Google Search Hits and Misses July and August 2009

I started doing these search posts some time ago because I occasionally people used interesting search terms. Then I started paying attention to how well people were directed by Google. So last time round I created the little target images and after all that work I figure I'll keep using them.

From my small sample, it seems that the worst 'hits' are those where google finds all the right words, but they are in different posts, so in fact the searcher really doesn't get to something she was looking for. When you are searching you can tell this if the terms you are looking for are separated by . . . It seems to mean they're on the same blog, but in different posts. There are some examples below. Usually people want the words together. But if Google is going to keep doing this, the least they could do is retrieve all the posts they found words from.

It is nice to know that some people find exactly what they were looking for - some information that I've gathered together, particularly if no one else has it. What's really, really frustrating is when I have exactly what they are looking for, but Google sends them to something else. So here's a sampling of the last two months.

Bulls-eye

Thai word for elephant - Bingo. No, that's not the Thai word for elephant, but it's in the post this person got to about the Thai elephant conservation center. Both in English letters and Thai.


can you leave the senate to become a governor - This went to a post about Senator Murkowski running for the Governorship of Alaska.

what are mimes saying - Since they generally aren't saying anything (audible) this is an interesting question from someone from New Zealand. And, remarkably, he got to a post about mime Bill Bowers who did a performance piece where he talked about being a mime. So this looks like a pretty good fit.


lol in thai - another one right in the center of the target. It got to my post entitled, "lol in Thai." I'm sure there are a few people wondering what lol means in English. (Laughing Out Loud.) The Thai version is much better.

puffins murres in sealife center alaska - This one got to a post with pictures from the sealife center which has a picture of a puffin, of a murre, and even one with both a puffin and a murre.

how much does a director at conocophilips get paid - This query came from a Board of Trade and Industry server in London and got to a chart of top Conoco Philips salaries.

these were one of the most common sights in thailand buffalo replace by tracter - This person probably got exactly what he was looking for. A post about how Thai water buffalo had been replaced by tractors, with pictures of water buffaloes 40 years ago.

Close

meteor shower tonight what time singapore - Well, I had a post on meteor shower tonight and I had other posts that mentioned Singapore. But nothing that combined them. Also had people looking for the same thing in Malaysia.

obama amputates the invisible hand - hmmmm. My post didn't blame Obama, it was just Who cut off that invisible hand? I think my post didn't say what they wanted to hear. Good.

who left u.s. senate to become governor? I had the NPR’s political junkie show on Talk of the Nation in the background and they have a trivia question each week. That week’s question was about Kay Baily Hutchinson quitting the US Senate to run for governor of Texas against the sitting Republican governor. The question was "who was the last US Senator to quit to run for governor against an incumbent of the same party?" Well, my post on Frank Murkowski leaving the Senate to run for Governor didn’t quite answer that question for them. But when I looked to see where the query came from, it was from National Public Radio in Washington DC.

holier-than-thou types - Sometimes I find out that something happened or someone, somewhere said something because I get a rash of searches for the same term. On August 31 I got about ten from various parts of the country for this term, including one from the Naval Command Control & Ocean Surveillance Center in Virginia Beach. I'm not sure why they were all looking for this - I checked the Google search and found nothing that I could connect with this - so I'm not sure if they got exactly what they were looking for, but they did get to a post called Some Context on Holier Than Thou Types.


A Real Stretch

famous people born during solar eclipse - (from New Delhi) I don't think the post on famous people born in 1908 mentioned anyone born during a solar eclipse.


italy visitor center - This was an image search. I get a fair number of people searching images, but I don't usually get to see what search term they used. But I do get to see what picture they got. This person got to Singapore archive pages that has a zillion pictures from Singapore including one post with a picture of the Singapore Visitors Center. This was at least six or seven pages into the search so I guess when the person didn't find what he was looking for on Italy he was willing to look at Singapore. It is a cool picture.

dehydrated spice pills - as it turns out the post on dehydrated beer also contains the words "spice" and "pill."

beer out of cottonwood buds - got to my buds, which included a picture of cottonwood buds, but no beer.

bad feng shui 6 years gap in family ox and sheep - What was this one about? It came from the Philippines. What Do I Know? was #1 out of 868 google hits - my post on the difference between oxen and cows (this is the year of the ox) had every search term except '6' and 'family.'

