Google Fails 5th Grade Math Test
Posted on February 1st, 2010 at 8:58 pm by Michael VanDeMar
So, I think I finally discovered the cause of global warming. No, for reals. From what I can tell, miss Mother Nature started using Google Calculator in helping her figure out what kind of weather she should serve up to us. Now, if she were trying to bake a cake, or perhaps get driving directions, I am sure Google would have worked just fine. But for doing math involving temperatures…? Not so much.
I was playing around with the functions on Google Calculator last week, when I noticed some of the calculations weren’t quite right. Maybe Michael Bolton from Office Space was involved Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Google, bad research, lackofmeds, nerdiness, search engines | 9 Comments »
Why The Renewed Interest In The Linkscape Scams And Deception..?
Posted on January 22nd, 2010 at 5:15 pm by Michael VanDeMar
Yesterday a friend of mine, Sebastian, wrote a post titled, “How do Majestic and LinkScape get their raw data?“. Basically it is a renewed rant about SEOmoz and their deceptions surrounding the Linkscape product that they launched back in October 2008, a little over 15 months ago. The controversy is based around the fact that moz basically lied about how it was exactly they were obtaining their data, which in part was probably motivated by wanting to make themselves look like they were more technically capable than they actually are.
Now, I covered this back when the launch actually happened, in this Linkscape post, resulting in quite a few comments, and there was more than a little heated conversation in the Sphinn thread as well. This prompted some people, both on Sebastian’s post and in the Sphinn thread on it, to ask why all of the renewed interest?
It is not extreme, its just that it isn’t new. The fact that they bought the index (partially)? That was known from the beginning. The fact that they don’t provide a satisfying way of blocking their bots (or the fact that they didn’t want to reveal their bots user agent)? Check. The fact that they make hyped statements to push Linkscape? Check. {…} I don’t get the renewed excitement. – Branko, aka SEO Scientist
Well, I guess you could say that it’s my fault. Or, you could blame it on SEOmoz themselves, or their employees, depending on how you look at it. You see, the story goes like this…
Back when SEOmoz first launched Linkscape, it would have been damn near impossible for a shop their size to have performed the feats they were claiming, all on their own. Rand was making the claim “Yes – We spidered all 30 billion pages”. He also claimed to have done it within “several weeks”. Now, even if we stretch “several” to mean something that it normally would not, say, 6 (since a 6 week update period is now what they are claiming for the tool), we’re still talking a huge amount of resources to accomplish that task. A conservative estimate of the average website, considering only html, is 25KB of text:
30,000,000,000 websites x (25 x 1024) bytes per website = 768,000,000,000,000 bytes of data (768 trillion bytes, which is 698.4TB)
(698.4TB / 45 days of crawling) x 30 days in a month = 465.6TB bandwidth per month
Now, I know that one of the reasons that Rand can get away with some of his claims is that most people just don’t grasp the sheer size Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in SEO, WTF, blogthropology, lackofmeds, psychoblogging, scams | 11 Comments »
Facebook / Twitter / Myspace Hacking: How To Keep It From Happening To You
Posted on December 18th, 2009 at 4:08 pm by Michael VanDeMar
Over the past few weeks I have noticed a sharp increase of scammers trying to get my Facebook password, and not too long ago a few people I know actually fell prey to it. Recently there was an outbreak of of similar activity on Twitter, where the attempts were being spread through direct messages, and Myspace has seen it’s share of woes with these issue as well. The methods being used to try and trick users into giving their passwords away are collectively known as phishing attempts, where the members of the site are sent a message, either through the site itself or in an email, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Social Media, how-to, nerdiness, scams | 5 Comments »
Video Games Requiring Physical Action Burn Calories – Duh
Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm by DazzlinDonna
I don’t normally get all worked up and sarcastic about research. In fact, I love reading about real, truly beneficial scientific research. So while I appreciate the whole scientific process, sometimes I just have to say, “Well, Duh!” I suppose it’s important to test theories just to be SURE that a hypothesis is correct, but really, was it necessary to test the hypothesis that a video game that requires physical action – such as Nintendo’s Wii Boxing – would actually burn more calories in kids than watching TV would? Well, apparently someone felt the need to see if moving around might expend more energy than not moving around would, and lucky for us, the answer is Yes!
According to Science Daily’s summary of the research done by the University of Oklahoma,
Wii bowling and beginner level DDR elicited a 2-fold increase in energy expenditure compared to television watching. Overall, the energy expenditure during active video game play was comparable to moderate-intensity walking. Thus, for children who spend considerable time playing electronic screen games for entertainment, OU researchers found that substituting that time with physically active games can be a safe, fun and valuable means of promoting energy expenditure.
