Remember Jorn Barger's "Elvis Index" from the golden age of the Internet? The idea was to use the Altavista search engine to quantify the relative poularity of various things by taking the number of search results for any given topic and comparing it to the number of results for the string elvis.
Suppose we tried the same thing with Google now. If I put in elvis, Google tells me there are about 348 million results, so that number is 1 elvis. For world cup, there are supposedly 2.84 billion results, so that's 8.16 elvises. Self-cleaning terrarium yields 1.85 million results, so that's about 5.32 millielvises. That seems plausible enough. Everyone knows that the World Cup is considerably bigger than Elvis, and that Elvis is orders of magnitude more popular than self-cleaning terraria.
But suppose we look at the real number of Google results. After searching for elvis and being told that there are 384 million results, we patiently click through to the very last page of those results -- which, rather surprisingly, turns out to be the 19th page!
So we click to "repeat the search with the omitted results included" -- we want every result -- and once again click through to the last page. This time, we find that there are 40 pages, and a whopping 400 results.
And that's it! You've reached the end of the Internet, as far as Google is concerned. I mean they did say about 348 million, not precisely that number. So the real value of one elvis is 400.
I've tried this with a wide variety of search strings, and the most results I've ever been able to get (Jesus Christ and basketball are tied for the number-one place, closely followed by rancho cucamonga and fruit salad) is 434, or 1.085 elvises.
Nor have I been able to find any strings (other than literal gibberish) that return less than half an elvis. The not-very-popular dinosaur styracosaurus returns 94 centielvises, just edging out covid-19. Even vendergood, the name of an extremely obscure language invented by child prodigy William James Sidis at the age of eight, returns 66 centielvises.
Google search is a scam. It says it has millions of hits for whatever you're searching for, but it doesn't. It doesn't even have 500, for anything. If it weren't free, I think this would literally be fraud.
Bing is the same. If you search for elvis, it's impossible to click beyond the 14th page, so only 134 results are visible. DuckDuckGo doesn't provide numbers, but you can only click "more results" 10 times before you reach the end of its elvis offerings. Yandex offers 25 pages of results. No search engine actually delivers the millions of results they advertise.
15 comments:
“348,000,000 results” must mean 348.000000 using the continental digit separator (comma instead of decimal point), so 348 results to an extremely high precision.
@Wm - Surely you are quibbling pedantically over such a small calculation error?
BTW: My Notions blog is currently getting more than two billion page views every day.
@Bruce
Mine too! Approximately. I attribute it to my having written 39 million posts.
It's pretty amazing how quickly this has happened, since one of the whole selling points of the Internet was that you have access to all this knowledge (millions upon millions of pages). And many of the same people who were around then peddling this techno-utopianism are still in charge now, but they're hawking techno-dystopianism instead.
It's another example of how we have to consciously seek out what we want to learn about and can't rely on a middle man.
Also, at this point, Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive are two of the places online with the most knowledge (as opposed to mere information). (Which means that at some point, the old books will probably be suppressed).
Wikipedia and Infogalactic are also still valuable because of the citations where you can find linnks to various places. And also the previous versions of Wikipedia articles, which often have different citations.
@NLR
The Internet Archive is my usual starting point now when I want to research any particular topic. For discovering new and useful things that aren’t yet on my radar, it’s still sometimes worth my time to go panning for gold on 4chan, the last surviving vestige of the old Wild West Internet.
How did you even get to the last page? I usually get accused of being a robot and have to do the captcha 5 times to get to the 12th page.
@jason
I just do the captchas.
William,
2 parts
part 1
You wrote: "Google search is a scam. It says it has millions of hits for whatever you're searching for, but it doesn't. It doesn't even have 500, for anything. If it weren't free, I think this would literally be fraud."
My response: I'm sure you're not surprised.
Fraud/Illusion/Deception is all one and the same and is created to induce Chaos.
Chaos is needed to justify Order.
The Victor always writes the history, which may or may not be true.
All stories are; He said, She said.
However somewhere in the middle is the TRUTH.
The middle is the balance which of course our Opponents , who are masters of deception,
work diligently to make sure we don't find that balance/middle.
Deception erodes trust, and when we don't know what to believe or who to trust, we enter
the state of chaos with indues panic/fear which is how we are controlled.
IMO, that's EVIL.
Polls and stats are used to convince us that if we do not believe like the majority than there is something wrong with us. I don't know if you ever seen the old TV game show, Family Feud especially the 1970's episodes with Richard Dawson, but if you are aware of the show, recall Dawson's repetitive wording; The Survey Says! The Survey SAYS!.
