OT: I need an Avatar

Fyron · #1 November 8th, 2006, 03:43 AM

A search for "adaman*" turns up 0 results, so it looks like no.

President_Elect_Shang · #2 November 8th, 2006, 10:24 AM

I�m the last person to say I have a vast well of knowledge on computers (ha-ha-ha) but I was under the impression that the wild card was sort of; universal? Can I say I three times in the same sentence? I just did it twice there. And none there�

It is, or was, my old avatar. SJ found it for me but feel free to answer the question. A lot of tension is off my shoulders since I graduated. Never new how short tempered I had really become. Anyway I am a much cooler customer now.

Fyron · #3 November 8th, 2006, 03:22 PM

I have never seen a web based search that uses wild cards.

President_Elect_Shang · #4 November 8th, 2006, 06:23 PM

Really, like google or yahoo is where I use it and that seems fine.

Fyron · #5 November 8th, 2006, 06:42 PM

Hmm... I don't see any purpose to a wildcard search. A search for "adama*t" is pretty much just a search for "adama", but filtering out any page that doesn't have a t after it somewhere. It doesn't find things with "adamant" in them very well. A search for "adamant * mod" makes the results completely irrelevant compared to "adamant mod". Something like "adamant *" is pretty non-sensical, cutting out ~17% of the results without any apparent rhyme or reason.

President_Elect_Shang · #6 November 8th, 2006, 07:16 PM

So what would be a more effective way to search given the following: You want to find a modification for a game called Space Empires 4. You know this mod starts with �adama� that there are more letters but you are not sure how many more, and that there should be a �T� in it but you can�t tell if the t is the last letter or not. How would you advise someone to do this search? I have a computer class with the kids tomorrow and will include your suggestion. Naturally I will talk about looking up koalas or some other equally odd spelled animal like aardvark. Maybe I can talk about modding the koala and aardvark so you can mount meson blasters to them�mmm�

Fyron · #7 November 8th, 2006, 09:25 PM

I don't know, probably search for a list of space empires 4 mods or sites hosting mods, and go from there? I can't think of a way to use wildcards that narrow the search down in predictable ways (at least with Google; maybe another search engine handles them better). Maybe someone else can?