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EYES_ON_EVIL
May 11, 2023
ENGINE_TROUBLE
Google hit the ground running with
a new technical trick, graph analysis Graphs are a mathy/techy term for
of the web to use popularity as a webs of nodes and edges, by the way.
stand-in for relevance, and an unusual It's unrelated to, say, presenting
corporate philosophy based on the data in a graphical way, which is
slogan "Don't be evil". called "visualization".
From the beginning, that The constant
slogan attracted a lot of HIGH_BAR_LOW_EXPECTATIONS stumbling created
attention, and featuring it by the ambiguities
in opinion pieces complaining I actually saw one between technical
about some google policy or piece that complained jargon and common
other became a constant about the implication usage are the sort
cliched refrain for many that everyone else was of thing that makes
years. evil. Why, who could one dream of
possible believe that Babel-17.
While the principle may our fine upstanding
seem like a vauge captains of industry But you know what
generality, they had were *evil*? How happens when you
something specific things outrageous! create one more
in mind involving the standard, right?
common behavior of other
search/portal companies. GENERAL_VAGUE
(1) you can't pay for
placement: advertisements
on the search result page
need to be clearly labeled
as such.
(2) the front page needs to
be simple and clean, very
little more than a search box
and a button to click.
Sergey Brin used to like to do talks
featuring an anecdote about someone
googling medical symptoms quickly
coming to the realization they're
close to a heart attack, and hence
they need medical help fast.
That might seem dorky, but compare that
attitude to the tendency of so many
other places to junk up the portal so
much you stop wanting to look at it.
It's only gotten worse with modern news
sites, where to read a few paragraphs
In this light, can we of "content" you're supposed to suck
consider mozilla's down massive amounts of graphics,
embrace of "pocket"? javascript and auto-play video....
The default behavior of You know that common complaint
firefox is to insert about people who rush to post
click bait ads into "comments" without making any
the search window. effort to click on the link
supposedly under discussion?
When I use a vanilla, unmodified
Firefox profile (which isn't often) That used to be one of my
it's remarkable how irritating that complaints, but these days,
is: you're trying to formulate a hanging around at places like
search while there's several reddit, I can't blame people
headlines *designed* to be who don't want to subject
distracting shoved in your face. themselves to the standard
trash of a news site.
Mozilla goes where
Google chose not to Even if the story isn't
tread... paywalled, it's still going
to be more time efficient
to just skim the headlines
and glance through the
reddit comments in hopes of
picking up the general
drift.
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