Google Correlate - Draw | Hacker News Reader

Google Correlate - Draw

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223 pointsmshafrir63 comments

This is a great brainstorming tool for doing light blogspam-style "journalism", if your readers don't know about it (which they probably don't). Draw something with a rather unlikely looking feature— a graph that strikes the reader as quite definitely not just random noise. See if you get anything interesting in return. If yes, conjure up a backstory, and write up a post in a confident, assertive tone, that closes with the graph as your "care to explain this?!" evidence nailing home your suspicion.

That's far too much effort when they can just monitor RSS feeds and reword someone else's work.

Why do you think they'd actually monitor those themselves? Get a bot to monitor them, and a text spinner to reword the texts.

confirmation bias in its most unadulterated form. excellent.

In a way it's even an improvement on confirmation bias. With confirmation bias, you have a conclusion you want to sell, and selectively search for evidence that might support it. But with this suggestion, you search for interesting evidence, and then invent a conclusion that it might support, post-hoc.

It's actually cherry picking, not confirmation bias.

Draw a positive line which abruptly goes to 0 and invent conspiracy theories about what they're trying to hide from us.

Is brooks pharmacy being censored by the government?! (1) Doctors hate them, lobbyists~ etc...

Source: http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:5J79rEBVG...

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AEJ2JLv5...

Seems like the typical "pre-Plus" Google project: limited usefulness, but interesting from an engineering standpoint.

Noticed that it still contains share buttons for two defunct Google services: Google Buzz and Google Reader

It's also using dygraphs javascript visualizations for the timeseries instead of Google Charts.

This was one of the many projects that got gutted by Plus, I'm surprised that it's still being hosted at all.

Bad news for "linux"

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AWuHjnma...

Wow, I can share with Google buzz. /nostalgia

I tried the same curve and got open source and free software. This is rather depressing but it's predictable.

predictable? how so?

foss is a nerd thing. The general consumer has no idea what source code is in the first place, they often don't know what an application or OS is, they just click the thing on the screen to make facebook appear.

So it loses search percentage because it isn't becoming a mainstream concept, which is sad. People should care more about their software freedom but they don't even know what software is.

Right, I get why linux / FOSS in general adoption isn't high. But why declining?

The number of people, globally, using the internet, is still on that same near exponential growth curve that the first world nations were seeing in the late 90s. It really hasn't subsided; only gone to lower income brackets.

Heck, half of the US didn't have reliable access to the web until I think 2002?

And these late adopters, they are both non-english speakers and non-technical people.

Additionally, the early adopters, let's take my parents, who had Prodigy in about 1990, are now using the web more for things like shopping and content consumption, then they did in 1998.

If they wanted to watch the latest TV show, they can do that now online, AND they know this. Compare that to 2004. That will be reflected in the search terms.

Also, there are internet phenomenons that are at the order of that which we have not seen. Psy's videos on youtube for instance; 1 ba-ba-billion+? That's insane.

So yeah, Linux is left in the dust. Also, it's much easier than it used to be - take that from someone who's been using it since 1996 (?)

I need to do a write-up some time soon of how good we have it now - for my own memory.

It isn't really left in the dust, the growth rate of tech adoption is just greater than the exposure rate of FOSS and related technologies. Which is sad, but since Microsoft is the primary conduit of traditional computing systems (and today it is Google) it is against both their interests to introduce users to open compute platforms.

I imagine what will happen is that foss and linux will pick back up in popularity over time when technology hits global saturation and the only difference is old people dying and new people entering the market. The younger crowd is more likely to inquisitively understand computers better and realize they aren't just a dumb tool to be used to view facebook.

"The younger crowd is more likely to inquisitively understand computers better and realize they aren't just a dumb tool to be used to view facebook."

Why would the younger crowd of the future be any more likely to want to understand the underlying workings of a computer than today's younger crowd who uses a computer to view Facebook? I would argue that, young or old, those who want to know how their appliances work will always be a small minority.

Todays facebook crowd didn't grow up engrossed in consumer computers and the Internet from infancy, but from their preteens. I imagine the millenials will, having grown up entirely exposed to pervasive international information sharing, be more inquisitive as to how the devices that dictate their social lives work.

I mean, it is just my impression, but my 10 year old half brother can sit down at a Linux box and install games he wants to play in wine without having any idea what he is doing. That is more praise of wine than my brother, though =P

My argument is that when you grow engrossed in this technology it is much more influential on your life and thus most inquisitive minds would find it much more relevant to learn what they actually are, versus the older generations who only recently adopted these technologies as an accentuation of old habits. For one it is a tool, the other it is a way of life.

Agreed, this is exactly why I said "predictable". The dilution of techies among the more casual crowd on the Internet was supposed to happen (or we'd be out of jobs), but I wish they had been taught some important concepts of software before learning how to use a browser.

Do you know how your refrigerator works? automobile? What about the mechanization of the lock on your front door? could you construct a radio from base components?

Alas, no. I think we will have a generation of computer programmers just as likely as we would have a future one of plumbers, electricians, home-builders, or even exercise and health specialists.

I think it may be the opposite. Yes, fewer programmers by 2050 than today.

interesting...

seems "Ubuntu" hasn't fared quite as bad? http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=ubuntu&t=wee...

