Web 2.0 Assignement 5

For Web 2.0, we had to answer the questions below using Google and Wolfram to find the answers. 

1.       All English words containing the letters "eue"

I like Google better. Wolfram was a pita to use. I had to rephrase my question way too many times for me to even consider this to be a valid search tool for this type of information.

Using Google, I found the website http://www.morewords.com. The following words were listed there: feued, queue, queued, queueing, queuer, queuer, queuers, and queues.

On Wolfram, I found three words that contain the letters “eue” in sequence; queue, queued and
queues.

2. How much potassium in 4.7 oz of banana?

Wolfram returned the information immediately. It is 475 milligrams. Google required too much digging to get the information.

3. How old was Barack Obama on the day you were born?

Wolfram returned the result immediately. He was 3 years, 6 month and 23 days.

Google turned up many results for a Barrack Obama senior, not the president. Too much digging and or rephrasing required to get the answer.

4. Date and time of the next total solar eclipse in Eugene?

Google turned up this answer for the next total solar eclipse: August 21 2017 (found on http://www.hermit.org/eclipse/2017-08-21/) further digging in the article turned up a time: 17:21 (24 hour time), 5:21 pm.  (Based on a graphic showing the path of the eclipse and the approximate time it would pass over a specific location).

Wolfram:  12:25 MDT August 21, 2017 (What is MDT?)

5. What is the minimum and maximum price of Google stock since it went public?

Google: minimum price was $85 the day it was first listed; the maximum was $747.24 on November 7, 2007.  I found this information on two different websites. (Google was faster for me)

Wolfram showed graphs for the stock prices. I had to ask the question several different ways.  Minimum price was less than $100. Maximum price I was unable to find because I couldn’t think of a way that Wolfram could understand what I was looking for.

6. Link an image of the barcode for UPC 01234567890

 Wolfram found the following: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=barcode+01234567890   This page shows three different versions of the barcode.

Google found several sites that had the barcode, include other students’ blogs. One place to find it is http://www.activebarcode.com/codes/images/upce.gif .

7. How many vertices does an icosahedron have?

Twelve. Both Wolfram and Google turned up an answer quickly.

8. Distance from Eugene to Tokyo?

Wolfram gave an answer of 4886 miles. Google said it was 13882 flight miles. Actual distance Wolfram gave the answer, but for actual travel miles, Google gave the answer.

9. Average Oregon income per capita?

Wolfram gave the answer of $31930/year (2007 estimate). Google gave more recent information: $35,956/year (2008) source: http://www.qualityinfo.org/pubs/single/pcpi.pdf

10. What is the Morse code for your first name?

_._ |.. | _ _ | _ ... | .| ._. | . _ . . | _ . _ _ 

 K      I       M      B       E    R       L             Y

Both Wolfram and Google found the answer quickly. Wolfram provided that answer only, while Google provided additional information that could be used or discarded as needed. 

http://www.pokemyname.com/firstname_2265_kimberly.htm is one of the sites I found on Google. It showed my name in Morse code and Braille among others. It also provided other interesting information about the name Kimberly.

Internet censorship

For the web 2.0 class I am taking, we had to do some research on internet censorship. We were given specific terms to research on the following search engines: google.com, bing.com and from China, baidu.com (CHina's search engine) and google.cn (Google's china website). The terms and what I found out are listed below.

1. uss yorktown nt
The results for each search engine were very similar. I suspect that this is because the subject was not offensive to the current Chinese government.

2. google china censorship
With google.com and bing.com, I managed to find stories about the censorship that  covered it in depth and about the impact on people. While I was able to find stories on china censorship on the other two search engine, the summaries were not in depth and were tended to be slanted towards the Chinese government rather than what was actually happening.

3. Tiananmen Square
Both google.com and bing.com had results that covered the Tiananmen massacre/protest as well as general information about the location. There was also basic tourist information available as well as a virtual tour. Videos were also listed. History information was available.

Baidu.com listed the following results: results for the Olympics that were held there, tourist information and general information that residents would use. There was also some tourist information listed. There was no mention of the student protests or any results that would show the Chinese government in a bad light.

Google.cn showed similar results and images. Once again there was nothing controversial and nothing that could be considered offensive to the Chinese government. If it can't be seen by the residents of that country, then nothing of that nature has ever happened. With enough time and brainwashing, history can be rewritten for the residents of China. I find this to be disturbing. It is difficult enough to find factual and truthful information online without having to worry about access to information being limited and the information sanitized ; and even worse being rewritten with no regard to what the truth actually is.

4. Taiwan Independence
To a point, all four search engine showed similar results. The search engine that are china based showed less detailed summaries or synopsis. Once again, it appears that the results are sanitized and limited on those search engines.

While I can see the appeal of censoring hate groups to prevent them from spreading their poison and infecting others, censorship is a dangerous practice. Great harm can be done by changing the truth into lies. There is a fine line to walk.  Certain things should be censored or controlled. What is going on in world events should be told in a factual and truthful manner, not censored because it might make your government look bad or make said government's population think and question what is going on.