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#1
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
Excerpt from an email I just sent...
c "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 1,780 results (0.06 seconds) c AND assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 497,000,000 results (0.29 seconds) c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 501,000,000 results (0.07 seconds) I already mentioned that the AND operator was implicit, and as the results show, the difference is small. Relatively so, anyway! An AND operator is supposed to LIMIT the field. Did those result counts look ANYTHING like limiting to you?! (The guy I sent it to had told me a couple of weeks back that the words in Google were implicit OR combinations, but any look at http://www.google.com/advanced_search will show it ain't so. You have to EXplicitly do OR between words if you want that. But clearly he CAN be forgiven for his error of judgement given what Google ACTUALLY do when we EXPLICITLY demand a logical AND, or use the impl;icit one, to limit the results. Is this deliberate, or just plain indolent broken lunacy?! If anyone can explain this Google madness, please do. |
#2
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Excerpt from an email I just sent... c "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 1,780 results (0.06 seconds) c AND assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 497,000,000 results (0.29 seconds) c assign "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 501,000,000 results (0.07 seconds) I already mentioned that the AND operator was implicit, and as the results show, the difference is small. Relatively so, anyway! An AND operator is supposed to LIMIT the field. Did those result counts look ANYTHING like limiting to you?! (The guy I sent it to had told me a couple of weeks back that the words in Google were implicit OR combinations, but any look at http://www.google.com/advanced_search will show it ain't so. You have to EXplicitly do OR between words if you want that. But clearly he CAN be forgiven for his error of judgement given what Google ACTUALLY do when we EXPLICITLY demand a logical AND, or use the impl;icit one, to limit the results. Is this deliberate, or just plain indolent broken lunacy?! If anyone can explain this Google madness, please do. I'm not sure what you're getting at. I looked at the Advanced Google search page and ALLof these options are available in different text boxes, plus an "exact phrase" box, or "none of these words", to boot. The only thing weird to me is that in the box titled "Any Of These Words", you are supposed to explicitly type in an OR between all the words you want - but that shouldn't be necessary, by definition. What happens if you use the non-advanced (basic) Google search box and type in a bunch of terms? I believe it defaults to an AND condition (ALL terms must appear) - as expected. (And NOT an OR condition, which would be wrong). |
#3
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
In message , Bill in Co
writes: [] What happens if you use the non-advanced (basic) Google search box and type in a bunch of terms? I believe it defaults to an AND condition (ALL terms must appear) - as expected. (And NOT an OR condition, which would be wrong). I think it does an OR, but weights the results such that ones with all of your words are listed first, then most, and so on. And given the number of hits usually returned (unless you're googlewhacking), that can usually make it _look_ as if it's using AND. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "The people here are more educated and intelligent. Even stupid people in Britain are smarter than Americans." Madonna, in RT 30 June-6July 2001 (page 32) |
#4
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in
: In message , Bill in Co writes: [] What happens if you use the non-advanced (basic) Google search box and type in a bunch of terms? I believe it defaults to an AND condition (ALL terms must appear) - as expected. (And NOT an OR condition, which would be wrong). I think it does an OR, but weights the results such that ones with all of your words are listed first, then most, and so on. And given the number of hits usually returned (unless you're googlewhacking), that can usually make it _look_ as if it's using AND. Doesn't really matter, they cook the books with so many secret algorithms, and fail to grant us so much as an exact substring search (making it TOTALLY useless to search for coding stuff like "\\\\.\\IOS" or "assert(io.open(" for specific and useful occurences of real working code). It's so screwed up now that 'logic' just ceases to apply at all! Technically, it ought to, the FIRST thing everyone knows, and sees, is that the main idea (and as is explicitly stated for the top field in advanced search), is ALL OF THE WORDS. Now in what insane dictionary does this NOT mean AND? If I search for the words Yorkshire Terrier, I expect to get Yorkshire Terrier plus several terriers, presumably in or related to Yorkshire in some sort of context even if they aren't Yorkshire terriers. This is so basic that it SHOULD NOT FAIL. If we assume that Yorkshire gets X results, and terrier gets Y results, then specifying both words in an ALL THE WORDS search will only get the same value for X and Y if every page on (Google's cache of) the internet with Yorkshire also contains the word terrier! In practise, the combined result must be smaller than the lowest value, be it X or Y, given that Yorhire is about a tad more than terriers. And it will NEVER get more than the highest value of the two, let alone TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES MORE, which is the kind of ludicrous ratio I was seeing. Tonight I discovered a search engine with the silliest name in the world, DuckDuckGo. But it seems to work, and ap[parently it's winnign people over, and keeping them. I only heard of it tonight, but it's been around well over a year. Its hit rate for things related to C (as opposed to C++, C drive, C++, C#, C shore, and C yourbleedingmama) was amazing. Surprisingly high SNR, and apparently some genuinely innovative and useful methods that its users can't get enough of. Google WAS like that, maybe 15 years ago, but not now. |
