Personal blog of a hacker who builds small web tools and writes about hackerspaces, mapping, and localization.
HN commenters enjoy the Google Suggest Venn diagram generator, calling it the best Hacker News hack in ages, though one reports a spacing bug.
Great project idea, but I can't get it to actually work.
I'm encountering a similar error to Toucan with respect to the spacing. If I enter a query "MIT is", Google is returning results that include "is" as part of a larger word. Ex: "MIT Israel divestment". I'd like to query "MIT is " -- including the space -- but it looks like your query strips it out. I think this fix would return much better results.
Also, it looks like even when returning the result "MIT Israel divestment," the returned result is stripping the first few characters. Examples:
ael divest
ael divestment
ael investment
sael stock
aeli stock
samic society
amic studies
overrated
tes
Thoughts? Query link: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#20=&start=X+is&end0=mit&end1=harvard&end2=wellesley
Interesting to see how this query changes from yours:
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+is+my+X+so&end0=husband&end1=wife&end2=cat
I did a side by side tab back and forth to visually diff. Is marriage really that bad???
[Edit] And further:
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+is+my+X+so&end0=girlfriend&end1=wife&end2=daughter
wtf.
[Edit 2]
You could probably really promote this app with some well thought out queries.
If you get rid of the "Why" and "so", the queries become much more interesting, albeit somewhat garbled:
programming languages: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=is+X&end0=python&end1=perl&end2=php (s/c/perl)
operating systems: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=is+X&end0=windows&end1=mac&end2=linux (mac and ryan back together? is linux illegal?)
etc.
Some technical suggestions:
* programming languages: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+is+X+so&end0=c&end1=php&end2=java
* operating systems: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+is+X+so&end0=windows&end1=mac&end2=linux
* popular websites: http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+is+X+so&end0=facebook&end1=twitter&end2=gmail
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=How+do+I+tell+my+X&end0=wife&end1=husband&end2=boyfriend
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+are+X+so&end0=buddhists&end1=muslims&end2=christians
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=Why+are+X+so&end0=jews&end1=muslims&end2=christians
A funny one
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=why+are+X+so&end0=americans&end1=asians&end2=arabs
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=why+are+X+so&end0=mexicans&end1=blacks&end2=americans
http://www.technomancy.org/google-suggest-venn/#start=why+do+X&end0=blacks&end1=arabs&end2=mexicans