I get excited looking through Google Images. I can be looking for a general topic (e.g. a turtle), a specific picture (e.g., a small green turtle), or even pictures at random (e.g., “syg”).
You say you can understand my searching for the first two categories, but a random search for syg? What’s that about?
It’s like gambling. If I enter “syg” (or any random combination of letters) in the Google search line, and specify “large” images, a variety of images appears. I am looking at them now. Scrolling through those images, after awhile, I am likely to spot an image that sparks an idea. I just thought to myself, “Hey, that picture of Nadal with his tennis racquet is neat! Why don’t I copy it to my desktop?” It turns out (because I just checked) that “syg” is a term in Danish. It appears in the photo caption, in the sport section of a Danish magazine or newspaper called Politiken.
Would I have ever located that photo of Nadal without random searching? Probably not. I pulled the lever, and the 7’s lined up. I have done this kind of gambling many times, often with fantastic results. I didn’t have to wait long to make that lucky find. Nadal appeared on the 11th line of images, with five or six images on a line.
Let’s try it again. I am at the Google Images search bar. I will hit three keys at random – without looking – on my computer keyboard. FKY. Fast forward 31 lines, and after two minutes of searching, there it was: A great alien background scene for my popup cards. It turned out to be from an article in Video Copilot about alien landscapes. It seems that the term “FKY” is probably the initials of a person who left his comments about the article. There were hundreds of comments, so I gave up looking for the exact one.
It sure beats losing big bucks at the Vegas tables.
I look forward to figuring out how to use those two new pictures in my popup cards. Another spin? Nope. I am going to bed.
When he is awake, Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen@hotmail.com.
