Ari's Planet

Ever since Google kowtowed to China and started censoring their results I've been looking for an alternative. Yahoo wasn't any better. So much for companies promising to do no evil. It didn't help Google's cause that they pester you with trillions of cookies (these can be shut off, apparently by setting other cookies, which really doesn't address the problem). From what I gather, which is not much, Cuil was started by some ex-Googlers. Since I made sure not to dig too deep, as far as I can tell Cuil hasn't gone and done anything evil yet, like blocking good stuff from folks with the misfortune of having a Chinese-looking IP address. There's also Goodsearch which will donate a bit to your charity of choice. By the way, Google should be well aware that the value of their product is in the switching cost, and since their search product has about zero switching cost, it's not very valuable. Lucky for them they have other products. Hello Cuil.

In other news, it seems those fancy fireworks shot from a helicopter over Beijing for the Olympics opening were fake. As was the singing by that cute little girl. I'm waiting to hear that the 2800 drummers were just Photoshopped in. It's a good thing free countries like the US only engage in such shenanigans when honor and life are on the line--according to Clint Eastwood, that famous flag raising on Iwo Jima was a fake, the first flag raising was the Real McCoy. I'm glad I spent only 15 minutes wasted in front of the opening ceremonies before my brain took over and put me to sleep and that I have as yet not managed to walk in on the TV at the start of Flags of Our Fathers.