… and that’s part of the reason we have search tools–to help us find and recover what we’ve forgotten.
I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly re-searching for things I only vaguely remember, and I need all the help I can get.
This week’s Challenge comes in three parts.
First, a question of something I once heard about, but have forgotten.
Second, a question of something we have collectively forgotten (or somehow misplaced) in our cultural memory.
And third, a question to you of what tools you use to help find things forgotten or misplaced in memory.
1. I remember visiting a bunch of colleges in the Eastern US with my daughter (who was checking out different institutions as a prospective student) and hearing a remarkable story at one of them. The story was that this concert hall was the one that staged a concert of a piece of music by a slightly crazed but rather famous composer who wrote a piece for orchestra and a complicated color-light display keyboard. The thing is, his vision exceeded the ability of the tech at the time. So, roughly a century later, this institution was able to ACTUALLY perform the piece as written–orchestra, light-show performance, and all of the special effects. Questions: What was that piece? Who was the composer? And what university concert hall held this event?
2. You probably remember that childhood song about “Four and twenty blackbirds, baked into a pie.” Question: Was that for real? Or is it a corruption of some other song / phrase from the older parts of our culture? (I mean… blackbirds? Really?)
3. I have a couple of tools that I use every day to help me find things, particularly when I’m searching through my personal content. What tools do you use to search your personal content? (Of course, we all use the search engines of the world–Google, Bing, Baidu, Wolfram Alpha, etc.) But if you’re looking through YOUR stuff, what tools do you use to search through that?
I managed to find the answer to Challenge 1 already. I think I have an answer for Challenge 2. And I know what I do for my personal search. But tell us what you found in the comments. Be sure to tell us HOW you found it (what path led you to the answer).
And I’ll give you my answers next week.
Search on!
