Meeting The Ghost
By Greg Taylor
Click here. Don't think -- just do it.
For those less impulsive souls unwilling to temporarily abandon the safe and comfortable surroundings of our host, the good ship RoadBikeReview.com, let me explain. This particular hotlink leads to Googlism.com, a website developed by an Australian company that is, for good or evil, slightly more addictive than salted peanuts. Googlism.com (not affiliated with Google itself, we are told) is an internet search engine whose function it is to go out and scrutinize the cyber-mothership of all search engines, Google, to see what it "thinks" about a topic of your choosing. You type your search term into a little box, the computer magically scours Google for opinions on your selected topic, and out pops the answer in a series of simple declarative sentences. Anything that you can think of is fair game for Googlism.com - people, places, things, or dates. Sometimes the resulting "Googlisms" are spot-on. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the results are hysterically funny. And sometimes the results are downright poetic.
Go ahead, fool around with it a bit.
Cool, isn't it?
After spending some time mining for Googlisms about obvious stuff - me, my dog, my boss - I decided that it might be an educational exercise to get the measure of Google's opinions on a variety of cycling-related subjects.
First up was my other favorite website, Cyclingnews. In they went, and out popped the following:
cyclingnews is updated on an almost hourly basis
cyclingnews is delivered to your screen by dedicated servers operated by economic outlook
cyclingnews is a top resource worth bookmarking
cyclingnews is required reading
cyclingnews is very inviting
cyclingnews is the contract
cyclingnews is a new
cyclingnews is able to provide the following update on armstrong's
cyclingnews is the essential page for anyone interested in professional cycling
Well all right! Google is indeed remarkably well informed when it comes to recognizing the premier sources for cycling news and top web sites. I suspect that advertising rates may go up shortly.
Okay, what about riders then? Let's survey Google's opinion on some current bike racers. Picking a name at random, our first subject was Frank Hoj, who is riding for Bjarne Riis' Team CSC this year. An excellent rider, he'd be a good test for Google. So in he went and, after cogitating a while, the computer spat out a single, enigmatic line:
frank hoj is still away
Well, obviously Frank Hoj is away. It's the middle of the afternoon in Europe, for goodness sake. He's probably out riding his bike. Let's try someone else.
How about Floyd Landis? He's one of my favorite riders and, with his exploits at the Tour this year, Landis has emerged as one of Lance Armstrong's key teammates. Surely Google will have a lot to say about Floyd.
I wasn't disappointed. We had a bit of a false start when the search term "Floyd Landis" came back blank. No hits. Undeterred, I shortened it up to simply "Landis", which produced a small avalanche of information. Google knows all about Floyd. Some of it wasn't terribly surprising:
landis is a talented climber and time trialist
landis is still upbeat
Some of it was rather surprising:
landis is a former nasa scientist and he apparently has read the scientific literature carefully
landis is one of a handful of openly gay ministers serving a church in the denver metro area
landis is among the world's leading makeup artists today
landis is a nebraska state senator
And some of it was, well, strange:
landis is everything and nothing
landis is a warped individual and it shows in some of the strange things he finds funny
landis is the national soil data base for england and wales
landis is also very good at recreating the texas of 1870
I don't remember reading any of THAT in the U.S. Postal press kit. Maybe Floyd Landis is a bit more of a Renaissance Man than we all thought.
Having garnered these stunning new insights into the life and career of Mr. Floyd Landis, it became obvious that my research would not be complete until I ran a search on his team leader at U.S. Postal. So in went "Lance"...and...
Wow. All I have to say is that, according to Google, there is a side to Lance that most fans and followers of the sport apparently don't know about.
For starters, I am very happy to report that Lance has successfully completed his obedience training:
lance is impeccably house trained but also crate trained; basic obedience and leash trained; shakes hands
His companion, Ms. Crow, is undoubtedly ecstatic with this development, and it will certainly ease things with his many sponsors during promotional appearances. ("No Lance! Heel! Awww...don't do that on the rug! Bad Lance...baaaaad Lance...").
Google has also checked in with single females between the ages 18 and 32, a demographic who clearly thinks that the big hunky Texan is...um...just swell:
lance is so sexy
lance is soooooooo hott
lance is a sexy *****?
lance is buff
lance is my space cowboy
Most importantly, Google has not forgotten that Lance is first and foremost a multiple Tour de France champion and an inspiration to millions as a result of his battle with cancer:
lance is in yellow
lance is ready to repeat
lance is probably feeling pretty proud of himself at this point
lance is da man
lance is the last cowboy
lance is one of those inspirational stories people will always talk about
So it was a bit of a shock to learn about Lance's heretofore-unknown singing career with the boy-group NSYNC:
lance is a part of nsync but his personal life is not
And I suspect that Google was just having some fun with me when it fingered Lance as the purveyor of those little cellophane-wrapped packets of cheese-flavored peanut butter crackers that you find in vending machines around the globe:
lance is committed to providing only the freshest products for your on the go snacking
Oh never mind. I'll just rely on Cyclingnews for all of my Lance updates, thank you.
