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Marginalia comes up on HN every so often, and I always look at it, think "oh that's neat!", maybe add it to my bookmarks toolbar, and then forget about it. Are

Marginalia comes up on HN every so often, and I always look at it, think "oh that's neat!", maybe add it to my bookmarks toolbar, and then forget about it. Are there a lot of people who find themselves using it daily?

yuhong 4y ago
[dead]
Firmwarrior 4y ago
I use it as my daily time-waster, it has a lot more interesting stuff than you'll find on sites like Reddit or Twitter https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random
- newqer 4y ago
  What have you done? I tried to cut back on Reddit, but this seems like I could go done a rabbit hole for a few hours per day.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
I don't even use it daily. It's not a Google replacement, and it's not trying to be either. It's more of an on-ramp for the obscure web at this point. That said, it's gotten way better at finding stuff with the last few releases.
- GravitasFailure 4y ago
  It's interesting, and I really appreciate that you aren't trying to out-Google Google. This seems like a useful tool in its own right in addition to what else exists.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    I don't think that would make sense. If Google is struggling with search, a one man Google clone isn't going to do it better. I also think that having "a google", one central search engine, is inherently a bad thing for the health of the Internet. It drives a lot of this search engine spam epidemic we're seeing. A broader and (IMO) more interesting problem is Internet discovery.
    - throwaway14356 4y ago
      without/before commerce one would link to similar websites as much as possible. Now those are called competitors. I bet one could make a facinating ranking algo that groups sites by subject then sort them by nr of links to others in that group. So the perfect SEO would be to have a blogroll at the top of the left menu with every related website in it. i.e. 3 stores sell the same item. Nr 1 is the one linking to the other 2. Extra points for linking to that specific product page.
    - hedora 4y ago
      Google used to be a ~one man search engine clone (and it was definitely better a few years after that than it is today).
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        A lot of Google's initial quality was due to the fact that the content it indexed was much higher quality. Even besides the point that the websites they indexed were a lot less adversarial, they put a lot of emphasis on indexing academia, and were outspoken against what came to be their present mixed motives[1]. [1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a
      - robin_reala 4y ago
        Well, two-man.
        marginalia_nu 4y ago
        I think it was actually three-man with Scott Hassan.
- lelandbatey 4y ago
  I gotta say, Marginalia seems like the best search engine I've ever used specifically for food recipes! All the links are to personal, readable, HTML websites with the recipes obviously front and center. Finally I've found out how to escape from corporate recipes on the web! https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=spanish+rice+recipes https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=spanish+rice+recip...
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Yeah I've got special logic in place to help find useful good recipes. I'm quite happy with how well it works, despite being extremely basic[1] [1] https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/master/code/features-convert/topic-detection/src/main/java/nu/marginalia/topic/RecipeDetector.java https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/ma...
    - das_Produkt 4y ago
      You weigh kale double that of every other ingredient, as far as I can see. Made me chuckle a bit.
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        I do like Kale, not gonna lie.
frogulis 4y ago
I use it from time to time when I want to read something interesting. It can be a great source of articles that feel HN-worthy, if that makes sense.
pxc 4y ago
I don't use it daily, but I have reached for it multiple times in the last few weeks. I like it for finding blog posts, tutorials, comparisons, and hobby projects without getting caught up in fake articles like SEO-heavy wikis of copy-pasted content.
cpach 4y ago
Use it maybe once every week or something like that. I like it. I use it mostly for tech/programming/FOSS stuff. Especially for programming topics it can be good for filtering out all the ‘w3schools’ type of blog spam that just floods Google’s results.

yuhong 4y ago

[dead]

Firmwarrior 4y ago

I use it as my daily time-waster, it has a lot more interesting stuff than you'll find on sites like Reddit or Twitter https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

newqer 4y ago
What have you done? I tried to cut back on Reddit, but this seems like I could go done a rabbit hole for a few hours per day.

marginalia_nu 4y ago

I don't even use it daily. It's not a Google replacement, and it's not trying to be either. It's more of an on-ramp for the obscure web at this point. That said, it's gotten way better at finding stuff with the last few releases.

GravitasFailure 4y ago
It's interesting, and I really appreciate that you aren't trying to out-Google Google. This seems like a useful tool in its own right in addition to what else exists.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I don't think that would make sense. If Google is struggling with search, a one man Google clone isn't going to do it better. I also think that having "a google", one central search engine, is inherently a bad thing for the health of the Internet. It drives a lot of this search engine spam epidemic we're seeing. A broader and (IMO) more interesting problem is Internet discovery.
  - throwaway14356 4y ago
    without/before commerce one would link to similar websites as much as possible. Now those are called competitors. I bet one could make a facinating ranking algo that groups sites by subject then sort them by nr of links to others in that group. So the perfect SEO would be to have a blogroll at the top of the left menu with every related website in it. i.e. 3 stores sell the same item. Nr 1 is the one linking to the other 2. Extra points for linking to that specific product page.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Google used to be a ~one man search engine clone (and it was definitely better a few years after that than it is today).
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      A lot of Google's initial quality was due to the fact that the content it indexed was much higher quality. Even besides the point that the websites they indexed were a lot less adversarial, they put a lot of emphasis on indexing academia, and were outspoken against what came to be their present mixed motives[1]. [1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a
    - robin_reala 4y ago
      Well, two-man.
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        I think it was actually three-man with Scott Hassan.
lelandbatey 4y ago
I gotta say, Marginalia seems like the best search engine I've ever used specifically for food recipes! All the links are to personal, readable, HTML websites with the recipes obviously front and center. Finally I've found out how to escape from corporate recipes on the web! https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=spanish+rice+recipes https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=spanish+rice+recip...
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Yeah I've got special logic in place to help find useful good recipes. I'm quite happy with how well it works, despite being extremely basic[1] [1] https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/master/code/features-convert/topic-detection/src/main/java/nu/marginalia/topic/RecipeDetector.java https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/ma...
  - das_Produkt 4y ago
    You weigh kale double that of every other ingredient, as far as I can see. Made me chuckle a bit.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      I do like Kale, not gonna lie.

frogulis 4y ago

I use it from time to time when I want to read something interesting. It can be a great source of articles that feel HN-worthy, if that makes sense.

pxc 4y ago

I don't use it daily, but I have reached for it multiple times in the last few weeks. I like it for finding blog posts, tutorials, comparisons, and hobby projects without getting caught up in fake articles like SEO-heavy wikis of copy-pasted content.

cpach 4y ago

Use it maybe once every week or something like that. I like it. I use it mostly for tech/programming/FOSS stuff. Especially for programming topics it can be good for filtering out all the ‘w3schools’ type of blog spam that just floods Google’s results.