{"id":6918,"date":"2004-12-02T15:39:26","date_gmt":"2004-12-02T22:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/12\/02\/magic-2.html"},"modified":"2004-12-02T15:39:26","modified_gmt":"2004-12-02T22:39:26","slug":"magic_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/02\/magic_2.html","title":{"rendered":"Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The magic of Google<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, he was alluding to the trick of hiding the complexity of the job from the audience, or the user. Nobody hides the complexity of the job better than Google does ….<\/p>\n

Google is, in many ways, exactly what we expected computers to be forty or fifty years ago — near-instantaneous return of any information requested. In some ways, if it’s not on Google, it doesn’t actually exist, as far as the Internet is concerned. While Google has refrained from being a portal per se, <\/em>for many people, it is the most important interface to the Net.<\/p>\n

The statistics — the non-magical bits — behind Google is astonishing.<\/p>\n

* Over four billion Web pages, each an average of 10KB, all fully indexed
\n* Up to 2,000 PCs in a cluster
\n* Over 30 clusters
\n* 104 interface languages including Klingon and Tagalog
\n* One petabyte of data in a cluster — so much that hard disk error rates of 10**-15 begin to be a real issue
\n* Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster
\n* An expectation that two machines will fail every day in each of the larger clusters
\n* No complete system failure since February 2000<\/p>\n

Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The magic of Google: When Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, he was alluding to the trick of hiding the complexity of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48538,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/26\/the-aesthetics-of-adding-machines.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":0},"title":"The Aesthetics of Adding Machines","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Nov-14 4:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"In some way, these are more marvelous than modern calculators and the like. The latter are just magic devices that have circuits and solder and chips, black boxes of our microprocessing gods. Analog adding machines and mechanical calculators, on the other hand, are marvels of complexity on a macro level.I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27837,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/09\/complexity-and-diversity-leads-to-resilience.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":1},"title":"Complexity and diversity leads to resilience","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-May-12 1:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It only makes sense, it seems to me, that exposure to local biodiversity would lead to better resistance to allergens. Embedded Link Backyard Biodiversity May Stem Allergies : Discovery News A decline in the variety of life -- including the plants and animals that live around us, as well as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31466,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/23\/the-magic-of-47.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":2},"title":"The Magic of 47","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 23-Nov-12 11:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Mentioned not so much for the post-election snark (well, maybe a little), but for the +Pomona College\u00a0shout-out.. Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127566,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/21\/try-to-fine-tune-the-magic-search-fairy.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":3},"title":"Try to fine-tune the magic search fairy","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Aug-15 7:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently it's not enough, under the EU's \"Right to Be Forgotten\" directive that Google has to remove\/block search links to information about an individual that is deemed no longer \"accurate\" or \"relevant\" (an overturned conviction meaning that Fred Smith can ask to have \"Fred Smith ate live kittens\" stories rendered\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32526,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/15\/the-complexity-of-society-and-its-problems.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":4},"title":"The Complexity of Society and Its Problems","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Feb-13 6:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"And, of course, what one could\u00a0do about it. (http:\/\/goo.gl\/NG0oV) View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13535,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/19\/gmail_eye_candy.html","url_meta":{"origin":6918,"position":5},"title":"Gmail eye candy","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Nov-08 3:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While some folks have created third-party skinning solutions for Gmail, Google is finally making it official\u00a0and offering up many very purty skins for their free (and faboo) email product. 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