BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?

Subject: GOOGLE has made us smart
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 12:52 PM

Fun with Google:
A friend recently commented on how Google comes up with what you are asking before you complete your sentence.

An example is if you put in "does length" it comes up with "does length matter" When you put in your name,you normally do not need to put it all in before Google suggests what you are looking for (most often right on).

I realize we are dealing with commonly asked questions, but Google has certainly made looking for stuff (even if you can't spell it) easy.

Google has likely made one of the biggestest contribution to knowledge sharing ever! Who would have predicted it?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 12:53 PM

Who would have predicted it?

Outside of gnu, that is:)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 12:59 PM

I tried little hawk but only "Little Ha" was needed to find the name:)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 01:03 PM

I tried Ed T but it kept insisting on Ed Jones, someone I don't even know...

But you're right, the impasct of Google on knowledge sharing -- at least by sheer quantity-- is remarkable. Unfortunately, this is a case where quantity can easily drown quality.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 01:08 PM

Hey, Jones is my Mothers maiden name....who would have guessed it:)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 01:26 PM

It works best if you have some of the "Google Toolbar" utilities installed, and you may not have noticed that you can select in the tools and customizations whether or not to allow Google to "autocomplete" and/or "suggest" searches for you.

The "autocomplete" may be considered a "feature" that can be useful. What it does, in effect, is to suggest similar searches that you have made previously, followed by ones that are "most popular" with the illiterate rabble who are the most frequent users of Google.

It has been suggested, although not conclusively confirmed, that Google is able to use your entire "history" to autocomplete entries you start, using the searches most popular with the illiterate rabble who suffer from the same psychopathic delusions that your searches indicate you may possess. (I'm paraphrasing conclusions from others, slightly.)

Google also does some more subtle things - sometimes - that, like the psycho search, border on being "sinister." In some cases, even if you don't request it, results will be tailored to your location -i.e. it's difficult for me to find a business not in Kansas (or pretending to be) with some kinds of searches, even though I don't recall ever telling Google where I am.

Google still suffers from the limitation that it does not permit you to ignore the "popular hits" and look at the real ones you're looking for, and you can only see a fixed number of "hits." You're not permitted to see the next 5,000 matches to your search, so if some "pop band" has used a word you need in your search as part of their name you'll get nothing but "entertainment news" when you want the news report about the newly reported "nanofibre hygrophobic surface coating" since "phobic" is too popular an "idiot" search term to permit listing "newsworthy" hits that contain it.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: gnu
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 01:57 PM

What's "Google"? If I need to know anything, I ask Rapparee. And, same thing as this here Google, I often don't even have to finish asking before he tells me stuff. Lot's of the time, he tells me stuff I hadn't even had the slightest notion to ask.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 02:20 PM

Usually, I neither want nor need auto-complete or search suggestions. I find them more annoying than useful.   But there are rare occasions when I think such features might be useful. So, instead of having to turn the features on and off I bookmarked Google on two web browsers and used "preferences" to turn the unwanted features off on the bookmark on Opera (my preferred browser) while leaving them on for the bookmark on IE. When I need search suggestions, I just launch IE and use the "full-featured" version stored there.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 02:33 PM

It suggested Ed Jones because, as you type Ed T...it knows of Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who played football for Dallas a few years ago.

I occasionally find this Oracle thing useful, but it is often just a nuisance. I would MUCH rather Google would re-institute the ability to search by specific case, as I often want words that are ONLY capitalized. As far as I know, no search engine sill lets me do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: mousethief
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 03:45 PM

I understand that Google determines which hits will show up at the top of the list, in part by how many times they were clicked by people making similar searches before. (And in greater part by kickbacks, sorry, advertising fees.) The problem with this is that if it comes up on top, you're likely to click on it anyway, but there is no way to unclick it if you find out it's not what you want. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What is needed is a way to tell Google, No, this isn't what I needed after all. Don't count my click.

Actually what is needed is some competition. We have a de facto monopoly situation, and that's rarely good for business, let alone people.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 03:59 PM

I don't google my mudcat or real name anymore. I just find fake profiles of me linking me either to the British National Party or to a load of big breasted women on various networking sites.

I don't need the reminder that some puny twiddledick has it in for me and is attacking me in such impotent ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 07:39 PM

Although it's rumored that Google looks at how many people click on a site, the more important criterion they are believed to use is the number of other sites that link to a site.

This is claimed to be the reason that sites trying to sell nothing in particular are likely to have "reciprocal links" to other sites similarly trying to sell nothing in particular. Some sites have home pages consisting of nothing but links to "other useless sites like mine" with most of the links going to sites with nothing but links to "other useless sites like mine" at the target pages. Of course it's considered "bad form" to omit a link to any site that links to you(?).

"Social networking" seems to encourage this practice, with the predictable result that soon Google will find only pages of vacuous twits and peeps.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 11:13 PM

Thanks for the LOL, JohninKS. Love the way you put things.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:55 AM

What, please, is this "ouiji" board of the thread title. The spiritualist board, aka "planchette", is called "ouija", probably from the French & Germanic words for "yes". Neither Wiki nor Google responds to "ouiji".

So may we have the thread name emended, and things called by their right names, please?

~Michael~
{Whose pedantry. as he never tires of saying, was once described on another forum as "legendary"!}

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:43 AM

Try Ouija.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:40 AM

Well of course I tried Ouija, you mutt ~~ & it's what I got when I tried "ouiji". What's the matter with you?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:14 AM

Titling the thread with "Ouiji" may be a subtle way to prevent it showing up in the Google searches which this thread disusses!

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:50 AM

Ouiji could be a cross between Ouija AND Kijiji. Strange that Google didn't know that:)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 'GOOGLE' a new Ouiji board?
From: gnu
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:36 AM

Hmmmm... if it's a "global" village, who should be nominated for global village idiot?

Yes, that is the obvious choice.