Research and locating hard to find information 6

[RRiver]

*reposted from automotive engineering

How do you working engineers deal with this? Since the standard search engine became about nothing but selling something to users they've become useless. The search engines that aren't about sales are mostly too specific. Accessing university research papers can be helpful but limiting. The paid for commercial services aren't much better with "specific," or "specialized." I expect I will have to pay for the search engine when I find one but I'm having a hard tine finding one. If the question applies, what do you use?

Years ago I visited a working railroad museum in Pennsylvania where they restored old locomotives and without available information they hired engineering firms to do the necessary materials and design work. What would a they use?

 

[RRiver]

glass99,

I have to agree. My question has led to learning a lot about searching beyond what I did know.

What does it mean though when it's often said, "Nothing on the internet is ever really lost?" LOL

I'm not sure what it means when you say "website went down?" Is it something you can pick up yourself and host?

 

[glass99]

RRiver: there is a conference in Finland called Glass Performance Days, and everyone who presented a paper had their paper published by the conference organizers. At some point the archive got switched over to a local university, but the university website isn't working any more (404 error). I assume they had some sort of tech error and there is no one at the school that cares enough to fix it. Maybe they just need to reboot their server? I don't know.

If you have permission, you could of course republish any kind of information you like. I think what they mean about the internet not forgetting is in relation to things you would prefer are forgotten.

The key to finding things in the internet in my mind is to think about who would have an interest in posting it.

 

[IRstuff]

yeah, or cute kitten videos, which are probably going to be around for a very long time. Although, one can easily imagine that today's cute kitten video will be supplanted and shoved to page 100 of the video search results because there's a new kitten video being posted every hour of every day.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[Sparweb]

RRiver,
Did any of your searches reveal this?

https://heritage.skoda-auto.com/en/timeline/all-cars/

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[RRiver]

SparWeb,

Not that I remember but I do have it secured now and I appreciate your bringing it to my attention.

When I used the Skoda in this thread it was one of many examples I could have used. Specifically about the Skoda the research is for some information that exists or at least did at one time. There were some cars that came to the US for racing. Although I'm interested in anything I can find to document the cars and their history there is, or was, a need for the information on the funding that was supporting the imported race cars in the late 30's.

Thank you again SparWeb.

 

[Sparweb]

I found it by modifying the search terms you listed earlier.
I don't know anything about Skoda at all, in fact.
I could tell that you are interested Skoda cars, but your terms may have implied "ONLY SKODA RACES IN THE USA" and "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE POSSIBLY RELATED". This is a common problem; how to make the search specific enough to find what you want, but not too restrictive that it eliminates things you do want... or would lead to what you want if only the search engine could give them to you.
Art more than science, at my user level, that is.

Also best to check your spelling, punctuation and grammar when searching. Search engines try to understand grammar, but I doubt Google does it well. My search terms used correct grammar or no grammar at all - yours implies a grammar that you probably don't intend. The punctuation police are knocking on your door.

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[mfgenggear]

try searching library on line, most likely it will be in a book or manual in the archives.

 

[CWB1]

Meh, the open internet is terrible for learning proper methods to do even simple tasks so I honestly could care less how great or terrible the search engines are. Even boards like this contain a ton of bad advice mixed with the good, so reader beware. Personally, I prefer to lean on industry experts whenever possible and will leverage the network to do so. Barring this, the various professional and society journals are my second-choice reference.

 

[Tensor2]

Try filtering out the undesirable search results. Do this by placing the NOT operator before the keyword you want to omit.

Randy Berg

http://www.tensorsoftware.com

 

[Comcokid]

Searches are all manipulated today. Something new that I learned this week.

Into your search engine, type any random 3 or 4 digit number followed by the two words: new cases. All search results will be news for the current pandemic. Now, change the numbers slightly and repeat. Many of the search results will be the same articles you saw the first time, but with the numbers changed to match your new entry. As if the stories have changed.

Earlier this week when I first discovered this, you could type, example: "351 new cases wine", and all the results would be for the pandemic. But they've fixed their search-spin algorithm now and you will actually get hits on 'wine'. I just did this - I typed in a random number followed by new cases polypropylene, and all the hits were for the virus. By the time you try this, they may have trained their AI a little more. Play with it - it's fun to see the results.

I'm getting tired of these companies trying to herd us like a bunch of cattle. Unlike my earlier post where I stated that AI stands for Automated Idiot, in this case AI stands for Automated Indoctrination.

 

[cvg]

depends on the search engine. Bing does not report on virus at all when I type "351 new cases wine or "new cases polypropylene". google on the other hand, does. which is why i generally try to avoid google as my default search engine

 

[Sparweb]

Using duck-duck-go the terms "351 new cases wine" gives mostly wine-related hits with a few virus stories mixed in (the numbers do not match "351").

I stopped using Google after a combination of problems came up in my searches that gave me the creeps. Most notably, the immediate alignment of advertizing banners with my most recent searches, but also casual discussions of items found during a search that were radically different when compared with somebody else's computer with EXACTLY the same search terms. It was a game between myself and my sister for a while until it took a freakish turn when our "comparison shopping" became the source data of our profile updates. After that Google must have been convince we really wanted the crazy stuff we were searching for. Then I discovered ad-blockers and upped my firewall game and the internet has been much more serene ever since.

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[Comcokid]

The unusual results I posted above with searches was demonstrated to me by a co-worker who uses Google. I found it to be true with the search engine I currently use - DuckDuckGo.