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Google Memory Loss

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Re: Google Memory Loss

#271

Post by Jaruzel »

scoot wrote: post #95
ohazi wrote: post #17

I've convinced myself that this happens in gmail / hangouts history search too. It'll very confidently tell you that here are the only six results for your search term going back to the beginning of time, but if you go and manually dig up something that you know is there from ten years ago, then all of a sudden there are seven results the next time you search for the same term. I haven't done this methodically, and I…

Can confirm. Google, the search company, has lst the ability to accurately search even the data that it holds, never mind any other.

> Google, the search company

Google, the ads company

FTFY.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#272

Post by crpatino »

fixermark wrote: post #174
sincerely wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this phenomenon has become a lot more important in the last few decades...I think it was fully possible for one person to understand how a car worked, how household appliances worked, etc, until quite recently

Probably depends on how you slice the question / define "fully understand." "How it works" in terms of being able to tell yourself a story that makes sense? Sure. Car burns gas, gas makes engine go, engine turns wheels. But what about the details you'd need to actually make a car (which include but are not limited to thermodynamics and metallurgy)? Probably not.

There's a middle ground, which is far from complete but very useful for practical reasons. Also, there's no cannon, but most people in the know would agree that the useful middle ground includes many (most?) of the following things:

1. Being able to drive safely and efficiently, even in bad road or climatic conditions.

2. Recognizing all the regular maintenance the car needs, and being able to perform at least some of that on your own.

3. Recognizing all the main subsystems of the car, down to their most important pieces. Being aware of the most common problems each subsystem usually show and what symptoms you should be in the look.

4. Being able to perform emergency repairs while on the road, with only basic equipment.

5. Recognizing the parameters of the most common models, on how those affect the performance of the vehicle.

That kind of knowledge was more common a couple of generations ago, but then... cars were much simpler machines back then, too.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#273

Post by lucb1e »

copx wrote: post #211
kenning wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote marks still work. Google tries to find your phrase, and fails, then tries to give you results with some of your words missing without telling you. If you search for "It never rains on a" with quotes it will only show you pages with that exact phrase. If you search for that without quotes it will show you a messy group of results based on what it thought you meant.

No, they don't but I know what you are referring to. Most of the time I get the result: No results found for [phrase] Results for [phrase] (without quotes) ..but the thing is that I know websites containing [phrase] exist. Often many of them and they aren't "dark web" either. Google used to be able to find them but no longer is. This gets more confusing because sometimes it does work. Namely if you look for phrases w…

I had also wondered whether its ability to match exact phrases has degraded. It would make sense, since keeping individual words on a distributed index is a lot easier than keeping a long phrase. But I had no way of telling, not having benchmarked it in the past.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#274

Post by lucb1e »

confounded wrote: post #253
ohazi wrote: post #17

I've convinced myself that this happens in gmail / hangouts history search too. It'll very confidently tell you that here are the only six results for your search term going back to the beginning of time, but if you go and manually dig up something that you know is there from ten years ago, then all of a sudden there are seven results the next time you search for the same term. I haven't done this methodically, and I…

I’ve gone back to using a local client recently, and being able to search/grep text files I know are in a dir has made me feel much less like I’m going insane / dependent upon capricious mystical forces.

Same here. Offline search in Thunderbird beats everything, particularly the quick filter feature.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#275

Post by gaius »

klodolph wrote: post #241
gaius wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On BlackBerry if it autocorrected to something you didn’t want, one press of delete would revert to your original word. iOS makes you a) rekey the whole thing and b) will probably try to change it again . I can only assume that no one (or moons, it literally just tried) who works on this uses it themselves!

On iOS, one press of delete and what you originally typed will show as a suggestion.

For a replacement? Or for the next word?

Re: Google Memory Loss

#276

Post by _pmf_ »

userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

What is the modern search engine that represents best what Google did at its functional peak?

Re: Google Memory Loss

#277

Post by culerawo »

Cort3z wrote: post #254
Declanomous wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has seemingly degraded into an approximation of a search engine that has knowledge of only very superficial information, will try to rewrite your queries and omit words (including the very word that makes all the difference...) I think the biggest irony is that the web allows for more adoption of long-tail movements than ever before, and Google has gotten significantly worse at turning these up. I assume this has s…

You can add a plus (+) before a word you require to be in the search results. Eg. "+VBS array loop". You can filter out word by prepending a minus (-). You can surround exact phrases in quotes (") and you can even allow synonyms by prepending a tilde "~" Example query: +vbs array ~loop "magic number" If Google does not find anything it will remove some parts so that you will get any results at all

Unfortunately Google dropped + when they introduced Google+ social network. Nuff said Google+ is a ghost down nowadays but the + operator hasn't returned yet.

And even written "search term" doesn't work consistently anymore, Google thinks to know better and semi-randomly omit words and show results no one asked for.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#278

Post by propman »

userbinator wrote: post #93

I've noticed this many times too, particularly recently, and I call it "Google Alzheimer's" --- what was once a very powerful search engine that could give you thousands (yes, I've tried exhausting its result pages many times, and used to have much success finding the perfect site many dozens of pages deep in the results) of pages containing nothing but the exact words and phrase you search for has seemingly degraded…

I'm so glad I'm not the only person thinking that. Last year and a half or so I've started scouring forums and reading studies on google scholar rather than searching the web. And it's gotten worse and worse each year.

I've been lazy and so acclimatized to the UI that I haven't changed, but I plan to now. It's especially difficult finding medical information. Mind boggling how 6-7 years ago it used to be so much better.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#279

Post by Jaruzel »

kuschku wrote: post #132
kens wrote: post #108

If there seems to be a problem with Google not indexing your site, Google's webmaster tools can help debug what's going on: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

That's if your own site is affected - but what if I want to find content from another site, and Google doesnt properly index that? I can't exactly use Google's webmaster tools for that, and the owner may not care, or can't be contacted.

Actually you can:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url

But you DO need a Google Account though.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#280

Post by Radim »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #216
epistasis wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, Android does that too? This awful, terrible, no good fake "AI" behavior on iOS was one of the many quality issues with modern iOS that was making Android look more attractive. iOS keyboards have been getting worse with every update, probably as more and more engineers feel the need to make a mark, or are required to fix bugs, and they spoil it. The simple and predictable statistical model of the original iOS…

4 years ago was a very different time. Software quality in general continues to drop. I’m not sure if that’s due to increasing incompetence in the software engineering workforce (unlikely, but possible), malice (more unlikely), or apathy (most likely). When wages don’t grow over 10 years, what incentive is there to write the best software you can?

I suspect the cause is a little more subtle (and terrifying).

The majority of people don't give a shit. Correct spelling and obscure searches are not even on their radar, it's not a part of their reality. Don't let the comments here fool you -- it is a very specific, picky, technical crowd that frequents HN.

The voice of "those who care" has always been a minority, although it used to matter more, simply because people who care and worry and try to do a good job tend to have more power and money (conscientiousness is a great predictor of success), and so businesses cater to them more. Now that everything seems to be turning more uniform, more global, more binary, more equal, that voice is marginalized (good thing? bad thing?) -- you're seeing the effect of a hoi polloi stampede.

So it's not the fault of "incompetent programmers" -- it may be a trickle down effect of our social incentives and economic trade-offs.

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