They Don't Call It The Interweb For Nothing


Wow, that's pretty neat! But it only lists related links which mean they may or may not link to you site. The basic equation Google use for this function is something like this:

If A links to B and C, then B and C are similar pages
Click to expand...

So if your site is B then you may not be linking directly to/from C but it'll show up in the related: search anyway. Of course, Google being Google it's really much more complicated than this and probably involves all sorts of bizarre factors...
 
Basically, its treating the internet as a Small World network (which basically it is). For those that don't know, that's a network where occasionally a node in it is connected to one node a long way away. So your page might link to something completely unconnected, and then that page might "know" a lot more.

This works in real life as well, of course: its much the same network as gossip uses to spread, or a computer virus.

Iirc, everyone is thought to be separated from everyone else (every other human being, that is) in real life by only 10 or so degrees of separation. And to every other person in their country by 6 or so.

That means that George Bush knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows whoever's now running Al Quaeda.

Fun, eh?
 
For more information, watch Fahrenheit 911 (I did, yesterday night) and take it with a grain of salt. It details numerous links between Bush senior, Bush junior, Saudis, Osama and lots of oil companies and money. Not sure what to make of all of it.

Also, apparently everyone is genetically similar by ~10%. You might think it's weird to sleep with your third cousin, but statistically she's about 12% similar to you. To put that in perspective, your parents are obviously 50% similar.

Cool link, also. Thanks.
 
did I miss farenheit 911 on the telly this week then? :S

I heard we were 96-98% similar to chimpanzees, and about 0.4%-2% similar to bananas...

has anybody read 'the blind watchmaker' by richard dawkins? good stuff. never read any of the sequels though...
 
I heard that we are actually about 70% genetically similar to bananas...

I'm going to give Fahreheit 911 a miss because I heard it laid it on even more thickly than Bowling For Columbine. Moore really has gone downhill since TV Nation :( The info about DERA actually came from the horses mouth... well from a horse in the stable next door but still pretty reliable.

Slightly more on topic - there is a great 'degrees of separation' site that uses the IMDB database. It's been around for ages (proving that you can get from any actor to Kevin Bacon in 4 moves or less) but in case you've never seen it:

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/star_links.html

J(ohn)
 
so is it %70 or %02? ? :S

and what is the definition of similar in this case...? I can understand rico's post...

mom + dad = child...

child = %50 identical to parents...

um... 25% identical to grandparents?


what does similar mean in this case? I need to do more reading... there's only GATC as base bases in genetics, so you could say everything with DNA is similar...

like I said... I need to do more reading...
 
read Bill Brysons "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" as a brilliant guide to all things scientific, its totally approachable for someone like me who has no further knowledge of science than GCSE!
 
Ah... it begins to come back to me! I saw a documentory on TV about whether chimps should be given basic human rights. An animal rights campaigner said that chimps were 99% genetically the same as humans so should be given 99% of the rights we as humans expect. This argument was countered by a geneticist who said that bananas were 70% the same as humans so should they be given 70% of the rights? He went on to say that it was the 1% that made all the difference.

Later on in the programme, they talked about the benobo chimps that they taught sign language to in the 1970's as an experiment. When the research ended they decided that it would be crual that, having taught the chimps a fairly complex language and therefore brought them even closer to us, it would be a bit cruel to send them back to live in a zoo. So amazingly they managed to get funding so that the chimps could live in the conditions that they had become used to for the rest of their lives.

What they didn't expect was that the chimps then had offspring and, without any prompting from the scientists, the chimps set about teaching their babies sign language. Very soon they had an entire new generation of sign language speaking chimps. Incredible!

J(ohn)
 
johncross85 posted on Jan 26 2005 said:
What they didn't expect was that the chimps then had offspring and, without any prompting from the scientists, the chimps set about teaching their babies sign language. Very soon they had an entire new generation of sign language speaking chimps. Incredible!

J(ohn)
​
Click to expand...

Only problem was that the offspring was extremely violent and I think ended up having to be put down.
 
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