OpenText: A Cyber Graphic Points to Its Future
December 9, 2020
When I think of OpenText, here’s what flashes through my find:
- BRS (Livelink)
- Fulcrum
- Hummingbird
- InQuery
- nQuire
- Recommind
- SGML search.
My recollection is that there may be a Web search engine, a search system for law firm email, and a database from Information Dimensions. I cannot recall, but the message seems clear:
OpenText is a company deeply involved in search and retrieval.
When I read “Mark J. Barrenechea Keynote: The Future of Cyber Resilience”, I realized that I am thinking about the “old” OpenText. What do I mean “old.” That “old” OpenText was an enterprise search vendor wrapped in search-based applications like eDiscovery and content management.
Not any more.
Here’s the new OpenText:
Yep, the Rona, cyber security, health, and “agility, flexibility, and trust.” Who knew? Ice skaters call this a counter turn.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2020
Venture Outfit Explains Obsolescence to Main Stream Media, Amazon Twitch, and Google YouTube
December 8, 2020
I am delighted to admit that I am not involved with TikTok or other whizzy video confections. Ever try Neverthink? The name explains the service. I did, however, read “Live, Social, and Shoppable: The Future of Video.” This is a breezy, MBA, venture firm style report. More remarkable, the document appears to be available without registration hoops, crazy pop ups, or blandishments to call us for investment advice.
What the write up does do is make the poobahs stunned with the announcement that Wonder Woman is headed to streaming get another gut shot. You can work through the report, the jazzy graphics, and the little icon forests yourself.
I want to focus on a single section called “The Video First Future,” specifically, the education statements. The main idea is, in my opinion,
… video can enhance the excitement of mastering a subject and the motivation to learn.
What’s this mean? First, hasta la vista to the traditional textbook publishers, a group already tethered to revenue with a thin cotton cord. Second, YouTube variants like Udacity and its compatriots must confront change. Third, the TikTok thing is a harbinger of the future of learning.
Yep, TikTok. The write up points out:
These types of platforms take academic curriculum and mix it with fun. The resulting edutainment is a hit for both kids and parents. How can a customer churn when their kid likes their class as much as Saturday morning cartoons and video games? In these kid-friendly entertaining education platforms, kids get that immediate feedback and virtual rewards whenever they get an answer right.
The anigif example requires a knowledge of Chinese and a certain youthful spirit to appreciate.
Several observations:
- Cultural differences in managing hungry young minds play no part in the write up
- The issue of controlling the information generated from these platforms is not considered
- The future suggests that game-ification, psychological strokes and slaps, and fragmented attention are the new big thing.
Perfect for generating interest in new investment funds and for sending shock waves of fear through organizations not into the TikTok-ization of information. Perhaps there is an existential question which YouTube must answer, “Can we avoid the fate of the media our service has disrupted?”
Focus may be a challenge for thumbtypers, regardless of their age and Fortnite skills.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2020
Google on Search and Ads
December 8, 2020
I read “How Google Search Ads Work.” I usually ignore pay to play explanations. The phrase “pay to play” makes clear what is happening. An advertiser wants to display his or her message in front of people who are prospects. Pay more money and get more ads in front of prospects. For me, that’s the end of the story.
But there’s more. The write up from Darshan Kantak tackles the “more” from Google’s unique and advantaged position.
I noted these statements in the article:
We’ve long said that we don’t show ads–or make money–on the vast majority of searches.
That makes sense. Put ads where people are. However, people when viewed as statistical chunks are where the ads are placed. What outliers do is useful for disposing of excess inventory. Semantic relaxing or human mouse clicks can help too.
The article points out:
The experience of our users comes first, which is why we only show ads that are helpful to people. Even for the fraction of search queries where we do show ads, we don’t make a cent unless people find it relevant enough to click on the ad.
This statement reinforces the point that ads don’t appear too often. Check out the ads displayed on text search results pages from a desktop computer. Here’s an example for the query cloud computing with the ads before the unpaid search results:
Then at the foot of the page, there are more ads; for example:
The write up is interesting because it strikes me as what seems to be “reinvention.” The idea is that the simple proposition of putting ads in front of eyeballs is shaped to present itself as a benign process designed to improve access to information.
