Ext4 filesystem hits Android, no need to fear data loss (ars technica)

This is topical with the thread above about filesystem behaviour. Once people are using something, it's too late to decide how they should use it. Google's reality is that millions of people every second are asking Google for things like "ma DONah" and expecting to find pages about the pop singer Madonna, and for "870 + 43" expecting 913 - while its probably as much as seconds at a time between requests by (let's call them) nerds for whom Fu8E7 +frobnicate site:verytechnical.example is very precisely the exact search they wanted to perform.

So Google optimise for the former, not the latter, trusting that (a) nerds will find the way to do whatever they need to do even if you don't make it obvious, so there's no need (b) the nerds don't read adverts and thus don't generate any significant revenue.

As with XKCD's imaginary secret tech support password, it would be nice if Google provided a raw search facility for people who can spell, know what they're looking for and understand what "not found" means, but it doesn't necessarily make commercial sense. If you ask users "Are you an expert?" they say "Yes" even if they know nothing. And then they complain that they don't understand what happened next. If you provide a "secret" expert mode, "helpful" journalists tell ordinary users about it, and you're back to the same situation. I bet that fully half the quoted search queries on Google are users who don't know what quotes do, but believe that it somehow makes the search give more results, or better results.