Congratulations. I also read your article about document control, and immediately liked your approach. For example, restricting folders to just one level and not folders-within-folders, seems to have helped you in eliminating gratuitous complexity.
Side question out of sheer curiosity: Do you have AutoLISP/ObjectARX plugins that interact with your site?
We don't have such plugins yet, but our system is built with the eventual release of an API in mind (so that any number of clients could connect, not just the Flex client)... if you want to build something that interacts with it, just contact me and I'll see how we can help you.
Congratulations Paul. It will be nice to have a prominent page on ycombinator.com that links to all launched startups.
Edit: Found the link -- http://ycombinator.com/faq.html
This paper is pretty cryptic and (I think) unhelpful, for a couple reasons, not least the fact that protocol breaks kill far more systems than block cipher analysis. But it is still an interesting challenge.
Worth mentioning here is that there may be 5000 full-time vulnerability researchers worldwide, and fewer than .1% of them will ever even do protocol crypto. Not that that those 5 people aren't awesome.
Correct. At the same time, even trying to break a protocol is an interesting activity and improves the fertility of mind. That would help in the areas like identifying security holes in a system.
Nice. I searched for four scenarios. Apparently, one can train the engine, as discovered in the 4th scenario. In that, it said that it couldn't automatically build a square about the topic and asked me to enter up to 5 examples. I entered Alan Turing, Alan Perlis, John McCarthy, Donald E. Knuth, C.A.R. Hoare. I was delighted to see that Google Squared built the square and added names of Norbert Weiner and Claude Shanon to it.
This is a good application of machine learning.
Scenario 1: "renaissance artists" florence
Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence
Web Search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence&aqi=&fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc
Scenario 2: "open source" "cryptographically strong" "random number generators"
Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22
Web search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&aqi=&fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc
Scenario 3: "string theory" problems
Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22string+theory%22+problems
Web search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22string+theory%22+problems&aq=&oq=&aqi=&fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc
Scenario 4: "mathematicians" "computer scientists"
Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=mathematicians+%22computer+scientists%22
Web Search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=mathematicians+%22computer+scientists%22&aq=f&oq=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&
Google Sets (http://labs.google.com/sets) was one of the earlier things available in Google Labs, back when it was just a dumping ground for weird stuff (as opposed to one for non-mainstream features). I'd guess this is where the technology used to generate the square from the samples comes from.
I also wouldn't call it training, for what it's worth. I punched in the same query, and was asked (like you were) to provide some samples - shouldn't (ideally) it know that it's not known this before, and use the samples you suggested?
Would you trust a single input for immediate future use?
If so, Google Square has some Viagra to sell you...
In other words: A single user can never be trusted when they know nothing else about you - if they did, the spammers would be out in force as soon as it got any traction at all.
Great, I tried the same query. Description says Alan Turing was born in Orrisa, India but Place of Birth field says London. I think such inconsistencies might limit the use of Google Sqaured for serious research.
I used it to compare televisions (I'm thinking about buying one) and it was surprisingly useful. It definitely reduces a lot of the noise around doing side-by-side comparisons of multiple products. The data was VERY complete, I am impressed.
Oh sorry, I re-read the article. It says Alan Turing was conceived, and not born, in Orissa, India. Apparently, Google is better than humans at interpreting text :)
PS: I am not sure if place where Alan Turing was conceived is an apt information. Why would anyone want to know that?
I downloaded and built 2.2.5 sources in Fedora 10. After installation and a bit of lazy fiddling, created the 'yc' elvi.
cd ~/foo/lib/surfraw
diff yubnub yc
-------------------------<snip>------------------------
2,3c2,3
< # elvis: yubnub -- Use the social command-line for the web (yubnub.org)
< # initial implementation by Iain D Broadfoot, ripped from the freshmeat elvi
---
> # elvis: yc -- Search ycombinator (news.ycombinator.com)
> # initial implementation by Shailesh S. Khandekar, by simply patching the yubnub script by Iain D Broadfoot
10c10
< Run a yubnub command
---
> Run a yc command
16,17c16,17
< # disable requoting, yubnub commands often need protecting from
< # the shell with quotes but without those quotes passed on to yubnub
---
> # disable requoting, yc commands often need protecting from
> # the shell with quotes but without those quotes passed on to yc
22c22
< w3_browse_url "http://www.yubnub.org/"
---
> w3_browse_url "http://searchyc.com/"
25c25
< w3_browse_url "http://yubnub.org/parser/parse?command=${escaped_args}"
---
> w3_browse_url "http://searchyc.com/${escaped_args}"
------------------------</snip>-------------------------------------------------
IMO, it immediately strikes as a metaphor for generational garbage collector, each region depicting the generation of objects: red => new, blue => long-lived, black => garbage collected, whiteness => (??) the programmer doesn't have to worry about those details. While the rectangular shapes denote perfect building blocks, it would have been better to mix them with curves, as an expression of finesse, and/or surgical precision.
Later, pg's comment at arclanguage.org says that it's "a."
May be the lack of curves is intentional, to caution that abstractions are often somewhat approximate? :)
Side question out of sheer curiosity: Do you have AutoLISP/ObjectARX plugins that interact with your site?