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Google Recaps 2001
fm6 writes: "Google has suplemented their usual weekly Zeitgeist update with a lovely 2001 Timeline. Particularly interesting to see how the usual queries about celebrities and sports suddenly
disappeared in favor of searches about recent event -- although
people seem to put Nostradamus in the later category."
People most likely went to google looking for cached versions of the news reports. remember, cnn (and most other news sites) were swamped.
I find it sad to see how much tragedies shape our lives. Putting September 11 aside for a moment, the Intimidator was the most often searched for object/person in one month. It was a horrible terrible thing to have happened and it seems everyone became fascinated with it to an extent and began searching google for it.
Add to that September 11th. People again began searching for something that was gone only after it had been destroyed.
Why can't we as Americans.... as people, appreciated the wonderful things we have before they're gone?
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
...is a list of everything you searched for all year, available to anyone (spouse, employer, neighbors...). So you'd have to make sure that Google kept your information absolutely secure. Good thing Internet sites have such a stellar reputation for that.
"In other news, Joe Blow of 327 Maple Street was charged with last year's rape and murder of Jane Doe of Alta Vista. Officials said that the big break in the case came when a subpoena of Google search records for area residents turned up evidence that the terms "rape", "weapons", and "attack" had been used in searches from Blow's home computer. Mr. Blow is being held without bond while police search for additional damning evidence against this psychopathic killer..."
"Update: Jailed rapist and killer Joe Blow appears to have escaped conviction for his 2000 rape and murder of Alta Vista resident Jane Doe, as after three months of searching, officials have failed to uncover additional evidence from his well-covered trail. The DA's office has sworn that this vicious criminal will not go unpunished, however, since they'e sure they can find something in his Google search records that will indicate some felony involvement in something or other."
Maybe, but there are a lot of genuinely stupid people out there. I've seen people use search engines to find the websites of firms including IBM, Microsoft and all sorts.
"Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
Hey.. pssst... it's December 31. Maybe the /. editors noticed the google zeitgeist article a longish time ago, and were holding off on posting it until new years eve. You notice there's a lot of year-end-retrospective-related articles today? Yeah, well maybe they've been planning that.
Note you don't know when fm6 submitted their blurb-- it could have been on the ninteenth. You also don't know how many people besides you and fm6 submitted that story. Maybe LOTS of people submited the google zeitgeist thing, and they just liked fm6's comment.
I think about 90% of the problems with slashdot have to do with idiots who think things are some kind of race-- you have to be the first one to post a comment that seems insightful at a glance so you show up on the first pageload and people 'notice' you, and so you pick up on the early wash of moderators who just look at anything that looks remotely good (including comments that are just quotes pasted from the article), even if doing so means you don't read the extant comments.. You have to find stuff and submit it before anybody else and if slashdot doesn't immediately post this new great thing, then you somehow got gypped becuase you won the race and it was your right. Right?
Just go away. Go to kuro5hin. It will be be better for all of us; you can get instant recognition for submitting something early, and other people won't have to read your crud becuase k5 deletes trolls.
Blah.
On 9/11, right after the attacks, cnn.com was virtually unreachable. Some people probably didn't understand why.