5 ms·

Google: We knew the web was big...

32 points by gaika 18y ago

cypress-hill 18y ago
well allow me to modify my robots.txt so you can be at infinity-1. since you pricks decided to hijack your role as impartial algorithmic search to walled-garden with knol, i want nothing to do with you. every major website that handles referrals seems to bite the poison fruit of capturing traffic...now google has to. oh well, maybe clusty search will have to do
- ntoshev 18y ago
  I can't believe this kind of comments get upmoded here.
  - calvin 18y ago
    I can't believe this kind of comment gets upmodded here.
    - auston 18y ago
      and I can't believe this kind of comment gets upmodded here.
      - jodrellblank 18y ago
        I can't believe that kind of upmod gets commented here.
        auston 18y ago
        and I can't believe no one appreciates my sarcasm.
        Herring 18y ago
        Would you guys plz stop rattling the HN cage?
- jrockway 18y ago
  I don't think you understand what Google is. Google is a company that owns a popular search engine called "Google Search". They also have other properties, like GMail and Knol. What exactly is the problem with that?
sratner 18y ago
"Except it'd be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections..." Great! So now, all you have to do is give some sort of a comparison that lets people visualise exactly how big an area 50,000 times the size of U.S. is. May I suggest a metric based on whales?
- jmatt 18y ago
  Average whale length = 12.8m (from top google search for average whale length) Area of the US = 9.826630x10^6 km^2 or 9.826630x10^12 m^2 Area in whales of the US = 5.99769897x10^10 whales^2 So that would be 50000 times the size of 6 x 10^10 whales^2! Thats a lot of whale!
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
aneesh 18y ago
TechCrunch is being cryptic (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/25/googles-misleading-blog-post-on-the-size-of-the-web/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/25/googles-misleading-blog...) “Google also says 'But we’re proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine.' That may be true today, but it probably won’t be true next week (check back here then). Google knows that as well as we do, and that’s why they posted this today." So, is it Yahoo or Live? If it's one of them, why would Google know it so well?. Any thoughts on what this could be? One of the TC commenters thinks its MSFT indexing facebook ...
- jrockway 18y ago
  TechCrunch is being cryptic Yeah, this is surprising... especially because Arrington would never lie to drive traffic to his site. Oh wait. TechCrunch.
hhm 18y ago
"Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite -- for example, web calendars may have a "next day" link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a "new" page." Strictly speaking, even that would keep the number of pages finite, even if very, very big. Any amount of data you can produce with any number of finite computers (with finite and bounded memory -there are practical bounds for memory sizes), will always be finite.
- derefr 18y ago
  That's the same as saying an infinite data structure is finite; just because it cannot be practically evaluated before the heat death of the universe doesn't mean it isn't theoretically infinite.
  - hhm 18y ago
    No: with a finite amount of memory, the amount of information you can generate in infinite time is finite.
    - derefr 18y ago
      You're assuming the systems themselves wouldn't grow or be upgraded over time.
      - hhm 18y ago
        No; I'm saying the amount of information at any given time is finite, which is what the original article was talking about. But even if there is growth in memory size (say that memory size increases linearly), the information you get at any specific instant is finite (even if unbounded)... just as you have infinite natural numbers but none of them has an infinite value. But anyway, with finite space even in infinite time you couldn't build an infinite memory. And also... the original article was talking about the size of the system at a specific instant, so growth doesn't matter here.
- ntoshev 18y ago

32 points by gaika 18y ago

well allow me to modify my robots.txt so you can be at infinity-1. since you pricks decided to hijack your role as impartial algorithmic search to walled-garden with knol, i want nothing to do with you. every major website that handles referrals seems to bite the poison fruit of capturing traffic...now google has to. oh well, maybe clusty search will have to do

ntoshev 18y ago
I can't believe this kind of comments get upmoded here.
- calvin 18y ago
  I can't believe this kind of comment gets upmodded here.
  - auston 18y ago
    and I can't believe this kind of comment gets upmodded here.
    - jodrellblank 18y ago
      I can't believe that kind of upmod gets commented here.
      - auston 18y ago
        and I can't believe no one appreciates my sarcasm.
        Herring 18y ago
        Would you guys plz stop rattling the HN cage?
jrockway 18y ago
I don't think you understand what Google is. Google is a company that owns a popular search engine called "Google Search". They also have other properties, like GMail and Knol. What exactly is the problem with that?

sratner 18y ago

"Except it'd be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections..." Great! So now, all you have to do is give some sort of a comparison that lets people visualise exactly how big an area 50,000 times the size of U.S. is. May I suggest a metric based on whales?

jmatt 18y ago
Average whale length = 12.8m (from top google search for average whale length) Area of the US = 9.826630x10^6 km^2 or 9.826630x10^12 m^2 Area in whales of the US = 5.99769897x10^10 whales^2 So that would be 50000 times the size of 6 x 10^10 whales^2! Thats a lot of whale!
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]

aneesh 18y ago

TechCrunch is being cryptic (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/25/googles-misleading-blog-post-on-the-size-of-the-web/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/25/googles-misleading-blog...) “Google also says 'But we’re proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine.' That may be true today, but it probably won’t be true next week (check back here then). Google knows that as well as we do, and that’s why they posted this today." So, is it Yahoo or Live? If it's one of them, why would Google know it so well?. Any thoughts on what this could be? One of the TC commenters thinks its MSFT indexing facebook ...

jrockway 18y ago
TechCrunch is being cryptic Yeah, this is surprising... especially because Arrington would never lie to drive traffic to his site. Oh wait. TechCrunch.

hhm 18y ago

"Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite -- for example, web calendars may have a "next day" link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a "new" page." Strictly speaking, even that would keep the number of pages finite, even if very, very big. Any amount of data you can produce with any number of finite computers (with finite and bounded memory -there are practical bounds for memory sizes), will always be finite.

derefr 18y ago
That's the same as saying an infinite data structure is finite; just because it cannot be practically evaluated before the heat death of the universe doesn't mean it isn't theoretically infinite.
- hhm 18y ago
  No: with a finite amount of memory, the amount of information you can generate in infinite time is finite.
  - derefr 18y ago
    You're assuming the systems themselves wouldn't grow or be upgraded over time.
    - hhm 18y ago
      No; I'm saying the amount of information at any given time is finite, which is what the original article was talking about. But even if there is growth in memory size (say that memory size increases linearly), the information you get at any specific instant is finite (even if unbounded)... just as you have infinite natural numbers but none of them has an infinite value. But anyway, with finite space even in infinite time you couldn't build an infinite memory. And also... the original article was talking about the size of the system at a specific instant, so growth doesn't matter here.
ntoshev 18y ago