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Q: Service similar to Google Answers ( No Answer,   10 Comments )
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Subject: Service similar to Google Answers
Category: Reference, Education and News > General Reference
Asked by: eestudent-ga
List Price: $20.00
Posted: 13 Jan 2006 10:50 PST
Expires: 16 Jan 2006 17:10 PST
Question ID: 432942
I have already had great moments with Google Answers even thought I am
a newcomer. However, seeing that my other technical questions are not
answered I would like to know the list of services like Google Answers
that can provide technical help.
I can list the following disadvantages of Google Answers:
1) Google has stopped at a very low number of Professional Researches.
2) Many questions that are not technical could be answered in the following manner:
Dude, go to google.com type in this list of keywords, spend a couple
of hours reading all the links, and you got your answer!
That is exactly why I have turned to Google Answers! If GA has
technical sections then they should have PR who could answer the
questions without Google right from their memory and experience.
3) I NEED a way to consider any comment payable for correctness.
4) I know that there vast amounts of forums out there for "self help".
I have since given up answering questions related to technology
because a group of 50 engineers could have eliminated the need for
such forums.
5) I am sufficient enough in HTML to know that all forums lack from
good categorization and neat meta search capabilities. How would you
like to browse the 2,521 pages of results with 10 results on every
page (I am not talking about GA here)

Therefore, keeping the above in mind, please list the resources I
could use for research and paid answering. It would be preferably if
you had personal experience in any of the following:
Chemistry, physics, electronics, mathematics, etc
And please preferably list those which are good enough for technical help.
Answer  
There is no answer at this time.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: myoarin-ga on 13 Jan 2006 17:30 PST
 
Howdy Eestudent,
1 & 2)  Google Answers is what it is.  The Researchers are independent
freelancers, originally 500, who receive 3/4 of the price for
questions they answer.  It is a research assistant; the Researchers
use their knowledge and web-savvy to find answers, and show how they
found them.  Only in unusual cases will they just post an answer based
on just their professional knowledge.  That is what raises G-A above
blogs.
3)  Comments are free  - and as the saying goes:  Free advice is worth
what it costs.  Mine too ;)  Most commenters support their information
with reference to websites, so you can make your own decision about
its veracity.

Since I am a generalist with a G-A fixation, I'll leaved the rest of
your question for others. :)
Myoarin
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: siliconsamurai-ga on 14 Jan 2006 09:19 PST
 
I would only point out that I have personal experience in all the
areas you mention and that price is often the determining factor in
whether any researcher tackles a question.

Other factors include whether the question is narrow enough to allow
for a reasonable length answer with a manageable number of links, and
that the question provides enough initial information to answer
technical questions.

For example, computer-related questions seldom provide precise
operating system and application versions along with information about
what patches have or haven't been applied - all of which is essential
and only a bare beginning for some problems, but that is just an
example.

What we do here is mostly provide links to locations where you can
find specific answers for yourself. For some questions we can provide
actual answers but the goal is to provide a guide to resources.

I doubt you'll find a more professional group than my fellow
researchers at the prices available here.

For example, I know of an independent research site/service/company
which I can not list here, but it probably wouldn't be of any help to
you if I could since the company requires a long-term contract with a
hefty retainer and charges $300/hour for research whether successful
or not.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: eestudent-ga on 15 Jan 2006 15:01 PST
 
$300/hour is not good!

How much would you want to really find out what I am looking for?

Can you tackle, and if yeah, what would you like for these:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=432492
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=432513
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=432503
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=432509

I really need PROFESSIONAL service but I do not want to pay a lot for it!
That is exactly I try to learn everything myself. It is just sometimes
I just do not want to spend hours with keywords because I know what
will happen EXACTLY:
I will get up with a headache 4 hours later, having visited a thousand
sites, many not very relevant for what I intended to visit, and with
just negative time as a result.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: eestudent-ga on 15 Jan 2006 15:03 PST
 
I could pay $20 if someone will find out a list of such services. You
can include the high cost professional ones as well, as well as a list
of sources and keywords. Please post here if you are interested and I
will change the price for the answer.

Please also look for related consulting services as well. I realize
that most should be found locally, but post of you find a unique one.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: siliconsamurai-ga on 16 Jan 2006 06:06 PST
 
I know you are sincere so I will try to help by pointing out why I
didn?t answer one of your questions ? it might help even though I
can't speak for other researchers.

RE: your question about the Spartan GT supercomputer.

Asking if something like that exists is an open ended question.
Although I could point out that the computer in a movie wasn?t real
and might even find a link to a page saying that, that doesn?t mean
someone, somewhere hasn?t built a computer with that name ? in fact,
it is likely that they have if the movie was popular.

It is very difficult to find an authoratative link on the Web which
states that some product "doesn't" exist.

Supercomputer is also a vague term and they aren't made up of slow
processors, they often include a number of very fast processors.

So, while it would be easy to say that the computer in the movie
didn?t exist, you already know that and it is not possible to be
absolutely certain that there is no computer by that name which might
be termed a supercomputer.

As for the 7.5GHz. processor question, there are several problems.

First, there are top secret computers and computer chips as well as
products in development which I and many others know exist, but have
absolutely no information about.

Second, microprocessor clock speeds can be altered.

