A:
You know how Google did that flu prediction thing?
B:
Where they predicted flu outbreaks by tracking geographically people searching for flu symptoms?
A:
Right, so if a bunch of people in a town started searching for "runny nose" or "fever" or whatever, Google would predict a flu outbreak there.
B:
Well, it's not really a prediction, people already have the flu. It's just that Google can recognize it before doctors can, because people will Google stuff before they get themselves to a doctor.
A:
Well, whatever
B:
It's not whatever, it's an important point.
A:
Well anyway, I had an idea the other day: could you do a similar thing with the first snow of winter?
B:
What would that be?
A:
Well, you know. You would look for people saying things like, "Wow, snow!" or "First snow of the winter!" or whatever, there's probably like 40 of those phrases. And then if you saw a disproportionate amount of those, you would predict that it was snowing for the first time in that area.
B:
But you already know it's snowing there, just look outside. The interesting thing about the flu detection--not prediction, but detection--is that flu outbreaks are hard to detect, you can just look out the window and see it raining down.
A:
Well it wouldn't work for just the FIRST snow, you could predict when it was snowing at all.
B:
What would people be searching for everytime it snowed?
A:
Like... "Why is it snowing?" I'm sure there are others.