The Rise (and Fall) of Search Engines

Some months ago* I read an article in The Washington Post about  the demise of Ask.com.  It got me remembering all the different search engines I used throughout my 20+ years on the Internet.  The ones I remember are listed below.  How many do you remember?

• Dog Pile
• HotWired
• Excite
• Alta Vista
• Archie—but that was just for FTP searching
•  Veronica & Jughead
• Excite (1993)
• AskJeeves
• Yahoo (started out as a directory, actually)
• Lycos
• Infoseek
• Open Directory
• HotBot
• LookSmart

Check out this page for more information about the evolution of search engines.

[* "Some months ago" is actually over 2 years ago. I drafted this blog post and forgot about it. Got distracted. Oh well.]

Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned

And now, for the latest update of Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned.

The new ones are at the top.  Enjoy!

Want to know why I’m doing this? Click this link.

Je Ne Suis Pas Amusé

[I drafted this on 4/23/13 during the manhunt for the Boston bomber.  The

A couple of years ago I read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Niel Postman.  Here is Wikipedia’s Summary of the book.)

I’m seeing more and more formerly serious topics treated as entertainment now.

This article decries the new practice by the once-sober Weather Channel of naming snowstormns.

Even the serious business of the nation’s economy has taken on a game-like nature:  The President, Defense Secretary, and assorted other government officials– one after the other — took a 5% salary cut in solidarity with Department of Defense workers and others facing furloughs or pay cuts because of sequestration.

The immediate aftermath of the Boston bombing took on a surreal note of being part of the nightly entertainment on our screens, small and smaller (television and mobile devices).   This article notes “the sorry collusion of news and showbiz” that is all but taken for granted nowadays.  (Yes, I realize it’s from The Daily News; but admit it, you can see evidence of this phenomenon all the time.)

The next time you’re drawn to a news story, hanging on every word, unable to stop, consider this: Are  reacting to the entertainment value of the issue?  Could you turn off your TV (or mobile device) for a few hours and check in later to hear the developments.  The facts of the stories (murder, mayhem, weather, finance) are fairly boring, actually.  It’s up to the media to infuse these facts with breathless proclamations and the promise of “breaking news” that keeps you hooked.

Try this:  During the next cri-du-jour that garners wall-to-wall coverage by the media, try disconnecting for a few hours each day. You might be surprised to realize that your world has kept turning during the hiatus.  You might also feel some relief at not having succumbed to the siren call of entertainment. You resisted getting sucked in!

Try to discern this subtle shift from news to entertainment.  It starts with naming snowstorms Who knows where it will end?

 

It’s Like Part of My Nerdnik Self Is Dying…

… or will on July 1, 2013.  That is the date that Google has set for turning off it’s much-beloved (by me) Google Reader.

It seems as if I’ve used it since it’s debut in 2005.  It it is a great way to keep abreast of new posts from web sites…without having to actually GO to the website in question.

This appeals not only to my tendency toward laziness, but also to my slight case of FOMO (at least as it pertains to information).

Somehow, there’s a bit of subversion to the action of using an RSS feed to access the media and other web sites.  It allows me to bypass the ads that are present on the sites and still read the articles.  How un-American. How un-Capitalist. How liberating!

Perhaps that is really why Google is ditching this tool.  They’re all about advertising,  you know; and there’s no way to insert ads in Google Reader, is there? It can’t be “monetized” (gawd, I hate that word!).

So I guess I’ll just use Feedly, or some such RSS feed reader. I’ll probably continue to use the Google Readers apps that are on my smartphone and tablet…at least until Google pulls those from action.

I wonder if the RSS dominoes will fall and web publishers will no longer use the Site Summary (the “SS” in RSS) that really makes RSS work.

Ah the golden age of Internet information sharing. Now it’s all about paywalls, monetization, and other ways to keep information at arm’s length.

Are we about to look at information through the rear-view mirror?

Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned

And now, for the latest update of Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned.

The new ones are at the top.  Enjoy!

Want to know why I’m doing this? Click this link.

Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned

And now, for the latest update of Pinworthy Stuff I Pinned.

The new ones are at the top.  Enjoy!

Want to know why I’m doing this? Click this link.

Walls! We Have Walls!

In the Great Room, looking into the Sun Room in the distance.

(Third in a series of posts about construction of our new home.  See the others here.)

Not a very glamorous picture up there, is it? But it looks beautiful to me!  After all these months, we finally have walls – real walls — instead of studs.

We can finally get a sense of the spaces.  I was afraid that the rooms would look smaller after drywall was installed; I was wrong.  The rooms actually seem bigger. 

Some style gets added, too.  Here’s the stariway before the drywall:

Before the drywall..

Here it is after:

Stairwell after the drywall.

It’s going to look pretty cool with the railings, etc., that we picked.

I also liked the way they drywalled the passageway over the gu est room which leadsfrom Matt’s upstairs office to the large storage space over the garage.  Pretty neat, huh?

Our upstairs “tunnel”

We didn’t see any of the the drywall being hung. When we visited, the crew was applying drywall compound to the seams in preparation for painting.  How do they reach the topmost seams on a 9′ ceiling? Why, with drywall stilts of course!  Here’s a clip one member of our crew doing just that:

The next thing on the critical path is for me to pick paints.  Headed to the Benjamin Moore store one last time.  Now that I know what my floors, tiles, cabinets, and counter top are, I can pick colors with more confidence.  More on that later.

Stay tuned!