Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the search can find everything on your hard drive, SD.  It avoids hidden folders.

Note that the tilde is the root of your user area, and that (with Lion and up) Library is hidden.  That the user's own Library should be hidden is debatable, as it causes a lot of confusion, but it is what it is per Apple's decision.

-Noel

I think station_two was most concerned that I used the word "root" and "user" in the same sentence.  Probably with good reason.  Thanks for the note.  I was using my Windows dialect of Geek Speek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde:

 

Directories and URLs 

On Unix-like operating systems (including BSD, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X), tilde often indicates the current user's home directory: for example, if the current user's home directory is /home/bloggsj, then cd, cd ~, cd /home/bloggsj or cd $HOME are equivalent. This practice derives from the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal in common use during the 1970s, which happened to have the tilde symbol and the word "Home" (for moving the cursor to the upper left) on the same key.^{[citation needed]} When prepended to a particular username, the tilde indicates that user's home directory (e.g., ~janedoe for the home directory of user janedoe, such as /home/janedoe).^[16]

I actually used ADM-3A terminals way back when, among others.  Sigh.

The real question is why the heck is the user library (~/Library) actually hidden by Lion and its descendents? What were they thinking? Geez, I hate the dumbing down of computer systems.

And yes, Conroy's got it right - the leading period means current directory. The root directory of the file system is just: /

-Noel

[[ admin removed off topic bits ]]

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

…The real question is why the heck is the user library (~/Library) actually hidden by Lion and its descendants?…

Out of sheer stupidity, incompetence and at the direction of the marketing folks at Apple who want maximum compatibility with their mobile devices and figure the users are dumb enough to be protected this way so they won't mess up any of their libraries.

Personally, I have bought my last Apple device ever.  The two last ones I acquired were a G5 Quad made in the summer of 2006, and a MacBook made in 2007 which I literally rescued from the trash.

The future of the desktop Mac as a serious computing platform is very much in doubt at this time.