We live in an age of forgetting.
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The Important Questions in Life
Jan 31st
I was looking through the search logs, and someone found Pancake City by searching for “could your stomach blow up if you eat a lot of pancakes”.
I pictured an 8-year-old kid with a worried look on his face, a half-eaten plate of flapjacks left on the kitchen table, typing in those words as fast as his sticky fingers will allow him as his 12-year-old brother snickers in the corner.
Kid, if I guessed your situation right, let me, an adult, definitively answer your question. Your older brother is right, your stomach can and will blow up if you eat a lot of pancakes. And by a lot, I assume you meant 6. Your brother is older so his stomach is bigger. It is safe for him to eat more pancakes. You will understand when you get older. Thanks for visiting the site!
Internet Fun
Jul 29th
1. Go to Google. Type “what” in the search box. Take a look at the strawberry-themed suggestion that pops up. (Update: Google fixed this already. You have to type “what are these st” now.)
Earlier Update: Read the Amazon reviews.
2. Amazingly detailed drawings on coffee cups.
“A cat is eating a penis of Martin Lawrence?” UPDATE
Feb 23rd
You may have noticed the “This Day, Past Years” widget in the sidebar. It shows posts from previous years that I’ve written on this day.
What I didn’t realize, until seeing ”A cat is eating a penis of Martin Lawrence?”, is that the widget also shows drafts of posts that I never published and DO NOT WANT PEOPLE TO SEE.
This particular post isn’t too embarrasing. It’s just a collection of odd search phrases that have somehow led people to this site. I don’t know why a fat man would pretend to eat a pancake, but I hope that intrepid searcher in 2008 found what he or she was looking for.
There is probably some drafts I don’t want people to see though. I will be going through them shortly and deleting or posting them. Half-formed thoughts, away!
Why Google’s Chrome?
Sep 3rd
Google just released a beta of a new web browser, Chrome. I played with it for a few minutes. It has a nice auto-fill feature that activates whenever you type something in the address bar. It claims to be faster than IE and Firefox, but I haven’t noticed a signfiicant difference in speed compared to Firefox, and claiming you are better than Internet Explorer is like bragging you can outrun a turtle attached to a mule attached to greased roller skates.
Why introduce a web browser anyway, especially when you are financing Firefox? This article claims that: Google’s research found that the faster a search page loads, the more people use search, and the more money they make. Google says they would be happy if the end result of their new browser is forcing IE and Firefox to be faster, that would be a success.
We’ll see. People’s browsing habits are hard to change. Forget Firefox, a big chunk of people aren’t even using the most recent version of IE. The biggest path to entry is still having your browser pre-installed on the computer, and IE owns that market. Firefox may have forced IE to improve itself, but that has been slow coming.
One thing Google gets right now is making the installation seamless, porting 100% of your previous bookmarks and settings. Some replacement programs only get 95%, but it’s that last 5% which makes people reluctant to try out a new program when they already have one they are pretty happy with.
Google Famous
Apr 27th
I’m going to add to the pile another way of measuring one’s fame through Google.
If you have the Google toolbar installed on your computer, you know that it comes with a search bar that automatically gives search suggestions as you type. I’m not positive, but it seems like the suggestions are listed in order of popularity.
You can judge popularity in a few ways. How many letters you have to type before the search term appears (e.g one for Wikipedia, three for Robin Williams) and how it ranks with similar search terms (Robin Williams is more popular than Robot Chicken, unfortunately).
The auto-suggest function also provides a celebrity threshold: can you even get your name to appear? I can’t even get my blog name to be suggested, much less my real name.
If you are curious, the following are the first suggested terms for each letter of the alphabet. One, You Tube is so popular that is the top search for ‘U’ as well as ‘Y’. Two, they are mostly one-word searches, which is odd for a few reasons. A one-word search (“car”) can’t give you targeted information unless what you are looking for is the name of a web site (“Carmax”). But why would someone search for Carmax instead of type “Carmax” (or Carmax.com) in the URL bar? I wonder if Google is incorporating web site traffic rankings in the listing order.
Finally, if you want to test your basic Internet familiarity, see how many of these terms you recognize.
a amazon
b bebo
c craigslist
d dictionary
e ebay
f facebook
g gmail
h hotmail
i imdb
j john lewis
k kelly blue book
l limewire
m myspace
n next
o orkut
p photobucket
q qvc
r runescape
s sears
t target
u utube
v verizon
w wikipedia
x xbox 360
y you tube
z zip codes
None of These Make Any Sense
Mar 20th
A more detailed assessment:
1. Who?
2. Why?
3. Why?
4. Why today?
5. Are there really that many pagans on the Internet?
6. Okay, I guess.
7. Who?
8. Why?
9. Why?
10. Kind of makes sense.
Search for America: A Presidential Campaign Website Review
Jan 9th
I visited the web sites of the top nine Presidential candidates left in the race…
Bill Richardson just dropped out.
