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In 2001-2003, browsers crashed every 5 minutes then and Google's search didn't crash nor freeze nor slow it due to not being covered in ads and popups (having o

In 2001-2003, browsers crashed every 5 minutes then and Google's search didn't crash nor freeze nor slow it due to not being covered in ads and popups (having only 1-3 ad results at the top of the page with green text was a massive improvement). On tech forums back then, people would say, "is this even sustainable?" Microsoft search and the other ones were just "there was an attempt" tier and gave complete nonsense results. When Google debuted, it was the only time web search substantially improved. There were no other big innovations in web searches ever, from that day on. > These days you can just throw stuff at it like “that movie about the depressed guy with a plane engine that falls on their house” I have looked for obscure queries like yours for 10 years and have not found them. For example "that movie where police vehicles are dispatched and they all crash for seemingly no reason on the way to the scene". It just won't find it because nobody talked about it (in a manner that would cause words that stick out to match), simple. And now days it's even worse because it does that new "rounding" thing and gives me: - The 25 Best Police Movies of All Time - Dispatched (2014) That first result simply contains nothing to do with my query other than the world "police" and "movie". Now days when you try to use a web search, you can't be smart and search strings that are likely to be used by someone discussing your topic of interest anymore, because it will always "round" them. It will also look at each word as if they are the literal thing you are in search for. I don't know if it's still possible to search bodies of text to get around that, but I'm not sure if that feature even ever worked. Back in 2005 when all these people were raving about intitle: inurl: inbody: whatever, none of them worked consistently, and you would also get scolded for hacking if you used them "wrong". Even searching something like "powered by phpbb" got me banned or scolded once when I wasn't even using it for hacking but rather as a workaround to narrow my search to only forum websites.

ipython 4y ago
Are you looking for the movie The Blues Brothers? (Not ChatGPT, I promise)
- uconnectlol 4y ago
  EDIT: Nah that's not it. It's way too old. And in mine the police crash for no reason before they even get anywhere near the scene of the crime. I will skim thru it, but it doesn't look like the right setting. The movie was some generic action movie for some reason I remember Denzel Washington being in it but I looked through his movies from 2006-2012 and didn't find it. It was around that time. Setting had to be something like late 90s or later. Black SUVs dispatched and crashed for no reason at all. I have no idea what the movie was about but it was hilarious when this happened because IIRC it was a serious movie.
  - stackbutterflow 4y ago
    Unbreakable with Bruce Willis?
    - uconnectlol 4y ago
      I skimmed through it at 10 second intervals but I didn't see any police cars?
  - swyx 4y ago
    can you recall anything else about the movie? its not a lot to go on if its not a major plot point
    - uconnectlol 4y ago
      Literally all I remember is one scene where a bunch of cop cars or vans get dispatched for some reason like someone's about to die or a heist is happening, something of that nature. They all crash and roll over and wipe out on normal traffic roads for absolutely no reason, and the movie isn't even a comedy, just a generic action movie. I can't remember one single thing other thing about it, not even the plot. I do remember an urban setting.
      - swyx 4y ago
        yeah probably lost forever this might be a good case for lifelogging, at least it would give you a limited set of movies to search
coredog64 4y ago
The original AltaVista (the DEC Alpha showcase) was pretty fantastic: I remember giving it part numbers and getting back useful, actionable data.
l33tman 4y ago
Probably the re-boot of The Blues Brothers. Even ChatGPT suggested that :) >What movie is where police vehicles are dispatched and they all crash for seemingly no reason on the way to a scene The movie you are describing sounds like "The Blues Brothers". In the film, Jake and Elwood Blues embark on a mission to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised from foreclosure. In the course of their journey, they lead the police on a high-speed car chase through the streets of Chicago, causing numerous police vehicles to crash. Is this the movie you were thinking of?
acdha 4y ago
This point would be better without such extreme hyperbole. Google search was an improvement but it’s not like using AltaVista was that bad - many of the advanced search operators you mentioned got started there. Crashes were also far less common than you’re describing - that got worse in the 2000s when Flash became ubiquitous.
- uconnectlol 4y ago
  I do remember constantly hearing that Alta Vista was good but I think I only used Microsoft and Yahoo (I forget what else there was). Nope, crashes were definitely common. Browser quality until around 2010 or so was absolutely horrible. Firefox was another case like Google where it debuted around 2000-2003 and everyone immediately switched to it because it was a massive improvement over IE which barely functioned at all. It still wasn't good, just better than the other crap. The types of bugs in Firefox back in 2003 are absolutely embarrassing by even the common software engineer's standards today. Then of course Firefox just grew in bloat at the same time as it grew in amount of people to fix its problems and now we have a different kind of crap.
  - acdha 4y ago
    > Nope, crashes were definitely common. Browser quality until around 2010 or so was absolutely horrible. Again, this is way too hyperbolic. I was there too, and while browser crashes weren’t uncommon you’re overstating it massively. Crashes every few minutes weren’t even the case in 1995.
    - uconnectlol 4y ago
      Oh, I see, you were taking that literally. I'd estimate more like 2-5 times per day. Of course this entirely depends on which content you were viewing, and as soon as you ventured out side of the good boy zone it got much worse.

