Quezi

Forbidden knowledge (photo by Ed Townend - CC-BY)

When Google announced their Knol service in December 2007, it was clear that Google had high hopes for the project. It was announced by Udi Manber, Google’s Vice-President of Engineering, as a place for named writers to share “units of knowledge”, in the form of authoritative articles called knols. It was Google’s hope that when someone searched a topic for the first time, they would find and read a knol about that topic. As if to underscore the importance of the project, the content was hosted on a subdomain of google.com.

Knol opened to the public in July 2008, with a collection of well-written knols authored by Google staffers and invited contributors. There was a widespread perception that Knol could become a “Wikipedia-killer”, and there soon appeared a flood of knols written by the public. Some writers were lured by the perceived prestige; others by the share of advertising revenue.

With the wheat came the chaff: first a trickle of spammy articles, then a deluge of articles from cranks who couldn’t resist the chance to post articles about their pet delusions. For some reason, water-fueled cars seemed to be the most popular topic for the crank brigade.

Google tirelessly deleted spam, blocked spammer’s accounts, and added tools to aid collaborative spam-fighting. They worked to address the quality of content by providing tools to track reputation, badges to reward contributions, and extra privileges such as the removal of the “no-follow” flag for high-quality contributors. Organizations such as eHow and the Public Library of Science made a sincere effort to use the platform productively.

The editing tools were continually enhanced. The editing interface provided version control with rollback, and allowed collaborative editing. Google made it as easy as possible to include tables, photos, videos, equations, slideshows and a wide range of interactive gadgets into knol articles. Millions of stock photos and cartoons were made available for authors to use on their knols. Authors could fine-tune email notifications according to their preferences, and detailed statistics were available for each article. Authors could choose Creative Commons licensing for their knols, or could keep them “All Rights Reserved”.

So why did Knol fail? Although it provided a great platform and powerful tools for article authors, Knol failed to offer much to make Knol compelling for readers. Without a lively audience of readers, many of the best authors departed and it was mostly the cranks who were left hanging around.

This is not an iPhone (photo by Yeray Hdez Guerra - CC-BY)

“The 1958 Hiker” is a story about a hiker who lost his map. As he drifted off to sleep that night, a visitor from the year 2008 taunted him with revelations of the future. This article was previously posted to Google Knol.

In the story of The 1958 Hiker, a lone hiker is making his way up a mountain. As he crests the summit, a sudden gust of wind snatches away his map. Without his map, he takes a wrong turn on the way down. When he realizes that he won’t make it off the mountain until the next day, he finds a sheltered spot and curls up. As he is drifting off to sleep, he starts to dream. Or perhaps it is not a dream?

A man arrives, and explains that he is visiting from 50 years into the future. “Where I come from”, he says, “you can buy a pocket-size device which can display a map of every part of the world—and photos too, of every part of the earth!”

“Seriously?” stammered the hiker in amazement.

“Sure!” replied the time-traveller. “It’s less than half an inch thick, and costs a week’s pay. It’s also a communications device. You can use it to summon assistance if you’re a hiker in distress. Actually, you can use it to talk to pretty much anyone in the world.”

“It can also take photographs and hold a lifetime’s worth of snapshots. And it can hold all your CDs.” On seeing the hiker’s puzzled look, the time-traveller hastily explained “I mean, it can hold all your LP albums.”

“Oh,” added the time-traveller, almost as an afterthought: “it can also access and display all of the world’s knowledge.”

The hiker saw that the time-traveller was drifting away, so he shouted out one last question: “And what’s this thing called?”

“It’s called an iPhone”, replied the time-traveller nonchalantly, as he drifted off back to the year 2008.

People not playing Defender, the third console from the left (photo by Rob DiCaterino - CC-BY)

“Defender” was a coin-operated arcade game from the 1980. I wrote this whimsical back-story at the time. If you’ve played the game, you’ll understand this story. This article was previously posted to Google Knol.

It was April when aliens discovered the taste of human flesh. Since then they had been sending Landers to the surface to capture our astronauts.

As the most experienced space pilot in the inner solar system, I was appointed head of the Defenders. It was my job to cruise in orbit and destroy the aliens before they could attack our men.

In the scanner now I could see three or four Landers approaching. Landers are easy picking, but I knew that the enemy warships couldn’t be far behind. Putting the engines on full thrust, I sped towards the Landers, spraying them with a hail of missiles. Got them!

Ahead of me now were some alien Bombers. They started to retreat, leaving a trail of space mines so that I couldn’t pursue. But with my ship’s superior speed I was able to move around the side of the group and attack them from in front where they were unprotected.

