The lookup game
June 2, 2009 by cynthia
When I was a kid I used to grab the nearest reference work–dictionary, encyclopedia, my dad’s medical texts, my mom’s artbooks–then close my eyes and turn to a page. I’d read whatever came up, follow all the “See alsos” I came across, look up terms I didn’t understand and just generally take that page to its logical conclusion.
I called it the “lookup game.” It taught me all sorts of totally useless things (for a kid), including the realization that I never met a fact I didn’t like. It also turned me on to doing my own research and discovering things, people, issues, etc., that probably wouldn’t have appeared in the typical suburban whitekid’s daily routine.
I’m still playing it–on the Web–and it’s more fascinating than ever.
Try this: Grab any print matter (book, magazine, cereal box, whatever), close your eyes and jab a finger on a page. Then find whatever noun or verb is closest to your finger and enter it into your search engine of choice. Hit the submit button, and follow the first five entries on the results page to their logical conclusion.*
I guarantee you’ll learn something**–could be the location of a really cool website, a weird twist on something you thought you knew…or that there really are people out there obsessed with reproducing the conditions inside a 19th century French sewer.
Give it a go, and let me know what you find.
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*For example, today’s word was “eutectic,” and delivered the following:
- A Wikipedia definition which included the interesting explanation of why salt causes ice to melt on roadways and also led to me to further research on fiamme (look it up).
- Information on alloys especially formulated for production glassware manufacture.
- A dictionary definition of “eutectic,” which led to a look at the Millennium complex in the UK, which uses eutectic salts to capture energy during the day and release it as heat when needed.
- James Madison University’s really nice class discussion of phase diagrams, which itself led to a very nice resource center on igneous rocks.
- The Encyclopedia Brittanica’s definition of “eutectic,” which I skipped (EB is a paysite and won’t let you get to the good stuff unless you buy a subscription, so it’s pretty much useless).
**Of course, common sense comes in handy when exploring search results. The human mind is endlessly inventive, especially at finding ways to introduce nasty or sexual innuendo into seemingly unrelated words and phrases. (“innuendo” being one of them) Read the excerpt BEFORE you click…
i believe this is a lost, or soon to become lost, art, along with the investigative gene. just yesterday, someone asked me where to get a single ceramic bowl fired. i said try looking in the yellow pages for a paint on pottery place or a place that sells ceramic stuff like clay and kilns, and the reply was: do you know of any in particular, what their names were, and where were they?
You’re probably right. One of the problems with search engines–unless you just use them for exploration like this–is that you get right to what you want and miss all the research you used to have to do to get there. Often the research taught more than the actual reference.
Ah well…I had aging programming professors who bemoaned the use of keyboards and monitors “because when you need to use punchcards you won’t know how.” So far it hasn’t been much of a problem, so maybe this won’t be, either.
Can you help me? I took float glass and made a coarse to powder frit, filled a mold and now I’m trying to find a fuse and slump firing schedule.
Than I came across your unique bowl. Thank you for sharing a great idea and especially the firing schedule.
Jan
I’d have to go back and dig ti up, and i”m not sure it’s going to work for a full fuse–those are tackfuse schedules.
I’ll look, but in the meantime you might find it faster to go to warmglass.com and search the forum archives for “float glass schedules.” They usually have several posted.