Riddle me this, Google
One of the reasons why I do all this technical stuff in a blog is to leverage the power of search engines like Google. I wrote a program the other day to go through the referrer log and extract all the Google queries that sent people to my page, and I was quite pleased to discover that the vast majority of the Google queries were from people who would have gotten their questions answered by various articles. Lots and lots of queries like "vbscript and jscript arrays", "cannot use parentheses when calling a sub" and so on. I've gotten over 15000 Google hits since I began this project. Next time I'll discuss the details of the simple analysis program I wrote, but today I want to answer more reader questions.
Looking through the logs though, I see there are many questions posed to Google which were referred to my blog, but my blog didn't actually answer them. I'd like to take this opportunity as a public service to answer those questions. (I've capitalized and punctuated the queries, but otherwise they're pretty much as they were typed into Google.)
Personal questions:
Are you a traveling man?
I'm a travellin' man. Don't tie me down 'cause there's just too much livin' goin' all around. A man has got to see what he can see. I love the road and I love the air and I don't worry and I don't ever care. I love my women, and sometimes they love me.
Historical Questions:
Name as many people you can who went before the Committee and did name names.
Elia Kazan, and, um, hmm, he's pretty much the only one who comes to mind. Oh, and Disney of course. That part of history is not my strong suit.
Linguistic Questions:
What does "MSDN" stand for?
Microsoft Developer Network.
What does "foo" mean?
Nothing. It's a metasyntactic variable used as a placeholder.
What does "FUD" stand for?
Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
What does "elision" mean?
It's a grammatical term. To elide a word is to omit it in such a way that the meaning is still clear. For example, I live with two people who grew up in Pennsylvania, and they have a habit of eliding the verb "to be" in certain contexts. For example, they'll say "Do you have any towels that need washed?" instead of "need to be washed". The missing "to be" is an elision. (I hardly even notice it anymore.)
We use the term in artificial languages in the same way. For example, when you say class blah { int foo; } in C#, you've elided the internal on the class and the private on the member. They're understood to be there, but omitted for brevity without changing the meaning.
What are some opposite words for "boring"?
Fascinating, engrossing, interesting, captivating.
Is there a difference between English and German?
Yes.
How can I write Urdu?
Learn the alphabet first. Try this page: https://www.ukindia.com/zurdu1.htm
Romantic Questions:
What are the best ways to get a boy to like you?
Just be yourself -- the last thing you want is to get a boy interested in a fake, put-on version of yourself, because then you'll only have to maintain the charade to keep him interested, and what fun is that?
If you're having trouble meeting boys, do stuff that makes you a more interesting person and puts you in contact with new people. Volunteer in your community, join a mixed-sex sports team, take some classes, whatever. That not only increases your chances of meeting someone with common interests, it gives you something to talk about as you're getting to know them.
More generally: I've learned by bitter experience that it is a bad idea to predicate your own happiness on the behaviour of other people. It seems crazy, I know, but one of the best ways to have a good relationship with someone else is to first learn to be happy by yourself. Happy single people are highly attractive to MOTASs compared to desperate, depressed single people.
(I am amazed that my blog is number three on the Google page for this query.)
Why do guys string you along?
Some guys are just jerks, I guess.
Health Questions:
What make my eyes hurt when I open them in the morning?
Your planet is in orbit around a giant ball of fire. Close the blinds before you go to bed.
What are those little things in my eyes?
Assuming they aren't contact lenses, they're probably "floaters" -- little pieces of detached protein. Unless you suddenly start getting a lot of floaters, they're nothing to worry about. If you do suddenly get lots, go see an optometrist immediately.
I see things with my eyes.
No kidding? Me too!
Philosophical Questions:
Why does my clock change?
Because time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future.
Who can say where the road goes?
Any decent cartographer. Or try stopping at the next gas station.
I have evil powers. How do I use them?
I'd tell you, but that would be morally wrong.
Am I too smart?
Probably not; few people are.
Practical Questions:
How to tell asbestos vinyl flooring?
I had that stuff in my old kitchen. Believe me, you can't tell whether it is contaminated just by looking at it.
Get a spray bottle and soak a small area with water. Keep spraying it as you use a sharp knife to cut off a small sample. (If there are asbestos fibers, you want them wet so that they fall out of the air.) Immediately put the sample in a zip-lock bag, or, preferably, two, and take it to an asbestos testing lab.
I can also give you some tips on do-it-yourself abatement if you decide to take it out yourself.
Where do cufflinks come from?
When a mommy and daddy cufflink love each other very much…
Seriously, any good formal wear store can hook you up with a nice pair of cufflinks.
How can employees give good service to the customer in order to get more customers in a restaurant establishment?
In general, good service is straightforward: treat the customer like you appreciate their business and want them back!
Remember, good service doesn't get people in the door; good service gets repeat customers. Advertising gets them in the door. Of course, there is always word-of-mouth, but that's more likely to be about the good food than the good service. Regular customers are the lifeblood of most restaurants.
How can I break my foot?
Dropping a really heavy object (for instance, a bunch of bricks, or perhaps an anvil) is the "classic" method. You can also get it caught in a door or some machinery or get run over by a heavy vehicle. There are lots of ways -- be creative!
