It’s so funny how dependent we’ve become on search. Remember BEFORE search made the entire internet actually work? When you had an obscure question, you’d ask your know-it-all maven buddy, who would ask his friend, etc. Three weeks later, you’d be close to answer. Now, you Google it. I grew up using PCs in the mid-80s because my father was an IBMer. I could trade in my current laptop for one of those PC XTs that ran all it’s software from a floppy, but I couldn’t trade in search.

A few days before Christmas, I was able to come up with a few solid leads on why, exactly, my outlet melted and almost ignited our bed mattress.  My wife was also able to find out through some persistent searching (and an email to customer service) that our mattress didn’t contain carginogenic flame-retardants.

Usually, there are a bunch of different terms that will get you the answer you seek. The funniest thing is that after my ankle injury in January, I never came across any info on my condition until the second surgeon gave me the term “snowboarder’s ankle fracture.” Ding ding ding! It’s not a made up ailment! It almost never happens — except that it happens all the time to snowboarders. Especially those that don’t know what they’re doing.

 http://www.google.com/search?q=snowboarder%27s+ankle+fracture