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Here’s an original suggestion for thinking outside the box: how about using a different search engine? It makes all sense of the world, from the point of view of a computer being an extension of one’s own brain. O.K., so Google is the best one, its search algorithms combine quantum mechanics and alien technology from Palo Alto and maybe black magic, and if we made a line with all the company’s servers, it would reach Pluto, but let’s be honest: what’s the use of receiving 42,000 entries when you want to buy a puppy? Have you ever gone beyond the third page? Nobody has.
Making some experimentation means that your brain will be open to a different set of options. And besides, like every democracy knows, it can never be good to receive all goods from one single provider. Using a different search engine gives some new life to your navigation and, in a way, is like a cry for simplicity, a “c’mon, let’s be human!”.
Like most of my best ideas, I came across it by chance. In fact, I was pushed into it. The thing is that lately I have been busy going mouseless, a great productivity enhancement that I strongly recommend (and not for the first time)213214 to those of you who can invert some time in the learning curve. Currently, I have dropped my mouse using by 95%, and It feels quite cyberpunk, I must admit :). I found a beautiful Firefox plugin that puts numbers by each link so you can navigate by just pressing numbers, and I was happy with it until I found a problem with, alas, the Google search bar. Such “accident”, and not my clever wit, is what lead me to the 42,000 entries reflection.
I then started my enquiry for a substitute, only to find that, not only the Big Brother, but many of its elder brothers too, defied my mouseless way of living. Finally, I set up with quite an unknow search engine, very usable from my point of view, and above all, very pleasant. I’m a bit tired of the usual die-hard “blue sky” stance (just look around to see how blue our sky is), so I like these guys who admit right away that they cannot beat the master. They do not show you 42,000 entries, and even, in some cases, they tell you that there are no more results, “…but of course you can always use Google”, with a link. Such a stance counts with all my sympathy. I consider it more sincere than wasting my time with a lot of crappy entries put there just to act-as-if, like, ahem, others do.
Of course, this does not intend to be a concrete criticism against Google -I reflected a lot before publishing this entry, afraid that the company’s stock value might crumble :)-, but a more general warning against the dangers of monoliths. Besides being a threat in the long term, they limit your range of response, here, now. I don’t want to give the name of my search engine because I am not setting it as a model, and because this post intends to be a defense of variety: go search yours, do not just accept the usual fodder. Nevertheless, if you are still curious, I found the reference here, 214215and I need to mention it because the author defends the change with a capability of ignition that I can but quote:
Google might be a decent search engine, but it just bugs me how they want to rule the world. They want to make people as dependent on them as possible and then that’ll put them in a position to dole out the information the way they see fit. Most people don’t give a shit, but then again… most people are complacent as all fucking hell and that’s why our planet sucks donkey balls.
It was precisely in Internet where I once read this widespread saying: it is said that the nightingale is the bird with the most beautiful song. But if there were only nightingales, the forest would be a solitary place.
What do you think?
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