People who can't be bothered to use Google - Dud / Worse?

The internet is not always the place to go for information that's very obscure.

Entirely true, but one way to strengthen your BS detector is to wade through both the useful and the useless. After enough times you start getting a knack for quick evaluation of what you're reading and whether it's helpful or not.

I work with a woman who literally uses google to find "yahoo.com"

???

not true, the obscurer the info your after, the better the results. internet is crap at looking up mainstream information, because you don't get point of view and credits you get in a book

try coupling your search with names of critics you already trust and admire

say for example you are looking for academic info on djs: just type in djs and deleuze (haha)

No, they're just lazy scumfucks. (I have been plenty guilty of not using the Net to run a quick search myself, admittedly -- but unlike Chris's tormentors, I send my lazy scumfuck requests through e-mail. ;-))

Obviously "being interrupted for a trivial reason when you're working very hard" is a dud, but not being bothered to use Google is CLASSIQUE! Throw down your laptops!

Hurm.. If I see a closed door during work hours I interpret it as "person is not there" or "person is there but unavailable". Either way, you don't knock unless you've got a Really Good reason.

Feh. I suppose you rather have us go back to card catalogs too?

(Did he actually have a whole book on libraries, or do you mean the essay in The Size of Thoughts?)

That's one long ass article.

I knew I'd seen it somewhere

There are public libraries in DC, but they are largely crap.

The internet is not infallible, books aren't too, and films too ...

Google currently owns 50% of the Search Engine market which is too much, but they did set standards. MSN recently tried to buy Google but the asking price was 10 times what Overture paid for altavista so MS declined. They were pretty upset too, which has led them to the decision to make their own search and squash Google. Good luck MS! --source: MSN Belgium

If you want to make money on the internet, you have to play with Google. I have heard stories where a business was making 3700USD/month and then got dropped from Google. New revenues per month: near to zero/Month. Haha.

Another classic story: A business listed its competitor URL on a lot of messageboards, guestbooks, etcetera. Google considered this spam and the competitor was rewarded with a de-listing of its URL by this Google bomb.

then I remembered I don't remember napster. or audiogalaxy.

What do you mean by 'play with' and 'dropped by' here?

I agree completely!
I haven't found any other way of searching that works so fast and on such skimpy information. Where else can you type in "don't tell a lie, don't be false or untrue" and get the complete lyrics to a song you only dimly remember from high school? Where else can you type in the punchline of a favorite comic strip ("crazy Romans!") and view a .jpg seconds later? Where else can you type in the name of a band and get -- not only websites devoted to the band, but also websites that may help explain why the band chose that name ("Roswell Incident" for example). And if you spell something incorrectly, Google suggests possible alternatives (type in "Will Scarlt", for example, and it will say "do you mean "Will Scarlet", which you can then click on to see results -- no retyping!)

Ironically, it's when you're trying to find NOT-obscure stuff that Google isn't so good. (try searching for a particular website about Madonna, for example, and you'll have to do a lot of qualifying and narrowing down)

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> I want one, a real one, to keep my cds in. They are nowhere to be found

In the library where I work, we sold them off for $25 each when the card catalog was dismantled about ten years ago -- each catalog had about 50 drawers, very deep, and was made of solid wood with excellent drawer hardware that still slid smoothly after thousands of uses (my family bought three of them, but gave them away to a small private library that needed them).

It's because of this super-sturdy construction that you don't find REAL card catalogs for less than $200 anymore (forget the knock-offs -- the hardware is bad and the whole thing capsizes if too many drawers are pulled out at one time). Antique stores have snagged the real ones up mostly, realizing that there's a demand for them still -- not only from small private libraries that can afford to computerize, but also from people who collect silverware, or who create art, or who make window displays, or who just have a lot of small junk that they need to store somewhere.

Do try a Google search if/when you decide you can afford a card catalog -- just type in "card catalog" and "for sale", and see what happens! It should be an obscure enough search to give you some decent results. Good luck!

whoops! That should read "can't".

So he pulled up the Microsoft Search Engine (which I suspect was his home page) and typed in the word "Google".

This banker looks exactly like Chief Justice John Roberts.