Okay. I visited the web sites of the top eight Presidential candidates left in the race to see which of them allowed users to search their sites. First thing I noticed: they all have a blue background. Except John McCain’s web site, which has a black background, because he’s a maverick.
I resisted the temptation of fully reviewing each candidate’s web site. While there is great appeal in spending several hours analyzing each site’s layout, color scheme, organization, and pictures of Muslims holding AK-47s (advantage: Rudy!) so I could to create a comprehensive review that would gather, all in one place, a bunch of crap almost no one cares about, I decided to focus on just one aspect.
Does McBama-Hillarudy-Ronbee’s web site have a search bar?
Yes, the gold standard achievement in the “I Barely Give a Shit” class. Did they bother to insert an extremely useful function that is on almost every other web page on the Internet? Let’s find out.
As a comparison point, I picked a random web page on the Internet: “Pancake City.” Does “Pancake City” have a search bar? Yes, it does. Is it near the top of the page and easy to find? Yes.
Pancake City is the front runner. In response to the site’s new status, I have disabled comments and will stop taking questions from the press. I will resume friendly relations with the press once my poll numbers slip, as they have in the past 437 elections when a candidate surged in popularity and became overly cautious and guarded out of fear of screwing it all up.
Democrats
Hillary Clinton: No search bar.
Barack Obama: Dude, you gave a detailed technology speech at Google and then fielded questions from the employees. WHERE IS THE SEARCH BAR?
John Edwards: Search bar, but at the bottom of the page. Clearly labeled. (2nd place)
Republicans
Rudy Giuliani: I would like to point out that I hate writing about Rudy Giuliani, because I can never remember how to spell his name. I end up having to type something like “Giulaniuani” in Google and hope it recognizes who I am searching for. No search bar.
Mitt Romney: Search bar! Top of the page! The only major candidate to have a search bar near the top of his or her web page. This is True Strength for America’s Future. (1st place)
John McCain: Search bar at the bottom of the page. A real maverick would have put it sideways. (3rd place)
Mike Huckabee: Mike Hucka-be better putting a search bar on his web page soon. No search bar.
Ron Paul: Ronbots, what happened? The web page is snazzy, attractive, and well-designed. Except no search bar. What am I going to do when I’m drunk and looking for a plan to privatize roads?
I’m leaving Fred Thompson out. That guy is phoning it in more than Leno on most nights. Instead of campaigning 12 hours a day, he’s pulling up near prospective voters in his red pickup truck, yelling “Hey, I’m Fred!” and then speeding off to his limo parked around the corner.
Here’s the big question: Is the lack of a search bar on these lavishly-funded, professionally-designed web pages an oversight, or were they deliberately left out for some nefarious yet stupid reason, like wanting to control how their visitors access information? Is search too “off message” for most campaigns?
Google Trends
Oct 24th
Hey, lazy reporters!
Need evidence to support the conclusion you had before you started writing your political horse race piece? Visit Google Trends. It tracks search engine traffic and news references for popular words and phrases.
Google Trends is flexible enough to accommodate a wide-variety of pre-conceived ideas. Isn’t it a shame how people care more about celebrities than politicians? Just search for “Paris Hilton, Hillary Clinton.” Oops! Hillary got more news references. Better revise the search: “Paris Hilton, Senator Brownback.” There we go!
Hey, how does a goat fare against the three main Democratic presidential candidates? Hoo hoo hoo! Politics is silly.
Google Trends is also useful when planning the news cycle during the slow summer months. Should we go with Summer of the Shark, or Summer of the Monkey? Let’s check with America first.
Keyword Project
Oct 17th
For the past several days, I’ve been going through every post I have written, over 1,350, and adding keywords to each post. I also fixed dozens of links and deleted about 50 extraneous posts.
I am 99% finished. I’ve been adding the keywords in reverse chronological order, so I’m at the first handful of posts I wrote four years ago. The indexing system was created on the fly so it is inconsistent and not as good as if I had the time to plan it out, but I think it will serve some use.
One of my first posts four years ago was a link to this video, We Drink Ritalin. Not only does the original link work (trust me, this is amazing by itself), but the video is still very funny.
I disabled the RSS feed before I started, so either you will get one new post after I restore the feed, or 1,300.
Google Book Search
Sep 8th
Google tends not to herald the launch or development of its projects, perhaps because of their great number. Word of a project is spread like a paper boat, placed on a slow-moving stream and allowed to drift where it may.
