Friday, May 21, 2004

another post in praise of google

When the Browser War first began, I stuck with the underdog Netscape. Then, one day, I had the epiphany that it really was a misguided application of one's loyalty to worry about whether Bill Gates or The Netscape Billionaire Guy made a few more billion dollars. So that's the day for me when Dr. Strangelove learned to stop worrying and love the monopolist product, if that was warranted. However, when Microsoft launches the apparently forthcoming Search Engine Wars, I am going to stick with Google until the bitter end.

Why? Because I believe that Google has genuinely enriched my life and so I owe them. Before Google, I would use a search engine regularly, but it wasn't until Google's Great Leap Forward in intuitive search technology that the search engine became my continually-used all-purpose solution for any even momentarily-nagging curiosity. Before Google, I would go through each day with all kinds of unrequited wonder. A question would come to mind, there would be no way at hand of answering it, and I would have to ponder listlessly over possible answers until my desire-to-know ultimately subsided. Now, however, if I wonder something and there is a keyboard anywhere close by, I go get some immediate intellectual gratification.

Here are five moments of mental craving in the last 24 hours alone that have been Googlesated:

1. What do skunks eat? (they're omnivores)

2. How many times was Frank Sinatra married? What # wife was Mia Farrow? (four; third)

3. Are podiatrists MDs? (no, although there is a movement afoot [ha!] to change this)

4. What is Seymour M. Hersh's middle name? (Myron)

5. Is there a place one can go locally for Steam Embrace therapy? (yes)

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