EDIT: Seems Ubuntu may have overtaken a huge portion of Linux searches, but maybe growth started to fall off with the introduction of Windows 7? http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=ubuntu#q=ubuntu%2C%20...

It's not necessarily as bad as it seems because this is relative to overall search term popularity. As more non-techies adopted the Internet, the prevalence of all techie topics declined, some more than others. E.g. Python is more popular as ever, but it's search term interest peaked in 2006, even though it's absolute search numbers increased nicely.

I don't think google do trend graphs for absolute search numbers, so one way to approximate that is to compare the graphs for competing terms using Google Trends (1). So to get a feel for how popular Python is, compare it's trend graph to say Java or Ruby.

Another factor I suspect may be relevant for Linux is that the rise of prominent distros has probably sapped away search term activity for general searches for Linux.

(1) http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore

I wouldn't read too much into that trend, all desktop operating systems declined:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Mac+OS+X,+Linux,+Wind...

Ubuntu really does win though among the linuxes:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Ubuntu,OpenSuse,Debia...

My favorite linux is on the rise, albeit from a tiny baseline:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Archlinux&cmpt=q

At least the mobile OSes are doing well:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Mac+OS+X,+Linux,+Wind...

My first try, with a hockey-stick growth pattern starting 2007. Expected a match with "twitter," instead got "baby poop."

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:iOj8ICadD...

I believe twitter didn't start seeing crazy growth until 2009 once they focus on activating their users and moving away from the idea that everyone needs to tweet to use twitter.

Google trends seems to confirm 2009 was when it started to really work too http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=twitter#q=twitter&cmp...

Spikes in 2008 and 2012: http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:pBuWinPLv...

This one made me laugh.

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:bnqK1ZVJS...

Pasta Salad spikes (July 4th anyone?) http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=pasta+salad&...

2011: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385932,00.asp

Anyone know why "bruising" and "brown spots" are common in the summer? Not as nice as the canonical answer of "ice cream"...

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:UfmYZwmin...

In case you're wondering what's popular in winter: it's lots of diseases!

Just Google these words and add the word 'summer' to get some ideas. Here's what I came up with:

Bruising: More children play outside in the summer → more bruises → more parents/children(?) Googling for it. Brown spots: Might be referring to brown spots in someone's lawn due to the weather? Or summer freckles?

Stone fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines) are in season in the summer and easily bruise and get brown spots when they overripen.

Very useful for looking up what people care about: http://i.imgur.com/puNZMco.png

1. (antidepressant drug) 2. "county jail" 3. "google" 4. "detention center" 5. (vinyl music database)

This is rather awesome.

This would also be cool if instead of search terms you could see stock prices.

Apparently the internet was (comparatively) less funny between 2006 and 2012: http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AO6yJxan...

Peak in 2005 and than a linear decline: "Linux firefox". http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AI9yHeUP...

Power rangers dino thunder apparently made some kind of comeback.

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AFlLikxM...

My first try got me "free Blackberry software"

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AUbuw550...

I got "blackberry support", spot on

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AWbipmJ-...

I tried drawing a "hockey stick" graph and stopped too soon. Got wamu =).

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:Bds44NUk_...

We miss you wamu!

Make 100% on 2005, 2007, 2009, etc. and you'll have Cirque Du Soleil visits in San Francisco!

Is the metric system cool now? http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AJrnBhwp...

Tried a downhill curve and I got yahoo.com http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:IwiF_9hYU...

Staircase growth then major drop = Yahoo

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:g1F7bodyg...

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id:zmsMT3XqC...

ok, so porn links are allowed in this

The implementation probably uses SAX (Symbolic Aggregate approXimation). http://code.google.com/p/jmotif/wiki/SAX

what happened to htomail.com ? ;) http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3AZYTVOj4...

. . . . . . .

Pulled from a search farther down in the comments section: Why was this a question... ever?

http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=id%3ApBuWinP...

That's a pretty legitimate question. At that time, LED TVs were starting to be marketed pretty heavily. I myself didn't understand what an LED TV was. Turns out it's an LCD but with an LED backlight, so it runs cooler and uses less electricity.

The question isn't really the difference between LED and LCD, it's the difference between an LCD TV and an LCD TV with an LED backlight.

Hmmm... I guess I was kinda drunk when I asked that question because I read: "What's the difference between LSD and LED?"

The whitepaper describes an approximate nearest neighbor algorithm, but I thought this would use some form of signal decomposition...Discrete Cosine Transform or Fourier Transform.

If I recall correctly, that only works on periodic signals, and not all the Google keyword trends are periodic.

Thing I found most interesting about this is - it allows you to 'Share' your results on Google Buzz, Google Reader and, most shockingly, Facebook.

Very neat to find local trends. Try drawing a boom (immediate spike) at some point in time to find something that trended highly back then.

This reminds me of the fun I had in high school writing "shell oil" on my calculator.

Can someone elaborate on the method they use?

I drew a penis, and it correlated with www.mail.google.com

Strange, in my case, it correlated with the NSA. Well, I may have drawn a bigger one.

"Please sign in to use this tool." That's all I see when I am not signed in. Too confident on Google's part that the people will always be signed in or do they actually need any personal info to use this tool?

Maybe it's a rate limiting thing? This is a relatively expensive search, and they probably don't want people to mechanically download all the graphs. The UI does support uploading your own time series data.

This is hilarious.

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