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Off-topic Google-related rant.



 
 
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  #11  
Old March 6th 12, 12:19 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Robert Macy[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 92
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

On Mar 5, 7:23*am, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Robert Macy wrote in news:dc5d7b4e-47cb-4353-a544-
:

At the top of that resulting list, is a little request to CLICK on and
do the search the way you intended.


Trust me, I am entirely familiar with those. It's actually nauseating, the
number of times they do 'did you mean' when I know exactly what I meant.

Example: -conver*

Google-bleat: "Did you mean -convert*?"

That's just pathetic. They see an expression from someone who clearly appears
to know how to use a negation operator combined with stemming well enough to
place a wildcard such that it eliminates 'convert' and also 'conversion', and
despite making these rules up THEMSELVES, they fail to see them when they
bite them from behind, and instead assume we made a TYPO or a misspelling..
It's not as if we don't make errors, but it's our call, not theirs. We CANNOT
be precise anyway, if they won't let us, and they don't.

If the banal alternative is sufficiently high in the spam rankings that they
trust too much, they won;t even ASK me, they'll just switch out my search for
their inane interpretation so I have to explicitly demand them to put it
back! Sometimes even that fails and I have to work out even more stringent
limitations to force it to comply.

That's not 'helpful'. It's moronic.

When I am trying hard to learn to code, I often find myself battling with
Google instead of with the code! That's not what search engines are for!


forgot to complain about how more and more websites come up in a
search result, but no longer exist! You'd think google could turn a
robot loose 'testing' websites and slowly removing obsolete ones from
their search results.

  #12  
Old March 6th 12, 01:32 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lostgallifreyan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,562
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Robert Macy wrote in news:2db11f14-1927-42da-9cce-
:

forgot to complain about how more and more websites come up in a
search result, but no longer exist! You'd think google could turn a
robot loose 'testing' websites and slowly removing obsolete ones from
their search results.




true. I've seen people complain about that too. Caching a few good ones is
great (I wish more search engines would cache, or at least offer a highlit-
text version of a page that quickly shows where our search terms got a hit,
as IxQuick's returns ofer). But keeping too much deadwood around makes no
sense. If it really needs preserving, the WayBack machine is better at it.

To be fair, I was thinking today of what Google have done well. Easy to take
for granted.. While they don't do it all out of the goodness of their hearts,
they're not evil either. Buying SketchUp from AtLast Software and making that
available for free was a very generous move.

One moment I think of them almost admiringly, like the closest thing to the
Hitch-hiker's Guide offices yet built on earth. The next I think the
stupidity and assumptive activity is a diasaster in the mamking for them.
Which it might be. They think we need them. This is wrong. They take our
info, hand it back to us with their spin on valuation. Truth is, they need
us. Badly. And they take us for granted more than we do them. A few other
good search engines growing fast might change that. Similar things are
happening to eBay...
  #13  
Old March 6th 12, 08:41 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Franc Zabkar
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 1,702
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:16:50 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
put finger to keyboard and composed:

c "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 1,780 results (0.06 seconds)


c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 501,000,000 results (0.07 seconds)


I see this sort of thing a lot. I agree that it is nonsensical and
frustrating.

You might like to use the "+" prefix to compel Google to include a
particular search term.

c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 583,000,000 results

+c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*

+c assign "1d array to 2d array"
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array"

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
  #14  
Old March 6th 12, 10:32 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lostgallifreyan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,562
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Franc Zabkar wrote in
news
You might like to use the "+" prefix to compel Google to include a
particular search term.

c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 583,000,000 results

+c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*

+c assign "1d array to 2d array"
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array"

- Franc Zabkar


Weird. very. First off, I was emailing to Rudolph Loew about thios, and he
didn't beleive me. I think not, anyway. The + operator quit workign for me
recently. I started looking around during a fit of annoyance to see whether
there were reports of Google changes or borkages. Apparently (as well as
nuking Google Code Search), they revoked the + operator, about November last
year, and there are forum posts all over the web about this.

Rudolph Loew's in Germany, I think, and he says it works for him. It seems it
may be as geographically dependant as some of their other policies, but hell
knows why.

The official replacement for the + operator is to use "C" instead of +C,
which I do try, but with oiss-poor results to be honest.

Inconsistencies are so rife that it's hard to search at all now. Take
'struct'. On its own, it comes up with a simple return that includes
Wikipedia. Not bad, we might think. But if we want some elaboration, some
worked examples, it gets a lot harder. I can specify C or "C" (not so
important for 'struct' as it is for usage of API calls, but the problems
still occur), but then I get C# and C++ which aren't helpful for a newcomer
determined to use ANSI C! With API calls there are so many languages that I
end up having to use absurd strings of negation like this one:
-python -ruby -tcl -lua -net -mfc -visual -vb* -perl -c# -C++ -wx*
While this can reduce the noise from un-useful code snippets and discussions,
and even whole forums, it breaks Google to the point where a huge number of
garbage pages from conent mills and worse pollute the results.