Before shutting down the computer I decided to pose one last parting question to the Great And All-Knowing Google. I'd thought about it a while and it was, if I must say so myself, a real humdinger. A philosophical question, a question for the ages: what is a bike?
I punched in my inquiry and waited. What came back exceeded my expectations. It was insightful. It was poignant. It was witty. It was brilliant. It was, after some minor trimming and pruning, pretty damn fine poetry --
"BIKE"
bike is down
bike is blue
bike is here
bike is your friend by elisabeth piper
bike is finally here
bike is ready
bike is real
bike is not a problem
bike is the right size
bike is a vehicle too
bike is a car
bike is right for you
bike is no limit to entitlements
bike is a nice sturdy bike
bike is a feast for the eyes
bike is 24/7
bike is easy when you make your bike carry your stuff
bike is now available from us with a campag daytona 10speed
bike is a continual work
bike is like a beautiful woman
bike is a pain in the ass when i am not riding it?
bike is for sale
bike is a cow
bike is only as nice as its worst part
bike is ready for delivery
bike is showing it off
bike is smokin'
bike is no sin
bike is going to set you back as much as $18
bike is cool
bike is not stored correctly
bike is fun and exciting to ride too
bike is a winner
bike is mother's little helper
bike is the right one is to ask a few simple questions about how the bike will be used
bike is good
bike is for the hooligan in you
bike is emotionally unavailable
bike is specifically designed to be ridden comfortably and efficiently in the aerodynamic position using elbow
bike is good for the soul
bike is back we're having company
bike is back hey all
bike is faster than your bike
bike is stolen
bike is this?
bike is off the road till further notice
bike is your life
bike is a quality and reliable bike built mainly for comfort and ease of use
bike is not always the best
bike is a proud sponsor of the yale university cycling team
bike is almost done
bike is most vulnerable
bike is for utility and durability
bike is a bike is a bike
bike is everything i expected and more
Good lord, a computer did this. Stunning. Brilliant. But can you explain it?
I guess that there are those who will say that the only possible explanation for why the search results are so lyrical and full of insight is that we've gotten a little glimpse of the latent bit of humanity that resides within the Internet, the imprint of the souls of all who have had a hand in creating and maintaining this electronic wonder. The ghost in the machine, deus ex machina for those who went to Catholic school. A ghost with the soul of a poet and the heart of a cyclist.
And before we get too carried away here, it's also ghost who tells people that Floyd Landis is a gay minister in Denver.
Man, you gotta love a ghost like that. It makes paying extra every month for that high-speed Internet connection worth every penny. Now if we could only get that ghost to do something about all that SPAM that clogs my inbox...
By Greg Taylor
Click here. Don't think -- just do it.
For those less impulsive souls unwilling to temporarily abandon the safe and comfortable surroundings of our host, the good ship RoadBikeReview.com, let me explain. This particular hotlink leads to Googlism.com, a website developed by an Australian company that is, for good or evil, slightly more addictive than salted peanuts. Googlism.com (not affiliated with Google itself, we are told) is an internet search engine whose function it is to go out and scrutinize the cyber-mothership of all search engines, Google, to see what it "thinks" about a topic of your choosing. You type your search term into a little box, the computer magically scours Google for opinions on your selected topic, and out pops the answer in a series of simple declarative sentences. Anything that you can think of is fair game for Googlism.com - people, places, things, or dates. Sometimes the resulting "Googlisms" are spot-on. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the results are hysterically funny. And sometimes the results are downright poetic.
Go ahead, fool around with it a bit.
Cool, isn't it?
After spending some time mining for Googlisms about obvious stuff - me, my dog, my boss - I decided that it might be an educational exercise to get the measure of Google's opinions on a variety of cycling-related subjects.
First up was my other favorite website, Cyclingnews. In they went, and out popped the following:
cyclingnews is updated on an almost hourly basis
cyclingnews is delivered to your screen by dedicated servers operated by economic outlook
cyclingnews is a top resource worth bookmarking
cyclingnews is required reading
cyclingnews is very inviting
cyclingnews is the contract
cyclingnews is a new
cyclingnews is able to provide the following update on armstrong's
cyclingnews is the essential page for anyone interested in professional cycling
Well all right! Google is indeed remarkably well informed when it comes to recognizing the premier sources for cycling news and top web sites. I suspect that advertising rates may go up shortly.
Okay, what about riders then? Let's survey Google's opinion on some current bike racers. Picking a name at random, our first subject was Frank Hoj, who is riding for Bjarne Riis' Team CSC this year. An excellent rider, he'd be a good test for Google. So in he went and, after cogitating a while, the computer spat out a single, enigmatic line:
frank hoj is still away
Well, obviously Frank Hoj is away. It's the middle of the afternoon in Europe, for goodness sake. He's probably out riding his bike. Let's try someone else.
How about Floyd Landis? He's one of my favorite riders and, with his exploits at the Tour this year, Landis has emerged as one of Lance Armstrong's key teammates. Surely Google will have a lot to say about Floyd.
