something that's been bothering me more and more...
So. It's late night. And I'm tired, and going to bed. But I'm annoyed.
I'm searching for something on Google. And nevermind what it is right now, it could be anything, this has been happening more and more of late. I'm searching for something on Google. And after the obligatory wikipedia entry in the top 3 results, all the rest in the top 10 come back ".ca". or even more specific to where I live. Perhaps two out of the top 10 are even in my city.
"Big Whoop", you say. "you searched for information on something of local interest", you say.
(note: you may not be you, you. it may be that annoying guy who likes to pick holes in peoples conversations until they are meaningless drivel of exactly worded nothings... or it may be you after all, and you're just trying to understand. whichever.)
Searched for something of local interst did I? oh really, you fictional argumentative person. Just now I ran a test search for the word "library", and though "return results from in Canada" was specifically not checked, the top 9 (top 10 - the wikipedia entry) are all .ca. Some are california ".ca"s, but that really only makes me more suspicious. Like it's a badly thought out rule that's arbitrarily being enforced. Which is worse, really.
When searching "library" I am not unduly annoyed, since why would I search for libraries with Google without specifying a more specific search criteria. It's been creeping into other searches, however, and I'm not liking it. It... skews things. It's not a comfy feeling. I remember old old search engines, before the simple white Google page that gave ridiculous improbably results sometimes... and I miss them. I miss being able to abuse dumb programming to better give me what I want, instead of having dumber programming insist that it's clever enough to know what I want for me and try and give that to me no matter how much I abuse it. Those old-style searches wouldn't work these days, of course. They'd give back pages and pages of domains with "squatters pages" put up. Or ugly popup ridden holes from IP hell. But I don't like where we're at with search technology these days. I need an alternative.
Note: during all fo the above I am not officially signed in to the Gmail, Gblog, Gmap, Gpics, Gbooks, Gnonsense, and often I even cleared all cache, login, etc. from Firefox and I just went to google upon opening Firefox fresh. But my IP is still Canadian, of course, so I guess that's enough.
I'm searching for something on Google. And nevermind what it is right now, it could be anything, this has been happening more and more of late. I'm searching for something on Google. And after the obligatory wikipedia entry in the top 3 results, all the rest in the top 10 come back ".ca". or even more specific to where I live. Perhaps two out of the top 10 are even in my city.
"Big Whoop", you say. "you searched for information on something of local interest", you say.
(note: you may not be you, you. it may be that annoying guy who likes to pick holes in peoples conversations until they are meaningless drivel of exactly worded nothings... or it may be you after all, and you're just trying to understand. whichever.)
Searched for something of local interst did I? oh really, you fictional argumentative person. Just now I ran a test search for the word "library", and though "return results from in Canada" was specifically not checked, the top 9 (top 10 - the wikipedia entry) are all .ca. Some are california ".ca"s, but that really only makes me more suspicious. Like it's a badly thought out rule that's arbitrarily being enforced. Which is worse, really.
When searching "library" I am not unduly annoyed, since why would I search for libraries with Google without specifying a more specific search criteria. It's been creeping into other searches, however, and I'm not liking it. It... skews things. It's not a comfy feeling. I remember old old search engines, before the simple white Google page that gave ridiculous improbably results sometimes... and I miss them. I miss being able to abuse dumb programming to better give me what I want, instead of having dumber programming insist that it's clever enough to know what I want for me and try and give that to me no matter how much I abuse it. Those old-style searches wouldn't work these days, of course. They'd give back pages and pages of domains with "squatters pages" put up. Or ugly popup ridden holes from IP hell. But I don't like where we're at with search technology these days. I need an alternative.
Note: during all fo the above I am not officially signed in to the Gmail, Gblog, Gmap, Gpics, Gbooks, Gnonsense, and often I even cleared all cache, login, etc. from Firefox and I just went to google upon opening Firefox fresh. But my IP is still Canadian, of course, so I guess that's enough.