[QUOTE=chalsall;397514]Old news.[/QUOTE]
I call bull. This is new news and has nothing to do with links to good sites.
[QUOTE][QUOTE][URL="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530102.600-google-wants-to-rank-websites-based-on-facts-not-links.html"]Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links[/URL] NewScientist[/QUOTE]

28 February 2015 by Hal Hodson

The trustworthiness of a web page might help it rise up Google's rankings if the search giant starts to measure quality by facts, not just links

THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free "news" stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness.

Google's search engine currently uses the number of incoming links to a web page as a proxy for quality, determining where it appears in search results. So pages that many other sites link to are ranked higher. This system has brought us the search engine as we know it today, but the downside is that websites full of misinformation can rise up the rankings, if enough people link to them.

A Google research team is adapting that model to measure the trustworthiness of a page, rather than its reputation across the web. Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page. "A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy," says the team (arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519v1). The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score.

The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;397518]I call bull. This is new news and has nothing to do with links to good sites.[/QUOTE]

Hmmm... You might well be correct.

More mooning spotted:

[QUOTE=only_human;397513]As for data mining, Google is putting together a knowledge base of facts and intends to de-emphasize search results that have too many contradictions.
[url]http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519[/url]
[QUOTE]Knowledge-Based Trust: Estimating the Trustworthiness of Web Sources

Xin [b]Luna[/b] Dong, Evgeniy Gabrilovich, Kevin Murphy, Van Dang, Wilko Horn, Camillo Lugaresi, Shaohua Sun, Wei Zhang
(Submitted on 12 Feb 2015)[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

I am curious as to the threshold consensus they use to define "unambiguous agreement" - for instance, until very recently the overwhelming consensus of 'reliable' sources such as medical professionals, nutritionists and government health agencies was that "dietary cholesterol is bad for you." This sounds like a slippery slope toward tyranny of the majority. Who decides which majority-consensuses get elevated to the status of "fact"?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;397528]This sounds like a slippery slope toward tyranny of the majority. Who decides which majority-consensuses get elevated to the status of [STRIKE]"fact"[/STRIKE] [I]elected[/I]?[/QUOTE]
Clearly there will be problems but it might be not so bad.

All of the above discussion about extraterrestial exploitation is interesting and I'm tempted to join in myself. However, I really would like Davar55 to explain what he means by the term "economic activity" and to describe clearly why my examples of exchanges of goods and/or services for mutally agreed items/obligations of value fail to meet his definition.

[QUOTE=xilman;397537]All of the above discussion about extraterrestial exploitation is interesting and I'm tempted to join in myself. However, I really would like Davar55 to explain what he means by the term "economic activity" and to describe clearly why my examples of exchanges of goods and/or services for mutally agreed items/obligations of value fail to meet his definition.[/QUOTE]
And when mutual exchanges end, do any obligations remain?:
[URL="http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/laid-off-oilfield-workers-stranded-at-remote-work-camp-1.2275671"]Laid off oilfield workers stranded at remote work camp[/URL]
[QUOTE]The worker said Pacer Promec Energy Corporation employees were told the company had gone into receivership at a meeting held at about 5 p.m.

“Then they proceeded to tell us the sub-contractors under PPEC that we were all laid off,” the worker said.

As many as 76 people sub-contracted by PPEC to work at the site, located about 160 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, were laid off.

A group of workers waited for a bus to take them to CNRL’s private airstrip to catch flights home – but the bus didn’t show up, and the group was told they needed to find their own way home despite being promised travel in their contract.

“They’re not offering rides or anything, they could at least bus us into [Fort McMurray] or something, but nothing.”[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2099916"]Mitt Romney Campaign Aides Had Credit Cards Canceled Late On Election Night[/URL]
[QUOTE]Once he admitted defeat, however, his campaign went into shutdown mode, quickly dismantling and even canceling the credit cards of campaign aides late on election night.

NBC's Garrett Haake described the abrupt transition of the Romney campaign after the GOP nominee gave his brief concession speech:

[QUOTE]From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

Another variation of fooling protein assays with cheaper nitrogen-bearing ingredients:
[URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexmorrell/2015/03/12/lawsuits-say-protein-powders-lack-protein-ripping-off-athletes/"]Lawsuits Say Protein Powders Lack Protein, Ripping Off Athletes[/URL]
[QUOTE]Workout supplements vary in price by brand, but 5 pound tubs or bags of protein-based products often retail for more than $50 a tub. A supplement maker can buy wholesale whey protein concentrate – the most popular kind – for roughly $5 – $6 per pound.

