How to solve impossible problems:  Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques

Don’t bother typing AND in your search queries – Google treats it like any other word.  But OR in all caps actually works.  OR is great for finding synonyms and boilerplate language.  Typing “Smith denied” OR “Smith claimed” OR “Smith argued” will find more pertinent websites about the controversy involving Smith.  Avoid using NOT if you want to exclude a search term. Instead, type a minus sign in front of the word. 

Sometimes Google tries to be helpful and it uses the word it thinks you’re searching for — not the word you’re actually searching for.  And sometimes a website in the search results does not include all your search terms.  How do you fix this?

Typing intext:[keyword] might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Russell’s favorites.  It forces the search term to be in the body of the website.
"Control F” is your friend.  Use this keyboard shortcut to find a word or phrase on any web page.  It’s faster than reading the whole page for a specific word or phrase.  “If you don’t know this, you’re roughly 12 percent slower in your searches,” Russell said.  For more plus examples, see:  http://www.johntedesco.net/blog/2012/06/21/how-to-solve-impossible-problems-daniel-russells-awesome-google-search-techniques/

To test a couple of these tips for Google, I did searches on June 29.

patient protection=47,700,000 hits.
"patient protection"=1,610,000 hits.
intext:  "patient protection"=41,700 hits.
boilerplate language=1,570,000 hits.
"boilerplate language"=95,500 hits.
intext:  "boilerplate language"=1,530 hits.

Books relating to Mormon history are appearing in the catalogs of top academic presses, while secular universities are adding courses, graduate fellowships and endowed chairs.  “People are seeing right now that Mormonism is a great laboratory for studying all kinds of questions about religion and the modern world,” said Patrick Mason, the chairman of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, which four years ago became the first secular university outside Utah to establish a program on the subject.  The Mormon studies boom, many say, also represents a lifting of the intellectual chill that descended in the 1980s, when the church clamped down on access to its archives, and a number of scholars were forced out of Brigham Young University, a church-owned institution, and even excommunicated.   The church history department, which manages the archives, has hired increasing numbers of Ph.D.’s and begun publishing a scholarly edition of the Joseph Smith papers, projected to run to more than 20 volumes.  “These are all signs of a new openness,” said Matthew Bowman, an assistant professor of religion at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and the author of “The Mormon People,” published in January by Random House.  The church, he said, “is pushing for detente with historians.”   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/books/mormon-studies-attract-more-scholars-and-attention.html?pagewanted=all

Derechoes are large clusters of thunderstorms that produce widespread wind damage, usually as a result of one or more curved lines of thunderstorms known as bow echoes.  The word in the Spanish language means "straight" and these windstorms leave wide, long swaths of straight-line wind damage.  These winds can be as strong as 50 to 100 mph (or higher).  According to our Severe Weather Expert Dr. Greg Forbes, an ordinary thunderstorm produces a swath of damaging winds usually only a mile or two wide and a few miles long, but derechoes can produce damage swaths tens of miles wide and several hundred miles long.  http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/derecho-explainer-20120612 

The World Choir Games is the Olympics of choral music---the largest international choral competition in the world held every two years.  Previous games have been in Austria, China, Germany and South Korea.  The 7th World Choir Games is being held in the United States for the first time July 4-14, 2012 in Cincinnati.  The Games are the signature event of INTERKULTUR, Germany-based organization that produces choral events all over the world.  http://2012worldchoirgames.com/Section/2012-games/overview/frequently-asked-questions

The idea to create an event like the World Choir Games is based on the Olympic ideals, which aim to peacefully unify singing people and nations connected by song in a fair competition.  The idea should inspire people to experience the strength of interaction which is able to challenge personality and community equally through the power of singing together . No matter on which artistic level one is working – whether singing for pleasure or reaching for artistic stars.  The World Choir Games are an international choir festival taking place every two years on different continents.  http://www.interkultur.com/world-choir-games/

Here's an outline of what we did during our recent vacation:

Nashville  July 3-6

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Frist Library and Archives  http://countrymusichalloffame.org/

Ryman Auditorium  http://www.ryman.com/
Frist Center for the Visual Arts  http://fristcenter.org/
Hermitage  http://www.thehermitage.com/
Belle Meade Plantation  http://bellemeadeplantation.com/
Nashville Symphony
Restaurants:  Maggiano's Little Italy, Midtown Cafe, Prime 108 at Union Station Hotel

Cincinnati  July 7-10

2012 World Choir Games  Champions Concert for Week One:  eight winners were from China (4), The Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland and Venezuela.
Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal with A Day in Pompeii, the exhibition
http://www.cincinnatiusa.com/attractions/detail.asp?AttractionID=121&gclid=CK6JxuyDlLECFQZtKgodVGvmhQ
The William Howard Taft National Historic Site http://cincinnatiusa.com/Attractions/detail.asp?AttractionID=63
Restaurants:   Local 127, Via Vite, Morton's Steakhouse, The Palace at Cincinnatian Hotel

Springfield  July 11

Frank Lloyd Wright's Westcott House  http://www.westcotthouse.org/