I wasn't disappointed. We had a bit of a false start when the search term "Floyd Landis" came back blank. No hits. Undeterred, I shortened it up to simply "Landis", which produced a small avalanche of information. Google knows all about Floyd. Some of it wasn't terribly surprising:
landis is a talented climber and time trialist
landis is still upbeat
Some of it was rather surprising:
landis is a former nasa scientist and he apparently has read the scientific literature carefully
landis is one of a handful of openly gay ministers serving a church in the denver metro area
landis is among the world's leading makeup artists today
landis is a nebraska state senator
And some of it was, well, strange:
landis is everything and nothing
landis is a warped individual and it shows in some of the strange things he finds funny
landis is the national soil data base for england and wales
landis is also very good at recreating the texas of 1870
I don't remember reading any of THAT in the U.S. Postal press kit. Maybe Floyd Landis is a bit more of a Renaissance Man than we all thought.
Having garnered these stunning new insights into the life and career of Mr. Floyd Landis, it became obvious that my research would not be complete until I ran a search on his team leader at U.S. Postal. So in went "Lance"...and...
Wow. All I have to say is that, according to Google, there is a side to Lance that most fans and followers of the sport apparently don't know about.
For starters, I am very happy to report that Lance has successfully completed his obedience training:
lance is impeccably house trained but also crate trained; basic obedience and leash trained; shakes hands
His companion, Ms. Crow, is undoubtedly ecstatic with this development, and it will certainly ease things with his many sponsors during promotional appearances. ("No Lance! Heel! Awww...don't do that on the rug! Bad Lance...baaaaad Lance...").
Google has also checked in with single females between the ages 18 and 32, a demographic who clearly thinks that the big hunky Texan is...um...just swell:
lance is so sexy
lance is soooooooo hott
lance is a sexy *****?
lance is buff
lance is my space cowboy
Most importantly, Google has not forgotten that Lance is first and foremost a multiple Tour de France champion and an inspiration to millions as a result of his battle with cancer:
lance is in yellow
lance is ready to repeat
lance is probably feeling pretty proud of himself at this point
lance is da man
lance is the last cowboy
lance is one of those inspirational stories people will always talk about
So it was a bit of a shock to learn about Lance's heretofore-unknown singing career with the boy-group NSYNC:
lance is a part of nsync but his personal life is not
And I suspect that Google was just having some fun with me when it fingered Lance as the purveyor of those little cellophane-wrapped packets of cheese-flavored peanut butter crackers that you find in vending machines around the globe:
lance is committed to providing only the freshest products for your on the go snacking
Oh never mind. I'll just rely on Cyclingnews for all of my Lance updates, thank you.
Before shutting down the computer I decided to pose one last parting question to the Great And All-Knowing Google. I'd thought about it a while and it was, if I must say so myself, a real humdinger. A philosophical question, a question for the ages: what is a bike?
I punched in my inquiry and waited. What came back exceeded my expectations. It was insightful. It was poignant. It was witty. It was brilliant. It was, after some minor trimming and pruning, pretty damn fine poetry --
"BIKE"
bike is down
bike is blue
bike is here
bike is your friend by elisabeth piper
bike is finally here
bike is ready
bike is real
bike is not a problem
bike is the right size
bike is a vehicle too
bike is a car
bike is right for you
bike is no limit to entitlements
bike is a nice sturdy bike
bike is a feast for the eyes
bike is 24/7
bike is easy when you make your bike carry your stuff
bike is now available from us with a campag daytona 10speed
bike is a continual work
bike is like a beautiful woman
bike is a pain in the ass when i am not riding it?
bike is for sale
bike is a cow
bike is only as nice as its worst part
bike is ready for delivery
bike is showing it off
bike is smokin'
bike is no sin
bike is going to set you back as much as $18
bike is cool
bike is not stored correctly
bike is fun and exciting to ride too
bike is a winner
bike is mother's little helper
bike is the right one is to ask a few simple questions about how the bike will be used
bike is good
bike is for the hooligan in you
bike is emotionally unavailable
bike is specifically designed to be ridden comfortably and efficiently in the aerodynamic position using elbow
bike is good for the soul
bike is back we're having company
bike is back hey all
bike is faster than your bike
bike is stolen
bike is this?
bike is off the road till further notice
bike is your life
bike is a quality and reliable bike built mainly for comfort and ease of use
bike is not always the best
bike is a proud sponsor of the yale university cycling team
bike is almost done
bike is most vulnerable
bike is for utility and durability
bike is a bike is a bike
bike is everything i expected and more
Good lord, a computer did this. Stunning. Brilliant. But can you explain it?
I guess that there are those who will say that the only possible explanation for why the search results are so lyrical and full of insight is that we've gotten a little glimpse of the latent bit of humanity that resides within the Internet, the imprint of the souls of all who have had a hand in creating and maintaining this electronic wonder. The ghost in the machine, deus ex machina for those who went to Catholic school. A ghost with the soul of a poet and the heart of a cyclist.
And before we get too carried away here, it's also ghost who tells people that Floyd Landis is a gay minister in Denver.
Man, you gotta love a ghost like that. It makes paying extra every month for that high-speed Internet connection worth every penny. Now if we could only get that ghost to do something about all that SPAM that clogs my inbox...