Celebrity Predictive Text

OK, fine. Since yesterday's post was kind of lame, I'll do two today to make up for it. And don't get me wrong, today isn't a much better news day than yesterday was. But whenst one is bored, there is always a little bit of amusement to be had through a little Googling. Today, I played around with Google's predictive text results with celebrity inquiries. Odd, I tell you. Very odd.

Just putting in a celebrity name will yield you some predictive text results, but they're not always that exciting. (Granted, none of this is really "exciting", but I've gotta build this stuff up somehow.) You have to pretend to want to inquire something about the celebrity. The use of "was" or "is" or "hates" or "likes" seems to help. Take, for example, the latest teen sensation, a one Justin Bieber. Do a search on "Justin Bieber is" and Google helps you out with ten suggestions of what it thinks you are most likely looking for. And in this instance, the most likely things that you're searching for about Justin Bieber are, in order of obvious importance, "Justin Bieber is....a fag....dead....bi....a jerk....a girl....a tool.....". Hard to believe from that sampling that he is just about the hottest thing out there right now. Hard. To. Believe. (A girl. Heh heh.) If you were wondering about things that "Ellen DeGeneres has", you're only going to get three predictive answers. But the most common one is about her...big ears? That's the most common? Not that she has a talk show? Has a wife? Has been putting us to sleep with her less than amusing stint on American Idol? No, you people want to know about her ears so much you're at the point of Googling them? You people need to get out more.What about that dear, sweet Betty White? That lovely 88-1/2 year old woman who hosted the funniest Saturday Night Live last week? Is there anything she doesn't like? Apparently, and it's related to you. That's right. "Betty White hates....your grandmother". But we don't know why. Hmmm.

Looking up stuff on Jay Z brought up results I wasn't expecting. He seems like an all right guy. Why, then, is the most predicted result when searching for "Jay Z is..." comes up "devil worshipper"? Really? It also says that he is not only "a freemason", but "a master mason" as well. It also covers the bases if you were thinking he was "the devil" and/or "the antichrist". Whatever the deal is with Jay Z, if he's only one quarter of those things, he's a pretty busy guy.
I was surprised when I read that "Jay Z is the antichrist" because I had been thinking all along that Barack Obama was the antichrist. Nope. Turns out "Barack Obama is your new bicycle". Wait. He's what now? Look, I even clicked on it and I still don't get it. But I was really happy to see that "Barack Obama is a muslim" was down to Number Six on the list, so I feel like there's really been some progress made here. Somewhere.

If you want to know what "Britney Spears was", you'll learn that "Britney Spears was upset unicorns". Um, what now? Unicorns? She was? Apparently, she was.
Now, if you want to know what "Britney Spears is", you'll learn that "Britney Spears is a three headed alien." Of course she is. Wait. What now?

If I were to guess at what the results would be for Googling what "Oprah has", I would guess "a lot of money" would be up there somewhere. "A talk show" might make the list. "Slept with Gayle King" would might even make an appearance. I was not expecting to learn that "Oprah has six toes". That would explain why "Oprah has eleven toes" is further down on the list, but it still really isn't explaining the most basic of all questions "Who are you people who are asking about Oprah's toes?!"

As you can imagine, The Google is not kind about Sarah Palin. Behold!

Yeah, like you were expecting any different.

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Passing Time With Predictive Text

Soooo...without getting into too much detail about how I spend my time or what the current status of my social life is, I was playing around with Google and its predictive text feature this evening. What? Too much? Damn. OK, so things are a little slow lately! At least I'm learning stuff during the slowdown! Anyway, the point is, that sometime people search for weird things.

For the uninitiated, predictive text is a feature which does just that. It predicts what it thinks that you are going to type next and types it out for you. You don't have to select what it predicts, you can just keep on typing your weird-ass query and it will go right over the wrong prediction. But it never hurts to stop and look at what is being suggested. Some are quite amusing. Others are a bit of a head scratcher. Most are just amusing head scratchers. Onward!

I figured that a lot of people would be asking a lot of questions, so I started off my little 'how-I-spent-my-Monday-night-alone' experiment with the beginnings of inqueries. First up: "How do they...." Turns out, people apparently want to know "How do they....."

• Test for swine flu. A perfectly reasonable and logical question.
  
  

• Make baby carrots. A question only posed by a maniac. What the hell are they talking about?! How do they make baby carrots?! Are folks afraid they're using real babies for said carrots?!
  
  

• Make seedless watermelons. Another question posed only by maniacs. They grow them! Is the confusion here that most vegetation (if not all) grows from seeds and if you have a seedless watermelon, then where in the world do the seeds to grow them come from?! That's an awful lot of thinking there, champ.
  

There's also a general curiosity about testing for STDs, herpes and also how they name hurricanes. Diverse, the Googlers are. Quite diverse.

