Re: "To everything a purpose ..."

Alexander,

  You said:

  "I'd like to point out that 'good enough' is the mother of all straw men ; easy to point out,
and easy to dismiss. And, in reality, doesn't mean a thing."

  Could you clarify a bit about how it is a straw man? I'm not arguing...I just didn't understand the point...deficiency on my part.

  Bernie Sloan

Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen_at_GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  On 9/6/07, Jacobs, Jane W wrote:
> The point here is that just
> because sometimes we make the (quite reasonable) choice to drink instant
> coffee, doesn't mean that we should throw out the coffee maker! Don't
> blunt all the machine tools just because you've decided it's reasonable
> to carry add a cheaper line of widgets!

Look, I know that you blacksmiths are good people, and that your
profession is an important part of humanity with a long and proud
history (albeit you haven't got much imagination in the names
department). You've shoed our horses to make them more efficient, made
our swords and armour to fight the unintelligent barbarians, and
created fantastic tools which has helped us become prosperous with
less effort and pain.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksmith , and be sure to read the
last section about "history and the present.")

"If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a
faster horse." -- Henry Ford.

Google is just like a modern day Henry Ford. I'd like to point out
that "good enough" is the mother of all straw men ; easy to point out,
and easy to dismiss. And, in reality, doesn't mean a thing.

It's easy to underestimate Google now several years later, but in the
beginning they were amongst the first to actually find you what you
were after. Now we've got infoglut (overload), but who here thinks
that Google is going to do worse in the future than what they're doing
now? Seriously? We already see glimpses of what's coming, and little
by little Google adds contextuality, so when we do ;

http://www.google.com/search?q=paracetamol
... we get refinements because it's a medical thing. If we do ;

http://www.google.com/search?q=the+origin+of+species
... we get contextual book results. If we do ;

http://www.google.com/search?q=jaroslav+pelikan
... we get that authors Google book results. If we do ;

http://www.google.com/search?q=library+of+congress
... we get the first link what we're after, with contextual links. If we do ;

http://www.google.com/search?q=Luciano+Pavarotti
... we get Google music, Youtube, and news items about him.

Ok, that's somewhat generic topics. What about these ;

- We want : Yves Kodratoff, Ryszard S. Michalski (1990), Machine
Learning: An Artificial Intelligence Approach, Volume III, Morgan
Kaufmann, ISBN 1-55860-119-8. (Picked from the reference list of
Machine Learning from WikiPedia)
- We do : http://www.google.com/search?q=Machine+Learning%3A+An+Artificial+Intelligence+Approach
- We get : first result is the right book, with the full-text (!!!)
and all sorts of info.

How about ; "singing practices in the 17th century northern italy"?
Let's try ; http://www.google.com/search?q=singing+practices+in+the+17th+century+northern+italy

First result is way off, but second is spot on. Maybe that is the very
definition of "good enough"? Now, who wants to compare this to any
OPAC? I dare you. :)


Alex
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