Get better at Googling • Hacker News Board

Re: Get better at Googling

#271

Post by qyi » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

nwienert wrote: post #249

rcoveson wrote: post #219

Earlier 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 nuts how every search comes up with covid results now. I search for some type of food? Covid. A supplement? Covid. GDP over time for a country? Covid. They put so much weight on recent * news * mainstream. Very black mirror. Even searching for explicit contrary takes will instead give you the same recent * mainstream * news.

This is _exactly_ what I'm talking about. You type "directions to adelaide", and you get something about Adele. I don't agree with the sentiment that it seems conspiracyish or "dystopian", though.

On a related note, I find it hilarious that websites - even e-commerece and services that don't seem to have any physical contact - now have a generic COVID-19 popup on top of their cookie popup and privacy police banner.

Re: Get better at Googling

#272

Post by skinkestek » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

inakarmacoma wrote: post #267

qyi wrote: post #201

> 1. Use quotes to force an exact-match search Almost never works these days. Google now usually just quantizes your search terms into an ad or ultra popular news article written 3 minutes ago. It also ignores all your operators most of the time. Bonus: If you use something like inurl: You get blocked for a "hacking attempt". Google also has blocked Tor and VPNs since 2006 or so. In fact, they are the one big search…

Most of these statements are just patently false, right? It's the top comment on HN, but I'm pretty I've successfully used all of the features mentioned in the just month with no issue at all. I don't understand how these are getting rated so highly?

It is sadly very true. See my comment here or what a lit of others write: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26926309

Also I'd like to know what I should do to get your experience.

Re: Get better at Googling

#273

Post by rozab » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

qyi wrote: post #201

> 1. Use quotes to force an exact-match search Almost never works these days. Google now usually just quantizes your search terms into an ad or ultra popular news article written 3 minutes ago. It also ignores all your operators most of the time. Bonus: If you use something like inurl: You get blocked for a "hacking attempt". Google also has blocked Tor and VPNs since 2006 or so. In fact, they are the one big search…

Everything in this comment is verifiably false. Like, easily.

Re: Get better at Googling

#274

Post by skinkestek » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #259

nbardy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever problem your describing, the answer isn't to control people

Putting a lid on propaganda isn't "controlling people". When propaganda is thrown at you from foreign states, those states are the ones attempting to control your population. Fighting that is defending your citizens. How you fight is tricky and i don't agree that censorship is the right fix in the long run, but i don't think the person you are replying to thinks that either, it's just one easy way to combat some of i…

In USAs case I'm hardly allne in thinking that it definitely wasn't foreign states who got Trump elected. If so they must have been insanely clever because the Democrats outspent them by orders of magnitude AFAIK.

Trump got elected because people were tired of "politicians" and because Hillary messed up her campaign. Seriously: She was so close to winning it anyway that I like to think it was her calling a large chunk of her voter pool a "basked of deplorables" that got it over the edge.

Re: Get better at Googling

#275

Post by skinkestek » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

rozab wrote: post #273

qyi wrote: post #201

> 1. Use quotes to force an exact-match search Almost never works these days. Google now usually just quantizes your search terms into an ad or ultra popular news article written 3 minutes ago. It also ignores all your operators most of the time. Bonus: If you use something like inurl: You get blocked for a "hacking attempt". Google also has blocked Tor and VPNs since 2006 or so. In fact, they are the one big search…

Everything in this comment is verifiably false. Like, easily.

Much of it verifiable true. As in: I've sadly verified it myself for over a decade. The doublequotes thing for example has just been a habit for me, it hardly worked.

Getting captchas for inurl (or similar "advanced" techniques has also happened to me, but only two times that I can think of now.

Re: Get better at Googling

#276

Post by scrollaway » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #274

scrollaway wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting a lid on propaganda isn't "controlling people". When propaganda is thrown at you from foreign states, those states are the ones attempting to control your population. Fighting that is defending your citizens. How you fight is tricky and i don't agree that censorship is the right fix in the long run, but i don't think the person you are replying to thinks that either, it's just one easy way to combat some of i…

In USAs case I'm hardly allne in thinking that it definitely wasn't foreign states who got Trump elected. If so they must have been insanely clever because the Democrats outspent them by orders of magnitude AFAIK. Trump got elected because people were tired of "politicians" and because Hillary messed up her campaign. Seriously: She was so close to winning it anyway that I like to think it was her calling a large chun…

I don't know why you're replying to my post with something unrelated to it.

Re: Get better at Googling

#277

Post by skinkestek » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #276

skinkestek wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In USAs case I'm hardly allne in thinking that it definitely wasn't foreign states who got Trump elected. If so they must have been insanely clever because the Democrats outspent them by orders of magnitude AFAIK. Trump got elected because people were tired of "politicians" and because Hillary messed up her campaign. Seriously: She was so close to winning it anyway that I like to think it was her calling a large chun…

I don't know why you're replying to my post with something unrelated to it.

I might have misread or misunderstood.

In that case, sorry for that.

Re: Get better at Googling

#278

Post by toper-centage » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

qyi wrote: post #201

> 1. Use quotes to force an exact-match search Almost never works these days. Google now usually just quantizes your search terms into an ad or ultra popular news article written 3 minutes ago. It also ignores all your operators most of the time. Bonus: If you use something like inurl: You get blocked for a "hacking attempt". Google also has blocked Tor and VPNs since 2006 or so. In fact, they are the one big search…

There was a time when I disliked bing and Bing-based engines because Google was just always superior. Nowadays, Google is so often trying to decide what it thinks I actually mean (e.g. Straight out removing search terms and asking if I really want to stick to them), that I feel Bing is often more straightforward and more successful...

Re: Get better at Googling

#279

Post by 8note » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 8:32 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #272

inakarmacoma wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these statements are just patently false, right? It's the top comment on HN, but I'm pretty I've successfully used all of the features mentioned in the just month with no issue at all. I don't understand how these are getting rated so highly?

It is sadly very true. See my comment here or what a lit of others write: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26926309 Also I'd like to know what I should do to get your experience.

Likely there's some a/b testing and google has decided that you're more profitable without access to those tools

Re: Get better at Googling

#280

Post by 8note » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #155

"Googling" is a subset of "querying" or "searching" I know I'm being pedantic, but it's just free advertisement when we use a name brand to describe something instead of a brand-neutral word.

It's actually brand destroying. As the name becomes synonymous with searching, google stops having a trademark on the word.