@jws The last time I did a DDG/Google comparison (a long time ago), DDG was giving far fewer results than Google and I was getting tons of irrelevant American results that were useless to me (depending on what I was seeking). It had a geographically agnostic angle, which on the English-speaking Internet tends to mean American. If I searched for Norfolk it would give me results about the American city instead of the English county. I found it especially bad for looking for things to purchase on this side of the pond. In a more general sense, a lot of its answers seemed to be just a data dump, like there was little in the way of algorithms being used. I know some people would prefer that. Google was better at knowing what to prioritise for the first results page. DDG put some really obscure things on the first page and some famous or popular things on later pages. It reminded me of early search engines in the nineties. There’s a part of me that thinks agnostic search results are important…but Google’s algorithmic way helpfully speeds things up in this hectic modern world. Despite all that, I kept using DDG for 99% of things because I felt a bit more comfortable using it. This afternoon I did another DDG/Google comparison and it seems DDG is hugely better than it was. It tends to give relevant, local results. It’s getting quite good for shopping now as well. I feel it’s improved a lot in the last two years. It must have done so gradually because I wasn’t really aware of it. I’m quite pleased with the comparison. Google still has some nifty features; like when you type in ‘France population’ or ‘Russia GDP’.
@jws Thanks. Hehe. I keep trying to use small independent outfits for digital stuff rather than the tech giants but it tends not to work very well. Like DuckDuckGo—it’s search results are often rubbish.
@jws It’s like the Universe keeps telling me to use Google stuff even as I try not to.
Epic thunderstorm. A bloke across the street is sticking his head out of the window to watch the light show. I dare say the lightning is a lot more likely to hit his telly aerial than his bonce…but it still doesn’t seem like a clever idea.
I’ve tried three places to translate an English term into Greek and each one gives me the result in cursive cyrillic which is not what I want. I’m incapable of making use of it if it’s not romanised. Just a trivial curiosity anyway. But I do think translation tools should give you the romanised version as well.
@jws I thought the tiny pockets were for keys…You’ve upgraded my knowledge.
// @matigo @hazardwarning
@phoneboy It will seem even more foreign if everyone in the meeting has a nappy on their face.
@jws That’s a very efficient design. Watch pocket eh? You must be a waistcoat wearer.
// @matigo @hazardwarning