Googlism.com is a website that performs searches using Google.com. What distinguishes it from a standard search engine is that unlike Google, Googlism excerpts the search results directly to the user rather than excerpting just the website addresses. You can type in any search query, and according to the Googlism website, “find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything.”

Using Googlism.com, one can’t help but be amazed at the sheer amount of information—the surfeit, Luddites and technophobes might argue— available on the Internet today. The Internet, and more broadly the Information Age, have altered student life profoundly in an incredibly short period of time. It was not so long ago that “doing research” meant spending long hours with the library card catalog and “spell checking” meant flipping through a hefty dictionary. One only has to read page 12 this week to gain a historic perspective on the computing revolution. There, we reprint archival articles from issues first published in 1979, the Nassau Weekly’s first year: how they beg for spell-checking.

To my mind, the changes technology has brought us do not seem unambiguously good. Last semester, my mother was surprised to discover the sheer amount of writing I was expected to produce as a junior history major. When she attended college in the late 1960s, papers were typewritten and theses submitted weeks in advance to professional typists. The tediousness of producing papers on typewriters had its upside: professors assigned far fewer long writing assignments. A French major, my mother took many final exams in her day. Computers have not just made life easier; in making it easier, they’ve turned around and made it harder. Likewise, networking innovations—which the (in)famous Blackboard site takes advantage of— have not just facilitated contact between students and professors. They’ve also made real contact less real, or less concrete at least. Many precept discussions seem to center around pre-formulated postings rather than interactive discussions—defeating the ostensible purpose of the site. Likewise, the modes and mores of social life have been affected. “I’ll email you,” I often promise friends with whom I intend to make plans. Only later do I realize: I could have made plans with them then and there, face-to-face. But I suppose if the plan isn’t in email, then it doesn’t really exist, anyway.

Of course, technology isn’t unambiguously bad, either, and sites like Googlism.com help to temper our cynicism with light-heartedness. Googlism is—in a word— fun. Below, we’ve collected some of Googlism’s thoughts about members of our staff. “Technology has an opinion about you that you may not even know about,” says Nassau Weekly Co-Publisher John Dempsey, who—according to Googlism.com— is not convinced that more data and better technology will achieve greater security.

–DIANA LEMBERG

mayeux is your chairman this year and doing a fantastic job

mayeux is not letting the pressure get to her

mayeux is knowledgeable about the plan

dempsey is not to be denied

dempsey is an exceptional young talent who is increasingly gaining wider acclaim

dempsey is a reddish buff neutered male

rusik is around five fores at the withers and is covered in short glossy dark reddish brown hair

rusik is the lower branch of the dorashi river

rusik is our socratus

savage is a nationally recognized financial author and television personality

savage is as savage does

savage is a moron

samsky is a member of the board of directors of the boys and girls club of camarillo

samsky is chief financial officer of compucredit corp

samsky is totally hot

gold is history; the wealth remains

gold is this pirate’s treasure

gold is our flagship site building package and is one of the most technologically advanced products in its field

lyon is a gastronomic place of pilgrimage

lyon is best known as an author of children’s picture books

lyon is not only a minister of the crown but also a judge of the realm

cassin is more natural in its feel

cassin is a former film director on the run from the authorities in late 1941

cassin is sure to turn heads with this new feather weight axe

lemberg is deeply knowledgeable about the human body

lemberg is also available for corporate strategic “makeovers”

Sorry, Google doesn’t know enough about buerki yet