• InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Sometimes I add something like “blog” before:2019 to my searches because I want “old” google and not their shiny newer profoundly shitty search. Plus I tend to really like blog results. Wwithout before:2019 google is incredibly insistent in “helping” me by mostly (or entirely) ignoring the word “blog” even if it’s in double quotes.

    • urmums401k [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Letting corporations control how we access information was always a mistake. Historians will curse us, and the evidence will be a hole.

      There must be consequences for the fuckers who did this. They have names and addresses.

      • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Google calls such stuff advanced operators. They used to be fantastic tools. But the problem now is that google occasionally, intentionally breaks some of them to be “helpful”. And you can’t disable such help.

  • Beej Jorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 month ago

    I use ChatGPT to learn all kinds of stuff. I say it’s replaced 50% of my searches. Not that it’s always right, but neither is all the blogspam.

        • Bureaucrat@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          Literally any thing that isn’t trained on blogspam or notorious for making up shit. You’re basically using a magic 8-ball to “learn” it just repeats what you say back at you. Its useless for research.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          Kagi+ChatGPT is getting me the quickest answers.

          If a human “expert” was a known liar and fantasist who never provided sources or footnotes - would you listen to them? And if you did - why?

          • Beej Jorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org
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            23 days ago

            Does listening to them ulitmately get you to the correct answer more quickly on average than not? If so, why aren’t you talking to them?

        • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          “I wave my arms blindly in the dark and every so often I touch something before tripping on the furniture”

    • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      I think people are overly critical - it is alright for some things, and it has gotten things right for me before, but generally I have to spend so much time double checking that it’s right that it isn’t worth the time. If it gets a detail wrong 10-15% of the time, then I have to check it every time.

      I do find it useful for admin tasks though.