"Another sort of abuse is comedy periodic tables: periodic tables of the vegetables, period table of the desserts, periodic table of the presidents, and on and on. There are zillions of them. I believe the vegetables one was the first widely distributed example.
What's wrong with them? Again, they miss the point about the one true periodic table, Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements. In fact, to put things with no structure into a periodic table not only misses the point of the periodic table, it misses the profound idea that some things have periods."
This is entirely true, but I would like to point out the existence of a Periodic Table of Desserts that does not omit the periodic nature of the table:
What's your deal? requinot59's argument was informative, actually. I appreciate his contribution to this discussion. Your remarks are rude and don't add any value to this discussion. If anyone here is trolling it's you.
It is a travesty that I have just now realized and understood the meaning behind the use of the term "periodic" in the title of Mendeleev's table. I feel dumb. Thank you for this article and for pulling out that excerpt :)
That would also be missing the point. Simply ordering the cells by code weight doesn't give you "periods", which is the main point of a periodic table.
I don't really agree with the main point of that post (c'mon, why care so much?) but it was good read nonetheless just for the fact that it reminded me how awesome science is. Almost makes me want to go back to school.
OK, it may not be an appropriate metaphor for science purists but it is extremely useful to have links to all APIs in one place, grouped visually by topics. I had enough trouble keeping up with the myriad APIs that Google provides and wasn't even aware of many of the ones linked to, so I applaud the effort.
Seriously, is the specific and quite "strange" disposition of the periodic table really adapted here? Why not a simple table-based layout, with no useless holes?
Here on FF 3.6 on a 1280x1024 display, some of the labels are truncated...
Why are you sperging about this so much? It's just a cutesy geeky reference. I don't think anyone is under the impression that it actually leverages the layout of the periodic table in a useful way. What a curmudgeon.
Because it's cargo culting. The periodic table looks the way it does because it's about the relationships between the different elements organized spatially on the page. Because of that, it also lets us predict elements we haven't discovered yet! Amazing!
There's really no reason that the relationship between typography, dessert, vegetables, google apis look anything like the relationship between the elements. If it did, we'd really be on to something!
But! If the relationships between google apis isn't at all like the elements, what would it look like? And even more interesting, if there are missing spaces, that means there are google apis not yet written that we can look forward to!
Is an example where someone did a periodic table that tried to use space as a way to convey information about the relationship between the perl operators. Notice how it looks nothing like the PTofE. It has its own structure because the relationship between perl operators is different than the relationship between the elements.
Those of us that are sticklers about this feel so, probably because we find the beauty of the actual meaning behind the structure of the periodic table much much more interesting and beautiful than any joke you can make from it.
Sometimes, jokes are funny because they're the truth that no one wants to say. Like when Chris Rock says, "[When listening to your woman], you've always got to throw in 'told you that bitch crazy', because every woman has another woman at their work, that they can't stand"
Other times, jokes are funny because one doesn't know any better. Like when Chris Rock says, "If they can send a space shuttle to the moon, why can't they make an El Dorado with a bumper that doesn't fall off?"
If I remember correctly, they used to have one (until about 2 years ago?) but it was discontinued, presumably because there was no way to serve ads through it.
Edit: The Google Web Search API (http://code.google.com/apis/websearch/) was only deprecated in November of last year and should still be usable for a while, although the documentation appears to be gone.
They should just offer a search api and and adwords api together. The publisher can get a cut of the adwords revenue, and there should be some sort of checking that search is being served with adwords - just by looking at comparative bandwith from the one ip.
The more accurate name (that we use sometimes) would be "Google Developer Products", but that just doesn't slip off the tongue as nicely.
When I started at Google, all of our APIs were true APIs, and my title was "API support engineer." Then we started developing these not-quite-API tools and platforms, and my titled changed to "Developer Programs Engineer". Also doesn't quite slip off the tongue. I do miss those simple days when we only had APIs... Alas!
"Another sort of abuse is comedy periodic tables: periodic tables of the vegetables, period table of the desserts, periodic table of the presidents, and on and on. There are zillions of them. I believe the vegetables one was the first widely distributed example.
What's wrong with them? Again, they miss the point about the one true periodic table, Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements. In fact, to put things with no structure into a periodic table not only misses the point of the periodic table, it misses the profound idea that some things have periods."