ipython 4y ago

Are you looking for the movie The Blues Brothers? (Not ChatGPT, I promise)

uconnectlol 4y ago
EDIT: Nah that's not it. It's way too old. And in mine the police crash for no reason before they even get anywhere near the scene of the crime. I will skim thru it, but it doesn't look like the right setting. The movie was some generic action movie for some reason I remember Denzel Washington being in it but I looked through his movies from 2006-2012 and didn't find it. It was around that time. Setting had to be something like late 90s or later. Black SUVs dispatched and crashed for no reason at all. I have no idea what the movie was about but it was hilarious when this happened because IIRC it was a serious movie.
- stackbutterflow 4y ago
  Unbreakable with Bruce Willis?
  - uconnectlol 4y ago
    I skimmed through it at 10 second intervals but I didn't see any police cars?
- swyx 4y ago
  can you recall anything else about the movie? its not a lot to go on if its not a major plot point
  - uconnectlol 4y ago
    Literally all I remember is one scene where a bunch of cop cars or vans get dispatched for some reason like someone's about to die or a heist is happening, something of that nature. They all crash and roll over and wipe out on normal traffic roads for absolutely no reason, and the movie isn't even a comedy, just a generic action movie. I can't remember one single thing other thing about it, not even the plot. I do remember an urban setting.
    - swyx 4y ago
      yeah probably lost forever this might be a good case for lifelogging, at least it would give you a limited set of movies to search

coredog64 4y ago

The original AltaVista (the DEC Alpha showcase) was pretty fantastic: I remember giving it part numbers and getting back useful, actionable data.

l33tman 4y ago

Probably the re-boot of The Blues Brothers. Even ChatGPT suggested that :) >What movie is where police vehicles are dispatched and they all crash for seemingly no reason on the way to a scene The movie you are describing sounds like "The Blues Brothers". In the film, Jake and Elwood Blues embark on a mission to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised from foreclosure. In the course of their journey, they lead the police on a high-speed car chase through the streets of Chicago, causing numerous police vehicles to crash. Is this the movie you were thinking of?

acdha 4y ago

This point would be better without such extreme hyperbole. Google search was an improvement but it’s not like using AltaVista was that bad - many of the advanced search operators you mentioned got started there. Crashes were also far less common than you’re describing - that got worse in the 2000s when Flash became ubiquitous.

uconnectlol 4y ago
I do remember constantly hearing that Alta Vista was good but I think I only used Microsoft and Yahoo (I forget what else there was). Nope, crashes were definitely common. Browser quality until around 2010 or so was absolutely horrible. Firefox was another case like Google where it debuted around 2000-2003 and everyone immediately switched to it because it was a massive improvement over IE which barely functioned at all. It still wasn't good, just better than the other crap. The types of bugs in Firefox back in 2003 are absolutely embarrassing by even the common software engineer's standards today. Then of course Firefox just grew in bloat at the same time as it grew in amount of people to fix its problems and now we have a different kind of crap.
- acdha 4y ago
  > Nope, crashes were definitely common. Browser quality until around 2010 or so was absolutely horrible. Again, this is way too hyperbolic. I was there too, and while browser crashes weren’t uncommon you’re overstating it massively. Crashes every few minutes weren’t even the case in 1995.
  - uconnectlol 4y ago
    Oh, I see, you were taking that literally. I'd estimate more like 2-5 times per day. Of course this entirely depends on which content you were viewing, and as soon as you ventured out side of the good boy zone it got much worse.