There was a Pod approaching, so I shot it. I got it but (as Pods do) it released its cargo of about a dozen Swarmers just before impact. These little buggers move fast, shoot well and seem to have Kamikazi instincts. I shot a few and moved away, dodging missles and Swarmers everywhere.

With all the excitement, I hadn’t seen the Landers sneak down and snatch up an astronaut. If I destroyed the navigation cabin of the Lander in time, I could still rescue our man. I pursued the Lander and fired, but destroyed the whole craft and lost the astronaut. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

The remaining Swarmers were grouping and heading my way. Jim, my co-pilot, suggested we use our last remaining Smart Bomb to wipe out the lot of them. I took care of navigating while Jim checked the range limits of the bomb. When they seemed to be within range, he shouted “Now!” and I set off the bomb. Damn! Got them all except one!

Then everything happened so quickly. I had turned to take care of the last Swarmer when the Baiter flew past trying to distract me. But I knew it would retreat if I hit the Swarmer. I headed for the Swarmer and fired—but the missile didn’t appear. What a time for a malfunction! There was no time to change course and I hit the Swarmer head on.

The fuel tanks exploded and my ship started to disintegrate. This was the end! After all my courage and skill, how terrible to end this way.

I sighed, and took another 20 cent coin from my pocket. I fed it to the machine, determined to do better this time…

The highest waterfall in the Emerald Isle (photo by Robert Burrell Donkin - CC-BY)

Ireland, and Éire in the Irish language, are the official names of the Republic of Ireland. Ireland comprises the island of Ireland, except for the six northern counties that are part of Northern Ireland and therefore of the United Kingdom.

Geography

Ireland has a land area of 70,280 square kilometers, including 1390 square kilometers of enclosed water. It has a coastline of 1448 kilometers, plus a land border of 360 kilometers with the United Kingdom.

The highest point is Carrauntoohil, at 1041 meters above sea level.

Climate

Ireland is cool and damp, with extremes moderated by the surrounding ocean. Approximately half of the days see more than one millimeter of rainfall. Most areas average around 3.5 hours of sunshine daily.

Population

As at July 2008, the population is estimated to be 4,156,119 with a median age of 34.6 years, of whom 49.7% are male.

The average life expectancy at birth is 78.07 years (75.4 years for males and 80.9 years for females).

References

CIA World Factbook

Climate of Ireland
http://www.met.ie/

A Vision of the Web in 2008 (poster by Paul Downey - CC-BY)

These prominent people died in 2008:

January 2008

• 11th: Edmund Hillary, 88 (mountaineer)
• 17th: Bobby Fischer, 64 (chess champion)

March 2008

• 19th: Arthur C Clarke, 90 (science fiction author)
• 23rd: Neil Aspinall, 66 (Beatles’ manager)

April 2008

• 5th: Charlton Heston, 84 (actor)

May 2008

• 24th: Dick Martin, 86 (entertainer)

June 2008

• 1st: Yves St Laurent, 71 (fashion designer)
• 2nd: Bo Diddley, 79 (musician)
• 22nd: George Carlin, 71 (actor and comedian)

July 2008

• 6th: Bob Ackles, 69 (footballer)
• 25th: Randy Pausch, 47 (inspirational professor)

August 2008

• 3rd: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 89 (dissident novelist)
• 9th: Bernie Mac, 50 (comedian)

September 2008

• 1st: Don LaFontaine, 68 (actor)
• 26th: Paul Newman, 83 (actor)

October 2008

• 11th: Jorg Haider, 58 (Austrian politician)
• 17th: Levi Stubbs, 72 (lead singer of the Four Tops)
• 25th: Anne Pressly, 26 (newsreader)

November 2008

• 1st: Jacques Piccard, 86 (ocean explorer)

December 2008

• 18th: W. Mark Felt, 95 (Watergate Deep Throat)

China Lanterns (photo by Dainis Matisons - CC-BY)

China is the most populous country in the world, and a rapidly developing one. It is the fourth largest country by land area, after Russia, Canada, and the United States.

Geography

China has a land area of 9,596,960 square kilometers, including enclosed water of 270,550 square kilometers. Its land bounday totals 22,117 kilometers, and it shares borders with Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, India, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Vietnam, some of which are controversial.

China includes the Special Economic Areas of Hong Kong and Macau.

The coastline is 14,500 kilometers.

Climate

Being a large country, China straddles a range of climate zones. A good summary is available at Ruth Lor Malloy’s China Climate page.

Population

The estimated population in July 2008 was 1,330,044,544 people, with a median age of 33.6 years, of whom 51.4% are male. Life expectancy at birth is 73.18 years (71.37 for males, 75.18 for females).

Reference

CIA World Factbook