Supreme Court adjustable microphone - This got to a post on a Karen hill tribe celebration to open a fire break in Northern Thailand. This post highlights the many things they made with bamboo, including an adjustable microphone stand. And then they got the word 'court' from a totally different post about the L.A. County Courthouse. This came up number 4 out of almost 3,000 hits. Note those three dots . . . that separate the different posts.

What Do I know?: Fire Break Ceremony Chiang Dao 3 - Bamboo
It's a fully adjustable microphone stand. There's a smaller piece of bamboo ... Lakers Celebration Traffic on Way to Court · Downtown LA and the County ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/.../fire-break-ceremony-chiang-dao-3-bamboo.html - Cached - Similar -

things for german people to do in idaho - Why not? This was from someone in Denver, who, maybe had German guests coming. The post this got to probably saved him a lot of trouble, it's the one that said that Idaho doesn't exist. It did mention Germany in the post and had stuff on philosophy too.



You Missed This One Google


Hindus in Anchorage - This got to a post called Anchorage as an Abusive Family which has the word Hindus in it. But there is also a post about the Hindu temple in Anchorage which would seem much more on point. This is the kind I mentioned above that are so frustrating.

how to grow tamarind seeds and photo - Another example of getting the searcher to the wrong post. They got to a post on tamarind trees with pictures, but I had a more recent one titled "Growing Tamarind Seeds" with a photo. I'm not sure I gave a lot of advice on how to grow tamarind seeds, but I can tell you from sad experience that once they're up, it helps to keep watering. I've got two now that I'm hoping will come back. I’ve added an update and link to the newer post. But too late for this visitor.

Facts about 1500 - This got to the post about my 1500th sitemeter hit. I'm sure that wasn't what the searcher was looking for. But it did stir me to do a new 'contest' to reward the 123,456th visitor.

black&wait sex - Probably not Google's fault. The searcher needs to spell better. My guess is they were looking for 'black and white.' Here's where a human is better than a machine. Here's the Google blurb the person found:

What Do I know?: Robert Lapage's The Blue Dragon in Berkeley
12 Jun 2009 ... We didn't have the stage simply go black and wait as actors moved ... Hunger - and three other movies · Sex in the Sun - Shameless Blog ...

These are totally different posts, so there was no black&wait sex anywhere in my blog.


repetitive beat ordinance - Not sure what they were looking for, but they got to a post that really had nothing to do with it, except it had the word ordinance. Here's what they found on Google.

What Do I know?: Anti-Sanctuary Ordinance Buried Indefinitely
As for my husband's anti-crime ordinance, what don't you understand? ... Personal insults, rambling tirades,repetitive comments will be blocked. ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/.../anti-sanctuary-ordinance-buried.html - Cached - Similar -


xray tech murders doctor east los angeles,ca - This was a Yahoo search, not Google. They got this blurb:

yahoo search What Do I know?
Ed Feo Partner, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, LLP, Los Angeles CA ... The xray tech said he couldn't interpret for me, but it was pretty clear the ...
whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/?widgetType=BlogArchive&widgetId=BlogA... - 219k - Cached

The words "Los Angeles," and "xray tech" are on my blog, but not together on the pages they linked to.


what does the number 85 mean in a person's life - They got to a post about a sign at the Moose's Tooth. Searching the page there was no 85 at all. A few of the other words showed up in the right column of the blog, but not in the post. This looks like an absolute and total miss. I looked at the Google Search this person got and couldn’t even find What Do I Know? in the search results. So maybe it was a one time mistake on their part.




Does Google Have a Sense of Humor?


