Google vs. Yahoo

my supervisor isn't at work today, and i can't get any work done because i'm running into this weird glitch in HotDocs and no one on the listserv knows how to solve the problem. i probably shouldn't have come into work because i'm being just as productive here in the office as i would have been in my bed, but i didn't want to use up a sick/vacation day so i dragged myself in despite the chill outside (i hate how MN seems to skip over autumn, my favorite season, and go straight to winter).

anyway, i've been incredibly bored, so rather than writing letters or reading books, i've been spending my time reading MLIA in hopes of catching myself up by reading all 590-some pages (i'm at 149 right now). i've noticed a trend of people pitting google and yahoo against each other using the auto-suggestions each respective search engine comes up with when they enter random words or phrases, and they all report google coming out on top. i wanted to see if this reporting was accurate, so i decided to test it out myself. now, don't get me wrong; i'm definitely a google-fan and haven't used yahoo since about 8th grade, but for the sake of statistical honesty/accuracy (well, mostly boredom) i decided to sacrifice my precious time for the truth. here is what i found:

round 1
entry: "why is my..."
google: why is my poop green?
yahoo: why is my computer so slow?

for those of you who know me, it was a running joke among my friends that i had an affinity for poop. in reality, i (being immature) just like(d) the signifier rather than the signified, but i said "poop" and "poopsicle" so much that it prompted one of my friends to create a facebook group in my honor, called "esther hearts poop SOOOOOOOOO hard." it was funny, until random people i didn't know (or acquaintances who weren't in on the joke) started joining. however, the group was short-lived since someone, who remains a mystery even to this day (it really wasn't me!), reported the group and my friend received a very curt reprimand from facebook. luckily my/its legacy lives on in the kenyon chapter of the group, which still boasts a grand total of 6 members. this is pretty impressive, since i have never been to kenyon and i've only met 1 of the group members (said group member is the best friend of the friend who created the original group). anyway, there is a reason why i'm telling this story (although i do have a penchance for telling tangential stories that have no point), and the reason is this: purely for the mention of "poop," i have to side with google on this one.

verdict: google

round 2
entry: "meaning of life is..."
google: meaning of life is 42
yahoo: no suggestions

google not only wins by default, since yahoo couldn't even complete the auto-suggestion, but also because of the cryptic answer. what does that even mean? the meaning of life is 42...i'll be mulling over that for the next 20 years (by then i will be 42, and maybe i'll have an epiphany of what this means, and also what the meaning of life is).

verdict: google

round 3
entry: "bacon is..."
google: bacon is my enemy
yahoo: bacon is a vegetable

it was hard to decide who won this round, because both suggestions are equally ridiculous. my hypothesis is that google is used by people trying to eat healthy, while yahoo is used by bacon aficionados who are trying to justify that their love for bacon is healthy.

verdict: tie

round 4
entry: "help! my..."
google: help my girlfriend is a pregnant virgin
yahoo: help my family

i don't think i have to spell out for you who the winner of this round is (but i will anyway). either google is frequented by joseph, the surrogate father of Jesus (is this blasphemous? oops), or by poor gullible, foolish boys who have most likely been cuckolded.

verdict: google

round 5
entry: "hell is..."
google: hell is other people
yahoo: hell is real

once again, a tough choice. google's answer speaks to the hobbesian/misanthrope in me, who believes that people can be unbelievably cruel and that life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish, and short." however, yahoo's answer appeals to my christian sensibilities and i fear that if i declare yahoo the loser, i will be sent to hell as punishment (if i'm not going there in a handbasket already).

verdict: tie

round 6
entry: "how to tell if your..."
google: how to tell if your cat is trying to kill you
yahoo: how to tell if your husband is cheating

while yahoo's suggestion may be more practical and have real-life implications, i like google's better purely on the grounds of my possession of a psycho kitten, and the fact that i don't have a husband. yes, i am that self-centered.

verdict: google

round 7
entry: "i like to..."
google: i like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur
yahoo: i like to move it

as much as i like to move it, hands down, no questions asked, google wins. also, i think the auto-suggestion may be an homage to MLIA, so bonus points for that.

