联网终端，现在都没有达到 100 亿这个临界值。一旦突破，会否突然诞生高级智能？这个 100 亿，是 Peter Russell 在其著作《The Global Brain》里提到的产生智能（或者说硅基生命，对应于碳基生命）的临界点，抑或是更早时 Arthur C. Clarke 的科幻短篇《Dial F for Frankenstein》里谈到的现象。

所以，诸如 P2P、3G、TD-CDMA 等致力与提高连接速度和连接率的技术，哪怕在将来失败了（只有两种可能，一种是商业运作，一种是被新技术取代），它们的存在也有巨大的意义。

查看或发表评论

这是我唯一看到的 Web 2.0 公司使用 PostgreSQL 的，可惜还失败了。

FeedLounge 是一个提供在线 RSS Reader 的站点。已经在今年 6 月 1 日黯然宣布失败。这里不去讨论他们失败的各种原因，只说说从他们 Blog 上看来的关于他们选择数据库的经验。

FeedLounge 在数据库的使用上路线是这样的：

MySQL(MyISAM) --> MySQL(InnoDB) --> PostgreSQL 

最初是 MyISAM 方式，迁移到 InnoDB ，数据库从大约 1G 膨胀超出了 10G，而且发现引发了新的性能问题，经过尝试发现不能解决后，迁移到 PostgreSQL，总存储从 InnoDB 方式的 34G 缩小到 9.6G,而且，恢复时间也只是原来的大约 1/5 (导出用 Mysqldump,载入用 psql ). 此外，关于内存利用方式上也有一些差异, MySQL : innodb_buffer_pool 6GB + O_DIRECT flush, PostgreSQL 设置上限 2G，只用了 1.2 G。遗憾的是，看不到切换前后性能数据更为详细的对比。

FeedLounge 当时每天要处理的事务量：每天超过 400 万次查询，超过 200 万次的更新/插入操作，高峰期每秒钟有 2000 个更新/插入操作(这应该是批处理阶段)。硬件如何呢? 数据库服务器的硬件：两路 Opteron CPU，8 GB 内存， 6 SATA 7200RPM 16MB 硬盘， RAID 5 ，控制器有 128M. 可以看出来了吧， 7200 转的硬盘 + RAID 5 根本不适合这样的应用。从这一点上说，数据库类型切换其实解决不了本质的问题。

另外看到的有趣参考信息：

FeedDigest 在当时每天有超过 400 万次的查询，超过 200 万次插入，机器硬件只用了双奔四 CPU(2.8GHz) ，1G内存

--EOF--

Language: Who’s the hottiest of them all? “It’s quite a normal usage in British journalism,” she notes. “Pops up on the BBC often. We’re comfortable with it in a headline, where we use the vernacular more than in copy, especially when it fits the space.” Freeland adds: “We’re a global paper. It’s important for us to [...]

绿色和平是一个全球性的非政府组织，总部设于荷兰阿姆斯特丹，在四十个国家设有办事处。我们以保护地球、环境及其各种生物的安全及可持续发展为使命，旨在用实际行动做出积极的改变。

one intriguing & continuously hand-drawn line.

[link: youtube.com]

　　Vanessa Fox是Google的大名人，和Matt Cutts有点类似，Vanessa也是极受普通站长及SEO专家们的喜欢，因为她在过去几年里，成功地将Google网站管理员中心变成了Google和站长之间最有效的沟通工具。作为Google网站管理员中心产品经理，Vanessa一直致力于加强Google与站长之间的联系，Google在她的努力下，由前几年相对封闭的状态转变成现在乐于听取站长意见的搜索引擎。Vanessa频繁出现在各种Google公开演讲场合，全力传播Google搜索技术及思想。可以说Vanessa既是Google搜索技术的传道士，也是Google网站管理员中心的核心建设者。很可惜的是，Vanessa今天已经在自己的blog里宣布将离开Google。 　　Vanessa宣布将会加入著名的房地产搜索公司Zillow，但她没有透露从Google离职的原因。大概又是一个"follow my heart"的例子了。Zillow以提供免费房地产估价服务而闻名，是业界的新星。据悉Vanessa将作为Zillow的产品团队主管，管理Zillow新广告业务、feed及email产品的开发工作。 　　失去了Vanessa Fox，或许会使Google这个崇尚机器算法的搜索引擎又要少了几分人情味了。不过相信Google的网站管理员中心团队肯定还会继续加强与站长之间的联系，使Google更开放。...

继续.

