• [OT] Google search

    From Simon Clubley@21:1/5 to Dan Cross on Thu May 16 12:17:42 2024
    On 2024-05-15, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

    Consider, instead, Google search. If you go to `google.com`,
    you actually get a pretty simple interface: right now, for me,
    it's just the Google logo, a text box, and a few buttons. I
    enter my search term into the text box and click "Google Search"
    and off I go. But! When I click that button, I am one of many
    millions of users in that same second simultaneously clicking
    that button; in order to serve all of those users
    simultaneously, there is an enormous pile of resources sitting
    behind that simple web page that lets it scale. And when I
    say enormous, I mean enormous: O(10^6) individual servers with
    O(10^7) CPUs and many petabytes of RAM total, exabytes of
    stable storabe, and terrabits of network bandwidth all
    connecting them, in a constellation of globally distributed
    data centers often built to be near redundant, high-capacity
    electricity sources (i.e., built near a dam, say).


    If Google search gets any worse, that problem will end up solving
    itself as people stop using it.

    For goodness sake, a Russian search engine (Yandex) currently gives
    me far higher quality search results for a number of things than
    Google currently does.

    I try Google first, and then try Yandex second if I don't find it on Google.

    At the rate things are going, that order of searching is going to be
    reversed as over the last few years Google search results have turned
    from specific high-quality results into utter generic crap.

    Simon.

    --
    Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
    Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

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  • From Dan Cross@21:1/5 to clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org- on Thu May 16 14:26:49 2024
    In article <v24th6$1i7qe$1@dont-email.me>,
    Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
    On 2024-05-15, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

    Consider, instead, Google search. If you go to `google.com`,
    you actually get a pretty simple interface: right now, for me,
    it's just the Google logo, a text box, and a few buttons. I
    enter my search term into the text box and click "Google Search"
    and off I go. But! When I click that button, I am one of many
    millions of users in that same second simultaneously clicking
    that button; in order to serve all of those users
    simultaneously, there is an enormous pile of resources sitting
    behind that simple web page that lets it scale. And when I
    say enormous, I mean enormous: O(10^6) individual servers with
    O(10^7) CPUs and many petabytes of RAM total, exabytes of
    stable storabe, and terrabits of network bandwidth all
    connecting them, in a constellation of globally distributed
    data centers often built to be near redundant, high-capacity
    electricity sources (i.e., built near a dam, say).


    If Google search gets any worse, that problem will end up solving
    itself as people stop using it.

    For goodness sake, a Russian search engine (Yandex) currently gives
    me far higher quality search results for a number of things than
    Google currently does.

    I try Google first, and then try Yandex second if I don't find it on Google.

    At the rate things are going, that order of searching is going to be
    reversed as over the last few years Google search results have turned
    from specific high-quality results into utter generic crap.

    This may be true, but it very much misses the forest for the
    trees. Do you think that Yandex, as a service, is administered
    is very much different in how it scales and how the
    infrastructure is built out? Or Azure, Meta, AWS, etc? Ali
    Baba?

    It's all well and good to gripe over the state of "things these
    days" over a beer or two. It's another thing entirely to ignore
    the reality of modern systems and their scale requirements and
    chalk it all up to people just not knowing what they're doing.

    - Dan C.

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  • From John Dallman@21:1/5 to Simon Clubley on Thu May 16 17:48:00 2024
    In article <v24th6$1i7qe$1@dont-email.me>, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:

    At the rate things are going, that order of searching is going to be
    reversed as over the last few years Google search results have
    turned from specific high-quality results into utter generic crap.

    Google.com or .co.uk? I'm finding .co.uk is pretty decent, at least for
    the present.

    John

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  • From Chris Townley@21:1/5 to John Dallman on Thu May 16 19:23:43 2024
    On 16/05/2024 17:48, John Dallman wrote:
    In article <v24th6$1i7qe$1@dont-email.me>, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:

    At the rate things are going, that order of searching is going to be
    reversed as over the last few years Google search results have
    turned from specific high-quality results into utter generic crap.

    Google.com or .co.uk? I'm finding .co.uk is pretty decent, at least for
    the present.

    John

    As with any search engine, a lot depends on what you put in!

    Better than searching the VSI forum. Everything seems to be common to be
    used as a search term ;(

    --
    Chris

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  • From Simon Clubley@21:1/5 to John Dallman on Thu May 16 18:20:48 2024
    On 2024-05-16, John Dallman <jgd@cix.co.uk> wrote:
    In article <v24th6$1i7qe$1@dont-email.me>, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:

    At the rate things are going, that order of searching is going to be
    reversed as over the last few years Google search results have
    turned from specific high-quality results into utter generic crap.

    Google.com or .co.uk? I'm finding .co.uk is pretty decent, at least for
    the present.


    .co.uk.

    I suppose it depends on the kind of thing you are looking for.

    For technical examples, one issue is that way too often I get third-party
    pages talking about standards/specifications instead of the standards or specifications themselves.

    For one recent non-work example, I was looking for some latest
    examples of Sci-Fi short films that I had not yet seen.

    [This is longer than I intended sorry, but it's a really good example of something popular that Google covers very poorly.]

    For some background, there is an incredibly talented large community
    of people who produce short films on various themes and then post them
    to Youtube for everyone to watch for free. They are produced on a small
    budget, but are produced to high standards, and are far more creative
    than the mainstream junk you see these days. For examples, see Laboratory Conditions, Oceanus, etc, and the suggested viewing list alongside them:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_9YnTDR-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N25e4Ss34Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk6KKMZcK94

    [WARNING: you may not like the subject matter in the second one, but it's
    a good jumping off point to other shorts. What they all have in common is
    that they expose you to new storylines you don't see in mainstream films.]

    The DUST channel contains a good selection of these but there are many
    others, far too many to keep track of other than by searching. I keep
    getting utter junk back from Google or old very popular shorts I have
    already seen.

    I mention all this, because given just how massive this whole shorts community/culture is, I would have thought it would be a _lot_ easier
    to find new shorts via Google than it currently is.

    It makes me wonder what else Google is making an utter mess-up of.

    Simon.

    --
    Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
    Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

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  • From Chris Townley@21:1/5 to Simon Clubley on Thu May 16 19:25:22 2024
    On 16/05/2024 19:20, Simon Clubley wrote:

    It makes me wonder what else Google is making an utter mess-up of.

    Simon.


    I quite like Google

    --
    Chris

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