{"id":648,"date":"2011-03-12T09:04:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=648"},"modified":"2011-03-12T22:44:06","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T03:44:06","slug":"maybe-google-should-duck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/maybe-google-should-duck\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Google should Duck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So your eyeballs are focused on the duck below. What duck? Get a bigger monitor! Get those eyeballs back up here. I have a story to tell you. Don’t worry, it’s short. I promise!<\/span><\/p>\n

Once upon a time there was a little girl named EB. She looked \t\t\t\tan awfully lot like ET. When I first saw her in the spaceship I \t\t\t\tran away screaming. But she was a good little girl and harmless \t\t\t\ttoo. \t\t\t\tI told EB, “You know what a good search engine is?” And she \t\t\t\tsaid, “Yahoo!”. I grimaced and tried to steer her to greener \t\t\t\tpastures. But I looked at those big weepy eyes and couldn’t help \t\t\t\tbut feel sorry for her. I was gentle as I nudged her to Momma \t\t\t\tand Dogpile and AltaVista. All she kept saying was “EB phone \t\t\t\thome”. There was no getting through to her, she wanted to go \t\t\t\thome and search without finding on Yahoo. Yahoo had always been \t\t\t\tthe search engine of choice on Wakawakawaka – EB’s home planet. \t\t\t\tI did my best, but she was too far gone. Sometimes finding is \t\t\t\tnot so pleasing a thing as searching, I guess – especially on \t\t\t\tWakawakawaka where one is arrested and imprisoned for finding \t\t\t\tthings with search engines, and rewarded for searching without \t\t\t\tfinding anything useful. This is why Yahoo is the number one \t\t\t\tsearch engine on EB’s home planet.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“EB, you’re not on Wakawakawaka anymore, and it’s doubtful \t\t\t\tyou’ll ever get back there again. Make peace with Earth — where \t\t\t\tfinding is legal and searching for things you’ll never find is \t\t\t\tconsidered moronic, although many people make a darn good stab \t\t\t\tat it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Well the years passed and a new search engine – a little, unknown search engine called Google – appeared. Instead of \t\t\t\t50,000 pictures, bleating ads, bouncing puppets, and all manner \t\t\t\tof hip things like Yahoo and MSN had on their search home page, \t\t\t\tGoogle had nothing but Google and a search form. Lo! and Behold! \t\t\t\tYou typed in “banana” in Google you came up with bananas – all kinds of \t\t\t\tbananas – even plantains. EB was aging rapidly – Earth’s \t\t\t\tatmosphere was corrosive to her green, lizard-like skin, so I knew I \t\t\t\thad to help her and fast! Searching without finding may have been fun \t\t\t\tfor her, but it was time she grew up and found what she was \t\t\t\tlooking for. I strode up to her, loaded up Yahoo, typed in \t\t\t\tbanana, and got Hollywood starlets \"Cloudeight<\/a><\/span>hanging \t\t\t\ton the arms of svelte actors, balloon shops with gazelles \t\t\t\tleaping about, farm \t\t\t\tfertilizer stores, cattle prods, and scantily-clad young ladies dancing on a \t\t\t\tblocks of ice shaped like frogs – but not a single banana – not \t\t\t\teven on page 163 of the Yahoo search results. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then I loaded Google \t\t\t\tand typed in banana and got 50,000,000 results – all of which \t\t\t\thad something to do with bananas. EB was beginning to be very happy \t\t\t\t– right here on Earth. She bought a \t\t\t\tbanana plantation in Lower Slobovia – paid for it with PayPal \t\t\t\tand yearned to sleep on banana leaves in the dense jungles of \t\t\t\tLower Slobovia on then banks of the swollen Barkoroch river.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As fate would have it, I got stuck with EB and we ended up \t\t\t\tstarting Cloudeight – sans banana plantation. And the rest as \t\t\t\tthey say is hysterical.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After using Google almost exclusively for years, I may have found \t\t\t\tsomething as good or better. I know, it’s hard to believe I’m \t\t\t\tnot talking about Bing, but I really don’t like Bing – unless \t\t\t\tit’s a cherry. I guess I see it as another Microsoft copycat job \t\t\t\t– and like all their copycat jobs, it just doesn’t quite cut it. \t\t\t\tAnd I know where Bing is going – soon Microsoft will be \t\t\t\tadvertising Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 8 and MS Office \t\t\t\t2014, and Windows Phone and all the other stuff they’re having a \t\t\t\tlot of trouble selling – plastered all over the front page of \t\t\t\tBing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now along comes a duck. Quack! Quack! Not Donald. But \t\t\t\tDuckDuckGo<\/a>. You may find \t\t\t\tyou like it because it may find what you’re searching for just \t\t\t\tas well as the big G. Someday we may be ducking instead of \t\t\t\tgoogling. But I’m ducking that prediction. Why not give \t\t\t\tDuckDuckGo<\/a> a shot at your \t\t\t\tsalient searches – or even your non-salient ones too. Type in \t\t\t\tbanana and you won’t see a single Hollywood starlet or girls \t\t\t\tdancing on ice-frogs. Honest. Oh, and when your go duck hunting, \t\t\t\tbe sure to click on “Goodies”, you’ll find it fascinating. One \t\t\t\tmore thing: DuckDuckGo<\/a> doesn’t track you at all, so you can search for that new husband \t\t\t\tor wife you’ve been looking for – and do it in guaranteed privacy. \t\t\t\tI’m so astute. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think EB still available too.\u00a0 \t\t\t\tI’ll have to duck that one for \t\t\t\tsure<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So your eyeballs are focused on the duck below. What duck? Get a bigger monitor! Get those eyeballs back up here. I have a story to tell you. Don’t worry, it’s short. I promise! Once upon a time there was a little girl named EB. She looked an awfully lot like ET. When I first saw her in\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[449,450,31,451,453,44,455,65,454,452],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}