Not this time around. They even accused What Do I Know? of being a spam blog and threatened to shut it down. Is it because there's a recent post that talks about spam? Or as one commenter suggested, someone marked this blog as spam?

Anchorage Bug Gunk Infestation

Aphid honeydew. Gunk. Particularly
under cottonwoods, there are large sticky wet spots.

If you stand under the true for a minute it feels like a very light drizzle. (One reason the close up picture below isn't better. I just couldn't stand under there for long. It wasn't just me, but my camera was getting dripped on.)

Here's a closer look of the sidewalk, gunking up. There are even bubbles.

And here are the culprits. (Double click any picture to enlarge it.) The best option I know (if you don't want to use poisons) is to wash the trees with a heavy spray of water everyday. The ones that are getting are deck sticky get sprayed. The others I leave alone.

Cottonwood - An Untapped Alaskan Resource

Every year as the cottonwood seeds burst open and litter our deck and yard, I wonder whether we couldn't find some ways to use the cotton.

Deirdre at Lifetecture has asked the same question:

I’ve been looking at the drifts on the streets and the white fuzz floating around, getting in peoples’ eyes and generally wasted. I wonder can this be harvested? It seems like it would make the most amazing kind of felt, even batting for insulation. I wonder if this has ever been done?

Sure, cottonwood will not replace oil as an economic stimulus (though maybe it could be used to absorb oil that spills), but little niche markets here and there could provide employment and income, just as people make money from birch syrup and musk ox wool.

Aside from the obvious pillow stuffing possibilities, what else could be done with cottonwood cotton?






This is just the collection on our deck on the morning of the first day of our trees starting to send forth their seeds. There's a nickle at 5 o'clock so you can see the size.













Coincidentally, BS invited me for a bike ride today and at the first stop on the old Seward Highway that is now a bike trail to Girdwood, I found this nature lesson - on cottonwoods.






The website halfbakery already has this suggestion for uses of cottonwood seeds posted. It begins:

Make clothing, fill comforters and pillows with cottonwood fibers.

While he's being tongue-in-cheek (the site is called halfbakery after all) others are more serious.






Someone actually mixed cottonwood (60%) with regular white cotton (40%).

After I had enough to skein I boiled it like one would regular cotton and then let it dry under some tension. It dried to a nice off-white, softer than regular hand spun cotton.
It worked up better than I thought it would!

(This site says you need permission of the author before reprinting the article. But at the bottom it said:

The copyright of the article Spinning Cottonwood in Fiber Arts is owned by . Permission to republish Spinning Cottonwood in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

No author was listed as you can see. I went through all the listed authors and each of their lists of articles (usually only one or two) and nobody claimed credit for this one. Nevertheless I only give you a bit of the post and you can see the whole post here. (She even links to the blanket she made)

Someone at Knittingirls has found uses for the buds.

And, if you could bottle the scent of the cottonwood buds when they open in the springtime, I'd surely wear it every day. It's not that I haven't tried. There seem to be a number of ways to do this (looking around online), but I make a salve by gathering the buds when they start to open, steep them in olive oil for up to a year, strain, and heat the oil while adding enough beeswax to make a salve, hardening some as it cools in the jar. We use it medicinally as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory. Apparently the buds have been used for sore throats and whooping cough, as well, by Native Americans and First Nations.

[Update: Anonymous left a link to a website that has a recipe for using the sticky, but oh so fragrant, leaf buds to make balm of gilead.]

And she used the catkins of a cottonwood tree to dye a shawl. (Yeah, I had to look up catkin too. Wikipedia says it's

a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated (anemophilous) but sometimes insect pollinated (as in Salix). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping. (look at the top two pictures on this post.)

There's a Cottonwood Baby Products that sells diapers but there's nothing to suggest that Cottonwood is anything more than their name. Same thing with Cottonwood Pallets.



