One way of finding interesting content on the Web is to do what I term an aimless psi search, which consists of entering 2-4 (usually 3) words into a search engine and picking the more interesting-looking item from the first page of results. Termed a "psi search" as there seems to be some almost inexpressible aesthetic about how to choose the words (though that is the question to be asked here).

It was such a search that brought me to the Gibson FAQ and board... recently I tried a couple of others and hit Stephen King's autobiographical story (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:m22VBn-sFwoJ:www.thuongviet.com/entertainment/enovels/display.php%3FID%3D466%26vn_enc%3Dutf8+robot+measles+extricate&hl=en&ie=UTF-8). With Gibson the search was "umpteen mimetic files"; with King, "robot measles extricate".

Now, the obvious question becomes how to choose the words. Certain combinations - like any three words that have an obvious common context - are virtually guaranteed to fail. Actual use of paranormal methods or tasking the search with a specific objective constitutes a flagrant foul and is to be censured on ethical and safety grounds!

Why do groups of three words with different spheres of application seem to pull out the most interesting content? My guess would be that a) good writers use rarer words more often, and b) good writers pluck words from every portion of their linguistic cortices, while lesser lights and mundane compositions involve things clustered together in some narrower constellation, but I am not sure. More speculatively, I wonder if the content of a story could benefit from intentionally including certain sets of three words amid the content.

Have others here toyed with this variety of searching, or if you try what I suggest, do you get good results, and what works best for you? Just curious...

I did a search for "positronic sandwich interface" and got some Star Trek fanfics.

I do something similar, but using a whole phrase. Then Google skips the simple words and gives something with the rest.

Last one I did, and got a couple of interesting war narratives, was.

Pink panzers under a setting sun.

José

I got this: http://www.dorway.com/ (and it's awesome)

off of give me a good link, I say!!

I used to do that a lot, though. These days I rely mainly on hypertext and stumbling on things through other misc surfing. I rarely find myself online with nothing to do and nothing to read, so I don't usually do the cast-a-hook-into-the-net thing anymore. I used to do it a lot though, so I made this thingy for myself, that I called 'Explore a random corner of the internet.' I put in a bunch of links, just whenever anyone gave me a link or posted one somewhere I'd drop it in there and use it later. I don't refill it much anymore.

This thread reminds me of Googlewhacking, which I think was discussed in another thread on theis board.
Here are the rules

http://www.googlewhack.com/


Oh here it is
thanks Gromit

quote:

---

Originally posted by hurtstotouchfire:
off of http://www.google.com/search?q=give+me+a+good+link%2C+I+say%21%21&hl=en&lr=

---

That is great I got this

This is a Kiwi after my own heart!

Thanks for the ideas - now let's see if I can tear them apart

Where "googlewhacking" is concerned... I don't see the point so much. As best I could tell the googlewhack site doesn't even cite the pages that come up in the search; they're trophies, not sought for their own interest. And to the extent that some people apparently deliberately create googlewhackable pages it's just a cheap vanity trick - find some nullo search with bizarre words and plunk in your dinky little site.

The use of phrases with five more common words instead of a rarer set of three or four words seems like a matter of personal preference; the intent is the same. But to me, the higher goal of a three-word search is not to find content relevant to most or even any of the words, but to find some completely irrelevant but informative content. So instead of "pink panzers under a setting sun", I picked panzers/bikini/fireworks and came up with an article about the FCC investigating the Olympics opening ceremonies for indecency. Which was really a "miss", in my reckoning... but you get the idea.

There's a question here in common with the I Ching or the European Tarot --- is it possible to pick a random idea? Such divination schemes, when (in my opinion) used properly, should no more rely on magic to produce a "right" result than a so-called Monte Carlo simulation in mathematics does. Instead, the idea is that through appropriate use of randomness to explore a small subset of all possibilities, a truer idea of the overall order appears - all possibilities are equally weighed against one another for a single logical result. For example, the "panzers" search recalls the deplorable march of the censors as a salient feature of the civilization even though it was not asked for, and thereby serves as an augury of what is coming.

So perhaps - maybe - a good multi-word search should work like this: select several disparate terms in order that (in theory) the vast majority of mundane pages are compressed into only a few possibilities, whereas those with unusual ideas are randomly scattered about the portion of lexicographical space being explored. Unusal ideas then translate to interesting text. Or not... I'm unsure.

I agree with others that "getting out and walking" i.e. jumping from link set to neat site to link set is also a great way to experience the Net; however, it tends to confirm rather than escape the biases of the original search. On some occasions I've even begun by searching for an item, then going to the links and getting distracted reading through several linked sites at random - before picking up the trail by accident and finding what I wanted originally!

While mulling these things, I tried several more searches with panzers --- no luck. I feel "tied down" with someone else's search term, even if I pick the other two, and get garbage. So I try a set of my own for a control - invidious, test, will-o-the-wisp, and get a much more interesting version of the nonbelief in HIV causing AIDS than I've seen before. No, I'm not very credulous, but I have to laugh:


"The degree of toxicity of AZT may be judged by the content of the label found on bottles of this substance sold by the Sigma Chemical Company, a purveyor of AZT for laboratory use.  It is a label that bears a skull and crossbones, no less, and the legend:

TOXIC.  Toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed.  Target organ(s):  Blood bone marrow.  If you feel unwell, seek medical advice (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing [emphasis added].7

It is worth emphasizing that this warning label is for the benefit of laboratory workers who may come into proximity with the bottles of AZT to which it is affixed.  These bottles, it should be noted, contain 100 milligrams of AZT.  The amount prescribed as a medication against HIV is from 500 to 1500 milligrams a day."

A suitable Random Thought for a Random Thoughts thread

I tried "Bush+Resignation+Speech".
No luck so far. DAMN.

epistemology+perineum+megadeath yielded no results and the suggestion from Google 'do you mean: epistemology+perineum+megadeth?' When I allowed as perhaps I did (I didn't really), I still got no results:

epistemology+perineum+technical yielded lots of interesting things, including this:

http://www3.niu.edu/~tm0lrv1/550/transgender.html