Recently in Searching online Category

A tantrum:

Why, oh why, can I not convince my coworkers and friends that they shouldn't just forward messages telling them to forward to all their friends, not without looking them up first?

I keep telling them about Snopes.com, and they nod their heads, and then the next stupid "warning" message that comes along, they just forward it to half their addressbook. I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.

It's not computer programming, people. It's not even trying to figure out how to record something on your VCR (I find that daunting, actually). You just go to a website and type a word or two into a searchbox. Not real difficult, not a lengthy process.

Snopes.com Bookmark it. Please?

I'm sitting listening to "Big Eddie" on 960 AM and he just mentioned the list of states ordered by IQ, and how the states with lower average IQs voted for Bush, and the higher-IQ'd states voted for Kerry... total horseshit, of course.

It really bugs me... not so much that someone would play that prank (which it is), but that so many people earnestly want to believe it, and so they do.

Thanks guys, but I'd prefer not to give the conservatives any more ammo for their accusations that liberals are condescending!

And remember, snopes.com is your friend!

So my last trip to Toronto, I picked up this excellent first novel by a Canadian author. I'm heading back to Toronto tomorrow, but sadly, the title and author both eluded my tired brain... I could only recall the overall themes and the name of one of the characters. Not to worry. Typing

canadian novel artist ireland molly

into Google got me my answer in the first result: Martin Sloane: A Novel by Michael Redhill.

(And visiting Indigo/Chapter's website confirmed that he has a book of short stories out now.)

Was talking to a friend who had heard comparisons of Bush's contentious winning of the presidency to Hitler's rise to power. So I did a quick search online and found this. This guy has been writing an online history book. (Click on his biography too — what a crazy life!)

I so rock. OK, well, maybe Google does, rather than me, but so what. Anyway, the point is, I was listening to This American Life on NPR yesterday, and they had a piece by this guy who did a graphic novel all about this relationship he'd had. He read a poignant episode in which he watches his girlfriend take a bath (Michael thought the guy was a little obsessive.) Anyway, I was curious and wanted to find the book, but I forgot the title. First I tried the show's website, but they didn't have anything about it, and the audio wasn't archived yet. Then I tried Google Groups to see if anyone had talked about the program, but no dice.

Finally, in desperation, I tried the following in Google:

"graphic novel" relationship girlfriend

Tenth item on the page was this:
www.artic.edu/webspaces/fnews/2002-may/mayreviews2.html

The book is called "Clumsy". Success!

So I've had this idea for a while of documenting my searches... when I find something online, actually recording the process, so I can explain to other people how I look things up and what my thought process is. I dunno. Maybe it's valuable, maybe it's just a vanity exercise. But it will help me remember how I do this.

So tonight somebody on my mailing list was looking for the font that they use on the cover of the Harry Potter books.

I fired up Google, naturally, and tried:

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" artwork

No luck. Too many pages about nothing in particular. Thank you for playing. Try again.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" font

Netted me poorly coded web pages in which the font tag was showing up.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" typeface

Better, but not quite right.

"Harry Potter cover" typeface

Shoot, no results whatsoever.

"Harry Potter" typeface

Aha! Eighth item down the page is:

www.dj-root.com/fonts.shtml

I've always liked About.com...I mean, I love Google, and I search them religiously, but everytime I've wanted to do a general overview of a topic, particularly health-related, I've found that an edited catalogue of links was better. Yahoo? Well, while I find I visit a Yahoo site more and more...it ain't for their catalogue, which seems to be increasingly disorganized. (Everyone wants to be listed in the top level of each category, which kinda defeats the purpose.)In particular, I rely on About.com's Urban Legends section, where I look up every cyber-rumor and chain spam. In the wake of last week's tragedies, there have been plenty of them, and they've come through again:urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa091101a.htm