Tough Readin'

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by Torrere
[Speaking of which, the way to find something you don't know much about using a search engine is to crawl. Start off with a seed that you are aware of, and search for that, read the documents it finds, learn new ideas and the words which represent them, search for those, and eventually you will find either what you're looking for, or something more interesting.]

Well, there is a better way. The mighty Google provides the tilde ("~") operator. Place this character before a given word when searching, and Google expands your search to include synonyms to that word. For example, a search for the term "~beverage" also contains results for "Alcohol," "Drink," etc. This handy little operator helps to knock down the jargon-barrier a little.

Also, the "Groups" section of Google is a goldmine of information, especially when searching for information on topics one knows little about, because it contains questions from both everyday people, and jargon-slinging geeks. I've found answers to complex Perl and Java questions there, as well as instructions on how to fix my broken furnace. Good stuff.

Google kicks all kinds of searching ass.