The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Attachment 215006

It ignores "AI-free" even enclosed in quotes.

This is why I think a retro move might be a good idea when it comes to entering a search. One thing I wish still existed is the ability to use "+" and "-" when entering a search query.

Specifically, if you enter a search term and put a "+" in front of it it must be in the search results, and "-" is the opposite, where the search term cannot appear in the search results. I'd add putting quotes around the search term so that it must match exactly what is between the quotes, including the spaces. If this was the case, to exclude AI you could enter -" AI " to exclude anything with "AI" as standalone term in it. I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than what we have now.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

This is why I think a retro move might be a good idea when it comes to entering a search. One thing I wish still existed is the ability to use "+" and "-" when entering a search query.

Specifically, if you enter a search term and put a "+" in front of it it must be be in the search results, and "-" is the opposite, where the search term cannot appear in the search results. I'd add putting quotes around the search term so that it must match exactly what is between the quotes, including the spaces. If this was the case, to exclude AI you could enter -" AI " to exclude anything with "AI" as standalone term in it. I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than what we have now.

The removal of AND & NOT in search was evil as is returning all the junk they "think" might be useful. Amazon stores now seem to be the worst.

AltaVista.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Renate

I think that the biggest problem with the AltGR is the "one size fits all" philosophy.
In some languages (like French) there isn't simply one variant of a letter.
If I want to hit a "special E" there are two variants, 'é' and 'è'.
In other languages (like German) there is only one "special" letter per letter.
If I'm typing German I'd like to type AltGR-a for 'ä' but I have to use 'q' because 'a' is already taken.

Altgr e on Linux or Windows is é
`key beside 1 is a modifier. It is not a single quote, like ‘, so ` e gives è, similarly à ì ò ù ỳ.
I think Windows International layouts can have keys like this, called dead keys. There is zero reason for the ` key to directly type as that glyph is ONLY an accent. I suspect Windows US International works like UK Linux with AltGr and "dead keys".

Scottish Gaelic sì is kind of fairy, like Tolkien's Elves. In Irish Gaelic it's side or sí, all three are pronounced Shee. Original Irish orthography has no dot on an i so as in handwriting it's not mistaken for í. Very few fonts have that and the Turkish dotless i is the wrong character.

[MegDreamsofBooks]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

This is why I think a retro move might be a good idea when it comes to entering a search. One thing I wish still existed is the ability to use "+" and "-" when entering a search query.

Specifically, if you enter a search term and put a "+" in front of it it must be be in the search results, and "-" is the opposite, where the search term cannot appear in the search results. I'd add putting quotes around the search term so that it must match exactly what is between the quotes, including the spaces. If this was the case, to exclude AI you could enter -" AI " to exclude anything with "AI" as standalone term in it. I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than what we have now.

Depending on the search, this is still an option. Google will not give AI results if you use -AI at the end of your query, but there’s no permanent setting for that.

Because of my annoyance with the AI results (and the paid results) I switched to DuckDuckGo as my search engine. A little bit less tracky, and it lets you set an AI preference between always, sometimes, and NONE for Internet searches AND REMEMBERS.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The removal of AND & NOT in search was evil as is returning all the junk they "think" might be useful. Amazon stores now seem to be the worst.

AltaVista.

That is one of the things I dislike about shopping for music on Amazon: There doesn't seem to be a way to exclude items. As an example, there's an artist I like named Harriet. No surname, just Harriet. The problem is when I search for "Harriet" what comes up includes "Harriet Tubman" and a bunch of other Harriets. Fortunately, since I've previously purchased albums by Harriet I can just bring up an album I've already purchased and select the artist's name.