Very often an EXACT substring search might solve this, by allowing fragments
of C syntax required for context to be included. The SNR could be extremely
high if they allowed this, but of course, they never did, and likely never
will, given that they chose to nuke code search!
  #15  
Old March 6th 12, 10:49 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lostgallifreyan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,562
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Franc Zabkar wrote in
news
c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 583,000,000 results

+c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*

+c assign "1d array to 2d array"
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array"


Actually, that's broken anyway! Using that specific quoted string alone
gets 14000+ results, some of the first-page ones specifically mentioning C!
But when I tried the string, and +C, I got no results even without the other
terms to restrict them.

There is a lot of talk on the web about assigning 1D arrays to 2D arrays in
C, largely because you can't, you have to use a struct and pointer iteration
to get a neat method to emulate it, or build the means into higher level
languages. Either that or nest for-loops ad nauseam... So the moment that C
is explicitly requested with +C, there is something wrong if ZERO results are
returned. Plus operator or no plus operator, that's just plain borked.

Incidentally, the + operator WAS NOT ignored when I just tried it to see what
you showed me. I'm not imagining that it was ignored recently though.

Google this:
google plus operator
Page after page confirming that it was revoked. Maybe they revoked the
revoke, or borked the revoke, or revoked the bork... It makes my
head spin. Sometimes I wonder if Google should just start over and let us
have substrings and RegEx so we have a fighting chance of getting what we
need.
  #16  
Old March 6th 12, 10:58 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lostgallifreyan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,562
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Lostgallifreyan wrote in
:

.........So the moment that C
is explicitly requested with +C, there is something wrong if ZERO
results are returned. Plus operator or no plus operator, that's just
plain borked.


I say this because 'NO results' is so unlikely an outcome. Even if we assume
that the plus operator is revoked, and now treated as a literal character,
it's hard to beleive that in all of them thar interwebz, there isn't a single
typo to match it against, even in a 'limited' subset of 14000+ pages.

  #17  
Old March 7th 12, 03:41 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Franc Zabkar
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 1,702
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:49:05 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Franc Zabkar wrote in
news
c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
About 583,000,000 results

+c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert*

+c assign "1d array to 2d array"
No results found for +c assign "1d array to 2d array"


Actually, that's broken anyway! Using that specific quoted string alone
gets 14000+ results, some of the first-page ones specifically mentioning C!
But when I tried the string, and +C, I got no results even without the other
terms to restrict them.


I confess that I find Google's search algorithm incomprehensible also.

+C
About 13,100,000 results --- OK

"C"
About 25,270,000,000 results --- eh?

-C
Your search - -C - did not match any documents --- OK

+C -C
About 255,000 results --- eh?

BTW, I, too, thought that the plus operator had been withdrawn and
replaced by quotes.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
  #18  
Old March 7th 12, 04:41 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lostgallifreyan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,562
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Franc Zabkar wrote in
:

I confess that I find Google's search algorithm incomprehensible also.

+C
About 13,100,000 results --- OK

"C"
About 25,270,000,000 results --- eh?

-C
Your search - -C - did not match any documents --- OK

+C -C
About 255,000 results --- eh?

BTW, I, too, thought that the plus operator had been withdrawn and
replaced by quotes.


I think search engines are maybe all failing, because they all depend on
trying to filter the unfilterable.

Machines can't do this. When confronted by a page of 'posts' all cut crudely
out of a forum, snipped mid-word, no less, then pasted on a page with fake
names, only to fool Google into ranking it high so they can get people to
load them and see the ads on them, then even if Google use all kinds of fancy
heuristics, they will NOT eliminate this crap, and they aren't all that
interested in trying. They only do as much as to keep the masses from howling
at their incompetency. I suspect it IS a failure to grasp the complexity
adequately that causes them to return rediculous assessments of how many
pages have appropriate matches.

Giving us EXACT substring searches is the only sure way to prevent this, so
we can use OUR brains to filter what they evidently cannot and will not
filter. But they never give us that power, despite it being the easiest thing
code can do. They never will, because we are NOT meant to be given that kind
of power. We'd have had it long ago, as we do on our own machines, if they'd
ever intended to help us that much.

