• ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    105·
    5 months ago

    Five years ago this was valid. Hell even two years ago.

    Today… You’re most likely to get a bullshit sales pitch disguised as a blog that doesn’t actually answer any question you asked but has one word in it from your question sentence.

    • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
      22·
      5 months ago

      God, this is so infuriatingly true. A few months ago I searched for info on types of spiders in my province, because I wanted to learn more about my many housemates. All of the top links were SEO blog spam that were clearly duplicate pages rebranded for different keywords (something that Google’s algorithm used to penalize but apparently no longer gives a shit about). I know this because, no, black widows are not fucking native to Manitoba, Canada.

      Not to mention that goddamn annoying way of writing that SEO blog spam uses where they are so obviously reaching for long tail keywords. My job used to involve some of this stuff back when the search engines pretended to care about good content - when you were at least nominally rewarded with page rank for content that read like it was written by a person with a soul. Now it’s just a wasteland of mechanical prose. There’s still good stuff being said out there, but good like finding it with a search engine.

      • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
        4·
        5 months ago

        Sorry my dude, but according to this they are.

        There are two species of black widow spider in Canada: the western black widow found in parts of BC through to Manitoba (mostly restricted to areas close to the southern Canada-U.S. border) and the northern black widow in southern and eastern Ontario. On occasion, black widow spiders occur outside of their ranges by hitching a ride on produce such as grapes.

        • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
          5·
          5 months ago

          Well, crap. Now I’m going to be irrationally afraid of a run-in with an illusive grape-riding Black Widow.

          I did know about foreign spiders hitching a ride on produce. I just didn’t know that these dudes could take root in our cold wasteland. Nonetheless, thanks for the link!

          • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
            4·
            5 months ago

            No worries, if your heart is in decent shape, you’re actually not in much danger from a black widow, as far as I know. It’s mostly the elderly and the really young who die from their bites these days.

            • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
              2·
              5 months ago

              Good to know. Nevertheless, I hope to never be in a situation where I get to find out. I’m guessing they’re suuuuper rare here. I checked the iNaturalist app and there were no observed sightings of either type mentioned in that article.

              There’s probably just a colony in the back of a supermarket somewhere.

              • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
                2·
                5 months ago

                I’m from Vancouver, and there was definitely a few that lived out back of my dad’s house when I was a teen. TIL my dad’s house was a supermarket!

                • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
                  2·
                  5 months ago

                  I can see them surviving in the wild in Vancouver, but here in MB it regularly gets to -30 to -40 for several months in the winter. I’m not sure they’d like that too much.

                  That said, maybe your dad’s house is a supermarket. Does he have lots of food in it?

    • SeekPie@lemm.ee
      6·
      5 months ago

      I’ve found best search results with either DDG or Startpage, no ads, (probably) more private than Google.

  • dan@upvote.au
    52·
    5 months ago

    You mean Google it then go to the 10th page to find a sketchy site with an article that agrees with you?

  • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
    14·
    5 months ago

    “I googled who was the captain in titanic? Google said " Eat 1 smooth rock a day for better results.” So you were wrong.

  • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    5 months ago

    Please don’t ridicule people for being wrong. It only incentivizes them to avoid admitting mistakes.

  • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
    7·
    5 months ago

    that should end in a question mark, not a period…

    best not to make simple gramattical mistakes when rubbing someone’s face in your having been right

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    3·
    5 months ago

    My absolute favorite thing to say to someone is “I told you so.” I’m just disgusted that I get to legitimately say it so fucking often.

    • meliaesc@lemmy.world
      8·
      5 months ago

      You sound pleasant. Is the most important thing about relationships always being right? 🤔

    • Senshi@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      If you have to say it often, it might indicate you have trouble formulating your initial advice in a way that is acceptable to people.

      Nobody likes to be told they’re wrong, so it helps to be empathetic about it. Packing your advice or instructions into a tactful and diplomatic approach doesn’t cost you much, but makes it much more likely for your advice to be accepted and implemented. And the recipient will usually end up being grateful for having avoided a mistake. They might even start to look for your and ask advice in the future. And if you keep doing that, he might even consider you a nice person or even a friend.

      An arrogant and condescending approach will only do harm, even if you are factually right.