#5
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in
: I think it does an OR, but weights the results such that ones with all of your words are listed first, then most, and so on. And given the number of hits usually returned (unless you're googlewhacking), that can usually make it _look_ as if it's using AND. One of my results was from an EXPLICIT AND. Which it ignored, of course. Actually, it got slightly more than the half billion, instead of slightly less. I read tonight of one person (one amongst many) saying they'd gone back to Google 'because it was fast'. So is the average down-town dreckburger, but I'd rather not eat it. It's not as if I'm the first to want better, either, when I went looking, I saw several who thought they'd found it, and were still there a year later! |
#6
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
"Bill in Co" wrote in
: I'm not sure what you're getting at. I looked at the Advanced Google search page and ALLof these options are available in different text boxes, plus an "exact phrase" box, or "none of these words", to boot. They appear to be avaliable, but are they? There is such a thing as 'fuzzy logic', but with Google it's turned to mush, total vapourware. The only thing weird to me is that in the box titled "Any Of These Words", you are supposed to explicitly type in an OR between all the words you want - but that shouldn't be necessary, by definition. Each box is basically a way to let people get the advanced search without the direct methods. As follows.. First, know that the top box (All the words) in advanced search is actually the same as the single search field on the main page, you can use the same methods there, to invoke the behaviours of the other boxes on advanced search. Specifically, in 'Any of the words', you can say Yorkshire terrier, and it will get you the sum of pages with yorkshire, plus sum of those with terrier, minus sum of those with both. In other words, OR, as if you had written Yorkshire OR terrier in the main box. (They don't state the OR is required in the 'any of the words' field on advanced search, that's just what you have to do in the main field). Similar logic applies to exact phrases. You can say Yorkshire terrier in that one on advanced, but obviously in the main field it must be done "Yorkshire terrier". What happens if you use the non-advanced (basic) Google search box and type in a bunch of terms? I believe it defaults to an AND condition (ALL terms must appear) - as expected. (And NOT an OR condition, which would be wrong). Exactly so, And you're right. (But you did see the insane results count that I got, the moment I added the word 'assign' to a simple default AND-based search?). Suppose you want to diagnose a condition quickly enough so you can decide whether or not to justify a car drive to a hospital. (I'm assuming it's not so urgent that an ambulance is needed). You might have two symptoms, headache, and fever. Obviously, differential diagnosis being what it is, you should be able to NARROW the field if you get a couple more symptoms. BUT NOT WITH GOOGLE. Which means that as its basic level, it is a disgrace, more intent on gathering data and throwing spam from content mills like Ehow.com at us, along with the rest of the garbage exhorting us to do anything but what we need to do, than actually DOING what we need to do. Never mind that Google aren't charging us, this is so damn stupid that if we don;t look, think, question, and perhaps vote with our (digital) feet, we deserve all the **** we get. The heap grows higher and deeper year on year, and NOT ONCE did they ever offer an exact substring search that woudl allow fast and easy precision to anyone who knew what they were looking for. Learning from what Google finds is like trying to study in a bus station on Christmas eve. The number of alternative search engines appears to be growing fast, after having shrunk for some years. That clearly means that some people are serious doing something about this now. Maybe some search engine SHOULD charge, that way we might get some chance at one fulfilling of a contractual obligation to its users. |
#7
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
On Mar 4, 8:16*pm, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Excerpt from an email I just sent... c "1d array to 2d array" -convert* About 1,780 results (0.06 seconds) c AND assign "1d array to 2d array" *-convert* About 497,000,000 results (0.29 seconds) c assign "1d array to 2d array" *-convert* About 501,000,000 results (0.07 seconds) I already mentioned that the AND operator was implicit, and as the results show, the difference is small. Relatively so, anyway! An AND operator is supposed to LIMIT the field. Did those result counts look ANYTHING like limiting to you?! (The guy I sent it to had told me a couple of weeks back that the words in Google were implicit OR combinations, but any look athttp://www.google.com/advanced_searchwill show it ain't so. You have to EXplicitly do OR between words if you want that. But clearly he CAN be forgiven for his error of judgement given what Google ACTUALLY do when we EXPLICITLY demand a logical AND, or use the impl;icit one, to limit the results. Is this deliberate, or just plain indolent broken lunacy?! If anyone can explain this Google madness, please do. for me, seemes to default to OR but, when added " " are there *and* google finds little info, they tend to ignore the " " marks and give you all 3,000,000 results At the top of that resulting list, is a little request to CLICK on and do the search the way you intended. Then, for me, it usually comes back and says 0 results. thus, the reason for google to change what I asked for. |
#8
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
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#9
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
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#10
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Off-topic Google-related rant.
Lostgallifreyan wrote in
: I think the most sensible one I know of so far has the silliest name (DuckDuckGo), but I could live with that. To be fair, Ask.com's not too shabby either. |
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