The Archives
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12.03.09you’ve got questions, I’ve got answersAs oracular devices go, Internet search engines are a little better than reading sheep entrails and a little worse than the I Ching. The Internet is so full of bad and misleading information, that unless you already know what you're looking for you'll be easily duped. And because most search engines add a little "wisdom of the crowds" (or the "none of us is as dumb as all of us" principal) to their algorithms, bad information tends to reinforce more bad information. In most cases, you're better off asking a person--your father (who might lie to you), ...
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11.29.0935 AcrossTo everyone who's landed here today from a variety of search engines looking for "Sailor's destination in a Yeats poem": the answer is "Byzantium." Great poem, Sailing to Byzantium. (That's 35 across, in the November 29, 2009, Los Angeles Times Crossword.) How did we ever solve crosswords without the Internet?