Repetitiveness is very effective.
The goal of the Family Feud game was for the contestants to answers questions and if their answers match what' the Survey Says', they win the game.
IMO, the objective of the game is; You don't win unless you think the same as the herd.
Also, and interestingly and I believe connects with your post today about fraud, the Illusion of this dimension and deception is this:
Last night on YouTube Marshall and I watched a very intriguing 1990 movie
with George C. Scott titled The Exorcist 3 ( see clip and full movie links)
Marshall and I wondered why we'd never saw this movie before, which we determined was because of the 1973 atrocious first movie in the Exorcist trilogy.
Marshall and I didn't know each other in 1973. We met in 1982.
So to clarify, I've never seen this movie before.
William,
Sorry, this is in 3 parts
Part 2
Anywho, I was glued to the computer screen watching this movie because it was CHOCKFUL
of symbolism, and much the symbolism that was presented in the movie, validated many of my puzzle pieces.
Here are a few;
1. The demonic murders takes place in 'GEORGEtown in DC.
2. The protagonist Lieutenant William F. Kinderman played by George C. Scott, was an
investigator i.e. someone who connects the dots.
3 The many references to K, 11, especially 11:11, also the double L's (El's).
4. The colors Red and White, the alchemical colors of the Red King and the White Queen.
Red and White is used as conduit to 'energy'. Recall my comments and links about the Red Energy storage of Bricks. Recall Biden's Sept 'red brick speech?
5. The Nigredo, and the Tarot Card of the Hanged Man..
6. The Gemini which is The Twins. The twins symbolize the duality nature of this dimension, which is why our Opponents Final Frontier is (and has always been) to destroy the Positive Polarity and replace it with the ONE i.e. the Singularity, which is what I've commented just recently about.
The collapse of the Twin Towers was Alchemical. My recent comments about the Peacock
is also Alchemical
7. The consistent theme of Good(God) vs Evil(Devil), including the dialogue between Lieutenant Kinderman and the 'Devil".
Note in the dialogue scene the twin lights shining on both Kinderman
and the ''Devil", symbolizing (and what I believe 11:11 to mean ), that is, both 11's having 'equal power' IN THIS DIMENSION.
Battles are fought to determine who wins (the Negative Polarity or the Positive Polarity)
8. Also check out Kinderman and the shape shifting Devil dialogue
where the Devil explains of who he(the Devil ) works through. The Devil mentions that his best 'subjects' to work through are those who are catatonic, which makes sense, at least to me, as it explains why our Opponents are destroying our harmony and communication with our fellow man, our critical thinking skills and ability
to debate and feel free to question what we are told as opposed to parroting : what The Survey Says or the so called experts.
Recall Dubya's : "If you're not with us, you're against us", speech.
William
Part 3
Lt.Kinderman was an investigator (a puzzle piece connector and quest for the truth seeker) and like any good investigator the very first step is to be able to recognize that indeed there is an illusion and the next step is to transcend the illusion.
And last but not least, check out THE VERY ENDING of the movie.
Very thought provoking movie!!
Family Feud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP57Ujh1J-0
The link below is The Exorcist 3 movie clip.
Note in the clip, Lt. Kinderman's acknowledgement that there is a Negative Polarity source that exists on this dimension and each one of the Negative sources he references to are EGO based, which I've shared my perspective about many times on your blog.
IMO, our Ego is our Beast. Isn't it stated in the Bible that the number 6 is the number of Man? and we are asked to COUNT the number 666, which IMO, to count means to Connect.
6+6+6 = 18. 1+8= 9.
6 is 9, depending on perspective. Interestingly Queen Elizabeth was '96' when she ""died"".
69/96 As above, so below.
Everything is connected.
IMO, it is imperative for us to know what our Opponents know as many people prefer instead to believe that the Negative polarity doesn't exist, and those same people would rather turn a blind eye than to confront the Beast, head on.
However, and IMO,we cannot fight nor can we win that which we refuse to see or understand.
Be as wise as Serpents comes to mind.
The Fool card in the tarot is a perfect example. The Fool is deceiving himself, head in the clouds looking up thinking that everything (the illusion) is 'fine' and blue sky's.
The Sun sometimes blinds us to the truth.
I believe that we find the truth by going through the darkness,
which in the Fool card, I believe the white dog symbolizes the darkness as the Dog Star (representing the constellation Sirus) is only seen at night.
