Saturday, July 28, 2012
Wild speculation
I wonder, is there anything at all in the idea of a split in the ALP? Would that be a case of Doc Evatt deja vu?
Saturday, July 14, 2012
A political quote to ponder from a wise ALP elder
"I've even, Paul, fought more Greens and Liberals and
Nationals than you've done media interviews." (cheers, applause and
smiles from the audience at a left-wing conference) "Why don't you
just put a sock in it for once?"
That was a highlight of ALP Senator John Falkner's reply to
union leader and ALP faceless man Paul Howe's attack on the Greens over voting
preferences. A short excerpt of Howes' and Falkner's speeches can be viewed on
the ABC TV show Insiders. In my opinion, the idea of attacking the
Greens has many risks for the ALP, and Paul Howes has demonstrated a level of
zero expertise in courting the voter.
Aston, Heath (2012) Put a sock in it, Falkner tells Howes. Sydney
Morning Herald. July 15th 2012.
It's a pity what they've done to Google Search
It's a pity they've buggered up Google search. In the good old days it would have been easy to look up this blog, just type in blond ambition, and maybe the term blog, and you probably would have seen a page from this blog in the first page of results, with no need for the use of quotation marks to bossily direct the search engine in how to do it's job. It would have stood out from all the stuff on the net with the title blonde ambition, all the girly blogs and Madonna paraphernalia, because I chose to spell this blog without the E at the end of blond, to denote the male meaning of the word blond.
But they had to screw up the perfect search engine in the quest of making it idiot-proof, and now Google search takes all manner of misspellings and also legitimate and distinctive spelling variations and makes the assumption that they all mean the same thing, and now the default search is an incredibly vague search which does allow for spelling errors, but also squashes and disregards useful and important information. I'm not sure if this is the same methodology that was used to stuff up PubMed many moons ago. I've given up trying to figure out how PubMed works, I just muddle on with it and throw as much relevant info at it as possible, and now look upon it as an unwilling servant to be beaten into submission.
So now, it appears that the best and possibly only way to quickly retrieve my political blog using Google search is to do a search that is part phrase search, part regular search, thus:
"blond ambition" blog
and there it is at numbers one to four of the first page of results. These days you've got to be a little bit smart to use the new, improved, idiot-proof Google search. That's progress!
But they had to screw up the perfect search engine in the quest of making it idiot-proof, and now Google search takes all manner of misspellings and also legitimate and distinctive spelling variations and makes the assumption that they all mean the same thing, and now the default search is an incredibly vague search which does allow for spelling errors, but also squashes and disregards useful and important information. I'm not sure if this is the same methodology that was used to stuff up PubMed many moons ago. I've given up trying to figure out how PubMed works, I just muddle on with it and throw as much relevant info at it as possible, and now look upon it as an unwilling servant to be beaten into submission.
So now, it appears that the best and possibly only way to quickly retrieve my political blog using Google search is to do a search that is part phrase search, part regular search, thus:
"blond ambition" blog
and there it is at numbers one to four of the first page of results. These days you've got to be a little bit smart to use the new, improved, idiot-proof Google search. That's progress!
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