　　这些天不知道发生了什么事情，很多以前无法访问的网站都暂时可以访问了，根据我观察的规律，似乎都是封了大约一年时间之后出现的这种情况，最新的一个例子就是英文版本的维基百科。

　　做为一个快速发展的多语言版本的网络百科全书，维基百科全书计划自2001年1月15日开始上线，截至到今天，英文版维基百科已有183万个条目，而所有语言的版本累加起来超过500万个条目。

　　维基百科全书允许大众的广泛参与，大部分网页都可以由任何人进行修改，是一个典型的用户贡献内容的网站。中文维基百科自2005年就无法访问，中间曾经有段时间中文维基百科可以访问，但是目前的状况是依旧无法访问。

　　测试你是否可以访问英文维基百科，可以点这个链接看看。感谢热心读者Derek的报告。（更新：根据一些反馈者的猜测，这次英文维基百科可以正常访问可能是因为英文维基百科IP地址自身发生变化的原因。）

《英文维基百科解封》的相关评论留言

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• 防火长城真是神仙啊  (2006-11-17 15:12:59)
• 中文维基百科解封  (2006-11-10 17:29:56)
• 百度染指维基百科  (2006-4-7 19:05:07)
• 惊闻维基百科被封锁  (2005-10-20 20:08:44)
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Last night I saw Ocean’s Thirteen. First off, I can’t believe this franchise has gone on as long as it has. It’s been nothing but downhill since Ocean’s Seven. Apparently, like some kind of strange film industry bloatware, in every new Ocean’s movie they add another big mega super star feature to the cast. People like Eddie [...]

"It seems that they are ordering my inbound links by the perceived quality of the site."

chedong posted a photo:

完整PPT：
www.eweek.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=26782&...

an ambient installation visualizing the actual water pollution by a colorful LED light system floating in a river. the light system measures the water quality using a network of re-wired pH sensors connected to light-emitting, thin film photovoltaics strips that glow red when the water quality is poor & green with the water quality is good, all powered by a single rechargable AA battery.

[link: thelivingnewyork.com & cityofsound.com|via inhabitat.com]

see also public air quality monitor & pollution data driven colored smoke.

Posted by Steve Chen, YouTube co-founder

Recent speculation and stories like this Wall Street Journal article or this Reuters report on YouTube's use of video identification tools made us think it would be useful to clarify what we’re doing.

We’ve been developing improved content identification for months, and we’re confident that in the not-too-distant future, we’ll unveil an innovative solution that will work for users and content creators alike. This is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken. But YouTube has always been committed to developing sustainable and scalable tools that work for all content owners.

Even though we haven’t given too many details, we’ve been hard at work. Earlier this year we implemented audio fingerprinting technology from Audible Magic, to help identify the audio content of music partners like Warner Music, Sony BMG, and Universal. Today we're experimenting with video identification tools, and will share with you a few core principles driving our technology development, past and present.

We are beginning tests on an automated system to identify and match specific videos. The technology extracts key visual aspects of uploaded videos and compares that information against reference material provided by copyright holders. Achieving the accuracy to drive automated policy decisions is difficult, and requires a highly tuned system. Once accuracy is achieved, the challenge becomes speed and scale to support the millions of people who use YouTube every day. We are working with some of the major media companies to test what we have developed. We’re excited about the progress so far, and we’re dedicated to making these tests successful, but as always with cutting-edge technologies, there’s no guarantee of success.

Now, when it comes to spotting pornography and graphic violence, and other content prohibited by our terms of use, nothing beats our community flagging. Once a user flags a video, we immediately review it and remove it if we find a violation. But our community can’t identify infringing content. We all know pornography and violence when we see them. But copyright status can only be determined by the copyright holder. That is because almost anyone who creates an original video has the copyright for that work, and such a wide range of copyright holders' preferences vary widely.

Some copyright holders want control over every use of their creation. Many professional artists and media companies post their latest videos without telling us, while some home video-makers don't want their stuff online. Some legal departments take down a video one day and the marketing department puts it up the next. Which is their right, but our community can’t predict those things, and neither can we. The same is true for technology. No matter how good our video identification technology gets, it will never be able to read copyright-holders’ minds.

If a content owner identifies material that she doesn’t want on YouTube, she can request its removal with the click of a mouse. If particular users repeatedly infringe copyrights, we terminate their accounts. We have long made a practice of creating a unique "hash" of every video removed for alleged copyright infringement and blocking re-uploads of the hash. We educate users on what is and isn’t permissible under the law. Our upcoming video identification system will be our latest way of empowering copyright holders, going above and beyond legal requirements.

We’ll continue our focus on delivering a great user experience. YouTube's no-fuss upload lets video artists collapse the gap between the creative moment and its worldwide publication. It helps our hundreds of media partners - as well as marketers and advertisers - spread their hottest work while it's still hot. And it enables presidential candidates participating in our YouChoose 2008 program to engage in a direct, open dialogue with voters, bringing transparency, access and authenticity to the political process. We’re carefully designing our new identification technologies to not impede those free and fast forms of expression.

In conclusion, a content management system has to have technology that provides high quality matching and detection, but it also has to apply business rules in ways that support the business objectives of partners while providing high quality user experiences. With the introduction of our video identification tools, YouTube will continue to be the leader in online video, and the premier destination for watching and sharing original videos worldwide. Now, back to work…

Update: Added direct link to Wall Street Journal story.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, M.D., Product Manager, Google

Before joining Google, I was a full-time primary care doctor. My time working with patients every day, hearing their stories and trying to help make them better, is an experience I will cherish forever. And about once a week, I still practice as an urgent care doctor at a county hospital. Based on these experiences, I have witnessed the problems patients face. One of the biggest ones I see is the difficulty patients have getting answers to the most basic questions, such as 'What tests and treatments should I know about if I have type 2 diabetes? Is the care I am getting on par with what most experts recommend?'

