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Google Memory Loss

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Re: Google Memory Loss

#461

Post by rootusrootus »

naasking wrote: post #448
cptskippy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This definitely happens. I have 1 email that is about 5 years old that I reference once or twice a year, often enough that it is a suggested search term. Recently Gmail has been unable to find it and I restored to starring it. It is literally the only starred email I have but I can no longer search for it.

Has happened to me too. Actually, the Android gmail app is even worse on searching. I often have to launch a browser and search via the web interface because the app returns no results.

This is true in their iOS app as well. I've given up searching in the app and just open up the full web site when I need to find something.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#462

Post by tgb »

cptskippy wrote: post #53
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…

This definitely happens. I have 1 email that is about 5 years old that I reference once or twice a year, often enough that it is a suggested search term. Recently Gmail has been unable to find it and I restored to starring it. It is literally the only starred email I have but I can no longer search for it.

This is actually very worrisome for me. I use Gmail as my personal store of weird information, from Wifi passwords to the account number of that service I only use every 4 years. I Just send myself an email with obvious terms to search for in it and the relevant information. It's super convenient and I've never had it fail... yet, apparently.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#463

Post by terminalcommand »

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 also get very angry at Google trying to stop me from making advanced queries. Even if I only chain a couple of Google's very limited operators together it shows me captchas and after a while the captchas do not stop. I keep solving them and it just wants more.

Lately I've also been noticing that the behaviour of some google search operators are broken. " something " "otherthing" is not considered as an AND " something " OR "otherthing" is not considered as an OR. Google shows me the results it wants. I recently tried to research FreeBSD and Meltdown (I tried many times: "FreeBSD" "Meltdown", "FreeBSD" AND "Meltdown" etc.) and almost no result involved the terms both FreeBSD and Meltdown. The interesting thing was, Google did not say there was no results matching my criteria, it kept showing me popular IT news, linux news etc. It was extremely frustrating.

The only operators that work are site, date and filetype. The logical operators do not work reliably or do not work at all.

If you're searching for something popular google finds it best, but if your search patterns are deviant google ignores you and even thinks you're a bot and refuses to service you.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#464

Post by andyjpb »

duggan wrote: post #367
userbinator wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RankBrain Amusingly enough one of the definitions of "rank" is, according to Wiktionary, "having a very strong and bad taste or odor"... as in the smell of a decaying brain. How fitting. I almost wonder if it's deliberate. If they called it BrainRank (like PageRank), the adjectival meaning seems to be emphasised less.

The emphasis would be incorrect if the term were reversed - RankBrain is a Brain for Ranking like PageRank is a Rank for Pages. No doubt there is someone in Google, however, who has a project for ranking AIs called BrainRank for their own amusement. Anyway, your observation is also an amusing interpretation.

PageRank is called after its inventor Larry Page. It's just another case of Nominitive Determinism!

Re: Google Memory Loss

#465

Post by reply2018-01-16 »

userbinator wrote: post #163
wahnfrieden wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a bit funny and sad how Google has both managed to seem overly clever to the point of being clumsily useless, and at the same time, continues to offer the original search experience that people pine for but no one knows or can be bothered with: add “intext:” before keywords and it’s the experience you’re wishing for.

I just tried a few of my old "dry" queries (as in, things I've always wanted to look for but can't seem to get good results) and didn't notice much difference... Furthermore, after a total of 3 "Next Page"'s, I got IP-banned with a CAPTCHA. I've had similar experiences recently with "site:" and the other colon-operators, so not entirely unexpected, but still immensely infuriating. It's almost like any real attempt to…

Its likely you are using "privacy" plugins in browsers that obfuscate who you are to Google. "A friend" of mine has the same issues with them (constantly harassed like they're a bot).

Re: Google Memory Loss

#466

Post by duggan »

andyjpb wrote: post #464
duggan wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emphasis would be incorrect if the term were reversed - RankBrain is a Brain for Ranking like PageRank is a Rank for Pages. No doubt there is someone in Google, however, who has a project for ranking AIs called BrainRank for their own amusement. Anyway, your observation is also an amusing interpretation.

PageRank is called after its inventor Larry Page. It's just another case of Nominitive Determinism!

An excellent point, had totally forgotten :)

Re: Google Memory Loss

#467

Post by cptskippy »

naasking wrote: post #448
cptskippy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This definitely happens. I have 1 email that is about 5 years old that I reference once or twice a year, often enough that it is a suggested search term. Recently Gmail has been unable to find it and I restored to starring it. It is literally the only starred email I have but I can no longer search for it.

Has happened to me too. Actually, the Android gmail app is even worse on searching. I often have to launch a browser and search via the web interface because the app returns no results.

My experience with the Android App is that search seems to be local only. So if the email is older than the retention policy or handled elsewhere then it's unlikely to show up there. Emails deleted on the desktop are notoriously invisible on mobile.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#468

Post by marcosdumay »

nkoren wrote: post #358
colordrops wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This same AI effect can be seen in the Android keyboard, where _properly_ spelled words will be replaced after typing another word or two because it's been determined to be more likely what you want. It's infuriating.

It actually does this with such consistency that I think it's a very specific mistake. For example, I frequently swipe "See you soon." It always, always renders as "See you son", which I then have to manually retype. Sometimes twice. I don't have a son, and I'm not a blind old cowboy who jocularly refers to any random person as "son". I honestly just want to type "soon", for the love of... anyhow, this is an ongoing,…

Very likely, every time you type "soon" and it corrects to "son", the probability of the change gets increased. So, the more it errs, the more wrong it will be in the future.

About it only replacing after you start writing, the probability of "son" must grow faster than the one of "soon" after you type "so". If there were such a huge bug, you would be seeing a new word every time, not always the same one.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#469

Post by marcosdumay »

jeffdavis wrote: post #224
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…

"I assume this has something to do with the fact that information from the long tail is substantially less searched for than stuff within the normal bounds...It seems like the web is being optimized for casual users" In other words, the internet is becoming more of a collective and caters less to the individual. If you have a special interest, then who cares? You should just adopt more normal hobbies. If you have a u…

It is much worse. It contextually averages everybody, so if 95% of the people are oppressed, but always on different ways, it also doesn't matter.

Re: Google Memory Loss

#470

Post by Spearchucker »

Spooky23 wrote: post #36
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…

Microsoft does this too. I have a massive mailbox going back 15 years and O365 doesn’t handle it well with full text search... you need to scope it to a person.

My email arching ve going back more than 20 years is stored in a single .PST file, and I search it using Outlook. Never had a problem. Every 3 months I copy everything older than 2 months from Exchange Online into that .PST.
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