Interesting. Will those investigating Google for its ad business practices see the brilliance of the Google approach? Who knows. But I like the “ah, shucks,” “hey, everybody” approach.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2020
Enterprise Search Art
December 8, 2020
I noted Pixeltrue’s collection of Covid art. Take a look. Very good work. But — there is a but when Beyond Search looks at Covid art. One of the Beyond Search team revised the captions for several of the images so that each reflects more accurately what we call “search syndrome.”
Headache: The direct result of a free Web search results page.
Plus, choking when reviewing irrelevant results:
Gag, hack, hack.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2020
Modern Times: How Easy Is It to Control Thumbtypers? Easy
December 8, 2020
Navigate to “The Modern World Has Finally Become Too Complex for Any of Us to Understand.” You may want to read the listing of examples about how complex life has become. Note this sentence which refers to how humanoids accept computer outputs without much thinking:
What was fascinating — and slightly unnerving — was how these instructions were accepted and complied with without question, by skilled professionals, without any explanation of the decision processes that were behind them.
Let’s assume the write up is semi-accurate. The example may provide some insight about the influence, possibly power, online systems have which shape information. In my experience, most people accept the “computer” as being correct. Years ago in a lab testing nuclear materials, I noticed that two technicians were arguing about the output from a mass spec machine. I was with my friend (Dr. James Terwilliger). We watched the two technicians for a moment and noted that when human experience conflicts with a machine output, the discussion becomes frustrating for the humans. The resolution to the problem was to test the sample in another mass spec machine. Was this a fix? Nope.
The behavior demonstrated how humans flounder to deal with machine outputs. These are either accepted or result in behavior that will not answer the question: “Okay, which output is accurate?”
The incident illustrates that humans may not like to take guidance from another human, but guidance from a “computer” is just fine. And when the output conflicts with experience, humans appear to manifest some odd ball behavior.
Here’ are two questions:
How does a user / consumer of online information know if the output is in context, accurate, verifiable?
If the output is not, then what does the human do? More research? Experimentation? Ask a street person? Guess? Repeat the process (like the confused lab techs)?
This is not complexity; this is why those who own certain widely used systems control human thought processes and behaviors. Is this how society works? Are one percenters exempt from the phenomenon? Is this smart software or malleable human behavior?
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2020
Saddle Up, Statistical Analytics Fans. Place Your Bets on AI
December 7, 2020
“The Best Way to Win a Horse Race? Mathematicians May Have the Answer” is an interesting example of a snappy headline not supported by the write up’s text. For gamblers, the promise of finding a way to predict which mighty steed will cross the finish line first is catnip. (Sorry for the mixed animal metaphor, but I could not resist.) The problem is that the summary of the study includes lots of references to data collection and number crunching. Then the killer statement:
Various other scientific attempts to explain performance over the past 4 decades “haven’t been particularly successful,” he says—and not just because horses vary so much in body size and aerobic capacity: The models cannot account for the horse’s own behaviors. For example, a horse might give up when another horse passes it, because it doesn’t understand that it’s supposed to win. Until researchers can get inside the horse’s head and account for psychological variables, Knight says, “we can’t truly model performance.”
Net net: If one can’t model an equine, what’s that suggest for figuring out what human will cross an innovation finish line, crack a tough problem, or write a headline which does mislead the pony player?
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2020
LinkedIn Reveals Disinterest in Search and Retrieval
December 7, 2020
LinkedIn does quite a bit of info-ramming when either one of my team or I log in to the Microsoft social media system. Here’s the graphic displayed when we were checking to see if our automated posts from this blog were appearing:
The eight “cards” tell me about LinkedIn Groups in which I may have an interest. The little boxes reveal a small amount of information about the content access topics in which the unemployed, the consultants cruising for gigs, and the self-promoters have an interest.
The table below presents some of the data in this graphic in tabular form. No, I did not use Excel 365 connected to Teams. Sorry, Mother Microsoft. I still recall Bob. (You remember Bob, don’t you, gentle reader?)
| LinkedIn Group Name | Number of LinkedIn Followers |
| Data Science Central | 374,694 |
| Association for Intelligent Information Management | 27,861 |
| Scientific, Technical, Medical Publishing Group | 12,253 |
| Data & Text Analytics Professionals | 12,503 |
| Special Libraries Asso. | 15,191 |
| Semantic Web | 15,098 |
| Semantic Technologies Group | 3,772 |
| Enterprise Search & Discovery | 624 |
LinkedIn does not reveal the hard count for its total number of registered humans, the number of human users who log on to the system once per week, or the number of paying human users. Hence, figuring out the percentage of LinkedIn members interested in these groups is a difficult task akin to predicting the share price of Palantir Technologies on January 1, 2022.
