Cuil Is Anything But Cool

Two weeks ago I wrote here that I was enthusiastically trying Cuil (pronounced "cool") as a search engine replacement to Google. I am hard-pressed to find a single reason why I would ever use Cuil again. It is patently terrible. It is in fact so bad that it almost seems a hoax or even a cruil joke.

And you know what? Well, today I stumbled on an oddly interesting link in the comments section of the Statfinder blog's entry on Cuil's performance (Statfinder tracks web traffic; I use Statfinder at Contratimes). Look at the comment left by Simsim. Now, I grant that this is an arcane link; one might reasonably argue that this is even an arcane discussion. But I am offering this because I have a confession to make: I feel taken.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am NOT SAYING that there IS a conspiracy behind the launch of Cuil. What I am saying is that 1) I never once suspected such a thing possible, and 2) even if such a thing is possible, I have no way of not falling prey to it. Does that make sense? What I am once again realizing is that the web is an utterly dubious place; in other words, it is a place where doubt should reign supreme. (Please note that at about the same time Cuil was launched, Yahoo launched, get this -- Yuil. Or is this all one big nightmarish joke? Am I sleeping? Dead? Have I drunk a deep draught of Cuil-Aid?)

Regarding the dubiousness of the blogosphere: I was involved in a lengthy debate last year at a website given to promote atheism. I was engaged in a number of jousts with a wide range of characters. But there was one thing very odd: Every time I clicked on my interlocutors' blog profiles, nine times out of ten the profiles would lead to blind alleys or dead blogs, blogs with but one post on them. (I have NEVER seen such a high percentage of pseudonymous bloggers at one site who did not actually blog.) I then did a web search on the man who hosted the site, and what I found was disturbing: he had a history of presenting false personae. I am not kidding. In fact, he had been caught by a savvy debater who spotted the man's name buried in the source code of a blog that was presented as being managed by someone else. It was all rather creepy, and creepily self-promoting.

So, when I thought I was debating several people, I was really debating one (there were a few legitimate folks there, but not all were legitimate).

And I've become suddenly wary of having given up my anonymity on the web, as I now see how easy it is for others to use my name to post comments. Identity theft in the blogosphere, I am afraid to say, is probably rather easy. And potentially very destructive. (In fact, the end of the blogosphere is solipsism, or so I auger.)

The Cuil promotional tour that hit the press now seems utterly weird and even surreal. I mean this with all the force of my wits: Cuil is terrible. Just go to Cuil right now and search for "Cuil Logo." Look what you get -- the GMAIL logo! (see screen shot below) And guess what you get when you Google "Cuil Logo"? Yeah, that's right: Cuil.

Who would EVER think Cuil was remotely competitive? Or am I missing something huge?

Anyhow, check out the arcane link I posted above. Tell me, PLEASE, what you think. I am not one given to paranoia. But I am one who loathes being made to look like a fool, even a Cuil fool. The link Simsim provides, also arcane and utterly conspiratorial (and WHO KNOWS who wrote that piece), is enough to make me want to simply leave blogging to someone else.

Food for thought, or not.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy IS Cuil

Some Contratimes readers will recall that I have voiced more than a little concern over the rather invasive practices of Google (sorry Google).

This morning I read about Cuil (pronounced cool, I believe), a new search engine created by former Google engineers. Cuil's claim that the engine searches more sites than any other, even Google, is well beyond my ability to verify. But Cuil's promise that all searches are essentially anonymous seems rather proper. No collecting data, no stashing searches, no loading up a browser with cookies.

I have already spent some time using Cuil (I like its "safe search" filter especially), and I must say it is at least an attractive alternative to the rather uninspired look of Google, Yahoo or Ask. I am not sure about its critical effectiveness, but perhaps my doubts are due to my near total dependence on Google: It is hard to get used to new things. But I think I will give it a go for a bit; it's already the default search engine in two computers in this household.

I'd love to know what you think.

Peace.

BG

On Politics: When The Man Deceives: A Video For Destruction (Part 1)

A couple of weeks ago, during a conversation I was having with someone I love, I completely caved in: I crumbled under peer pressure. It is not the sort of thing I confess lightly; there is an element of shame to it all. But confess it I must, because I was lying, not only to my interlocutor, but to myself. 

The topic was Mr. Al Gore. I had made the point that Mr. Gore has built something of a mythology around his life's work: he has pointed out dangers that threaten us all, and yet he, blithely and blindly, is part of those very dangers. If Al Gore warns us of global warming, he does so from the Cannes Film Festival, the yacht-littered theater orgy of the world's richest and most indulgent polluters. If he warns us of corporate control of information, he does so without telling us that he sits† on the boards of Google and CurrentTV, both of which "control" more information in an hour than Rupert Murdoch "controls" in a month or perhaps even in a decade. And if he warns us of the great threat that unreason has on our culture, he does so in a manner that can only be described as fallacious. 

In short, Mr. Gore is a dangerous man. 

