Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Search and ye shall find...

Google, and most other search engines, are great tools. I used to bookmark every interesting or useful website in my web browser. I still bookmark very specific sites, like my bank, favourite news sources, favourite blogs, etc., but for general results I simply Google a word or phrase and then browse through the results to find what I want. Apparently, everyone else on the globe does the same thing. I find it amusing, and sometimes astonishing, how people chance onto this blog of mine by typing something into a Google or Yahoo search engine. Here are some examples, linked to the pertinent Atavist blog post suggested by the search engine:
These are obviously but a small sampling. Like those who have found their way to my blog via a search for some name, word or phrase, I have found some interesting sites and blogs that I visit on a regular basis. It's fun.

Who could have imagined, even a few years ago, the vast amount of information available to us these days? Sure, a lot of it is useless, but some of it really is informative, and even useful. When I was growing up, books and periodicals were available at the library, but we couldn't afford many books or magazines at home. My mother told stories of going shopping with her parents in Warsaw, prior to World War II, and her thrill to be able to read the newspapers in which purchases were wrapped.

How things have changed.

6 comments:

  1. When I began teaching, in 1984, computers were not readily available for research/student use. Now, we use them on a daily basis in the classroom.

    But you're right, the links one comes across can be alarming (if not hilarious).

    One year, I read a marvelous book to my class called "The Midnight Fox" by Betsy Byars. It's about a boy, who goes to aunt's farm for the summer. He spots a black fox far off in the pasture one day, and he is so taken with this beautiful animal that he looks for her, and makes marks with his pocketknife on his bedpost every time he sees her. (It comes to a startling conclusion when his uncle traps the fox near the end of the book.)

    So, I thought I'd Google "Black Fox" to show them a picture, because we are only familiar with red foxes in the Midwest.

    Don't try it in the computer lab with 26 third graders.

    There were more beautiful, naked Black women than I have ever seen in my life.

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  2. What a hoot! Instant sex education. You have to be careful, by the way, when writing anything that a red-blooded male like me might see, about using the words beautiful, naked, and women in the same sentence.

    I will keep my eye out for black foxes.

    When I was a kid, I remember reading books by a British woman named Enid Blyton. I doubt that anyone has heard of her today, but I used to enjoy her books when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

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  3. Thanks for telling me about Enid Blyton. I'm always looking for books that kids will enjoy, especially the boys. I find the 'old' authors to be the best, and it's all the more wonderful to find a new one.

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  4. Wait a minute. Beautiful, naked, women...yeah, that's what boys enjoy. ;)

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  5. Some of her books (The Adventure series -- Island of Adventure, Castle of Adventure, etc.,)were about the adventures of 3 or 4 kids, about 12 years old or so, and a parrot named Kiki. I loved those books. Good reading. By the time I turned 12, the kindly old librarian (she must have been in her seventies, at least) let me up into the adult section of the library, and soon I was reading Dos Passos, Costain, Uris, and similar authors. I will forever be grateful to that old gal for helping me develop a love of literature and of reading generally.

    Oh... and that other thing... Men too!

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