An outfit called Oberlo reports with confidence that LinkedIn has 660 million users. Close enough for horseshoes.
The table below presents the percentage of these LinkedIn users interested in each the groups suggested to me:
| LinkedIn Group Name | Percentage of LinkedIn Members Interested in These Topics |
| Data Science Central | 0.0567718182% |
| Association for Intelligent Information Management | 0.0042213636% |
| Scientific, Technical, Media Publishing Group | 0.0018565152% |
| Data & Text Analytics Professionals | 0.0018943939% |
| Special Libraries Asso. | 0.0023016667% |
| Semantic Web | 0.0022875758% |
| Semantic Technologies Group | 0.0005715152% |
| Enterprise Search & Discovery | 0.0000945455% |
Eyeballing my math, surely there are errors. How can such a compelling subject as Enterprise Search & Discovery appeal to 0.0000945455 percent of the LinkedIn members.
What’s interesting is that an astounding 0.0042213636 percent of the LinkedIn membership are pulled to the Association for Intelligent Information Management.
And the semantic topics. Magnetic indeed.
What’s the analysis suggest? Anyone looking for a job in enterprise search may want to spin their expertise a different way.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2020
Something to Remember: DNA Engine
December 7, 2020
Navigate to “Pallada-92/DNA 3D Engine.” The post and code explains how DNA can be used to perform computations. If you are a fan of Silicon Valley-type “solve death” and “human augmentation”, this GitHub post seems to be a small marker on what is going to be a long trip. But as one person remarked, “The longest journey begins with a single step.” Get those walking shoes on.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2020
Cryptocurrency Competition at the Tallest of Ivory Towers
December 7, 2020
Ah, what better use of the finest in education than financial manipulation? We learn from cryptocurrency and Web 3.0 news source Decrypt, “Oxford, Cambridge Students Compete to Make Money on Crypto Markets.” The competition was put to math and computer science students at the two prestigious UK universities by crypto algorithmic trading firm APEX:E3. The firm also brought Coinbase, FTX, SIX Digital Exchange, LMAX Digital, and ConsenSys in on the project. Reporter Robert Stevens writes:
“Since November 16, the students have been competing to make the most money from crypto exchanges Coinbase Pro and FTX, according to a press release APEX:E3 pushed out this morning. APEX:E3 said that students have already spent their days conjuring up algorithms that incorporate technologies and concepts as diverse as machine-learning, neural networks, and whale order trading. In return for their toils, APEX:E3 is providing Oxford and Cambridge students from math and computer science departments access to its APIs, technical support, mentorship, and an undisclosed amount of ‘seed funding.’ … When the competition concludes at some point next month, the clocks will stop and a panel of ‘industry leading judges’ will rate the teams on their algorithms.”
The winning team gets to keep that mysterious amount of seed funding plus their returns. Cambridge is billing the project as a “fun and risk-free way” for these handpicked students to learn about the cryptocurrency industry. It also looks like a cheap and salary-free way for the industry to pick some of the brightest young minds for profitable ideas. A win-win, I suppose.
Soon Facebook’s carpe diem will arrive and more excitement shall ensue.
Cynthia Murrell, December 7, 2020
LinkedIn Analyzed: Verrry Interesting
December 4, 2020
I read “LinkedIn’s Alternate Universe.” I was poking around in an effort to find out how many social profiles are held by Microsoft. The write up provides a number 722 million. However, for my purposes I used a less robust estimate of 660 million. I ran out of space for decimal places. Check the story on Monday, and you will understand my space challenge. The story is Disinterest in Search and Retrieval Quantified.
I recommend this Divinations’ write up because it is amusing, and it helped me understand why the service has become some what peculiar in a social network world in which Ripley’s Believe It or Not! content has become normative.
Here are three examples:
- Posts by living people announcing that the author is dead. Ho, ho. Alive, not dead for the denizens of a personnel department site.
- Begging for dollars and attention. The two seem to be joined at the medulla for some LinkedIn members.
- The antics of recruiters become Twitter jokes.
What is fascinating is that we have a WordPress plug in that posts headlines to LinkedIn automatically. This creates some interesting reactions. First, the software bot has about 800 LinkedIn friends. Okay. I think that’s good. Second, the stories about the MSFT social network service have been filtered as I recall.
The article is worth a gander.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2020
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