Google Custom Search: Customize Your Frustration

A few weeks back, I'd hoped that Google Custom Search would help in my efforts to track down well-written but nonscholarly game criticism. Yeah, not so much, as it turns out. It worked great for Nier, and produced a fairly full body. But when I started to use it for better known games, the cracks started to appear in the system. There were two major problems:
 1) Too much of the same. You know that little notice Google sometimes puts at the bottom of your searches, the one that says they've omitted similar results? Well, Custom Google does not omit that, and isn't the better for being more thorough. When it searches a site, it'll find the most prominent page featuring your search term on the site. Then it'll list it again in the site's monthly archive. Then again in the total page set search. And again. And again. When my first dozen or so results are variations of the same page, that gets frustrating.
2) Cut off point. The other issue is that, even with (or maybe because of) these repeated searches, it's truncating my list. The first page says that there's thousands of entries found, but the time I hit page two, that same number is twelve, and my search is abruptly over. Worse, it's clearly missing some entries; searching "Elder Scrolls" and "Skyrim" brings up results that aren't in just a search for "Elder Scrolls."

At this point, I'm basically stuck with my original method, using the site: search option to check promising sites out individually, which is hardly an optimal method, when you've got just under a hundred sites in your total list. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of threshold limit for the number of sites you're searching, and I've passed the ideal amount, creating all the noise in the system.

If we're going to insist on making this a teachable moment, then this is a good example of mental models in action, or failed action. This idea comes up in HCI (Human Computer Interface) a lot, and it involves how we respond to stimuli. Essentially, humans rarely really understand how the world works. What we do is we create mental models of how we think a given system works, based on how it responds to us. Frustration with a designed product often comes from a moment when we realize our mental model doesn't actually match an object's reality. (Although frustration can come from plenty of other sources too.) A big part of design--and game design, specifically--is how to cater towards players' expectations, or even push their expectations in certain directions. Skeuomorphs are one such tool; making some new technology deliberately look like older technology, so people will go to it thinking they understand its function. Computer design is littered with these; an easy example is the Word spreadsheet--it's really not very much like the print spreadsheet at all in terms of all the extra stuff it can do, but it's useful to start by thinking of it as a spreadsheet. The downside to skeuomorphs is that often people never go any further; they assume the tech just models the tech they know, and never learn what else it can do--or learn where the new version falls short, until it does.

In a nutshell, my mental model of the Google Custom Search was that it functioned like the regular google search I was familiar with, but it looks like it doesn't. Perhaps even worse, it may be that the fault is also that my mental model of the regular Google search was flawed to begin with. It may be time to upgrade my knowledge of how a search engine works--but that still doesn't guarantee I can fix the custom search to work more like I want it to, so it may not be worth the effort.

Mostly, this post is just an excuse to take a break from searching through pages on Elder Scrolls that I don't need. You'd think more people would be talking about the use of scrolls in the game. I mean, it's right there in the title and everything.

Later Days.

Keyboard of Woe

It's been a slow blogging year, 2014 has. Part of that is because I've felt less need to blog; as I've commented before, when I have actual people in my day-to-day life to share my oh-so valuable reflections on comics and videogames with, my need to blog about such things incessantly diminishes accordingly. And last term was busy; I was teaching a new course on digital media for the first time, and actually working pretty constantly on school projects, which diminished time for most other things. But this term, I'm teaching a course I've already taught, and I'm... well, still working on school stuff, but the first thing has changed, so more blogging time, I imagine.

And for today's post/complaint, we have a return to an old faithful, the busted keyboard. Back way back, I had a fun couple of days when my keyboard's spacebar gave up the ghost. Now, years later, different keyboard, different problem: my letter 'l' has decided to self-destruct, leaving me with a little white nub to press in place of a key. In practice, it doesn't do a lot to change how I operate except it makes my laptop look rather trashy (I can live with that) and it interrupts my typing flow (I can't live with that at all). So I've already sent out emails to two laptop repair folk in the area. Were a keyboard for a home computer, the answer's simple enough. Even if you don't want to replace the keyboard--the obvious, easy solution--it's still relatively simple to swap in a new key. I've done it myself a few times. For a lap top... forget about it. The Alienware model in particular uses these keys with three detachable plastic bits, one of which is the actual key top. The other two fit into each other and connect it to the mainboard, and they are IMPOSSIBLE to work with. There's a Youtube video of a guy replacing the keys in seconds; it takes me hours. I have small hands. Really, really small hands. So small that my piano teacher told me that there's a ceiling to how far I could go because my hands just weren't up for those larger chords. But these stupid plastic bits make me feel as if I'm massaging my keyboard with giant hams stapled to each appendage. And these are very flimsy plastic bits. They'll snap off if you look at them sideways, and then they're pretty much ruined. It's the worst.

