Estimated reading time at 200 wpm: 3 minutes
This post is a bit of ‘steam release’ really. I kid you not, over the last 5 years or so I’ve been repeatedly coming across posts with questions such as ‘How do I…. ?‘ or ‘Where can I find….?‘ or ‘What is the evidence for …..?‘ or ‘Who is an expert on ….?‘
Whether or not you agree our Fat Disclaimer applies
In The Times Online forums the same sort of thing has been happening for the last 2 years. What’s special about that? Well, the The Times charges around £27/month which means that mainly people of a certain socioeconomic standing may gather there. It is known that broadly speaking greater disposable ‘wealth’ is correlated (imperfectly) with greater intelligence. So what? It means that I should expect a greater proportion of folk up there to know how to find stuff they want to learn about.
It has been so annoying, so instead of me now saying GIYF or ‘Search Google’, I’ve been saying ‘It’s on the information superhighway!‘ ? My use of the term ‘information superhighway’ as attracted more attention. Loads of jibes have been thrown my way – such as “You know how weird that sounds? Nobody says that anymore!” Obviously -I know that.
But wait. Some of these folk who don’t search the information superhighway are content to spend their time arguing the toss about things they have not read up on. In effect they spend more time arguing or throwing jibes, than searching to educate themselves. The screenshot below is from this morning.
Stupid: How insulting!
CW: I used no insulting language. The individual in the screenshot asked for assistance and I provided it. BTW I rarely ever do that.
Stupid: It is condescending – you don’t have to respond in that way.
CW: You mean I should not have assisted?
Stupid: No. It is the way you go about it.
CW: I don’t see any way other than a set of dispassionate instructions designed to assist.
Stupid: You’ve infantilised the person.
CW: Utter horse raddish! Off you pop!
The point I was trying to get to, is that in an era of superfast broadband people don’t know, don’t care or are too lazy to search the internet. Did I say ‘everybody’? I did NOT!
Yes the internet used to be called ‘the information superhighway’.
How to search the information superhighway:
- Open a browser such as Chrome, FireFox or Microsoft Edge
- The search bar is usually the place you can enter a website address like www. etc. But you can type anything in there and press ‘Enter’ on your keyboard of if you like prefer clicking a mouse then click on the search icon which usually looks like a little magnifying glass.
- Or – the home page of google, yahoo or MSN will have a search bar where you can type stuff and press ‘Enter’ to search.
- Type any words you want to search e.g. ‘propulsion systems for hypersonic weapons’.
- Press the Enter button on your keyboard, or mouse-click the search icon.
- Vary the words you enter. You can just ask a question such as “How do I get to the moon in a rush?” – and press ‘Enter’.
- YouTube at www.youtube.com has search functions that works in the same way.