verdict: google

round 8
entry: "[respective search engine] is..."
google: google is going to take over the world
yahoo: yahoo is stupid

i can't tell if yahoo is being self-deprecating or if a lot of people just go to yahoo and type that in the search bar. if the latter case is true, what are they doing on yahoo in the first place? my extreme hunger right now is hindering my ability to hypothesize why this is...but yeah, google wins again. bravo for having ambitions, google.

verdict: google

i'm pretty anal about things, so i would have liked to continue to round 10, but in the interest of appeasing my extreme hunger and the fact that i have to leave in 10 minutes to get my food stamps (one of the perks of being an AmeriCorps VISTA?), i have decided to stop at 8. plus in sino-based culture, 8 is a lucky number :).

FINAL VERDICT: google-8, yahoo-2 (and not even full-fledged wins, at that)

i guess the MLIA-ers were onto something...google is more awesome than yahoo.

5 internet gems i stumbled upon today

i seem to have a problem where i can't tear myself away from the computer, even though i have so many other things to keep me occupied. so, per usual, i was surfing the internet and through reading MLIA (bonus! thanks, michelle) i stumbled upon a couple of gems. in no particular order:

1. a site claiming to translate any word from english to parseltongue. as soon as you enter in a word, it plays a sound recording of what is supposed to be that word in parseltongue. since i believe J.K. Rowling didn't pull a Tolkien and spend an epic amount of time developing her imaginary language, i don't know who actually took the time to develop these "words" and record them, but they must have been very bored. maybe i should start doing something similar, to stave off the ennui i feel these days. on a related note, if you google "how to speak parseltongue," one of the results leads you to a site where people discuss how to learn/speak parseltongue and actually communicate with snakes. i have no idea if these people are being serious, but i'd like to think they are because it makes me laugh (let's not mention the fact that i actually googled this).

2. the steampunk subculture. i can't remember how i stumbled upon this one, but i had been curious about it for a while. my first exposure came through playing vampire wars (omg, why am i such a geek?), because they have different steampunk fashion items to dress your avatar. anyway, somehow i ended up on the wikipedia page for steampunk, and after reading the article for it, i have to say that it seems like a pretty badass movement.

i totally want one of these!

3. cleverbot. i think i spent at least a good half hour discussing with this AI why life is so boring, and why it (he? she? do AIs transcend gender designation and all the signifiers that are inherently tied with the assignment of gender? sorry, my parenthetical thoughts are random and sometimes completely derail me from my original train of thought) dislikes eggs. i should have asked if it/he/she/all of the above meant "eggs" as in the embryonic state which we sometimes eat, or the character from true blood. either way, i'm curious why cleverbot dislikes eggs, but not enough to go back and ask. maybe when i'm bored at work tomorrow...

4. the language preference setting on facebook. did you know that if you go to settings and click on the language tab, you can change your language preferences to not only dozens and dozens of "real" languages, but also some unique and interesting ones such as esperanto (please don't hurt me, william shatner!), pirate (in english, of course), 1337 (leet, for you n00bz) speak, and so on? i had fun changing my language preferences to pirate and leet...under the pirate setting "mobile" becomes "pocket parrot." that just might have made my day.
- "t311 j00r m8z 7h47 F4c3b00k 15 1n l33t sp34k."

5. howmanyofme. have you ever wondered how many people in the u.s. share your name? well, fear not, because there is a website that reveals how many name twins you have in the u.s. it gives you statistics with your first name and last name separately, and then your full name. apparently, there are 255,222 people with the name "esther" in the states, 99.9% of whom are female. i am incredibly curious to find the poor .1% named "esther" who are male. i am also curious about how many of these esthers are either over the age of 70, korean/korean-american, or maybe even both. other than the somewhat narcissistic fun of looking up your own name, it's also fun to look up names of celebrities, or even fictional characters (i think harry potter was at the top of their list of most searched famous names).

in conclusion, i am a huge dork and a loser lost in the endless treasure trove that is the worldwide web. ok, time for sleep now.