This morning, under a waxing gibbous Hunter's Moon, we have a thick frost.

Starting with AltaVista nearly 10 years ago and continuing with Google a few years later, search engines have become my standard method for locating information. At one time I might use a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, and technical manuals. Now, it's generally a whole lot easier just to check Google. (There are some other search engines that I'll check occasionally, such as AltaVista, Yahoo, A9, and Clusty, but Google is still the best.)

The other day, for example, I was working on a script (a small program) that would help us automate some repetitive tasks. I needed some examples to help me with a certain problem. Rather than tracking down a manual or even reading the online help, I found easier, faster, and better to search the web using Google. I had my answer in seconds.

Of course, a search engine is only as good as the information that's out there. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find something that, I finally concluded, just didn't exist. (Anyone know how to select and copy the text in a Java applet?)

Search is also only as good as the question you pose. If I need to look up common words, such as select text, I can be overwhelmed with a large number of irrelevant results. For example, among the results of a search for "select text java applet" is a link to a page that describes binomial probability histogram. There are people who care what that means, but I'm not among them.

But, the Red Sox are still playing baseball this late in October. It will be interesting to see which Pedro shows up tonight.