Reverse Search

I don't know if this has already been done. But wouldn't it be interesting if you could specify a few links and see what string search you would have had to do to get those links with reasonable ranks?

I think it would be cool. Can see how sites are similar, if they are at all. It could even be used to cluster links together with phrased based matching, I wonder if the solution to the reverse search problem could be done in a different way that data mining algs do phrase-based document clustering...

I HATE STL !!!

End Of An Era - IBM to sell its PC unit

Wow! IBM's PC production business has finally come to an end.
It comes as a shock, but I guess not too unexpected.

In the past, I have heard some great stories, in my Economics class, about the great success and business model of IBM at the time of early developments of the PC. They have conquered the market by lowering costs of the product faster than competitors could keep up with and driving their competitors to huge losses. Somewhere in between then and now they have lost the ability to do so and are now at the point of selling their PC unit.

Its amazing how some of the big companies do not take full advantage of globalization by manufacturing their products in countries where the costs to do so are significantly cheaper. If they had, maybe IBM would still have a healthy PC market. As it stands, the great company that won the PC world through cheap prices, has lost in part due to inability to keep up with the current prices.

What would you do in IBM's positions? Can you think of any way they could have saved their business today (other than mistakes they made in the 80s)?