The Utah State University Cooperative Extension site says that only the female trees have cotton and there's a product to prevent them from producing cotton:

Male clones of cottonwoods should not produce cotton- only the female trees produce the seeds ("cotton"). Sometimes you will hear of cottonless cottonwood trees later developing cotton but they were probably mislabeled. Some hybrid cottonwoods sold are listed as "sterile female hybrids." These are not cottonless because they are not male. The "sterile" refers to the fact that the seeds they produce are incapable of germinating. However, they still produce the cotton to distribute the seed. If you have a cottonwood that produces cotton and you don't want to cut it down, you can use Florel to prevent cotton development in female trees. You will need to check the label to see when to apply it.

For all the mess they make, would I really want to do that? I think not.

One site says cottonwood is the state tree of Kansas and Nebraska.


The Alaska fishing industry used to throw away the salmon roe until a visiting Japanese businessman saw what was going on and now someone makes lots of money selling salmon roe. While Alaska won't get rich from cottonwood, some families might be able to make a living. It just takes someone looking at what we see as a nuisance with a different eye, to find something useful. And we certainly have plenty of cottonwoods and cottonwood seeds.

[UPDATE June 1, 2014:  Here's a new post on how to prevent your cottonwood trees from spreading cotton.  It's probably not too practical for most people.]

[UPDATE Nov. 2, 2015:  Here's discussion at Permies in which Deb Berman offers a step by step description of how she spins cottonwood fibers.]

Catch Up Post

We've had almost three weeks of sunshine and warmth. Hard to stay in and post. So here are some pictures from the last week or so.

Police car finds a way through the traffic on New Seward by
driving up on the bike trail and then across Benson. Fortunately I'd chosen to take the BP bike path instead of the path on New Seward.

We had dinner with Frank Gold and his wife. We originally met Frank in Bangkok two years ago, where he spends part of the year. But he's a Fairbanks oldtimer.

Our cottonwoods are shedding their sticky, but sweetly fragrant leaf covers. I've been sweeping the deck every morning, but they still manage to slip into the kitchen by sticking to the bottom of my feet. At least it smells great.

A view of Mt. Spur and Fire Island from friends' house on the hillside where we had dinner last night. Redoubt wasn't visible and this picture was late in the evening after things had cleared up somewhat.

And our great weather has brought out lots of bikes,
but there were more than bikes out.

We went to a birthday party Saturday that included a pinata.

Ripples abstract the the birch reflections at Goose Lake.

Chiang Mai 'Snow'

The other day there were little sprinklings of snow as I rode home on my bike as the Payom tree blossoms drifted down to the ground. This was a tree that I really hadn't paid any attention to, but with it snowing for a couple of days, they suddenly all called attention to themselves.
'We're here, even right in front of your building and you've never even looked at us. Well, we're going to get your attention now. You'll see us all over town and see how many of us there are. Now start paying attention." And the blossoms drifted down as I stood there.

In Alaska we have relatively few different types of native trees. A few more that have been introduced by gardeners. But here there are so many, many different kinds of plants and trees. As well as birds, butterflies, other insects, fish, and animals.

So, Alaskans, you should all be able to distinguish birch, spruce, poplar, aspen, willow, and cottonwood, wild mountain ash. At least. We can hold off on the varieties of these and other trees, but these are the basics around Anchorage, I think.

Anyway, my snow tree is called ต้นพยอม or Payom Tree. I wasn't completely sure if I had this right, so I googled it. Here's what google translation gave me:

[Note 2: I see on my screen, the translated table doesn't quite fit so a lot is cut off. If you have the same problem, that just means you have to go to the original link - the translated one or the original Thai links below]

Note: I've written it in English a little differently than they do. Payom vs. Paiam.
This picture is from the translated website.
You can also check the original Thai website.

Certainly not reach the exalted woman cherish. Most often sad hand chest fever. But certainly not difficult to watch นา Paiam guards. Wood is a high สอย be presumptuous to take. (Versify rule the world: Her Majesty's Department of Discovery Edcha prince bow).

