I find the syntax to negate a term with a "-" prefix quite annoying. If you search for some problem with a command line statement, it will exclude results where the, also "-" prefixed, parameters occur.
Get better at Googling
231–240 of 297 posts
Re: Get better at Googling
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wholeheartedly disagree with just about everything you said (much of it is misinformation and/or hysterics), but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. :)
I probably was a bit hysterical there, but I think the underlying point that an uneducated populace just can't cope in the modern world centered around information on the internet. I know someone I consider intelligent who started with one Joe Rogan video and a year later was a raving pro-Russia, pro-China, holocaust denying anti-vaxxer. Youtube took him from fun, reasonable guy who you'd love to have at a party to t…
I've never studied logic and yet I have never agreed with any conspiracy theory (the logical flaws are still obvious even if I can't name them).
If you want people to think logically about topics, the first step is making them not be taboo.
Re: Get better at Googling
#233Google Search and Ads must be split apart. Their incentive to serve you ads is just way too high.
Their search results became completely irrelevant over time. But still can screw any competition.
Re: Get better at Googling
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
You jest but USA elected Donald Trump to lead them, proving once and for all that misinformation spread by the internet is potentially world-ending. You jest but if a pandemic 100 times as deadly as COVID came upon us, anti-vaxxers and the misinformation they spread via the internet could potentially end the world. You either education your people, or you have to control the information they receive. The GOP has long…
I wholeheartedly disagree with just about everything you said (much of it is misinformation and/or hysterics), but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. :)
Heh, I wholeheartedly agree with most of what gp said and I still wouldn’t trust google to protect people from misinformation. But I also disagree with ggp, as I don’t see google doing anything other than push ads.
Re: Get better at Googling
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm struck by the profundity of this loss. It's almost as bad as if something like archive.org were to just disappear. SaaS is so ephemeral. One day, you have access to a version of Google that works absurdly well. The next, it's gone forever. I used to use Google so much that it felt like a border collie in those dog competitions. I knew how it behaved, I had a bank of commands/searches that I had half-memorized and…
It's really sad. There used to be a time when I'd try to recall a specific page on the internet and I'd be able to use a zillion search operators to narrow in to the page that I was looking for. Now, that's impossible. I've noticed search for everything kind of sucks now as every platform has tried to become curators.
Every platform only wants to return links to sites that run ads or commerce sites that buy ads. Providing useful information is a loss leader that needs to be optimized out of existence so that the C levels get a bonus for a job well done.
Re: Get better at Googling
#236The article is missing several operators that are useful. Like inurl:, intitle:, allintitle:, etc. The "AROUND" proximity search is neat as well, especially for words with dual meaning. like: bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu Finds "bootstrap" within 6 words of "cpu", which culls out most (not all) of the unwanted results about the bootstrap js library. This article seems to cover most of the ones I'm aware of: https://ahrefs.…
I've found the "around" proximity search to be one of the most useful, if not THE most useful operators. It's SUPER useful if you're looking for something you just know someone must've already posted somewhere but you just can't find it! It always reminds me of learning how to search databases back in the 90s when you had to pay by the minute and you really needed to know all the operators and how to use them! Old sc…
AltaVista had this 25 years ago as the "near" operator. Early Google was relatively gimped in comparison with it's limited search syntax in comparison to the main incumbents.
Re: Get better at Googling
#237Google used to be better, I feel. Nowadays when you add a particular word to make the search specific (otherwise it's too general), Google decides for you, there aren't many results with that keyword, so it excludes the word and gives you a list of irrelevant things. Yeah I know to put the words I want in quotes, but why doesn't it do that by default?
Google works much better when you use the information they know about you. At the office, I get much better work related searches than at home. This has the benefit of profiling my coworkers and not just me, and the searches/ sites visited are generally work related. Edit: I don't like Google's intrusiveness either. I do not use it much at home. The searches are better when you teach it with better data. Searching in…
On the topic of profiling, I remember starting at a new company and getting ads for surface-to-air missiles. Then I learnt the imprecise geo-location "located" my computer in the town a few miles away where there's a helicopter manufacturer which is part of a defense contractor..
Re: Get better at Googling
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first two results for "bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu" are about bootstrap though. "bootstrap cpu" gives far higher quality results.
Yes, it's a difficult term. Even "bootstrap compiler" returns JS library results. I'm not claiming my example was the best one for demonstrating AROUND(N).
You can always try excluding JS-related hits: `bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu -js -javascript`
Re: Get better at Googling
#239This is why monopolies are no good. With each passing day the search results get worse.
Re: Get better at Googling
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GitHub Code Search feature is really useful. If I run into a weird problem that's somewhat outside "mainstream" programming (e.g. 2D Line Arrangements with CGAL), I'll often use Code Search to try to find repos that are using the API I'm using to see how they used it.
Is that really better or faster than adding GitHub to your Google search terms? (Real question)
Hmmmmm that’s an interesting question! I think the GitHub search has a better semantic understanding of what I’m looking for, but I’m going to have to try it out!