Re: Altavista better than Google for genealogy searches

"John Prentice" <john.prentice@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in 
message news:If2dnfHsBOofvrHVRVnygwA@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Don Moody wrote:
>> What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in 
>> the UK come with Google installed.
>
> That doesn't make sense. Google is a web-site, not a software 
> program.

Not to the cognoscenti. But it does make sense to the people to whom 
the instruction to Google is addressed. They don't distinguish where 
the software is resident or what  does what. They do what was known in 
the old mechanical days as recognising and buying the badge. They 
don't look behind the badge. To such people Google is indeed 'on' the 
computer they handle and many a PC is delivered with it as the home 
page to which Internet Explorer goes directly. To those people Google 
is indeed installed on their machine.

It is unfortunate and distressing to the cognoscenti in any field when 
those not in the field don't understand the detailed workings of what 
is going on in the equipment for which they lovingly care. But the 
fact is that most people in areas outside their own expertise neither 
know nor care about how things are done. They only care that what is 
supposed to happen, happens. I got the point over to a computer 
enthusiast some years ago.

He was telling me and others what we 'ought' to know about DOS, 
setting up the machines, and all sorts of plugging and unplugging. I 
asked if I could see his car keys. He put them in my hand and I put 
them in my pocket. Then told him he could have his keys back when he 
explained in precise molecular detail what went on inside a cylinder 
immediately after the spark. If he couldn't then he was clearly unfit 
to have and use a car. His reply? 'Don't be bloody silly. All I do is 
put petrol in and drive from A to B. I don't want or need to know 
anything else.' To which my response was 'Exactly. You keep the 
computers working and my colleagues will drive them. They don't want 
or need to know more.' To the guy's eternal credit, he got the point. 
I gather he went on to use it in making a successful business in 
computer maintenance. He told all his clients NOT to look into the 
innards or wonder how they worked or try to get clever in any way. 
They were to do their legal, accountancy or whatever professional work 
and their sole part in the event of a computer problem was knowing 
which number to telephone. He also gave them the simplest possible 
instruction set for doing what had to be done, including making 
back-ups.

It is a very difficult concept for experts to grasp, except for those 
of us who have gone into tecdoc often enough to get our fingers burned 
the first time we wrote as experts for a non-expert reader****p. Then 
you learn that writing for fellow professionals in a journal of record 
is one thing. but writing for the non-expert is quite another.

You may like to read the old Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974, 
Section 6 in particular. Therein you will find two insertions of the 
words 'at work' in connection with instructions for the use of 
equipment and of substances. They are there because I got them put in. 
No we will not have tecdoc written by the chief engineer of a 
manufacturer and only comprehendible by the chief engineer of the user 
business when those instructions are for action by an apprentice.  And 
we won't have them  in a form which sits nicely on the chief's desk 
and doesn't fit the apprentice's pocket.We will have, and it is an 
offence if we don't get, instructions in words the apprentice will 
understand and in a form that apprentice can carry with  him or her.

What I wrote originally in this thread was exactly an explanation of 
why 'Google' is an instruction at the apprentice level. That was the 
point I was making. The valuable work Steve has done is actionable by 
the cognoscenti. It is way too far ahead for starters who haven't 
learned to search,  and neither know nor care what happens where when 
they do start searching.I don't 'like' the situation any more than you 
do. I am merely addressing the reality of the majority of people 'at 
the computer'.

And by the way, I could give a detailed molecule-by-molecule account 
of what happens after the spark. As could any other student of Prof 
Hey at KCL. He's the bloke who worked it out.

Don