Google Book Search’s development has reached a point where it is being noticed by tech blogs, and in turn people like me. GBS is a mix of Amazon’s book search and The Gutenberg Project, the online repository of non-copyrighted literature, along with a few neat features of its own.
Searching for a subject or phrase brings up a list of relevant books as one would expect. If the work is copyrighted, you can usually read several to dozens of pages of the book, search within it, and other typical activities. It is similar to Amazon’s book search feature, although a little more accessible. One neat feature is that you can view passages the book cites that other books have cited too.
If the work is in the public domain, then you can read the entire book, download a PDF of it, and also select passages to easily share with others (if you have a Blogger account). You can share the text or an image of the page. After reading a brief account of Cortez’s conquest of Montezuma and the Aztec, I took a stab at seeing what I could find.
The History of Mexico and Its Wars: Comprising an Account of the Aztec … By John Frost: ““
After you find a book, there is a nifty “Find it in a library” link along with links to booksellers.
There is also a “My Library” section that I haven’t played with, but looks like a way to save book titles you have or want.
GBS could potentially be a wonderful research tool, and also a frustrating reminder of how having information accessible doesn’t mean it will be easy to find.
For all of the wonders of Google, I believe search technology is still rudimentary and only does 10% of what it could do. The perfect search engine wouldn’t be a search engine. It would be an answer engine. You could type any question in it, however complex, and get an answer if the information to answer the question exists.
Current search technology is focused on quantity, not quality. If you type, “State bird South Carolina” you get over 2 million results. Why? It’s a simple question with only one answer (Great Carolina Wren). Why isn’t the answer the first result?
If you ask a slightly harder question, like “What was the first state to have a state bird?” or a tough one like “What was the original motivation for creating a state bird?” good luck finding a decent answer, or even knowing the best way to phrase your query.
I like Google. Projects like Google Book Search and Google Maps show the company’s unparalleled ability to gather and index information. But it also makes me frustrated knowing that what I want is out there, somewhere, but I just can’t find it.
There’s Going To Be a Lot More Men Coming Out of the Closet Soon
Nov 13th
This is why I love Google. The Department of Defense recently put a notice on its web site requesting volunteers for their local draft boards. I shit you not. Ignored by the major press, the page has been making the rounds around the web and has understandably created some consternation. (Salon has a good piece of this.) Enough of a consternation, it seems, that the DoD removed the page from its site. Oops! File Not Found!
That is, unless you search for the page in Google’s cache.
If you would like to apply for your local draft board, visit here. I already applied. If you’re between 18 and 25, let me know. I’ll put in a few good words for you.
Those words will be “DERANGED FLAT-FOOTED LUNATIC.”
What did Dennis Miller say about Rush Limbaugh?
Oct 23rd
Three ways to find this out:
1. Google search, hope you get lucky.
2. Buy Dennis Miller’s books, skim through them until you find what you are looking for.
3. Search for ‘Dennis Miller Rush Limbaugh” on Amazon.com. Because they made 120,000 of their books fully searchable.
I know I gush sometimes, but this is awesome. It’s the equivalent for LexisNexis for books, except you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to use it. You can find out how many books cite FDR’s “You have nothing to fear…” quote or reference Hitler and Ghandi on the same page. Amazon lets you view two pages before and two pages after the reference. If you wanted to go through the trouble, you could read a chapter or two of a book by entering a new search every few pages.
Amazon, you rock. I haven’t been this excited about a new search tool in a long time.
Too Much Time on my Hands
Oct 20th
In an attempt to test the bounds of knowledge on the Internet, I tried to find a photo of Hitler eating a baby. I was unsuccessful. But I did find an essay by high school creationists Kimmi and Kerri (“Hitler believes in evolution!”) and a photo of Hitler’s arms finally having enough and trying to overthrow him via a beatdown.
The Turning Test, yet to be passed by a computer, is often cited as a way to determine if a machine or network has human-like intelligence. I propose a different method: the Hitler-Eating-a-Baby Test. If you can say, “Computer, give me a picture of Hitler eating a baby,” and the computer produces one, then it’s one smart-ass computer.
Especially if Hitler’s eyes are crossed.
MSN
Oct 6th
MSN Search — More Useful Everyday. Each day, it becomes more useful, until January 21, 2005, when it nears infinite usefulness, collapsing onto itself and sparking a quantum singularity that rips a hole in the space-time continuum and sucks every planet, star, teddy bear, serial killer, emu, argument, ex-lover, and your little puppy too in the diameter of a straw. And as our tendons snap from our bones, and the last thoughts of man flee like flies, perhaps a few will rest their minds on the suddenly wry humor in Microsoft’s other slogan:
Where Are You Going Today?
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