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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

There's certainly the potential to extract interesting data here, but I haven't found it yet.

I do note with distress, however, that:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=why+is+my+poop+gree...

searches for "Why is my poop green?" peaked in March 2010 before subsiding, and that it's correlated with "hiv symptoms in women" and "how to get a guy to ask you out".

Meanwhile, "why is my poop black?" is correlated with "How to say I love you in French"

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Hmmm, highest correlation with "ibm" is "patent office". This tool is ripe for weird meme and joke generation.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is correlated with SQL and Access tutorials: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=irritable+bowel+syn... , while NoSQL matches pulse rates for men, marriage confessions and social anxiety disorder http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=noSQL&t=weekly

Correlation does not imply causation, but it is certainly fun sometimes to pretend it does.

"Impotence" is correlated with "nec multisync"

That does it, I'm definitely getting a new monitor.

If you upload stock market data, you could see if there are searches that strongly predict certain stocks.

I don't know that predict is accurate. Correlate is probably more accurate. Is correlation sufficient to profit in the market? I have no idea.

Well, it works well with unemployment at least: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/25/mining-for-correlatio...

On the other hand, check this out: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=obama+win&t=wee...

I like the fact that "love" has a huge spike every year, mid-February, and that it's correlated with "restaurants in downtown".

While we're on the subject, "how to propose" oddly enough seems to have a spike at the end of every year and a huge trough at the beginning, and it's correlated with "kenneth cole watches".

(C'mon guys, lift your game, if you're giving out an engagement ring you should be getting a Patek Philippe in return, not a Kenneth Cole.)

Oh, and one more thing: "divorce lawyers" has a spike in the middle of every year (including a particularly large spike last year) and troughs at either end. Maybe cold weather makes people want to nest and warm weather makes 'em want to leave?

I imagine Demand Media can extract interesting data from this.

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