My next question was going to be along the lines of "How can he...?" as in "How can he eat that and not know what's in it?" or "How can he just sit there when there is work to be done?" or "How can he still be dating her?" Something along those lines. Instead, what did I get? That's right. More STDs. (Not literally! And not me! I didn't get STDs! Google didn't give me an STD! Geez!)

• How can herpes spread?
  

• How can herpes be spread?
  

• How can hepatitis c be spread?
  

• How can hepatitis b be spread?
  

All about the herpes and hepatitis the Googlers are. The Googlers might want to start considering condoms in the future. Perhaps maybe even Googling "Where can I buy condoms?" It's the Google. It knows everything.

But it doesn't know that I want condoms. (No! Again, I don't want to buy condoms! I'm just saying!) It thinks I want other things. Things like:

• Stamps
  

• Acai berry
  

• Dry ice
  
  
• Spanx (Spanx? What the hell is Spanx? Hmmm...it appears to be some sort of body-shaping pantyhose and other body-shaping undergarments for women. Popular, yet apparently elusive enough that locations for purchase are being Googled.)


• Pepper spray
  

• Boric acid
  

• A monkey (Wth? A monkey? Hopefully that boric acid and that pepper spray are not for the monkey. You leave that monkey alone, you Googling, primate purchasing weirdo!)
  

Now listen, if you just add an "a" to that search, making it "Where can I buy a" then you end up with a whole different ball of wax. Waxy items such as:

• A hedgehog (Good Lord. Stay away from that monkey!)
  

• A ouija board (seriously? Y'all haven't checked Toys R Us?)
  

• Air Yeezy (What?! Speak English! Apparently Air Yeezy is a shoe. An expensive shoe by Nike. Leading to the next question, "Where do you have $700 for a pair of shoes?")
  

All right. I'm tired of playing nice with Google and I have plenty of questions of my own! Next question, "What the hell...."

OK, that was probably the best thing I could have started out with. Hil-arious. What the hell....

• Is Twitter? (I'm fairly convinced that it's mostly the name "Twitter" itself that throws most people off. It's a simple concept, yet no one seems to get it even though everyone is using it. Go figure.)
  
  
• Is an aluminum falcon?
  
  
• Happened to me?
  
  
• Does a vegan eat?
  

All perfectly reasonable questions.

Inquiring within The Google by asking "When did..." seems to lead one to believe all that matters is related to a woman's reproductive cycle. It's definitely very popular. Though it is just a tad disturbing that out of the top ten results, seven are about conception, pregnancy and ovulation, it's perhaps more disturbing that the other three consist of Twitter, the beginning of Islam and when Israel became a nation. And of those three, I have but one question. Twitter?

And look, if you want to know what the Google predictive text machine predicts for "Why does...?" I'm going to let you do that one on your own. I'm trying to run a family friendly blog here. (Please stop laughing. OK, I'm not trying to do that, but I'm still not lowering myself to report on "Why does...?" I have standards. They're extremely low, but they're standards none the less.) But I'll help you out with the opposite, that being "Why doesn't...?" Ready? Why doesn't....

• Glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
  

• Corn digest?
  

• God heal amputees?
  
  

• Kathy Griffin drink?
  

• The stomach digest itself?

OK, I'm giving props to that last one there. I'd never thought about the stomach ever digesting itself. I'm guessing that sort of question is asked by the same folks who are asking about the glue not sticking to the inside of the bottle. I'll admit that that one about the amputees caught me off guard. I guess I don't think a lot about amputees and any issues that they may or may not have with God, or that He has with them, frankly.

So, so, SO many pointless, yet amusing, ways to pass the time and yet, so, so, SO little time to get it all done in. It's a shame, really. Quite the shame.

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Predictive Text Predicts Hilarity

Google's predictive text feature is amusing. Look, I'll admit it's been a slow day around here, but I don't think that has much to do with it. (Maybe some, but not a lot.) Here's the thing: People are weird. Here's the other thing: People at Google are freaking weird geniuses.

Here's how predictive text works: It's just like it sounds. You start typing in the magic box of The Google and it will magically come up with a myriad of things that you might be typing next. Granted, you might not type any of those things next. But the point is that either enough people HAVE typed similar things into the magic box or there are enough sites out there which cover the topic in the magic box so that the "algorithm" can make what it assumes to be a rational prediction as to what you want or what direction you're headed. Most of the predictions from things I typed in seemed to indicate that people could really use a bit more direction in their lives. Quite a bit.

Take for instance "I like". Now, there are a lot of things to like. There are as many things to like as there are things. What do people "like" the most, according to The Google? You. Far and away, they like you. There are 499,000,000 results for "I like you". You know what else people like? Pie. "I like pie" generates 10,800,000 results. And it's true, I DO like pie! Who wouldn't like pie? I'd like pie right now. Mmmm...pie. And pie is just one likeness above....? That's right, turtles. What the hell?

