Home » Open thread 10/23/2024

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Open thread 10/23/2024 — 14 Comments

  1. Try DuckDuckGo. I only use Google for the Maps function, and only because the succession of characters who have owned MapQuest allowed it to rot.

  2. I use DuckDuckGo.
    Advanced Google Search is superior for finding words or phrases from a specific website. But for generic searches, DuckDuckGo is fine.

    Love those milkweed pods. Rural NE memories….

  3. I’m sure that each one of us might have some issue–large or small–which we could be “deeply concerned” about.

    I see that spokesman John Kirby says that the White House is “deeply concerned” about the leak of the Israeli plans to attack Iran.

    In other words, supposed “feelings,” instead of “actions.”

    The real question is, what are they going to do about this leak?

    A leak which, reports say, has very likely come from an Administration official who was already considered pro-Iranian.

    Are they going to pinpoint who leaked these plans, and are they going to arrest, frog march them out of the Pentagon, and to prosecute them with all the vigor and harshness that they have applied to the supposed January 6th “Insurrectionists.”

    Somehow, I doubt it.

  4. Just another open-thread comment about something I read.

    Scott Yenor, who works for the Claremont Institute, has written an article entitled “Destroying the Higher Education Machine” (https://tinyurl.com/2u9vm8hb).

    Well, at least somebody’s talking about it. That’s a start. I still think it’s a fantasy, but most Republican state governments don’t realize that they have the power to drastically reform their states’ universities. They’re afraid to do it, so the thought never becomes fully formed. Who knows, maybe the Claremont Institute can start an intellectual and political trend.

  5. I use brave

    Weve known about tabatatabai for 14 months that tells you are on her side

  6. Mike Plaiss on October 23, 2024 at 10:40 am said:

    So, everyone knows about this, but what’s the alternative?

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/22/when-did-google-search-become-totally-useless/

    I’ve heard the competitors are nearly as bad. Anyone have a search engine they like?
    _______________________________________________________________

    I’ve been using Luxxle (https://luxxle.com/) and am pretty satisfied with it.

    Can’t say that I’ve done a thorough analysis of the search engine, but here’s a link to a short review that covers the basics: https://tinyurl.com/338cbjsx

  7. Cornflour,

    Won’t happen until all the current faculty leave and even then there’s been 20 years of new PhDs being produced in the same mold.

    When I started, yes the faculty was predominantly Democrat. However the vast majority of those people were classic liberals. As they retired they were replaced by radicals. Many of those people I’m still in contact with and are as appalled at the changes as I am.

  8. I’ve read that some people have disputed DuckDuckGo’s claims to maintaining users’ privacy, so I posed the question to the Perplexity AI LLM. Below, I’ve copied the most relevant paragraph from Perplexity’s reply, along with citations.

    “However, recent controversies have raised questions about the extent of DuckDuckGo’s privacy practices. Notably, it was revealed that DuckDuckGo allows certain Microsoft trackers to operate on its platform due to a search syndication agreement with Microsoft. This arrangement means that while DuckDuckGo blocks trackers from companies like Google and Facebook, it does not block Microsoft-related trackers, which has led to criticism regarding its commitment to user privacy[2][5]. DuckDuckGo’s CEO acknowledged this issue and stated that the company is working to improve its privacy protections[2][5].”

    [2] https://cyberguy.com/privacy/duckduckgo-privacy-browser-caught-sending-tracking-data-to-microsoft/
    [5] https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-microsoft-twitter-ft-bush-assassination-whatsapp/

  9. Really do like that picture. The way the seeds themselves seem to be floating before you almost in the foreground reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what.

    After a little time on DuckDuckGo I realized it was this:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/YQ1eDDcvJD5P4Gz98

    Van Gogh’s Poet’s Garden at the Art Institute in Chicago. Hard to see in a picture of a painting, but when you’re standing in front of it the little white/blue flowers at center/bottom seem very three dimensional, like fireflies hovering off the surface or something.

  10. Am getting a lot of “AI Overview” returns with Google search now. Am no big fan of Google search, but it’s what I mainly use—sometimes resorting to Bing & DuckDuckGo for different results. Sometimes get better results when I change to – say the News tab from the All tab and/or change the Anytime drop down to past Month.

    Ran a blog a few years ago (Linux Newbie since 1996) and it was getting to be pretty popular—100-125 visits a day, which was good for me & Linux. Then some elections were coming up, and my visits dropped to 0-10 a day. Posts that had been on the Google Front Page were no longer showing up. Hey, Linux isn’t that popular, and it basically has some 600+ versions (aka Distros) of the Linux OS – so a post on Porteus Linux can certainly end on that Front Page. However, I also added the occasional Political post—favoring REPs and bashing DEMs. Got mad at Google, but still used their search engine even though I knew they favored DEMs.

    Have also started using various AI chatbots for my some of my searches now…

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