ชื่อพฤกษาศาสตร์ Botanical names. ชื่อไทยพื้นเมือง Thai native title. วงศ์ Family. วรรณคดีที่กล่าวถึง Literature mentioned. ประโยชน์ ้ ้ benefits. ลักษณะ Characteristics. Shorea roxburghii G. Don. Shorea roxburghii G. Don. พยอมทองขะยอม ยอม เซียง I accept accept accept ขะ gold เซี fight. DIPTEROCAPACEAE. DIPTEROCAPACEAE. มหาเวสสันดรชาดกลิลิตพระลอ โคลงโลกนิติ อิเหนา Lilit Phra Maha Vessantara fable versify Allan Law Aiehna world. เป็นไม้เศรษฐกิจและเปลือกนำไปใส่ในเครื่องหมักดองเพื่อกันบูดใช้ฟอกหนังได้ Economy and a wooden shell to put in pickled กัน to use tanning has spoiled. เป็นไม้ต้นขนาดใหญ่ลำต้นตรง A large tree trunk straight. เปลือกเป็นสีน้ำตาล Shell is brown. ใบเป็นใบเลี้ยงเดี่ยวมนรีขอบขนาน ที่ปลายใบมน หรือแหลมเป็นติ่งเล็ก ๆ คล้ายใบรังดอกมีสีขาวนวล Form a single cotyledon and parallel to the edge of re-form the end of a promontory or projection small leafy nest flower color is ivory. ออกเป็นช่อตามปลายกิ่ง Panicle late into the limb. แตกช่อเป็นระย้ามีกลิ่น หอม ผลมีลักษณะเป็นรูปกระสวย Panicle is Raiga a different aroma characteristics of a spindle image.

This is one of the posts I've had sitting here for a couple of days and it is much easier to post than the second part of the Rural Issues post or others I'd like to post. So this is a little filler while I work on the others.

Fall or Winter or Fall?

First it snowed. Then the cottonwood lost its leaves. This was yesterday.


The Steller Jay came by to see what he could scavange. The snow's all melted and there are a lot more leaves on the deck. (I raked them later.)



Today in the front, there are mostly mountain ash leaves on the ground. Some birch.

This evening we walked around Goose Lake.

Summer's Here, Really!

For Anchorage folks who think summer has forgotten about us, there are signs it's really here.



The iris have mostly bloomed and faded.
















To be replaced by the daisies














And the dianthus.






And the ladies mantle.


















But with the cool weather and grey skies, I can't blame anyone for mistaking the cottonwood seeds for snow. On the left is the whole cotton pod. On the right are the scattered seeds caught up against edge of the grass. In the middle is a clump of seeds.

My Buds

Mountain Ash Buds

Cottonwood Buds

Aspen Buds

Amur Maple Buds

Rspberry Buds

The garden is late, but it's starting to happen.

Bohemian Waxwings return to the Mountain Ash

The waxwings live through winter harvesting mountain ash berries and similar fruit stored on trees around Anchorage. Swarms of up to 100 or more birds perch on the telephone lines or giant cottonwood. Then small groups swoop down into the tree an pick at the berries. Then fly back as another group takes over. Later, with berries all over the snow below, they return to get what's left.

The video is a compromise between what's reasonable for normal people, and all the video I actually captured for the hard core bird freaks. Well, it's only 3:25 minutes altogether. So view as much as you can take. Catherine and Dianne, enjoy. The slow motion is for you.




The quality is much worse than the original. It's hard because our windows look south, into the light. But the birds are right there. But I'll eventually learn the technical necessities of getting better quality onto the web. This was January 5, 2008. I would have loved to get the natural sounds of the birds, but I was inside and there were in the house noises, so I added the Chinese flute music.

Where did all those falling leaves fall?

The other day I posted a video of the leaves falling in our backyard. So now I'm posting the consequences. Note, the birch trees are pretty much naked. The cottonwood still has a lot left. And as you can see the maples are still pretty full.

And the yet unfallen maple leaves.

So today I moved leaves around, mostly as mulch to cover the flower beds for the winter.