Maff

@maff

welcome to my web page

they/them
maff.scot/

i am just a litel babie……

how do i centre these dang images

my telegram channel where i post the absolute worst shit you've ever seen

badposts.t.me/

Maff @maff3/7/2024, 4:29 PM

walking mirage @atomicthumbs

jess @jessfromonline3/6/2024, 6:03 PM

I HATE THAT NOWHERE ON THE INTERNET HAS EXACT SEARCH ANYMORE

YOU CAN PUT ALL THE DOUBLE QUOTES YOU WANT AND IT STILL FUZZY MATCHES OR STRAIGHT UP DOES """SYNONYMS""". GOOGLE SUCKS NOW. EVERYTHING SUCKS ENSHITTIFICATION OF EVERYTHING.

^{Except Cohost. Thank god cohost has basic features like exact search, even if all you're searching is tags or people.}

Birdout: Paradise @SomeEgrets3/6/2024, 6:46 PM

OH MY GOD EXACTLY THIS

don't guess at what i wanted to see!
don't give me results you think i want instead!
just give me, literally, word for word the exact phrase i entered

if there are no results, just tell me that! returning no results is useful information! don't waste my time with unrelated things just so you can put links on a page!

walking mirage @atomicthumbs3/6/2024, 11:00 PM

if it returns no results they can't show you ads for the fuzzy-modified search

Maff @maff3/7/2024, 4:29 PM

it's frustrating, because i remember this originally being a very useful component of google search maybe ten, fifteen years ago, but now it seems like search engines are all desperate to show you anything other than what you asked for.
obviously there's commercial interests involved - searching amazon for "homekit" will give you three devices that do not support homekit, but do support alexa, for every one device that does support homekit.
the normal response is that general search engines support a verbatim mode. this, however, also appears to just sometimes decide to use synonyms or other things that The Engine thinks is related. it's dumb!

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in reply to @jessfromonline's post:

onebug @numberonebug3/6/2024, 6:13 PM

The basic "here's how to use a database or search for information on the net" stuff I learned in elementary school is all useless nowadays and I feel as lost sometimes as if the internet just went offline

K. Starling @kstarling3/6/2024, 6:26 PM

It's distressing. Something powerful and once ubiquitous has been thoroughly subverted. People not much younger than me (and I am not that old) don't even know it existed, and because the same names of websites and same apparent services still "exist", it's difficult to communicate what, precisely, has been lost.

Arina Artemis @arina-artemis3/6/2024, 6:20 PM

What about DuckDuckGo?

K. Starling @kstarling3/6/2024, 6:29 PM

Duckduckgo and startpage, the two most popular alternatives, still rely upon Google, Bing, and Yandex search to produce their own aggregate results. They are not complete search engines in their own right, it's more accurate to think of them as a layer of obfuscation to de-identify the user.

gull *Plus!*@gull3/6/2024, 6:34 PM

my kingdom for an actual fucking Search Engine and not a Search Pile Of Sputtering Advertising-Optimized Parts Loosely Crammed Together

Tom (tired of the computer)@masklayer3/6/2024, 7:08 PM

Kagi does it...

🌷 doodlemancy 🌷@doodlemancy3/6/2024, 7:21 PM

using any search tool now feels like one of those frustrating dreams where like, you just can't do something really easy, like put both legs in your pants or turn a doorknob. i used to be the queen of search terms! people would be like "how did you find that so fast" and i'd be like "key words babey"

and now it's all meaningless because everything is trying to guess what i want instead of using my keyword, and by guess what i want, i mean it's trying to guess how it can get me to make some sort of purchase. horrific. i want my internet back. :(

Kat A. Beckett @KaterinaBucket3/6/2024, 7:38 PM

i wouldn't even mind the synonym shit if it was better at using actual synonyms. half the time it's like, completely different words that sometimes pertain to the same subject but very much don't mean the same thing

Emi @pardalis3/6/2024, 8:10 PM

discord's search is so scuffed. unbelievably anti-user stuff going on there

the sauce-stained napkin @friedpicnic3/6/2024, 8:29 PM

oh yeah and let's not forget that - doesn't work for excluding things anymore so if the search engine is convinced that you want something, you ain't getting rid of it

"even in the future nothing works" indeed

the sauce-stained napkin @friedpicnic3/6/2024, 8:29 PM

oh yeah and let's not forget that "-" doesn't work for excluding things anymore so if the search engine is convinced that you want something, you ain't getting rid of it

"even in the future nothing works" indeed

Caique Assis @caiquesassis3/6/2024, 10:03 PM

I feel this

@HorsePondMine3/7/2024, 12:38 AM

Today I was looking for pancake places on Yelp for work and the top results were a bakery that hand a donut someone said tasted like a pancake and an Indian restaurant because Yelp thought the word "butter" in "butter chicken" was close enough to pancake.

in reply to @SomeEgrets's post:

@voidlily3/6/2024, 6:58 PM

i put it in quotes, google still says "did you mean this" and i have to click "no i meant that" and it STILL substitutes synonyms and respellings

in reply to @atomicthumbs's post:

Keith @KeithJCarberry3/7/2024, 6:22 AM

i thought google does exact search with single quotes. if you single quote something it will return nothing if there's nothing (then it will generate a search for you based on the same text but no quotes). if you add double quotes, that "no results found" information disappears