Let me give you a little of my own research.
Test 1: Sit on my derriere for 10 minutes watching TV. Am I tired? Nope. Not even a little.
Test 2: Play a Wii game like bowling or boxing or even yoga for 10 minutes. Am I tired? Nope. I’m EXHAUSTED.
Still not convinced? Would pictures make a difference?
Research Test 1:
Research Test 2:
I’m not sure what kind of research our universities are conducting these days, but I’m pretty sure this is the kind that does NOT need to be undertaken.
Go get your kids a Wii, let them play some physically active games, and know in your inner soul that they are expending energy. Really, you don’t need any scientific research to tell you that. It’s a Duh moment.
Posted in bad research | 1 Comment »
Quick Poll… Who Here Wants To Bing Jessica Biel?
Posted on August 25th, 2009 at 1:27 pm by Michael VanDeMar
Today CNN wrote a piece about the “‘Most dangerous’ celebs to search for online”. The article discussed which celebrity searches that were most likely to lead to sites infected with spyware. It was an interesting enough story, but what caught my eye were the two opening sentences:
Be cautious if you plan to Bing Jessica Biel or Google Brad Pitt. A new report says you might get a virus.
Now, while Microsoft may be hoping that people will associate the name of their revamped search engine, Bing, with Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in MSN, Social Media, blogthropology, lackofmeds, search engines | No Comments »
Amazon Confirms: Shortened URL’s *Are* Allowed On Facebook and Twitter
Posted on July 17th, 2009 at 4:10 pm by Michael VanDeMar
Last week there was some commotion over the fact that it was being reported that Amazon.com was refusing to pay affiliates if they used url shortening services to post affiliate links on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. This actually makes no sense from a business perspective, since it would discourage people from sending traffic to Amazon using some of the most popular communication mediums that are out there today.
I decided to go through the affiliate operating agreement myself to see Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Social Media, customer service, how-to | 1 Comment »
Dear Google, Both Yahoo and Bing Crushed You Today
Posted on June 12th, 2009 at 8:50 am by DazzlinDonna
Dear Google,
I ran a search today. It was a real search. In other words, this search wasn’t something I was researching as a search professional. This wasn’t a search for one of the high keyword value phrases. This was just me … being an ordinary user … wanting to find some information. And what I discovered was that Google failed me, big time, with absolutely nothing in the first ten results that was of any relevance to my query.
Now at first, I assumed *I* was the problem. After all, we’ve been conditioned to believe that if you don’t give us the answers we are looking for, then we must have asked the wrong question. And just as I was about to figure out how to rephrase my query, I decided to do something else first. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Google | 8 Comments »
Poopfree what? WTF?
Posted on June 5th, 2009 at 12:47 pm by DazzlinDonna
Yesterday, I wrote an email which included words like “cluck” and “chicken” in it. I then sent it off to some friends. When I got a reply back, and I opened it up in Gmail, I noticed the ad that Google served based on the content of my email. Here’s a screenshot of it. Really, it rendered me speechless, and well, I just think a picture is worth a thousand words.
WTF? A poop-free chicken waterer? What??? Wait, I don’t even want to know.
Posted in WTF | 4 Comments »
Win A Date With Pedobear? WTF??
Posted on May 24th, 2009 at 10:35 pm by Michael VanDeMar
I was checking out a link a friend of mine Stumbled on tonight, when I see this ad for what looks like a teen dating site. Like most of the adult version dating sites that you see plastered all over the internet these days, the banner ad featured profile pics of the girls you could supposedly wind up hooking up with. The service advertised is not some small time website thrown up by amateurs with a very low budget… it is owned by Hearst Teen Network, the same guys who own Seventeen.com, CosmoGIRL.com, and a bunch of other teen oriented websites. I am not exactly sure who the hell their advertising team is targeting with this one, however. The ad features profile pics of two cute girls… and Pedobear:
I mean, seriously… wtf??
Posted in Social Media, blogthropology, lackofmeds, marketing | 3 Comments »
Is Plagiarism Ok… If It Was An Accident?
Posted on May 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm by Michael VanDeMar
Last year I wrote this handy little script named EasyWP. It makes installing Wordpress much easier for those without Fantastico or shell access, and is many times faster than having to upload all of the files individually. It’s very useful, especially if you install Wordpress on a regular basis, or if you need to do a complete Wordpress reinstall for whatever reason. Lots of people use and enjoy the script.
Today I receive this email from someone by the name of Joel Drapper: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Social Media, Wordpress, blogthropology, coding, lackofmeds | 22 Comments »