Tonight I found some quiet high SNR pages, mostly details of C and API
coding. I mostly got them from links they shared, not directly from Google,
once I'd got a hit mostly by luck. This was how the net use to be I think,
before search engines. You either knew where stuff was, or you didn't, and
web rings, links pages, kept a trail from one good place to another. If a
page was ****e, no-one bothered to tell anyone where it was.

I remember someone saying that search engines will never be a substitute for
a good library. At the time I didn't want to beleive that, I hoped the net
would be a better and faster source than any library, and I've known several
good town and city centre libraries to compare with, too. For a while it WAS
better, I could find more, better, and freer info on lasers and computers and
pretty much anything else than I ever found before. I think that's why it's
so disappointing now. The saturation has become so noisy that it's like
trying to watch TV through so much static it's hard to tell if the picture is
even in colour!

Those who hoarded good books were wise. There are several great sites on the
net, but I won't be relying on search engines to find them. From now on I'll
be saving links, and maybe asking the owners if I can download a lot of pages
for private storage, in case I can't reach them any other way. Places like
the 'Battery University', Sound.westhost.com, and such. Places that like
libraries had more answers than questions, until an enquiring mind came to
them. The internet is full of questions, mostly from UNinquiring minds.
Usenet is an oasis, but the web is becoming a desert. The more people fill it
the emptier it ghets, somehow.

I never thought I'd say this, but if there's to be a two-tier internet, bring
it on.
  #19  
Old March 7th 12, 09:54 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Robert Macy[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 92
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

On Mar 7, 8:41*am, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote :





I confess that I find Google's search algorithm incomprehensible also.


+C
About 13,100,000 results --- OK


"C"
About 25,270,000,000 results --- eh?


-C
Your search - -C - did not match any documents --- OK


+C -C
About 255,000 results --- eh?


BTW, I, too, thought that the plus operator had been withdrawn and
replaced by quotes.


I think search engines are maybe all failing, because they all depend on
trying to filter the unfilterable.

Machines can't do this. When confronted by a page of 'posts' all cut crudely
out of a forum, snipped mid-word, no less, then pasted on a page with fake
names, only to fool Google into ranking it high so they can get people to
load them and see the ads on them, then even if Google use all kinds of fancy
heuristics, they will NOT eliminate this crap, and they aren't all that
interested in trying. They only do as much as to keep the masses from howling
at their incompetency. I suspect it IS a failure to grasp the complexity
adequately that causes them to return rediculous assessments of how many
pages have appropriate matches.

Giving us EXACT substring searches is the only sure way to prevent this, so
we can use OUR brains to filter what they evidently cannot and will not
filter. But they never give us that power, despite it being the easiest thing
code can do. They never will, because we are NOT meant to be given that kind
of power. We'd have had it long ago, as we do on our own machines, if they'd
ever intended to help us that much.

Tonight I found some quiet high SNR pages, mostly details of C and API
coding. I mostly got them from links they shared, not directly from Google,
once I'd got a hit mostly by luck. This was how the net use to be I think,
before search engines. You either knew where stuff was, or you didn't, and
web rings, links pages, kept a trail from one good place to another. If a
page was ****e, no-one bothered to tell anyone where it was.

I remember someone saying that search engines will never be a substitute for
a good library. At the time I didn't want to beleive that, I hoped the net
would be a better and faster source than any library, and I've known several
good town and city centre libraries to compare with, too. For a while it WAS
better, I could find more, better, and freer info on lasers and computers and
pretty much anything else than I ever found before. I think that's why it's
so disappointing now. The saturation has become so noisy that it's like
trying to watch TV through so much static it's hard to tell if the picture is
even in colour!

Those who hoarded good books were wise. There are several great sites on the
net, but I won't be relying on search engines to find them. From now on I'll
be saving links, and maybe asking the owners if I can download a lot of pages
for private storage, in case I can't reach them any other way. Places like
the 'Battery University', Sound.westhost.com, and such. Places that like
libraries had more answers than questions, until an enquiring mind came to
them. The internet is full of questions, mostly from UNinquiring minds.
Usenet is an oasis, but the web is becoming a desert. The more people fill it
the emptier it ghets, somehow.

I never thought I'd say this, but if there's to be a two-tier internet, bring
it on.


ARRRRGGG!!!!

google just replaced my normal "Advanced Search" window with their new
one. I think they're taking lessons from Microsoft. They broke what
worked, and changed for no discernible reasons. Yet, I still get hits
on obsolete URLs, wish google would take care of that before mucking
about.

