ice cream making and ranting

Friday, February 04, 2005

Trouble with Tribbles

Dear Google Image Search,

I'm sorry to inform you, but I think you have your priorities confused. I was trying to find pictures of tribbles, the little furballs from Star Trek, because my otherwise well versed in pop-culture friend, didn't know what they were. I was, sort of, looking for a very specific picture that I know exists, but I would have settled for many others.

The first page of results returned is approximately 70% tribbles, that is almost acceptable. the rest of the pages are a majority of things that aren't tribbles: dogs, cats, weasels, people, kids...
Granted, my results dramatically improve when i search [tribble star trek]. But there is only one thing that should be called tribble, and Star Trek should really be unnecessary.

And, only 196 results for [tribble star trek]? that's just silly. Is it because i'm at work and I have the safesearch on? Surely, there must be millions of tribble pictures on the internet. Why don't you have them indexed? You do know that the internet was started by nerds, for nerds. Nerds who love star trek. Surely, you people at google like star trek, there are probably even some of you with tribbles on your desk. The trouble with tribbles in 2005, apparently is not their ubiquity, but rather their dearth. I don't believe this is a scarcity problem, but rather an access problem.

The solution to this problem is:
1. reprioritize the order in which tribble pictures are shown
2. find more damn tribbles and provide access to them.

When I get my library, I will keep a file stocked with tribble pictures, just for situations like this.

2 Comments:

  • At February 04, 2005 9:17 PM, Blogger Sarah the Hussy said…

    In defense of Google's image search (not really sure why I'm trying to defend it, seeing that searching for "katamari" gives me boobies eventually- but I suppose any image search eventually gets you boobies), I can totally see naming a cat or dog "Tribble." Especially if you get it and it's just a few weeks old and looks like a pile of fluff. The people and kids I don't understand at all.

     
  • At February 06, 2005 11:00 PM, Blogger lydia said…

    well, I'm the tribble-ignorant friend Cynth mentioned, but it's not that I'd never heard of them--I just didn't know what tribbles looked like. Star Trek isn't "my thing." But these tribble-toy-things we saw were really cool. Cute furry lumps that you smack against a surface, and then they vibrate and move around! You don't have to be a Star Trek fan to appreciate that!

     

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