How can I add two numbers?
Start by adding the ones digits, then the tens, and so on. Make sure to keep track of the "carry".
How can a monkey be interviewed?
Lock James Lipton in a room with a monkey and a tape recorder, see what happens. Better yet, lock James Lipton in a room with a couple dozen monkeys. I'd pay good money to see that.
[This is part one of Riddle Me This, Google. See also Part Two and Part Three.]
Comments
Anonymous
May 11, 2004
fricking. Hysterical. certainly your most entertaining post to date. :D
as for guys stringing you along; perhaps your readers should try to use string.IsInterned to determine if their guy is in for the long haul, or just trying to invoke a string.Split() operation on them. ;)Anonymous
May 11, 2004
Would you be making your log analysis software available?Anonymous
May 11, 2004
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May 11, 2004
Inpired by Eric's blog entry, I wrote a small VB .NET program to analyze my dasBlog referrer logs for Google search terms.
The search terms I found are here:
http://www.mydemos.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=9f292139-c2aa-4ae4-9c40-389db5569c36
And the source code/executable for the program is here:
http://www.mydemos.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=a0f21693-5d63-4b89-afc8-072ad09ad304
It's not perfect. But it was an interesting programmatic exercise.Anonymous
May 11, 2004
It reminds me of Rory Blyths weekly session of Google Wierdos on dotNetRocks ... but not that wierd.Anonymous
May 11, 2004
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May 11, 2004
It never gets any less funny to hear that people are still typing questions like these into Google
My favourites from this post are Are you a traveling man? and What are the best ways to get a boy to like you?
I might do it to mine one day, release your application :)Anonymous
May 11, 2004
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May 11, 2004
Where I used to live (Maine) the answer to
Who can say where the road goes?
was
Don't go no where, just lays right here. A Mainer accent is required for the full effect.Anonymous
May 12, 2004
Wow. Glad I found out about asbestos vinyl flooring. I never knew such a thing existed. Think I'll just tile OVER the kitchen floor instead of tearing it up!Anonymous
May 12, 2004
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May 12, 2004
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May 12, 2004
The Darwin awards are only for people who removed themselves from the gene pool. Had you dropped it, uh, somewhere else, you might qualify.Anonymous
May 12, 2004
Well, there's always the next time... :)Anonymous
May 13, 2004
A better answer for the "I see things with my eyes" one might be: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/22/ :-)Anonymous
May 13, 2004
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May 15, 2004
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May 16, 2004
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May 18, 2004
>> the vast majority of the Google queries were from people who would have gotten their questions answered by various articles.
Eric, I first learned of your blog via Google while trying to get answers to some VBScript questions. Now I'm hooked!Anonymous
May 28, 2004
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July 19, 2005
I’m on week 3 of my 3 week trip to Europe, lots of blog material but I am tired, grumpy, sat in a...Anonymous
July 19, 2005
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August 08, 2005
Simply stunning... and fascinating, interesting, engrossing and captivating. Well done, Eric.Anonymous
August 11, 2005
Inspired by "Riddle me this, Google", I will answer your questions. The following are all from my Google referrer logs:...Anonymous
August 06, 2006
you have a good sense of humor. no wonder you had that girl for six years! girls really go for the guys that are funny, oh, and don't forget tall. but i'm not that shallow. i don't care how tall guys are. some girls are just stupid.
And going on sports teams is a good way to meet guys. i played on a three on three hockey team and we were the only girl's team in the leage. lots of guys were there.
(the url up there is my website)Anonymous
December 19, 2006
Apparently I've sparked a discussion amongst the super-geniuses of LtU on various innovative languageAnonymous
January 30, 2007
FYI, I will be live and in person available for questions about C# 3.0, working at Microsoft, relationshipAnonymous
January 31, 2007
Eric, you are still talking about your floor! Long time no see, wondering how you r doing? If it would be okay with you I would really appreciate a visit to your kitchen to take some pictures, and do a 36 month evaluation- with your input- as to how everything has held together. Hope all is well with you, couldn't help but think of you this week with your "Longhorn" work Finally coming out! Congrats!Anonymous
January 31, 2007
This might help... j_kovarik@hotmail.comAnonymous
April 10, 2007
PingBack from http://rowansimpson.com/2007/04/11/find-out-what-your-audience-is-after/Anonymous
October 10, 2007
Happy New Year everyone! Let's start 2005 off with another episode of Riddle Me This, Google. Yes, onceAnonymous
October 10, 2007
I knew this would end up being an agony column. Of the 29950 Google-referred hits since the last timeAnonymous
October 10, 2007
I'm back, and I've almost made it through the 525 not-automatically-sorted email messages, caught upAnonymous
January 04, 2010
Thanks for sharing this interesting post.Anonymous
July 01, 2010
I have found this page enormously helpful in answering all of my questions. However, I would like to point out a technicality: the sun is not on fire. It's a nuclear fusion reaction, not a chemical one. This is fortunate for us who are alive, since a fire that size would have burned up all of its fuel ages ago!