"G" is for Google

Sometimes, I wonder how we survived without the internet. It doesn't matter what I'm doing or what I am thinking of, as soon as I want to know anything, I turn to the internet. The answers are there. However, despite how long it has been around, I am still caught off guard by the people who don't grasp the power of the tool that is so easily available to them.

I am done learning new things until someone can prove to me that we won't have Google forever.
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) December 2, 2012

I can't tell you how many times I have been teaching, when a student, who is sitting at a computer logged into the internet, will ask me something like,

"What's the capitol of North Dakota?"
"Who was the 23rd president?"
"How many species of roaches are there?"
"Where is the coccyx?"

These are supposed to be kids of the Internet Generation. The entire world of knowledge is at their fingertips right in front of them and it doesn't occur to them to use it. However, if you ask them to show you the latest rap video or their favorite porn site, they'll type so fast their fingers blur.

Anything you could possibly want to know (and stuff you don't want to know) is out there, but you have to know how to find it. There are all sorts of crazy tricks to find what you are looking for, but the easiest place to start (and usually as far as you need to go) is .   Just about anything you could possibly be looking for will be available through this site.

Just tried to switch to Bing. Google was like, "You can, but it'd be a real shame if some of your old searches got out."
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) September 19, 2012

In fact, Google is so useful, it will anticipate what you are looking for before you even get it all typed in. I started to enter some searches to illustrate.

After only five letters, Google knew what I was looking for and offered suggestions. After this search you can correct someone when they incorrectly use the word allopolyploidy when they should have said autopolyploidy. Those words are not interchangeable.

Google is also careful to help you understand why things are they way they are, as illustrated by this search.

Well, which is it?

Whichever opinion you may hold, Google will find you the information you need to support it. Google will even find things you didn't know that you wanted to know about. Look what happened when I started searching for myself (Brett Minor).

It's spooky how much Google knows. When I said you can find anything, I meant it. Despite how thorough Google appears to be just by looking at these illustrations, it does something even cooler. You can search by image. I used the picture to the right to see if it was floating around out there on the internet anywhere. It's a picture of me from my childhood that was just being uploaded for the first time, so there shouldn't be any results. To my surprise, Google found something immediately and I was met with the following screen.

I was intrigued as to why my picture might appear on a website about Kenya. Maybe I had a doppelganger there. So, I clicked the links and they both had the same picture.

Why Google thinks that a baby picture of me looks like the Kenyan flag is beyond me, but Google is much smarter than me or anybody, so we have to trust it. Although, I really don't see it.

Can you see the resemblance?

I just don't see it, but I dug deeper into the site Google suggested to see if I was missing something. After a few minutes, I discovered that Kenya is planning to modify its flag in order to make it more personal. Here is a picture of one of the suggested patterns.

So, Google was right after all. I should have known better than to doubt. This should be proof to everyone that whatever you may be looking for, Google has the answer. If you are wondering how far it is to the nearest Clown parade, how many people live in the Vatican, the ingredients in vegetarian haggis, or how to build a carburetor for a flying toilet, then Google is the place to look first.

If you can't find it with Google, then you probably don't need to know it anyway.

Google, I don't need you to tell me how quickly (.15 seconds) you found the results. Relax. You got the job.
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) May 27, 2012

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Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,897 bloggers are still working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

My Girlfriend is Gross

I've picked up a lot of new readers lately. There are couple of reasons for this. A few months ago, it occurred to me that I am always reading the same blogs. I remember when I first started blogging the triumph I felt when I found a new blog I enjoyed. However, after several months I got comfortable with particular circle of bloggers and didn't move any further.

This wasn't a conscious decision. It just sort of happened. I liked the group I was in. These bloggers all popped up in the comments of each others' blogs and I think I gained a few legitimate friends. I even met my girlfriend through our blogs. Regardless of the great people and fantastic writers I was becoming familiar with, I was growing frustrated with the plateau my blog seemed to have hit. I can remember when I was gaining a few new followers every week and how cool it felt to see those numbers climb.

For the past year, however, my followers have hovered at right about 110-115 people. I couldn't figure out why the growth stopped. I was still writing. In fact, I am writing more than I was before. Something had to have changed. Then I figured it out. I had stopped reading new blogs.

Since I was only reading the same writers week after week, I was not exposing myself (hee hee) to new audiences. I started visiting the sites on the blogrolls of some of my favorite bloggers to find some new content. I picked up about 40 new blogs to read and made sure to always leave comments.
I soon started seeing the numbers rise again. I was thrilled to see this, plus I had discovered even more great material out there that I love to read.

One night, I mentioned my new followers to Red (my blogging girlfriend - for my newer readers) and she mentioned that she had never followed me…WHAT?!?

I was following her and had been for the last year. Why was she not following me and boosting my numbers? Apparently, Red reads her favorite blogs by bookmarking them and checking on them periodically. I just assumed everyone used Google Reader like me.

Google Reader makes everything so easy. Every blog you are subscribed to is right there. I just go to that one page once a day and anyone who has posted something new is in bold. With one click, their new post is in front of me and I don't waste any time visiting blogs that don't have new material up.

It's a ONE STOP BLOG SHOP!

Say that three times fast.

Now, with the news that Google Reader will no longer be around after July 1^st, I am learning that there are a lot of people who weren't using it.

Red had no interest in starting to use Google Reader, but she did want to start following me. Being the math geeks that we are, we tried to decide at what point she should jump in. I had 112 followers at the time and she needed a nice, mathematically sound number that meant something.

I told you we were math geeks.

She decided she wanted to be follower #144. 

144 = 12 x 12 or 12 dozen or a dozen dozen

Also, called a GROSS

I vowed to keep an eye on my followers, so she could jump in at the appropriate time. Soon after, I started visiting the other blogs and my numbers started to move, but slowly. Every time I got a few more followers, I let her know. Soon, the numbers really took off and we thought we might miss it.

I signed up for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. For this challenge, you post every day in the month of April except Sundays. Each day has a theme.
A is for ___________
B is for ___________…and so on.

Part of this challenge is visiting the other bloggers (there are over 1,200) who are doing the challenge as well. Since there are so many, I have started early and I leave comments on every one introducing myself and telling them how this is my first year. Due to these visits, many of them are coming back to visit me and are following as well.

My numbers started climbing again. I told Red one night that she needed to be paying attention, because I was up to 139. The very next night, I checked in and I had jumped up 4 followers. I was sitting at 143. I sent her a panicked text.

After a few nerve-wracking minutes,

I had to refresh my blog page once again to be sure we hadn't missed the window. There she was, the beautiful #144.

She's the blinking Darth Vader. →

Since then, I've picked up a few more, so we got her in there just in time. I expect once April gets here and the challenge actually starts, the numbers will jump very quickly. If we had missed the 144, I don't know what number we would have settled on. I told you we were math geeks.

Plus, after all this trouble, we now know that Google Reader is going away. As far as I know, Google Reader is connected to Google Friend Connect, so I don't even know if any of our efforts will have mattered in a few months.