The big concern here isn't how much it'll cost me to replace them--it probably shouldn't be that much, given that they're just little plastic bits--but how long I'll be without the laptop. I could be without it for a few days, but it's much easier to work with it. Hopefully, I'll get back those estimates soon, and we can all put this sad chapter in our lives behind us. 

Later Days. 

Bibliophile: The Ol' Bait and Switch At Dalhousie

“A book without words is like love without a kiss; it's empty.”
― Andrew Wolfe

I'm not sure why anyone would write a book without words, and if love requires a kiss in all places, a lot of pet owners are performing acts that probably aren't legal, but whatever, it's a metaphor.

This is Bibliophile.

If you're new here, the idea is that I browse through the weekly new book list at my local University library, and note the new entries. Sometimes, though, the phrase "weekly" is a bit of a misomer, and the list fails to be updated, in which case I usually skip the week, or take another Canadian university to browse. This is one of  those latter weeks. So this week, we're looking at the new books at Dalhousie University. Books available at my own local university, good ol' University of Waterloo, will be marked by a bolded H.

Friday Quotations: Computer Stuff

"He's as near to naked despair as has ever been shown to me by anyone not in a film. Here, in that place, we have no shame. He has seen me sleeping on the floor, drooling. We have both seen Danny's puffy white midsection--young as he is, it's a pity--when he stripped to his underwear in the heat of the machine room. I have seen Joel's dandruff, light coating of cat fur on his clothes, noticed things about his body that I should not. And I'm sure he's seen my sticky hair, noticed how dull I look without make-up, caught sight of other details too intimate to mention. Still, none of this matters anymore. Our bodies were abandoned long ago, reduced to hunger and sleeplessness and the ravages of sitting for hours at a keyboard and a mouse. Our physical selves have been battered away. Now we know each other in one way and one way only: the code.

--Ellen Ullman, "Closer to the Machine."

Stuff What Happened to Me

Today it's a 10:30 pm post, rather than 11:30, so... that's something, I guess.

One the problems with keeping a blog for five years is that, eventually, the story well gets a little dry. Especially if you're like me, and specialize more in watching other people's stories than making your own. What I'm saying is that I don't have a lot to talk about today. Hmmm....

 I went to a department meeting, but I can't talk about that, for confidentiality and professional reasons.

 I ate two peanut butter muffins, which is a pinnacle of gluttony and perfection, but there's not a lot else to be said about that. I had a stomach ache later, which was probably well-deserved.

 I tried out a new pedometer app on my phone. I've tried out pedometer devices before, but I've always found them disappointing, largely because the distance it says I've traveled is invariably less than the distance Google maps said I traveled, and the resulting mental downgrading is devastating to my running ego. This one worked well enough, in that it was actually spurring me on rather than depressing me.  I really wanted to do a run that it said was 5 km, rather than the run Google routing had set out. Sadly, I kept checking my progress, rather than locking the phone. That meant I kept accidentally touching the phone screen with my side as my arms moved up and down, which in turn meant that I hit *just* the right combination to reset my stats 40 minutes into the run. Kind of frustrating. Plus, I've misplaced my headphones (they're in my office, I think?) so it was just me lugging around a paperweight for the whole time.

I like watching videos from my computer on my PS3. Previously, I was using Windows Media Player, which had the sole advantage that it was already installed in my computer. The disadvantages were that it was a pain to get any new files synced up with both the player and the PS3, and that only avi files were automatically picked up--I had to do a cheat to get mp4 files working, and forget about mkv. Now, I've got TVersity, which syncs up much faster, is much easier to add new folders, can apparently stream Internet videos directly, and can play all three file types. So yeah, pretty much a big improvement all around. And I put off installing it for the longest time because I didn't want the hassle of learning to use a new program. There's a moral in there.

Got a little more fodder out of today than I thought I would.  That's nice.

Later Days.

Next, I learn what the buttons on my iPhone do

I just figured out that you could use Google to search specific sites for key terms. Considering the nature of game journalism, where many quality articles are buried in the push to produce, and tagging is less then well-planned, this is useful for my research. So I got to feel like an idiot AND learned something useful. It's win-win! Later Days.

Bibliophile: Breaking the Code at University of Victoria

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

This is Bibliophile.

After the break, we'll be going to the University of Victoria.  They've got a lovely new titles page, and 488 new books last week.

Hallways and Computers: A Classy Segue It Ain't

I learned something about myself today. When entering a place where I'm going to take off my shoes and/or coat, I don't come in and do that immediately. Instead, I traipse in, take a few steps forward, and just sort of idle for a moment. I've become aware of this behavior for a while, but it's just today that I figured out why. When I was growing up, whenever I came home, it would be in someone's company. And in the childhood home, our hallway was pretty narrow. Since I was often one of the first in, I'd move forward as quickly as possible, to make room for the next person. And then I'd fidget a bit, so I wouldn't have to compete with them for reaching into the closet to hang things up. And this habit, apparently, has stuck with me, even after more than one year where I've lived alone. I'm not saying this particularly fascinating, or revealing, or even mildly interesting. I wonder, however, how many other habits I've perpetuated that I don't even notice.

