One of the fun aspects of using Gmail is the little ads for sponsored links that appear next to every message. I can’t imagine ever clicking on one of them, but it’s amusing to see what the Google mind thinks is related to the message content. For the most recent daily mailing from gr-qc@arxiv.org, here were the sponsored links that came along with it:
Fields Medal declined
Grigori Perelman has declined the 2006 Fields Medal for mathematics
www.thefirstpost.co.ukthe field center
how consciousness creates reality; an extraordinary eight-week course.
www.fieldcenter.orgThe Theory of Everything
String theory can’t be all there is Read all about the alternatives
NewPhysicsAndTheMind.netfield offices ny
Perfect sales office space in NYC. $495+, full service. Start now!
www.microoffice.usRelativity Challenge
Did Einstein make a math mistake? You be the judge!
www.relativitychallenge.comWanted: Scientists
Jobs for PhDs in biology, chemistry physics, math, and engineering
jobs.phds.orgHumidifier Filters
All sizes all the time 24 hour shipping
www.filters-now.com
So the scorecard is: two relevant links, three crackpot sites, one hilariously inappropriate understanding of the word “field,” and one perplexing sales pitch for humidifiers. But I kind of like the idea of attacking string theory via Google ads. I might just start advertising my own papers this way.
By my count that is one relevant link, 3 crackpot sites, the usual perplexing sales pitch for humidifiers, and TWO hilariously inappropriate understanding of the words “field” and “Fields”….That is unless Google knows enough to connect RG, Ricci flows and Poincare!
But but but…it’s gr-qc, so google-ads is right down pat with the demography of ads.
/me runs
Sean,
Maybe you already know this but if you use a Google homepage you can have Arxiv rss feeds coming in in their own section. Just add this to your homepage for gr-qc: http://arxiv.org/rss/gr-qc. However, maybe you already know about this but I thought I would tell you just in case you didn’t.
For comparison, here’s the ones attached to this week’s physics news press release. (Admittedly skewed this week, since one item was about the heart and breathing.)
crackpot: 2
relevant: 1
spammy: 2
other: 3
Watch out, some University of Metaphysical Sciences grad may beat all of you to real teleportation.
When I entered “White Dwarf Stars” into the online libary catalog at my previous college some years ago, I got several listings for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
A search for Springer-Verlag brought up the site for Jerry Springer.
Cargo cult science is defined by Feynman as a situation where a group of people try to be scientists but miss the point. Like writing equations that make no checkable predictions…
Of course if the equations are impossible to solve (like due to having a landscape of 10^500 solutions that nobody can handle), it’s impressive, and some believe it. A winning theory is one that sells the most books.
When will string theorists start advertising on google ads?