The Dog (Toto ) serves as a guide to help warn the Fool that he (the Fool) is on the precipice of the cliff and to 'see' with more than his/her physical eyes.
Also on the Rider-Waite Tarot Fool Card , the Fool's clothing is embedded with the Eight Point Star(i.e. Steer ) to symbolize who is Really steering the 'ship' aka the vessel i.e.
the physical body .
Here's the clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyiLEDlzDUs
Here is The Exorcist 3 full episode, free on YouTube, but do note that this YouTube Channel
creators offers commentaries about the movie and there are commercials as well.
I'm not sure if this movie is available on other streaming servers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXNLgppp-QQ
William,
I forgot to mention a very important symbolic sign in the movie which absolutely
connects with the foundation of my puzzle pieces
and that is : THE ROSE.
William,
I just found this article as I was reading comments on a website called Zero Hedge about
the chaos in Germany as far as energy supply cuts and food shortages coming this winter.
One of the comments caught my eye, because there was a link about Hale-Bopp and End Times.If you recall I shared my 1997 very odd synchronicity experience regarding Hale Bopp and my Space Man dream 2 days before the Heavens Gate Cult mass suicide.
I was reading the information in the link and suddenly I thought; OMG, this is so unbelievable!!
I was especially shocked when halfway through the article I found this : ( PAY Close
attention to the mention of PAVO and recall my recent comments about the Peacock.
Here's a couple of copy and paste :
"The Big Dipper, part of the Great Bear, extends above the zodiacal constellations Cancer and Leo. When we look at Cancer, we see the beautiful star cluster called Praesepe, the Bee Hive, so called because (with binoculars) it has the appearance of hundreds of bees [click here]. There is an interesting prophetic observation concerning bees with the gospel message of eternal salvation through Christ. There is also a connection to the last days spread of a curse across the globe called “Islam“, which is also connected to bees."
The star cluster Praesepe is close to the center of this constellation, at 12½ degrees Cancer. Just as the Pleiades star cluster was seen in ancient times as the most powerful location of the Moon in the whole zodiac, so the most powerful location of Jupiter in the zodiac was seen to be the star cluster Praesepe.
Did this cosmic sign portend his return in Glory?
Pavo is a not-so-well-known constellation with a connection to Argo. Though not one of the forty-eight principal constellations, it is an ancient constellation, recognized for two to three thousand years. It’s original name refers to Argos the shipbuilder or, as some contend, Noah. For 4,100 of the 4,200 years that Hale-Bopp has been in our solar system, it has been in the constellation of Pavo. Therefore, there can be no doubt about Hale-Bopp’s connection to Noah and the Flood.
https://endtimesdarknessdescending.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/the-hale-bopp-comet-a-dramatic-sign-of-the-coming-global-judgment/
@William
"No search engine actually delivers the millions of results they advertise"
The thing is, there actually are 400 million pages mentioning Jesus Christ - but Google don't *deliver* them.
As I have previously commented, wen G originally came out, it was a massive advance on the existing search engines (ALtavista was the best, as I recall) - and much MUCH better than it is now. Google has got incrementally worse and worse, in every way, since not long after it emerged.
And Yet - no other search engine has emerged even to equal it.
This tells me that innovation is being suppressed. How, I don't know (there are many possible ways) but there is no doubt in my mind that only inferior search engines are allowed to 'compete'. This goes with the (I would have though obvious) fact that Google has a massive invisible income stream...
Just like all the other mega-tech surveillance corporations; which suddenly appeared (with ludicrously implausible origin stories), grew ridiculously quickly despite lacking any obvious revenue stream, and are now among the richest and most powerful organizations in the world.
Who *exactly* was putting their fat thumb in the scales of the accounts of these corporations (from the get-go of development, through launch and the growth phase, and continuing), I don't know -- but I can guess it was from among the usual suspects at the helm of the Global Establishment.
Julian Assange wrote a book called “When Google Met WikiLeaks” which discusses precisely this matter: the deep connections between Google and the US Government; high level staff moving between the State Department, Council of Foreign Relations, high level advisors to politicians etc. As a consequence Google contracts for the NSA, the Pentagon, the State Department, US Military.
Aside from Google's decline in quality, the quality of the Amazon search engine has also deteriorated. Sometimes I cannot find books even if I type the exact book title, even though Amazon has the book in their catalog! I have to resort to using Google or DuckDuckGo to find books in Amazon's catalog. It's not even political censorship, as it involved technical/math books.
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