PayPal Joins the List

One of the most effective ways of convincing sceptics that open source means business is to reel off some of the household names that depend on it: the Web, Google, Amazon, etc. Well, it seems that we can add another biggie: eBay.

PayPal runs thousands of Linux-based, single-rack-unit servers, which host the company's Web-presentation layer, middleware and user interface. Thompson says he quickly saw the economic, operational and development advantages of open source and Linux technology. He now sees no other way to do it.

(Via Matt Asay.)

What Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi Knew

Nice to see algorithms getting some respect:

Algorithms, as closely guarded as state secrets, buy and sell stocks and mortgage-backed securities, sometimes with a dispassionate zeal that crashes markets. Algorithms promise to find the news that fits you, and even your perfect mate. You can’t visit Amazon.com without being confronted with a list of books and other products that the Great Algoritmi recommends.

Its intuitions, of course, are just calculations — given enough time they could be carried out with stones. But when so much data is processed so rapidly, the effect is oracular and almost opaque. Even with a peek at the cybernetic trade secrets, you probably couldn’t unwind the computations.

Maybe; but the point is, they are just calculations. Which is why the idea of patenting any of them - as raw algorithms, business methods, or software - is, er, patently ridiculous.

It's Only a Game

One of things I have come to appreciate, albeit rather belatedly, is how gamer culture is going mainstream. By that, I don't just mean that it's more acceptable to be a gamer, or that more and more sectors of society are playing games, but that the gaming world-view is starting to seep into other areas of life.

Take Amazon's new Askville, for example:

Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic. It’s a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know. You can learn something new everyday or help and meet others using your knowledge. Askville even helps you learn by giving you cool tools to help you find information online while you are answering questions. It’s all about sharing—what you know and what you want to know—so go ahead and meet someone new today and Askville!

But most interestingly:

Every time you answer a question on Askville you will earn or potentially lose experience points in the topics that were associated with that question. Askville uses experience points to determine how knowledgeable a user is in a given topic. Experience points are broken up into various levels. To reach a certain level you need to have earned a certain number of experience points in that topic. Go to Experience Points, Levels, and Quest Coins in the FAQs to learn more about experience points and levels.

Which, of course, is precisely how a game works. In other words, Askville is a game. Life is a game. (Via TechCrunch.)