But third-party tests, attached to some of the lawsuits, show some companies also fill the tubs with far cheaper free form amino acids like glycine, taurine or leucine as well as other substances like creatine monohydrate, and then portray them as grams of protein on the products’ labels. Certain amino acids are considered the building blocks to protein but they are not protein by themselves, nor do they have the same benefits as complete proteins.

These filler substances can cost less than $1 per pound, allowing companies to undercut competition with lower prices and dupe price-sensitive customers in the process.[/QUOTE]
This is not that different from the milk and pet food adulteration mentioned previously but with these particular nitrogen-bearing ingredients, rather than being toxic as is the case with melamine, these instead merely become expensive urine (grossly imbalanced amino acids in our diets aren't utilizable). This is also additional confirmation of frequent rip-offs in the supplement industries.

Having fun? That's because we're free in a nearly capitalist economy. Not every action or transaction
within a framework of capitalism involves money, and not every transaction involving money is necessarily
legal or economic. The fact you are not free to purchase or own uranium is not a diminution of your
freedom, it is protection of everyone else's.

[QUOTE=davar55;398099]Having fun? That's because we're free in a nearly capitalist economy.[/QUOTE]

MOST are NOT having fun. Many are simple trying to survive.

Please tell me davar55, when was the last time you worked for less than $10 (USD) for a hard day's work? Not per hour, but per day.

[QUOTE=davar55;398099]Having fun? That's because we're free in a nearly capitalist economy. Not every action or transaction within a framework of capitalism involves money, and not every transaction involving money is necessarily legal or economic. The fact you are not free to purchase or own uranium is not a diminution of your freedom, it is protection of everyone else's.[/QUOTE]
I value my freedom too, including the freedom to name fish species after Star Wars characters:
[URL="http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6899678"]Greedo Fish Is A New Species Of Catfish; And Yes, It's Been Named After A 'Star Wars' Character[/URL]
[QUOTE]Just to make sure everyone knows who the fish is named for, the paper notes:
[INDENT]"Named for Greedo of Rodia, a bounty hunter killed by Han Solo in Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina in the movie “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” (Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, 1977) with whom this species shares a remarkable resemblance"[/INDENT]
Armbruster said he's a "Star Wars" fan and that Greedo has always been a personal favorite.

"He barely had any lines. They were spoken in a foreign language with subtitles and he was killed right away," he said in the video. "But he's always been sort of this enigmatic figure and very cool-looking."

Other than "Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope," Greedo also appears as a child in "Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace" and in the animated TV series "The Clone Wars."

He's also at the center of one of the biggest controversies in "Star Wars" fandom: The decision to edit a scene that initially had Han Solo shooting Greedo in cold blood.

In the new version, edited in 1997, a shot from Greedo was digitally added to make it seem as if the bounty hunter had fired first.[/QUOTE]
And also the freedom to call euros "euros" even though the implementers intended that "euro" be both the singular and the plural. After all, what would it mean if Bulgaria received the only naming exception? They didn't bring enough bubble gum for everyone.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro#Linguistic_issues[/url]
[QUOTE]Linguistic issues
Main article:[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_the_euro"] Linguistic issues concerning the euro[/URL]

5 euro note from the new Europa series written in Latin (EURO) and Greek (EYPΩ) alphabets, but also in the Cyrillic (EBPO) alphabet, as a result of Bulgaria joining the European Union in 2007.
The formal titles of the currency are euro for the major unit and cent for the minor (one hundredth) unit and for official use in most eurozone languages; according to the ECB, all languages should use the same spelling for the nominative singular.[93] This may contradict normal rules for word formation in some languages; e.g., those where there is no eu diphthong. Bulgaria has negotiated an exception; euro in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is spelled as eвро (evro) and not eуро (euro) in all official documents.[94] In the Greek script the term ευρώ is used; the Greek "cent" coins are denominated in λεπτό/ά (lepto/a). Official practice for English-language EU legislation is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural,[95] although the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation states that the plural forms euros and cents should be used in English.[96][/QUOTE]
[url]http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-here-to-kick-ass-and-chew-bubblegum[/url]
[url]https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_K8prLfso[/url]
[YouTube]Wp_K8prLfso[/YouTube]
[url]https://youtube.com/watch?v=kFNDzAg6pKc[/url]
[YouTube]kFNDzAg6pKc[/YouTube]
[URL="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0319/Texas-Senate-set-to-pass-campus-carry-bill-How-common-are-guns-on-campus"]Texas Senate set to pass 'campus carry' bill: How common are guns on campus?[/URL]

Some eurozone countries also put the euro sign before the amount and others after it, depending on what they used to do with their own currency symbol.