I am reading through "The Joy of Search" by a Google guy named Daniel M. Russell. I would like to pick up some hints on getting what I want from Google and from other "search engines", like Duckduckgo and Bing. I think that hints will basically be of two types. I imagine technical hints, maybe something like "press control-r while holding the capital Z and the Num Lock with the tip of the nose" for casting spells on the machine. But I also imagine more general hints such as
If you take ten seconds to write down your question BEFORE you start your research process, you'll find your process will be much, much more effective. It's almost magical; you have to figure out (a) what you're really asking, (b) what terms you'll be searching for, and (c) what kind of answer will satisfy you.
Russell, Daniel M.. The Joy of Search (p. 7). MIT Press. Kindle Edition. 2019.
I am finding more and more that writing, jotting really, is entering my life. It helps if I jot down what I want at the store. It helps if I jot down what I want to do in the next few hours.
From "Incognito" and several other books about our unconscious mental operations, I recognize that when I actually speak and when I actually write, I engage parts of myself that I can't sense directly but are sophisticated and helpful.
The business of forming and re-forming questions and taking a moment to write them down, consider if they ask what I want, and seeing them change while thinking has come up with me before:
