4 ms·

(I misunderstood your comment initially so corrected this sentence) The problem is that the sentence is typo'd so searching for the exact quote (not keywords) d

by _23sd 4y ago

(I misunderstood your comment initially so corrected this sentence) The problem is that the sentence is typo'd so searching for the exact quote (not keywords) doesn't work correctly. For the record the actual quote is: >With a terminal, you were never more than a question or a shout away from almost anything you wanted to know, or almost any help you could possibly need When you Google that in quotes you get actual results from Google Books and Goodreads, while Bing/DuckDuckGo only returns an archive from a random blog that quotes it halfway down the page, and the new hot search engine Brave finds nothing. I agree it's a little disappointing that one mistaken word throws Google so far off the trail.

solveit 4y ago
> I agree it's a little disappointing that one mistaken word throws Google so far off the trail. But can you imagine the aggravation if Google chooses to do the opposite and 'helpfully' 'corrects' your quotes for you? Actually I am not sure I have to imagine...
- _23sd 4y ago
  Definitely hands off my quote searches, but one might hope that if you took out the quotation marks it would be able to pick up the correct quote. In fact it can if you change around certain words in the first sentence (Stories set in the Culture...). I think what's going on is that "without a terminal..." is not such a well known quote and has some pretty broadly applicable keywords (terminal...question...help), while combining the more unique set of keywords from "stories set in the culture...", which is a more well known quote, is more likely to lead the search engine to the quote even if you're missing one of the keywords in it due to a typo.
deleted 4y ago
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Falkon1313 4y ago
For me on duckduckgo, the first two results are this thread and the fourth is the story itself. >There were (true) stories of people falling off cliffs and the terminal relaying their scream in time for a Hub unit to switch to that terminal's camera, realise what was happening and displace a drone to catch the faller in mid-air; there were other stories about terminals recording the severing of their owner's head from their body in an accident, and summoning a medical drone in time to save the brain, leaving the de-bodied person with no more a problem than finding ways to pass the months it took to grow a new body. >A terminal was safety. >So Gurgeh took his on the longer walks. Our cell phones might sometimes be pretty useful devices, but they're not quite capable of that sort of thing yet. Still, you can walk around and explore without using it, while still having it along in a pocket just in case you do the modern equivalent of fall off a cliff or get decapitated. Just better hope you have cell service and your battery is charged up if you do. I got a smartphone 10 years ago after a trip where I got lost in an unfamiliar city at night. I did manage to navigate my way around by sense of direction and spotting buildings and river, and was just a little late to the party I was going to. But I thought something with maps would be more useful than a flip-phone if I ever got lost while traveling again. A few years later, exploring randomly in the mountains a couple of states away with my wife, we pulled into a small town late one evening and got out our phones to look for a place to eat and a place to stay. No service, for either of us. So we just wandered around the town with our eyes open and asked people. Found a great restaurant and a nice quiet little bed and breakfast. Once again serendipity beat the cell phone. What is more concerning is that kids who've grown up with them their entire lives just might not be able to handle that sort of thing. They might just freak out as much as if they had fallen off a cliff or something.

by _23sd 4y ago

solveit 4y ago

> I agree it's a little disappointing that one mistaken word throws Google so far off the trail. But can you imagine the aggravation if Google chooses to do the opposite and 'helpfully' 'corrects' your quotes for you? Actually I am not sure I have to imagine...

_23sd 4y ago
Definitely hands off my quote searches, but one might hope that if you took out the quotation marks it would be able to pick up the correct quote. In fact it can if you change around certain words in the first sentence (Stories set in the Culture...). I think what's going on is that "without a terminal..." is not such a well known quote and has some pretty broadly applicable keywords (terminal...question...help), while combining the more unique set of keywords from "stories set in the culture...", which is a more well known quote, is more likely to lead the search engine to the quote even if you're missing one of the keywords in it due to a typo.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Falkon1313 4y ago

For me on duckduckgo, the first two results are this thread and the fourth is the story itself. >There were (true) stories of people falling off cliffs and the terminal relaying their scream in time for a Hub unit to switch to that terminal's camera, realise what was happening and displace a drone to catch the faller in mid-air; there were other stories about terminals recording the severing of their owner's head from their body in an accident, and summoning a medical drone in time to save the brain, leaving the de-bodied person with no more a problem than finding ways to pass the months it took to grow a new body. >A terminal was safety. >So Gurgeh took his on the longer walks. Our cell phones might sometimes be pretty useful devices, but they're not quite capable of that sort of thing yet. Still, you can walk around and explore without using it, while still having it along in a pocket just in case you do the modern equivalent of fall off a cliff or get decapitated. Just better hope you have cell service and your battery is charged up if you do. I got a smartphone 10 years ago after a trip where I got lost in an unfamiliar city at night. I did manage to navigate my way around by sense of direction and spotting buildings and river, and was just a little late to the party I was going to. But I thought something with maps would be more useful than a flip-phone if I ever got lost while traveling again. A few years later, exploring randomly in the mountains a couple of states away with my wife, we pulled into a small town late one evening and got out our phones to look for a place to eat and a place to stay. No service, for either of us. So we just wandered around the town with our eyes open and asked people. Found a great restaurant and a nice quiet little bed and breakfast. Once again serendipity beat the cell phone. What is more concerning is that kids who've grown up with them their entire lives just might not be able to handle that sort of thing. They might just freak out as much as if they had fallen off a cliff or something.