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17 lines
2.3 KiB
17 lines
2.3 KiB
<[Brennen]> I suppose the right thing to do is be concerned about the privacy issues, or (alternatively) wonder if the people obviously fantasizing about (or trying to avoid being caught for) murder don't in some way negate my previously absolutist position on these things, but anyway I've got to admit that the AOL search data stuff [http://rhetoricaldevice.com/SearchLogNarrative.html is goddamned fascinating].
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* http://czern.homeip.net/aolsearch/index.php
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I spent some time looking at semi-random search histories, and I have three observations.
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One, people don't really know how to use web search facilities. (Or at least AOL users don't - but at this late date, are AOL users really that removed from the overall population of the internet?) They ask questions, they try to hold conversations, they expect the engine to retain state information from previous queries in a way that (like the rest of this) would probably require strong AI.
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Two, people search for the exact same string over and over. Either they're looking for something else in the same search results, or they're using remembered search strings the way they're "supposed" to be using bookmarks. Probably a combination of both, but it's the latter behavior that's interesting if you work on software. There's a tendency to treat this as an instance of user stupidity, but I think it's more of a feature than a bug. See KnowItExists. I do the exact same thing, and it works most of the time.
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Three, people live desperate, sordid, painful lives.
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<[Anonymous]> I think the best summary is at [http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4016 something awful]. Be sure to check out all 8 pages.
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<[Brennen]> Yeah, there's a fair amount there to disturb, and it's where I found the link to that search engine above. I will note that I came across a couple of the full logs for stuff that people have highlighted (the "are niggers demons" guy, for example), and they're ''vastly'' weirder and more horrible than the pithy little summaries that have been floating around. If you're going to engage your voyeuristic tendencies, it's worth checking out the full text.
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Maybe some of the weirdness can be explained by multiple people using the same account - it's not like you can map one account to one user on *any* ISP - but for a lot of it I don't think so.
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