And speaking of habit-forming activities, my laptop's back! Hurray! To the shop and back, in less than a week! Hurray! Wiped clean of all the data and information that I've put on it! Hurr---aw, nuts. I'm reasonably tranquil about this, because I've taken to backing up all my school stuff on Dropbox, a"a Web-based file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. that uses cloud storage to enable users to store and share files and folders with others." (Thank you, Wikipedia.) And anything before September of 2011 is backed up on external hard drives and my tabletop computer. The only thing that may be inevitably lost, then, is the data from the course I taught in the fall term on digital media. I sent the students and myself a list of their marks on every assignment before the course ended, so I still have those notes. And my own lectures were all written on looseleaf, and the course blog still exists. But a lot of my copies of the students' presentations may be gone for good. Still, that's a lot better than it could be. At least I didn't lose any research.

I also lost about 150 hours of play on Skyrim and Shining Force II. Not going to be getting those back in a hurry. I guess the cheesy accented Norses'll have to save themselves from the dragons.

Later Days.

First you get the laptop, then you get the power, then you get the women

I've had a lot of trouble with technology over the years. I came across a prime example of this misfortune when I was dredging up posts for the 500th compilation--there was a period of about three weeks when the keyboard on my computer was so broken that I couldn't use the spacebar button. I'd copy a space from regular texts, then insert it in by first typing "*" and using a find and replace function to change them all. How well did that work? It*didn't*work*well.

And my dear computer, beloved as it was, really wasn't any better. Just prior to moving down here, the graphics card burnt out. With a bit of jury-rigging, I got the computer working again, but it wasn't the same. Without a graphic card, even the scrolling changes, as the screen can't process as fast as you're moving. And when you're focused on game studies, not being able to use a reasonable graphics card means that you can't play anything beyond 1997 or so.

Thus, I bit the bullet, and bought a laptop. The very same laptop I'm using now! Since I needed something capable of a bit of gaming, it's an overpowered behemoth Alienware thing that cost more money than I've ever paid for anything except tuition. And I have to say, despite my miserly, luddite streak, I love it. It's transformed where and when I can work. (and play for that matter, but it hasn't, in the two days I had it anyway, cut into work time) And thus, I go one step further into technological sophistication.

So it begins.
Later Days.

Things Come Together and Simultaneously Fall Apart

Good news and bad news. The good news is that the draft of the query letter is ready. All that's left is to choose the excerpt from the novel. So if there's anyone reading this who's had the pleasure of reading the novel too, I encourage you to send me an email and tell me what section you think I should choose.

The new commitment to my exercise regime is also going well. I've managed to get a run in two whole days in a row, which is still not that impressive given other years, but a positive step to build on for now.

And now the bad. First, the minor malignant: even though it's now -11, yesterday morning, it was about +7 out, and pouring rain. It's also the day of my cyberpunk course, which is at a different location from my other classes. More importantly, about 10-20 minutes further than my other classes. And, as Murphy's Law clearly dictates, this is the day my umbrella decides that the whole "prevent water from passing through" thing is really just optional. In the course of the walk, it developed three completely different terminal flaws: The shaft holding the umbrella snaps in two pieces, one of the tongs caves in under the force of the wind and also snaps, and another section develops a big ol' hole in the fabric.

Clearly, I need a new umbrella. I don't think I've ever had to to do this before. Where do you even get an umbrella? Are they available at the local drugstore? The local Superstore? I guess I'll have to make an expedition. Dollars to donuts that it'll start raining whatever day I pick, though.

But this isn't a big deal, as annoying as it was at the time. Despite some people's experience, it does not rain all the time. The Major Malignant at the moment is the perennial favorite, my bicy---nope! Not this time! My computer. Attempting to download a wmv convertor, I accidently downloaded a trojan virus instead--a very quickly self-replicating one, to boot. Through judicial application of the Safe Mode and AVG, I managed to reduce the symptoms to the point where the computer could still actually function, which is a plus, but there's still clearly something terribly wrong with the Internet access. I'm continually running AVG, but since it takes 3 hours at least to do a full scan, I'm not even sure it can keep up with the thing.

So I'm over at the university to do today's work. (Well, technically, to procrastinate on today's work, since I'm typing this right now.) What really bugs me is how guilty I feel over my computer's virus-addled state. I mean, yes, it is my fault, in that I should be more careful what I download and I would have been able to fix if I had set a proper system restore point, but surely I've got more useful things in my life to feel bad about. But no, all I've got is a lingering feeling that if I was a nicer person, my computer would work right now. There's zero logic behind such sentiment, but there it is.

Still, let's end on a positive. Novel's moving forward, and I'll send the first first queries out on Monday. I'm ahead on my classes, I've got my health, and I've got a good life.
..There, that wasn't so hard.

Later Days.