Comments on: What can you not find online?

By: HP

HP — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 17:27:36 +0000

Michael: Thanks. I feel better that the definition came up in a subscription service. A bit odd that the one citation (1913) I found predates the supposed currency of the term by 40-50 years.

By: rogueclassicist

rogueclassicist — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:46:21 +0000

Good translations of a number of ancient authors, especially Pliny the Elder. Most of the translations that are out there are pretty lousy …

By: Adam Morris

Adam Morris — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 14:59:36 +0000

Google – to name just one search engine – has some code-dependent limitations built in that makes certain searches difficult. For example, it only allows for a maximum of ten terms in a search query. If you are looking for exact phrases, this can be limiting at times. Apple’s Sherlock tool lets you search Google for any amount of entries, and it’s easily controlled in the advanced search section. Anyway, could it be that some advanced searching capabilities themselves are a part of those “gates” you mentioned? How many Googlers even know about the possibility of searching for exact phrases?

By: Ampersand

Ampersand — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:56:46 +0000

This may already have been mentioned, in which case apologies, but the Bush administration has been taking down useful pages from the Women’s Bureau of the Labor Department off the web – for instance, they’ve taken down all the information about the wage gap (they used to have a few really good pages of historical wage gap statistics measured a few different ways). Salon has an article about it.

By: LiL

LiL — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:27:08 +0000

Matthew – that CTRL-F when I’m looking for keys or some document at home or in my office. There’s definitely room for improvement..;)

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:29:14 +0000

Information about men’s haircuts. Even worse, try finding information about the history of men’s haircuts (styles in the 20s, etc.) Ok, it’s not controversial, but I sure as hell can’t find it online.

By: BP

BP — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:28:45 +0000

My car. Many’s the time I’ve stared at a large, crowded lot, wondering where I parked my car, wishing I could search Google or press Control-F and find the damn thing.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:50:30 +0000

Example – despite all the wash about e-government, the other day I needed customs tariffs. Could I get customs tariffs? Bollocks. HM Customs & Excise were happy to give me the classification number for the goods I was thinking of importing, but they could only tell me the rate of tax (and hence how much I’d have to pay) if I wanted to buy (by post!) a copy of the entire UK tariff. Bastards.

By: Netwoman

Netwoman — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 15:20:45 +0000

I do a considerable amount of ‘googling’ daily. I think what would be useful to me is somehow getting my search results thematically. For example, me new internet hobby – geneaology – if i want to do a search in this area, i would like to enter in my search word and get geneaology results – not a living person’s track and field results. Women’s rights – no porn please – just appropriate sites. Or, if i am looking for academic sources on a topic…then my results are only academic sources. I think it may be a matter of indexing sites…I am not sure if this makes sense – or if it is already being done, but it would help me going through pages and pages of material.

By: rea

rea — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 15:05:59 +0000

“She asked me if this were legal. I’m a professor, she thought I would know. I didn’t. So I went online to try to get an answer to her question. I found squat.” You have to use subscription data bases to do legal research online—there are some isolated examples of free stuff (see, e. g., http://www.findlaw.com), but seldom enough to get a definitive answer. This has always struck me as a little strange, given that, after all, statutes and case law are government documents . . . you shouldn’t have to pay to access them.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:04:14 +0000

Matthew -- some good sites for classical texts:

I am not a scholar so cannot vouch for their reliability, though.