Better Search Engines

Remember search engines?  Google wasn't the first and certainly isn't the best.  So many people now use phones with the Android operating system that google has become almost ubiquitous. as it comes preloaded.  If that is the case for you, and you are beginning to notice that google simply can't find what you want, you should probably try another search engine.

Maybe you've also noticed that the top results on your google search were retailers or some other sales pitch.  Well, you're on to something.  Google sells results.  Sometimes the first few pages will be filled with results boosted to the top by a combination of your previous searches and the amount of money an advertiser has paid the google crew.  Those results rarely contain the information you want, especially if the topic is relatively obscure, which most of the searches for information you don't already know tend to be.  Paid results would rarely supply you with your desired knowledge.

Thankfully, there are many other options to find this data.  Some of them don't even track your searches the way google does.  These give you accurate results without trying to figure out what you would buy next... and there are several good ones.  This makes for a plethora of non-sales results.

Among the best-known is duckduckgo.com.  It is a fine search engine.  It will give a line or two of ads, related to your result, but not disguised as a search result, like google does. 

This man's personal favorite, though, is ixquick.  Ixquick's tag-line is 'the world's most private search engine'.  I don't know if that's true, but they really do serve up some of the best results.  It is actually a meta-search of several search engines, parsed merely by your search terms. 

Don't waste your time with ixquick's sister-site, Startpage, which merely uses google search results gained anonymously via proxy.  They are so screwy as to barely resemble the search terms you've entered.  Maybe Startpage will come to their senses and ditch google if people simple stop using it.

Sadly, the .com version of Ixquick now utilizes google results.  You can still find the original Ixquick results at the .eu site, but load times may be slower.  Even with a second or two wait, the ixquick.eu results are still more accurate and waste less time than wading through the google paid-result quagmire.

Ditch google.  Yeah, it's easier to use the google voice search, and other google crap that comes pre-loaded on your phone.  You will find, though, when you try another search engine, that the amount of information other search engines can find that google can't is tremendous.

Why Must I be Adjectified?

Politics are savage. Real savage... not the 'I don't understand you so I call you savage to imply inferiority' kind, but the actual, brutal and uncaring kind. Savage in the 'I'll destroy you and scorch the earth where you stood' kind. Yeah, ironically the kind of savage that attempts genocide and then calls its victims 'savages'.

Politics insists that we must be labeled so that when the time comes for savagery one can be easily dehumanized and subsequently culled. If you are a part of any group of thinkers that pose any threat, legitimate or imagined, to the paranoid archy-that-be it will label you with some sort of negative adjective. When the time comes, you will be marginalized or even physically eliminated, should you pose a great enough threat.

Inexplicably, we choose to give ourselves adjectives. At the very least, we make it easy to give us labels. All that has to happen at that point is the slapping of that label on some false-flag event or group that, whether real or fictional, embodies characteristics that make them easily dehumanized. Then, anything bearing that label is fair game to reprisals or elimination.

I'm not going to go for that. I'm just me and I'm ONLY me and I speak for only me. If any group or kind of ideology or any other label is slapped on me, it is no longer by my consent.

Awaken while you Dream

Look there, in the dreams of the curious. Something is personally there and aware of your fantasy. It is known and wants to let you know that there is no end.

The Need to Wander

There is so much life to live and so little time to squeeze it all in, it seems. Between work, obligations, and the fatigue those things bring, it's hard to make time to just live. I want to live.

Experiences are the way we live. If you experience the same thing over and over, your life can begin to feel monotonous. Yeah, imagination can make every day a new adventure, but sometimes you just want to not have to imagine adventures; you want to live them. I want to live adventures.

Travel seems like it would be the kind of adventure you wouldn't have to waste imagination proving to be an experiential sensory occultation. From the first step you take out of your normal path you begin to get out of that rut. Sometimes, the route to work can vary enough to give a little adventure. Sometimes, not enough... not enough at all. I need to go somewhere.

Do we have to travel far to find adventure? Most of us don't walk from one side of the yard to the other, or across the street from our houses very often. I want to go far away.

Maybe our lives need some danger to make us feel alive. If so, some of us already have jobs with enough danger and still feel like we need more. I want to go somewhere I've never even seen and blindly find my way through alien areas and shimmering seas of the unknown.

There are people to meet. They are the characters in your story. Some will become regulars, some peripheral, and still others will haunt your sleep and dreams forever. I want to dream of them forever.

Over the next set of hills and trees lies something you've never seen. There breathe the lungs of creation; there dwell the sources of adrenalin. They taste like the salt of life. I want to breathe my life and feel my pulse race in my whole body as my feet carry me swiftly into something new.

Xochiquetzal

This is an impressive piece of music, but I believe Chloe Trevor could have played my High School report cards and made them look good. Seriously, parts of this performance look downright supernatural: