• @[email protected]
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    871 month ago

    Hate it when I search an issue and the only other person with the same problem is me 5 years ago and I didn’t figure it out then either.

    • NaibofTabr
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      1 month ago

      I think it’s worse when they say they found a solution and include a link which is now dead.

      With Google dropping its archive I feel like dead links are going to be more and more common.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 month ago

        I hate the ones that are just “open a case” and then they close the thread without saying what the fix ended up being, looking at you Veeam forums.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 month ago

          So many of my searches lead to Microsoft forums where my exact issue is posted, MS asks for more information, then some auto-mod closes the issue because there wasn’t any further follow up and they can’t replicate it.

      • @[email protected]
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        141 month ago

        The worst is when they say they’ve found a solution, without adding any information or elaborating further. Makes me want to flip my desk.

      • @[email protected]
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        51 month ago

        Even worse in my opinion is when you find someone who had the same problem as you and the only person who replies says “use google.” It’s like that’s how I got to this page!

    • Lith
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      71 month ago

      “I’ll upload a patch later this week” 12 years ago

    • @Naz
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      41 month ago

      The answer was to disable FreeSync. FreeSync was causing the stuttering with SAM turned on.

  • FreshLight
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    551 month ago

    You are not the only one, trust me. Google just went to shit in the last years, so it’s harder to find what you are looking for.

    • capital
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      51 month ago

      I’m currently trying out the first 300 free searches with Kagi. It’s only been a day but it’s already looking like I’m going to subscribe.

      Remember when you got good at Google and you started to notice that you could find what you needed better than most other people? It’s a bit like that and it’s refreshing.

      • FreshLight
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        31 month ago

        How does it compare to other meta search engines that are free?

        • capital
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          21 month ago

          You’ve just made me realize I haven’t really evaluated any others.

          IIRC Startpage is one of them? I might have used that once a long while ago but I can’t say I’ve given the others a fair shake yet.

            • capital
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              31 month ago

              For testing, do you just use one of the listed public instances? I guess ultimately it would be best to self-host.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 month ago

      Yes that is what I thought too. Google is still good for looking up movies and games and such, but for tech stuff and shopping it has noticably declined.

    • ElTacoEsMiPastor
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      21 month ago

      thought about it, too!

      (and… not sure if it’s Jerboa, but the image appears emoji-sized to me. a bite-sized comic, hehe)

  • @[email protected]
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    481 month ago

    True story. I was looking for an answer to an obscure problem and found it in a 10-year-old stackoverflow post. Then I looked more closely at the author…

    Hey! Me from 10 years ago, stop being such a smart ass! It’s obnoxious.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 month ago

      This happens to me more than I care to admit. I told a coworker about a Gitlab CI issue that I’d seen a few years back and hadn’t had any action. I looked up the link to share it. Me; I opened it. Brain failing me, I had forgotten it was my issue.

  • @[email protected]
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    291 month ago

    I find if I’m the only one on the internet having a problem unless it’s a very specific niche application I’m probably doing something fundamentally wrong in my approach and should try figure out how other people normally do it

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      Neiche application like old industrial equipment. Sure 90% of it is well documented and properly sourced. Still there’s always that one piece of equipment purchasing got because it was cheap with no documentation and just a safety placard from the 90s. Regardless it needs to be integrated and you bet your ass no one has ever searched that. Then you’re back to basics, sometimes even BASIC.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 month ago

      It is usually this for me as well. I’m misunderstanding something or I completely looked over a basic thing.

  • @[email protected]
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    281 month ago

    Don’t worry, this just means your job is safe from being replaced by AI. No search results means no training data.

  • @[email protected]
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    261 month ago

    What if the answer is there but google refused to include it in your search results until you saw enough ads?

  • @[email protected]
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    201 month ago

    Remember kids: If you find a solution to a problem nobody on Google (or your search engine of choice) seems to has, put it as a blog post on your site!

  • Maple Engineer
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    201 month ago

    My favorite is when you Google a problem and many, many people have the same problem but the company has never provided a solution.

  • @[email protected]
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    191 month ago

    It’s surprising how useful ChatGpt is in these situations. Honestly, it’s a great general purpose search engine.

    • @[email protected]
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      101 month ago

      If your work is bleeding edge enough, even ChatGPT won’t be of help since it’s not in their training dataset.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        Yeah and it won’t tell you that it hasn’t seen this pattern before. It will just make things up out of the blue which seem like they might be correct.

        Stay away from ChatGPT for bleeding edge things.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 month ago

          It’s still useful when it’s wrong because it can give you the jist of what should be done. If it uses a library or function that doesn’t exist, you’ll still be informed as to what it was intending for the process at that point. I’ve often gone and just replaced the made-up code with custom code that does the same thing.

    • dantheclamman
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      31 month ago

      It is nice to generate generalizable code examples, to give me clues how stuff works. I find that my work (marine biogeochemistry) is obscure enough that there’s a certain level where I am still on my own. Which is a good sign for my future employability!

  • @[email protected]
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    171 month ago

    Or the only person who phrases your issue this way) so many times I’ve found out that I just state my problem in an unusual way

    • @[email protected]
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      31 month ago

      That’s one area where LLMs can come in handy. If you describe something, they can usually come out with what you were thinking about in another, maybe more correct way, then you search what they gave you

  • @[email protected]
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    141 month ago

    You just need to spend a few hours trying weirder and unique ways to frame the issue and you might find the answer.

  • @[email protected]
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    131 month ago

    What’s worse is googling a specific thing and having the results be just chock full of generic copy pasted thing with similar name