Talk about just about anything else that is non-gaming here, but keep it clean
User avatar
marurun
Moderator
 
Posts: 11964
Joined: Sat May 06, 2006 8:51 am
Location: Cleveland, OH

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by marurun Fri May 13, 2022 3:18 pm

I'm a systems librarian and given how much work I invest in the tools we provide so that our users can find information for themselves, these "automated" tools that propose to answer questions for people are laughably ill-designed and ill-equipped to do just that. And that's not even accounting the decline in search accuracy (in favor of base appeasement) seen in recent years in Google and Bing.
Dope Pope on a Rope
B/S/T thread
My Classic Games Collection
My Steam Profile
The PC Engine Software Bible Forum, with Shoutbox chat - the new Internet home for PC Engine fandom.
Limewater
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 3341
Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:01 am
Location: Northern Alabama

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by Limewater Fri May 13, 2022 3:41 pm

marurun wrote:And that's not even accounting the decline in search accuracy (in favor of base appeasement) seen in recent years in Google and Bing.


Can you clarify what you mean by "base appeasement" in this context?

I think my only big, regular frustration with search engines is when I start looking for information on some obscure technical problem I am trying to solve but I just get drowned in thousands and thousands of results with the solution to a much simpler problem that involves all of the same key words.
Systems: TI-99/4a, Commodore Vic-20, Atari 2600, NES, SMS, GB, Neo Geo MVS (Big Red 4-slot), Genesis, SNES, 3DO, PS1, N64, DC, PS2, GBA, GCN, NDSi, Wii
User avatar
marurun
Moderator
 
Posts: 11964
Joined: Sat May 06, 2006 8:51 am
Location: Cleveland, OH

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by marurun Fri May 13, 2022 4:10 pm

Limewater wrote:
marurun wrote:And that's not even accounting the decline in search accuracy (in favor of base appeasement) seen in recent years in Google and Bing.


Can you clarify what you mean by "base appeasement" in this context?


The goal of the Google search engine is to provide you with search results that are interesting, and to try to always return something. Google frequently drops search terms and performs fuzzy matches. It's trying so hard to be "helpful" and provide searchers with something, anything, that it sacrifices actual accuracy in results. I am constantly frustrated by searches where I should receive nothing or very few results and instead I get lots of completely unrelated content because Google is playing fast and loose with my search terms. Google also has, over the years, removed tools to perform advanced searches, by removing some boolean logic or treating it as optional.
Dope Pope on a Rope
B/S/T thread
My Classic Games Collection
My Steam Profile
The PC Engine Software Bible Forum, with Shoutbox chat - the new Internet home for PC Engine fandom.
User avatar
o.pwuaioc
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8369
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:59 pm
Location: I miss NYC already.

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by o.pwuaioc Fri May 13, 2022 9:05 pm

marurun wrote:
Limewater wrote:
marurun wrote:And that's not even accounting the decline in search accuracy (in favor of base appeasement) seen in recent years in Google and Bing.


Can you clarify what you mean by "base appeasement" in this context?


The goal of the Google search engine is to provide you with search results that are interesting, and to try to always return something. Google frequently drops search terms and performs fuzzy matches. It's trying so hard to be "helpful" and provide searchers with something, anything, that it sacrifices actual accuracy in results. I am constantly frustrated by searches where I should receive nothing or very few results and instead I get lots of completely unrelated content because Google is playing fast and loose with my search terms. Google also has, over the years, removed tools to perform advanced searches, by removing some boolean logic or treating it as optional.

The only thing Google still does decent is Gmail. Everything else that used to be good is actually garbage. Besides the problems with Search, Drive is the slowest at uploading, Maps is terribly slow at loading and contains numerous inaccuracies (and complicit in population displacement and gentrification), Chrome is a memory hog, Hangouts can't figure out what it is, Calendar and Duo lacks functionality, the Pixel is overpriced and underdelivers, Books' new layout just sucks, even their logos are bad.

Email is the last thing I still use by Google, and I only continue since I've been using my address for years. But I've already started moving my stuff over to other addresses, so soon even that will be no more.
User avatar
Gucci
64-bit
 
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:33 am
Location: The City of New York

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by Gucci Fri May 13, 2022 10:09 pm

Google Earth is still pretty cool. I like visiting places all over the world!
I own too many hoodies jackets hoodies and DS games and I’m not ashamed!
User avatar
RCBH928
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 6037
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 6:40 am

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by RCBH928 Sat May 14, 2022 2:34 am

o.pwuaioc wrote: The only thing Google still does decent is Gmail. Everything else that used to be good is actually garbage. Besides the problems with Search, Drive is the slowest at uploading, Maps is terribly slow at loading and contains numerous inaccuracies (and complicit in population displacement and gentrification), Chrome is a memory hog, Hangouts can't figure out what it is, Calendar and Duo lacks functionality, the Pixel is overpriced and underdelivers, Books' new layout just sucks, even their logos are bad.

Email is the last thing I still use by Google, and I only continue since I've been using my address for years. But I've already started moving my stuff over to other addresses, so soon even that will be no more.


What have you replaced them with? Some for me (and other options)
Gmail = ProtonMail (there is fastmail, mailbox.org, startmail, fastmail)
Drive = I don't really use it but a little bit iCloud but filen.io and mega.io I hear are good. There is dropbox and Box.com
Maps = I think the best maps are Google maps but duckduckgo uses Apple maps, OsmAnd and MagicEarth.
Chrome = Brave (Chrome without Google code) and FireFox.
YouTube= utreon, Odysee, Rumble... No one as good as YouTube but its an option.

