4 ms·

Look at how much the results change based on small changes to the input. Type three letters in a name and get a lot of things that aren't what you want. Type th

Look at how much the results change based on small changes to the input. Type three letters in a name and get a lot of things that aren't what you want. Type the fourth letter and the exact thing you're looking for jumps to the top. But if you add the fifth letter it goes away. I feel like it's trying to be too clever or, because it assumes the input is coming from voice recognition, it doesn't trust that what you typed is actually what you "said". So instead of compensating for potentially mistyped queries it searches for results that are nearby in audible space.

tanseydavid 7y ago
Thanks to both of you for mentioning this. Every time I encounter this strange behavior in WIN10 -- I am so dumbstruck by it each time it still feels like it must have been a "glitch-in-the-matrix". I mean, because no one would really release software like that, would they? At least not a multi-billion software behemoth like MS? Right? </sarc>
- desc 7y ago
  I know why this happens. It happens because someone doesn't understand that search rankings vs. queries have to have a 'smooth' solution, and thinks they can tweak a few weightings here and there to get the results they think are 'correct' for the very specific cases they have in mind, without realising that this has a knock-on effect on the entire scoring space and you get odd singularities and stuff popping up as a result. The people in question should not be touching anything even distantly related to a computer in any professional context.
  - mattmanser 7y ago
    I try not to say things like that anymore, you've never met the person and have no idea of the context or their skills. Could be that they were forced to change it at the 11th hour just before Windows 10 was being demo'd and it was never changed back. Could be a committee decision. Could be the programmer hated the surveillance installed by MS and so deliberately made the search bad.
    - desc 7y ago
      The 'someone' in question probably wasn't the engineer. I'd bet the engineer was listening to the 'someone' saying things like 'why don't you just' or 'it just needs to do this', or other things including the word 'just'. I'd bet the engineer tried to explain the realities of how this stuff works, to 'someone' who's job didn't involve understanding what they were asking for, and reacted by demanding with the word 'just' instead of pretending to ask.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    It goes far beyond weightings, things will be completely missing with no reason.
irascible 7y ago
Yeah it really is insane. I have folders where I will be looking at the file and no search expression will show it. It has been like that for a while. Stunningly bad.
macleginn 7y ago
Windows is not the only culprit here: https://imgur.com/gallery/GlmEheS https://imgur.com/gallery/GlmEheS

tanseydavid 7y ago

Thanks to both of you for mentioning this. Every time I encounter this strange behavior in WIN10 -- I am so dumbstruck by it each time it still feels like it must have been a "glitch-in-the-matrix". I mean, because no one would really release software like that, would they? At least not a multi-billion software behemoth like MS? Right? </sarc>

desc 7y ago
I know why this happens. It happens because someone doesn't understand that search rankings vs. queries have to have a 'smooth' solution, and thinks they can tweak a few weightings here and there to get the results they think are 'correct' for the very specific cases they have in mind, without realising that this has a knock-on effect on the entire scoring space and you get odd singularities and stuff popping up as a result. The people in question should not be touching anything even distantly related to a computer in any professional context.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  I try not to say things like that anymore, you've never met the person and have no idea of the context or their skills. Could be that they were forced to change it at the 11th hour just before Windows 10 was being demo'd and it was never changed back. Could be a committee decision. Could be the programmer hated the surveillance installed by MS and so deliberately made the search bad.
  - desc 7y ago
    The 'someone' in question probably wasn't the engineer. I'd bet the engineer was listening to the 'someone' saying things like 'why don't you just' or 'it just needs to do this', or other things including the word 'just'. I'd bet the engineer tried to explain the realities of how this stuff works, to 'someone' who's job didn't involve understanding what they were asking for, and reacted by demanding with the word 'just' instead of pretending to ask.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  It goes far beyond weightings, things will be completely missing with no reason.

irascible 7y ago

Yeah it really is insane. I have folders where I will be looking at the file and no search expression will show it. It has been like that for a while. Stunningly bad.

macleginn 7y ago

Windows is not the only culprit here: https://imgur.com/gallery/GlmEheS https://imgur.com/gallery/GlmEheS