In my previous post I mentioned bringing back "+" and "-" as limiters mainly because it is simple. The reason for the quotation marks is to allow you to even more finely tune the search. "AI" would allow anything with the letters "AI" to come up while " AI " would only allow/exclude only AI surrounded by spaces.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Altgr e on Linux or Windows is é
`key beside 1 is a modifier. It is not a single quote, like ‘, so ` e gives è, similarly à ì ò ù ỳ.
I think Windows International layouts can have keys like this, called dead keys. There is zero reason for the ` key to directly type as that glyph is ONLY an accent. I suspect Windows US International works like UK Linux with AltGr and "dead keys".

Scottish Gaelic sì is kind of fairy, like Tolkien's Elves. In Irish Gaelic it's side or sí, all three are pronounced Shee. Original Irish orthography has no dot on an i so as in handwriting it's not mistaken for í. Very few fonts have that and the Turkish dotless i is the wrong character.

One option might be to have a set of dead keys where the rules are: (1) the dead key must be typed after the letter it is modifying, (2) as soon as you type a space after typing the dead key, the dead key symbol fuses with the previous letter to create the letter that you actually want. To bring up the dead keys you would tap a Function key which would bring up a display of all of the appropriate dead keys, depending on the letter you have typed. As an example, you'd type "a" and then the dead key for the umlat symbol to get ä.

[pdurrant]

MacOS Keyboard uses dead keys before the letter. option-e is the acute accent, option-` the grave, option-u the umlaut

option-e <space> just gives the accent´
option-e i gives í
option-` i gives ì

etc. It's worked that way for 40 years...

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

MacOS Keyboard uses dead keys before the letter. option-e is the acute accent, option-` the grave, option-u the umlaut

option-e <space> just gives the accent´
option-e i gives í
option-` i gives ì

etc. It's worked that way for 40 years...

Yeah, it's something Apple got right from the get-go. The rest of the world isn't even trying to catch up and never mind alt-keypad sequences on tenkeyless keyboards.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

MacOS Keyboard uses dead keys before the letter. option-e is the acute accent, option-` the grave, option-u the umlaut

option-e <space> just gives the accent´
option-e i gives í
option-` i gives ì

etc. It's worked that way for 40 years...

That sounds like a good way to handle accent marks. The reason I mentioned pressing a key to bring up a pop up list of appropriate accent marks (since you've already typed the letter) is so you don't have to memorize specific keystrokes and it brings up only the applicable accent marks for that letter.

The Alt-Numeric keypad method works well, but the drawback is that it only works if you have a numeric keypad on your keyboard. As I mentioned in a previous post I purchased a keyboard without a numeric keypad and realized I couldn't easily type the characters with accent marks (although some programs like LibreOffice allow you to insert the characters).

[Quoth]

You type "dead key" first then the letter on all OSes and Keyboard maps I've ever used that supports it

The ` beside 1 should always be dead. The " ^ - ~ are typical option dead keys, but I have the UNIX Compose mapped to CAPS, so Compose ^ e = ê, ~ n = ñ Compose " u = ü etc, so I only have `as a dead key.

Windows since 3.1 has Charmap. Linux also has it.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The ` beside 1 should always be dead.

Command substitution aside, standard US keyboard layout does not have dead keys, and the back tick key also is the ~ key on this layout.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Command substitution aside, standard US keyboard layout does not have dead keys, and the back tick key also is the ~ key on this layout.

To me a simple way to create a dead key is to just use one of the Function Keys, possibly with the Shift or Alt key. Another option is to combine the "`" key with the Alt Key as a dead key.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Command substitution aside, standard US keyboard layout does not have dead keys, and the back tick key also is the ~ key on this layout.

On Windows?
Try the Windows US International.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You type "dead key" first then the letter on all OSes and Keyboard maps I've ever used that supports it

Except some touch screen keyboards, especially Android. However they vary per android version etc and are tricky. I've switched to Gboard handwriting on Android (except on eink).

[ownedbycats]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Images Leak From Developer Website

Guess they get bored of rereleasing Skyrim?

Also dear god they turned it all fcking brown. Obliivion is my favourite Elder Scrolls mainly becuase it wasn't.