Hangouts seems to be discontinued.
Last edited by RCBH928 on Sat May 14, 2022 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
RCBH928
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 6037
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 6:40 am

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by RCBH928 Sat May 14, 2022 2:39 am

marurun wrote:I'm a systems librarian and given how much work I invest in the tools we provide so that our users can find information for themselves, these "automated" tools that propose to answer questions for people are laughably ill-designed and ill-equipped to do just that. And that's not even accounting the decline in search accuracy (in favor of base appeasement) seen in recent years in Google and Bing.


Well, a human consultant is always better, but you can't keep asking a human tens of questions everyday at least not for free (not to mention the mass amount of online users per consultant). These engines are more like dipping your feet into the topic. You say you provide tools so the user can find information for themselves , how are they different from Google or these automated tools?


marurun wrote:The goal of the Google search engine is to provide you with search results that are interesting, and to try to always return something. Google frequently drops search terms and performs fuzzy matches. It's trying so hard to be "helpful" and provide searchers with something, anything, that it sacrifices actual accuracy in results. I am constantly frustrated by searches where I should receive nothing or very few results and instead I get lots of completely unrelated content because Google is playing fast and loose with my search terms. Google also has, over the years, removed tools to perform advanced searches, by removing some boolean logic or treating it as optional.


I kind of do not blame them. They are probably catering for the vast majority, and trust me on this the vast majority are no where computer literate no matter how much you think they can use a computer. For example, I once saw a person who use a Windows daily and when he used an Android tablet, he wasn't aware this was a different OS he thought it was GUI customization. So the "bad" for you is probably what works for the majority. I once heard a guy installed an adblocker and his wife complained that the google ads were gone and asked to bring them back!


Limewater wrote:I think my only big, regular frustration with search engines is when I start looking for information on some obscure technical problem I am trying to solve but I just get drowned in thousands and thousands of results with the solution to a much simpler problem that involves all of the same key words.


Try a different search type. Give Andi I linked above a shot(I know I said it answers question but it does web search too), or the new Brave Search see if it works better for you. They kind of search for websites usually not promoted by Google+Bing. There is also a new service called Kagi.com I hear programmers are happy with its results its free now but soon will be paid. It uses Google+Bing+their own enginge. See if it works for you.

Personally, Google has a lot of spam, convoluted GUI, and SEO stuff but there is always there. 99% Google will get it and the other might not.
User avatar
o.pwuaioc
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8369
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:59 pm
Location: I miss NYC already.

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by o.pwuaioc Sat May 14, 2022 11:28 am

RCBH928 wrote:What have you replaced them with?

I will note that no replacement is perfect, but they are getting better, while Google, which was once amazing, is now getting worse.

Gmail = ProtonMail (there is fastmail, mailbox.org, startmail, fastmail)

Yeah, I've been switching to ProtonMail for everything. The only thing I don't love is that the app is super slow for some reason. It takes a long time to fetch mail.

Drive = I don't really use it but a little bit iCloud but filen.io and mega.io I hear are good. There is dropbox and Box.com

I use a combination of Dropbox and pcloud. I still use Google Drive if I need a quick collaborative document, but I'll switch if I need to make extensive use of it. The two that's been on my radar are ClickUp and Zoho. No idea if they're any good in practice, though.

Maps = I think the best maps are Google maps but duckduckgo uses Apple maps, OsmAnd and MagicEarth.

Not sure about Maps, but if anyone has a better alternative, I'd appreciate it.

Chrome = Brave (Chrome without Google code) and FireFox.

Definitely Firefox for me. I use Chromium for those few sites that were built exclusively with Chrome in mind, but otherwise Firefox works fine for me 99.9% of the time. I don't have anything against Brave, but I just found it unnecessary with Firefox and Chromium.

YouTube= utreon, Odysee, Rumble... No one as good as YouTube but its an option.

I don't make extensive use of Google except to find new music quickly and easily. It gets a lot of hate, but I still find the experience to be fine (except for awful content-suggestions). So I guess that's three: Gmail, World (as Note says), and Youtube. But I don't use it as much as others (and never on my phone).

Hangouts seems to be discontinued.

They moved to Google Chat two years ago and now they're trying to do something different still. It's so frustrating, and there's literally just two people with whom I use it now, so it's largely deprecated for me.
User avatar
opa
128-bit
 
Posts: 991
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 11:25 am

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by opa Sat May 14, 2022 12:27 pm

My browsers: chrome (windows), chromium (linux), duckduckgo (mobile). Chrome is a resource hog but I put up with it for now. I don't use Windows a whole lot.
User avatar
o.pwuaioc
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8369
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:59 pm
Location: I miss NYC already.

Re: Random Thoughts Thread

by o.pwuaioc Sat May 14, 2022 2:37 pm

opa wrote:My browsers: chrome (windows), chromium (linux), duckduckgo (mobile). Chrome is a resource hog but I put up with it for now. I don't use Windows a whole lot.

Linux all the way! If you ever want to return to the fold, I think you'll find that Firefox on Linux is much, much improved than it was even 5 years ago.

I didn't realize you used Linux, too, but I see your Chromebook thread now. There's now at least a half of a half of a dozen of us here!
Return to Off-Topic / Whatever

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests