• Posted by Konstantin 03.09.2008 4 Comments
    Google Chrome logo

    Geeks all over the world have just gained a new hot topic to flame or panic about. Web designers now have to verify their applications and websites against a yet another browser. Developers learned about that new open-source embeddable Javascript engine. All the normal people will have a choice of a yet another, hopefully well-made, browser to work with. Thus groweth the Church of Google.

    What is it to Google? Apart from the obvious increase in the user base and the potential to advertise suggest websites right in the address bar, wide distribution of Chrome should somewhat increase the amount of user-generated traffic flowing into Google servers. Indeed, the default configuration of Chrome, equipped with that marvelous auto-suggestion feature, seems to start sending stuff out as soon as you type your first character into the address line.

    Although the term "privacy violation" is the first one to pop out, let's keep that aside for now. The really interesting question concerns the nature of this constant influx of half-typed URLs and "search terms", annotated with timestamps and host IPs. Firstly, it most certainly contains additional value over whatever is already indexed in the web: global events, current social trends, new websites, ideas and random creative thoughts leave a mark on your address line. It therefore makes sense to look into this data and search for patterns. Secondly, the volume of this data stream is probably quite large whilst the noise is significant, hence it does not pay off to store it somewhere. And that's where we reach a nice observation: for many purposes you don't need to store this data.

    If the bandwidth of the stream is constantly high, you can afford to throw it away. If at any moment you should need data, just turn on the sniffer "put your bucket in", and you'll collect megabytes of interesting stuff in a matter of seconds, if not less. A simplistic version of such kind of "stream analysis" looks as follows: you ask Google "what do people read right now", it then listens to the stream for a second and responds with something meaningful, and I believe much cooler things can be thought of. Anyway, the important point is that no "global" indexing or data collection is needed to perform this service, just a thumb on the pulse of the web.

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  • Posted by Konstantin 01.09.2008 10 Comments

    There is no easy way to explain why would a person, who has spent 11 years at school, 4 years at bachelor's and 3 years doing master's studies, then decide to enter PhD studies, risking yet another 4 years of his life, if not more. Unlike the case with the bachelor's or master's, there does not seem to be any social pressure encouraging to get a PhD. Neither is there much economical motivation, because getting a PhD does not guarantee higher pay. Finally,  although the PhD degree is indeed a damn cool thing to have, it is doubtful whether people possessing it enjoy life more than all the rest do.

    Nonetheless, PhD is a required attribute of anyone aspiring for the academic career, and is regarded as a qualitatively higher step on the education ladder. So, the question is, what makes this qualitative difference and what issues should one focus on most during the 4 years. Here's my initial guess:

    Your doctorate studies did not go in vain, if:

    1. You can generate a publishable paper in a month, a really good paper in 2-3 months,
    2. You can write a convincing grant/project proposal and you know when and where to submit it,
    3. You have realistic but useful ideas for future work and research,
    4. You know how to supervise/direct/collaborate with others and be actually useful at it,
    5. You know the most important people in your field, and they know you,
    6. You are good at lecturing or other kinds of oral presentation,
    7. You know what to do after you defend.

    I'm sure there's something missing, but this list has some aims complicated enough already. Hopefully, this blog will help me with points 3,5,7 of the above agenda as well as keep reminding of the fact that I don't want to loose my 4 years for nothing. It's day 1 today. 1460 days left. Yay!

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