A process called overclocking is quite common ? the speed of chips is
often based on the quality of the production run. Some chips which
Intel sells as guaranteed to run at one clock speed may run reliably
at a higher speed, especially if cooled in some special way.

I hope this helps. I am NOT criticizing your question or the price you
set, just trying to help you understand how complex a simple seeming
question can actually be. Not all questions even have an answer.

As for your specific question here, I don?t know of any ?professional?
and ?cheap? alternative to Google Answers. That doesn?t mean one
doesn?t exist, just that I don?t know of one.

You say
"I really need PROFESSIONAL service but I do not want to pay a lot for it!"

it never hurts to ASK but do you really expect a useful answer to that question?

Some other researcher may know of such a service and may post an
answer but not I and I seriously doubt such a service could exist, it
simply wouldn't be economical. MENSA used to offer free advice from
experts but I don't recall that it ever amounted to much, there just
wasn't any incentive and, besides, you had to be a member of MENSA to
even know about it or have access to it.

Research librarians do this sort of thing for free but need specific
questions with specific answers.

Good luck.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: eestudent-ga on 16 Jan 2006 08:35 PST
 
To your long reply I will answer with an equally long one. I hope that
my thoughts will be coherent. I feel that it will only possible to
track my thoughts after the reply is taken in its entiriety.

1) Could you please rent the mentioned movie and take a look at it?
Many questions are hard to research with keywords when a single look
at the original source can trigger relevant memories. I can even setup
an "empty" question addressed to you, because this is not a very
intelligent one.

2) I am a second--year electrical engineering student and a
knowledgeable computer hardware guy and I know that you cannot
overclock a processor by more than a fraction, especially when the
process is new. It is not feasible to make a 7.5 GHz P4 on the 90 nm
technology with associated cache memory, bus, and RAM.
Furthermore, the computer in the movie (go take a look) looks and
smells like a small server -- I am perfectly aware that only recently
supercomputers have become as small as individual racks -- and not
very many companies have made a "home supercomputer". Someone could do
it with a RISC GaAs CPU, and I try to follow that trend.

3) My own searching methodology: The movie is relatively new, so the
manufacturing company should still have some kind of listing, or
someone might mention it. That is not the case.

4) It really looks like I am looking for a consulting service. Or I
could just learn it myself.

5) I should soon post a question which will list what I think would be
improvements to GA, but let me here post a part of it:
I have mentioned about the low usefullness of keyword searching and
user forums.  I think that a number of simple modifications to GA
would either mean it could remain a super--charged forums that exist
elsewhere (please understand that I know that GA is much more than
that!) or a service that is unique on the Internet. These changes have
already been mentioned and I will repeat them again.
I state that a service where there are 50 electrical engineers, 50
chemical engineers, 50 physics master's, etc, would make obsolete all
of the forums on the Net, or at least clean them up.
I understand why such effort would not necessarily be a very (or at
all) profitable, but why cannot someone make it a part of their
business, say Microsoft?

I do know that there are places where I could post in a forum with
many chemists, another one computer related, etc, but a little
integration would not hurt. One million forums is usually not better
than 10 forums.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: cynthia-ga on 16 Jan 2006 12:40 PST
 
You might find this collection of links useful:
http://www.refdesk.com/expert.html
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: siliconsamurai-ga on 16 Jan 2006 13:04 PST
 
Somehow I doubt it is necessary to watch the movie to know that Sci
Fi. movies are not real and I suspect a faster way to see if a
supercomputer exists would simply be to search for the name in a
database of supercomputers.

You may be asking more of Google Answers than the researchers are offering.

You should probably address your suggestions for changes directly to
the editors since most questions related to Google are not permitted
under the rules and may be removed by the editors.
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: myoarin-ga on 16 Jan 2006 15:49 PST
 
It's a nice idea to have a site with 150 scientific specialists, but
someone has to hire and pay them, either full time or organize a
service that calls them when their special field is needed and pay
them per answer, but they will then be required to provide the correct
answer.  The $300 dollar an hour site that Siliconsamurai mentioned
begins to sound reasonably priced.

Someone else will know better, but I rather expect that 500 original
G-A Researchers had a great deal of expertise, but then lost interest
when they found that the questions didn't call for their knowledge. 
The generalists and web-savviest stayed on, along with some
specialists with medical, legal and other expertise that is a frequent
subject of questions.
It is quite remarkable what they do for the price.  That blinds us to
real dollar value of their work and sets a standard a pricing level
that probably scares of competition.  But you cannot expect them to
answer everything.

And you cannot expect Microsoft to set up a similar service that loses
money just as a public service.

But make your suggestions to the G-A Editors.  If they can improve the
service, it will be a benefit for all.
Myoarin
Subject: Re: Service similar to Google Answers
From: eestudent-ga on 16 Jan 2006 17:08 PST
 
I do agree with everything you have said.
Today I spent many hours going thru all such sites I could find. I
might post here if I find anything useful. It is just that I am very
proficient with computers and tech myself, and the questions I have
posted are either too hard for me, or will take a lot of time to
troubleshoot. Many times they will require exact replication of
setup/actions.
I do agree that 2 dollars minimum price is as good as it gets. Thanks
to all for their participation and effort in this service.

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