"I like turtles." 5,720,000 results for "I like turtles". A little bit more than half as many results for turtles as there are for pie. I'm not surprised that pie surpassed turtles, but I'm a little surprised that it's only a 2:1 pie to turtle ratio. There should be at least three times as many results for pie. What? Pie is good! Have you not had pie?! It's delicious! A turtle? Not so much.

The logical way to go next seemed to be "I hate". I got as far as "I ha" before I had to stop and ponder. The winner by far at that point ended up being "I have no friends" with 806,000,000 results. There are almost eighty times more people with no friends than there are pie likers? That's just sad. Not for those without any friends, but for all of those missing out on the joy of pie. Who needs friends when you have pie? Those of you without friends should really drown your sorrows in some pie. Other biggies for "I ha" were "I has a bucket" and "I has a hotdog". Right after "I have no friends" is "I have nothing" with 94,600,000 results. Again, more than pie. Pie is greatly underappreciated on The Google and on the Internet in general.

Oddly, if I don't space after "I hate" it automatically goes to "I hated". Apparently The Google is in past tense. The big winner? "I hated college" with 17,000,000 results. Running a very close second with 13,400,000 was the precursor to hating college, "I hated high school". Rounding out the top 3 results there is "I hated Bush before it was cool". Well, aren't you just the little trendsetter? (By the way, I did an Image Search for just "college" and my results included a lot of porn, so I'm not sure why people "hate college" because in this instance, I found it rather enjoyable. And yes, you can look forward to a "Google Searches That Seem Innocent But Net a Lot of Porn" post in the future.)

"I said" is weird. It nets us "I said a beef hot links", "I said boom chicka boom" and "I said I loved you but I lied". OK, the last one isn't totally weird. (Unfortunately, it's rather familiar.) "I didn't" shows the most results for "I didn't know I was pregnant" (which was also the most amusing result.)

As I have been reminded often (just today actually), I ask a lot of questions. Therefore, I am well versed in words that tend to start a question and I typed a lot of them into the magic box to see what text would be predicted. I began with "Is" and it was predictively followed by winners such as "Is bronchitis contagious" and "Is pneumonia contagious". Now, before you go getting all excited and thinking about how health conscious those who use The Google are, let me give you more of the "is" trailers. "Is Santa real", "Is Walmart open on Christmas" and "Is Angelina Jolie pregnant again". Good Lord, people! Talk about diverse. But my favorite? "Is Obama the antichrist". Too much, folks. Too diverse.

Predictively texting "How" gives us "How to kiss" which was followed by "How to get pregnant" which was followed shortly there after by "How to lose weight". (I like that things seem to be in order in this case.) It also gives us "How to tie a tie" and "How to cook a turkey".

More specifically, "How does" has the top result getter as "How does a bill become a law". Have these people never heard of Schoolhouse Rock? It's just a bill. And it's sitting there on Capitol Hill. Why The Google for that? (Most of the results were for "How does (blank) work" with the blank being filled in by Skype, Paypal, Facebook and the Internet. Huh. Websites apparently perplex people. (By the way, "How can" is followed by "make my hair grow faster", "keep from singing", "get taller" and "make my computer go faster". I'll say it again, we are a diverse people.)

"Can a..." what? Well, "Can a dog catch a cold" and "Can a felon get a passport". Just in case a dog-loving felon needs to go overseas and Rover seems to be sneezing a lot, those are things you'll need to know! "Did a..." "Did a plane really hit the pentagon" and "Did a dingo eat your baby". (At least we're diverse and funny!)

I just realized this is sort of like the old game show Match Game. Where's Gene Rayburn?

"Why did..." is followed by inquiries such as "Why did Obama win", "Why did Hitler dislike the Jews", "Why did the pilgrims come to America" and of course "Why did the chicken cross the road". (Still funny.)

"You are not...." yields "You are not privileged to mount the volume". (That must be SOME volume if you need privileges in order to do a little mounting.) "You are not the father" and "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake". Yeah, it's harsh, but it had to be said.

Things that start with "was" seem to indicate that people need to pay more attention either in class to or the news. "Was Bill Clinton impeached", "Was Hitler Jewish", "Was Abraham Lincoln black", "Was Obama born in Kenya", "Was Jesus black" and "Was Jesus a Jew". What the hell? It's Google, not a Magic 8 Ball! (I'm envisioning people shaking their monitors and waiting for that little triangle to float up through the viscous liquid so that you can read "It is decidedly so" in the little window.)

"Would the..." had me thinking "What the...?" "Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights", "Would these arms be in your way", "Would the world end in 2012", "Would the following errors cause an increase or decrease in absorbance and transmittance".

"How much..." OK, this could be a reason as to why the US is in the dire financial straits that it is. "How much is my house worth", "How much is my car worth", "How much are stamps". If you add "can" to that question and make it "How much can...." the results are similar. "How much can I afford mortgage", "How much can I borrow mortgage" and "How much can I drink". All very relevant.

Fun with Google's predictive text feature. Who knew? Stayed tuned next time for Satanic verses in your thesaurus!

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