Many patients are comfortable letting their doctors worry about these questions for them. But I think patients get better care when they are more informed about generally accepted standards of care, and know more when talking to their doctors. Of course, I don't recommend that patients treat themselves. They can't simply do searches on the Internet, self-diagnose and treat. While there is an endless amount of information available online, it's difficult to know what is quality information and what is not. Patients need to see their doctors to get the right medical care. But better-informed patients recover faster, manage chronic illnesses better and may even avoid some illnesses altogether. And patients should feel in control of their situation.

I was recently reminded of these issues when I was hospitalized. I wanted to know more about the best treatment options for my situation, so I called a few doctor friends and got all the information I needed. Because of that, I think I recovered faster, and I certainly felt better as a more active participant in my own care. But most people don't have this kind of access to medical expertise.

In addition to my medical training, I studied medical informatics before coming to Google. I learned about computer systems that are designed to remind doctors about tests and treatments that their patients should have. I can say from personal experience that it is difficult to remember everything I should be doing for my patients, or to read every new article on the latest test or drug. These systems help doctors get the information they need to deliver quality care.

I believe patients should also have access to these kinds of systems so that they can help make sure they are getting the best care. If you search online to learn more about diabetes, it should be easy to find out what the generally recommended treatments and tests are.

Now I'm part of the team here working on health and we're trying to do something about this problem. Adam Bosworth, who is leading our team, has alluded to this in previous posts such as this one as well as in some speeches he has made at healthcare conferences.

We have been talking to many medical experts to understand what the best guidelines are, and how we can determine which ones apply in different circumstances. If such guidelines were more available to patients, they might be able to, by inputting information such as age, gender or medications, learn about recommended screening tests and other preventive measures, or about harmful drug interactions. (The problem of drug interactions is reason enough to work on this: in the U.S. alone, it is estimated that over 770,000 people are injured or die each year in hospitals from adverse drug events. Many of these medical errors could be prevented if patients or doctors checked for drug interactions.)

As we work on this project, we are of course paying very close attention to privacy. If such a tool were available, you should be able to enter as much or as little information as you want -- and it's important that you be allowed to access this kind of information without entering your name, insurance number or other personal information. We also think that if you want to save this information, you should have that choice so you can access it later or share it with your doctor.

When I help my loved ones navigate an illness or get up to date with screening tests, I wonder how those who don't have a doctor in the family manage their health. When a patient comes to see me with a pretty good understanding of their treatment options, I find that refreshing. But really, I wish it were just easier for patients to get the information they're looking for. While we don't expect to develop the perfect solution, I hope that some day we'll be able to offer something that is a step in the right direction.

Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube

Back in March we kicked off our You Choose '08 program, a hub of political channels on YouTube designed to educate, empower, and connect voters and presidential candidates through the power of online video. Since then, millions of people have checked out the candidates' YouTube Channels, and thousands have communicated directly with those running for President via ratings, comments and video responses.

Today we're announcing another way that YouTube is leveling the political playing field: The CNN/YouTube debates. For the first time in history, the questions asked in both a Democratic and a Republican primary debate will come straight from YouTube videos. More info here:



Needless to say we're really excited about this, but we'll be even more excited when the video questions start to roll in. So here's your official call to action: Create your own video debate questions for the presidential candidates and upload your submissions at www.youtube.com/debates.

Then tune in to CNN on July 23 for the Democratic debate to see if your question is asked. Also keep your eyes on the YouTube Blog and on this one, as we'll have much more to share with you in both places between now and the election.

Debate video guidelines:
• Keep it quick—your question should be less than 30 seconds.
• Make it look good—we're looking for high audio and video quality.
• Choose your focus—you can address one or all of the candidates on a single issue.
• Be creative—we'll appreciate unique settings and approaches.
• Be personal—we want your perspective and general relevance.
• Please note—all videos are subject to the YouTube Terms of Use.

昨天夜里就开始下雨，持续到今天，很大。下班的时候出来，还下着小雨。可是，一阵熟悉的"兰花草"音乐传来，放眼望去，马路上居然有一辆洒水车，而且还在洒着水。马路上还有积水的，洒水的又来了。太有才了。

说起洒水车播放的音乐，还真想起一个点子：唱片公司要想打垮竞争对手，买通管洒水车的，整天播放对手公司歌手的歌曲就行了。比如，洒水车专放"双节棍",估计过几天就没有人听周杰伦了。

插播一则广告: 汪海的帖子收到了侯总的留言。不知道侯总? 你可以不知道芙蓉姐姐，可以不知道付笛声任静夫妇，但你不能不知道侯总 -- "当今最牛的广告牛人"，候总说的"如果你错过了，那么我恭喜你，你买不到了", "八心八箭" 等话势必成为接下来几个月网络流行"暗号"

其实今天心情挺沉重的。有些"轻"不容易承受。

--EOF--