1.Their window used to fit in one screen shot, now have to scroll up
and down to complete entries and then search! Two motions for one
action!!!
2.Reduced number of listings per screen shot, don't see how to get
more than an incredibly small number of hits on a page! I used to be
able to get 100 entries on a single page, with that left I could then
go down through selecting ones to view separately. Now have to scroll
to new page, go back and forth between pages, etc, etc !!!
3.Entries require more typing than before, used to be able to fill in
a line labeled "exact phrase" with a string of words, and you were
done, now you must fill in the line with a string of words and then
have to add quote marks! absolutely NO reason for that! I used to add
quote marks on phrases to be included and did not mind adding quotes
to phrases, but this is stupiditiy!!!
  #20  
Old March 7th 12, 10:48 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Bill in Co
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 701
Default Off-topic Google-related rant.

Robert Macy wrote:
On Mar 7, 8:41 am, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote
:





I confess that I find Google's search algorithm incomprehensible also.


+C
About 13,100,000 results --- OK


"C"
About 25,270,000,000 results --- eh?


-C
Your search - -C - did not match any documents --- OK


+C -C
About 255,000 results --- eh?


BTW, I, too, thought that the plus operator had been withdrawn and
replaced by quotes.


I think search engines are maybe all failing, because they all depend on
trying to filter the unfilterable.

Machines can't do this. When confronted by a page of 'posts' all cut
crudely
out of a forum, snipped mid-word, no less, then pasted on a page with
fake
names, only to fool Google into ranking it high so they can get people to
load them and see the ads on them, then even if Google use all kinds of
fancy
heuristics, they will NOT eliminate this crap, and they aren't all that
interested in trying. They only do as much as to keep the masses from
howling
at their incompetency. I suspect it IS a failure to grasp the complexity
adequately that causes them to return rediculous assessments of how many
pages have appropriate matches.

Giving us EXACT substring searches is the only sure way to prevent this,
so
we can use OUR brains to filter what they evidently cannot and will not
filter. But they never give us that power, despite it being the easiest
thing
code can do. They never will, because we are NOT meant to be given that
kind
of power. We'd have had it long ago, as we do on our own machines, if
they'd
ever intended to help us that much.

Tonight I found some quiet high SNR pages, mostly details of C and API
coding. I mostly got them from links they shared, not directly from
Google,
once I'd got a hit mostly by luck. This was how the net use to be I
think,
before search engines. You either knew where stuff was, or you didn't,
and
web rings, links pages, kept a trail from one good place to another. If a
page was ****e, no-one bothered to tell anyone where it was.

I remember someone saying that search engines will never be a substitute
for
a good library. At the time I didn't want to beleive that, I hoped the
net
would be a better and faster source than any library, and I've known
several
good town and city centre libraries to compare with, too. For a while it
WAS
better, I could find more, better, and freer info on lasers and computers
and
pretty much anything else than I ever found before. I think that's why
it's
so disappointing now. The saturation has become so noisy that it's like
trying to watch TV through so much static it's hard to tell if the
picture is
even in colour!

Those who hoarded good books were wise. There are several great sites on
the
net, but I won't be relying on search engines to find them. From now on
I'll
be saving links, and maybe asking the owners if I can download a lot of
pages
for private storage, in case I can't reach them any other way. Places
like
the 'Battery University', Sound.westhost.com, and such. Places that like
libraries had more answers than questions, until an enquiring mind came
to
them. The internet is full of questions, mostly from UNinquiring minds.
Usenet is an oasis, but the web is becoming a desert. The more people
fill it
the emptier it ghets, somehow.

I never thought I'd say this, but if there's to be a two-tier internet,
bring
it on.


ARRRRGGG!!!!

google just replaced my normal "Advanced Search" window with their new
one. I think they're taking lessons from Microsoft. They broke what
worked, and changed for no discernible reasons. Yet, I still get hits
on obsolete URLs, wish google would take care of that before mucking
about.

1.Their window used to fit in one screen shot, now have to scroll up
and down to complete entries and then search! Two motions for one
action!!!


I agree, I do believe that has changed. :-)

2.Reduced number of listings per screen shot, don't see how to get
more than an incredibly small number of hits on a page! I used to be
able to get 100 entries on a single page, with that left I could then
go down through selecting ones to view separately. Now have to scroll
to new page, go back and forth between pages, etc, etc !!!


I only recall getting 10 entries per page. Not 100 or anything close to
that.

3.Entries require more typing than before, used to be able to fill in
a line labeled "exact phrase" with a string of words, and you were
done, now you must fill in the line with a string of words and then
have to add quote marks! absolutely NO reason for that! I used to add
quote marks on phrases to be included and did not mind adding quotes
to phrases, but this is stupiditiy!!!


Actually, I don't think you HAVE to type in the quotes, as long as you use
the exact phrase box. Test it for yourself. I did, and it seemed to work
fine without the quotes.


 




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