But it was exactly that assertion which I denied. I had made a fairly decent case about Mr. Gore's hypocrisy without once referring to his negative and harmful influence on the culture at large; but those listening to me construed that I was averring that Mr. Gore was a man capable of doing much harm. Alas, as quickly as a cocksure disciple slinking past an accuser in a Jerusalem street, I denounced my own convictions. 

Surely, there is no pride in such cowardice. 

Mr. Gore, 1992, Waxing Eloquent About Saddam Hussein

Contratimes readers will know that I have spent much time pointing out that the current war in Iraq is not four-and-a-half years old. It is at least 16 years old. There has not been one second since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait that the United States has not been in political and military strife with Iraq. Moreover, easily forgotten is that it was the Clinton administration that ramped up sanctions and military operations against Saddam Hussein from 1992 through January 2001 (when Messrs. Clinton and Gore left Washington). Lastly, it was during the Clinton administration, and due to Mr. Clinton's perceived abuses of Iraq, that Osama bin Laden issued his infamous 1998 fatwa, the one that led to the 9/11 atrocities. And the media, by and large, are silent about these issues: the media, nearly all of whom are, to some degree, Clinton fans and Gore idolizers, will not permit themselves to see what they helped create.

Now comes an incredible video from YouTube (originally broadcast on C-Span). The time is September 1992. Mr. Gore is the Democratic nominee for vice president; he's on the campaign trail. The video captures him at his pedantic, professorial, condescending best. But what is the topic? That's right: George H. W. Bush, Bush the First, was NOT TAKING SADDAM HUSSEIN SERIOUSLY ENOUGH. Bush the First was capitulating; Bush was weak and duplicitous; Bush was trying to appease a terrorist.

Of course, Al Gore and Bill Clinton would be tough and bold; they would sanction and subdue Saddam Hussein; they would finish the job that should have been completed in the First Gulf War.

In other words, Bill Clinton and Al Gore would stir up a hornet's nest.

I beg you: Watch the video yourself, and then write to me of my cowardly denials. And then write to the world, and tell them that you do not know Al Gore. 

Peace.

†Google is not merely a search engine: Google is also GMAIL, Google News, Blogger and YouTube. Mr. Gore also serves the board of Apple Inc.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

More Mindblogging Than Ever

[Forgive the delay between posts: there was a disturbance in the Force, so to speak. Since my post of Friday regarding blogging, "disinhibition" and the future of the Internet prompted some good comments (and at least one link), I thought I would continue on this rather interesting and timely subject.]

As I mentioned in There Is No Disinhibition Here: Blogging The Mind, former US vice president Al Gore has been instrumental in creating Current TV, an independently owned and operated news and documentary channel. In fact, Mr. Gore is the chairman of that new network.

I bring to your attention Mr. Gore's October 5, 2005 speech given near the launch date of Current; a speech delivered to the Associated Press. In that fine oration Mr. Gore both laments and lambasts the loss of democracy in much if not most of the media today.

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions. ...

Gore holds up this marketplace of ideas as something wonderful and ancient (he journeys to classical Rome and Athens to bolster his point); he believes that a true democracy must maintain this marketplace by fair means, by the "Rule of Reason." With a quick overview of how that marketplace has been handed down through the generations, primarily through print media, radio and then television, Gore reacts strongly to the consolidation of power in the TV media, calling it a restructuring, even destruction of that democratic marketplace of thought:

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere", or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

To fully understand Gore's answer to this destruction one must read his piece. Suffice it to say that Gore in a sense has placed a framework over the Internet: He wants opinions to be controlled, not by those who control TV stations and news presses, but through the real market of all-out competition: those deemed most popular will to rise to the top, in an "emergent meritocracy of ideas." This marketplace is the Internet; and the outlet, ultimately, is Current TV.

Those of you who will take the time to be informed by Gore's speech should discern the irony of Al Gore's remarks, even his worldview. For Mr. Gore laments the consolidation of power within media, particularly TV media; and yet his answer to that is to turn to the most consolidating power (perhaps) on the planet, Google. Lest we forget, Current TV is a joint venture between Mr. Gore's TV studio and the world's most powerful and popular search engine.

***

Permit me to comment on my very first encounter with Current TV. It was late last fall or early winter. I tuned into a "Zeitgeist" moment, I believe, a scheduled break in programming in which a Google spokesman was discussing the most popular searches on Google the morning of September 11, 2001. The Google page at this link decribes some of the trends during that desperate, terrifying week (before and after). It is worth studying, though it is not quite as interesting as the young man noted on Current, as he listed searches that were popular right up until the first plane hit the North Tower in lower Manhattan. I find it amazing that by the end of the week of September 11, Nostradamus was the number one search query on Google. Curiously, though Current TV's own FAQ section says it is non-partisan (Al Gore is chairman, after all), the Google spokesperson ended his commentary with this (I paraphrase): It is interesting to note that after September 11 no one was querying for links between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. That this statement is factual and yet is offered in an allegedly "non-partisan" way is, to say the least, a distortion of language. But let's forgive it. For now.

What, really, is Google? It is a tool, indeed, for those of us on this side of the keyboard. But what is it on the other side, on the underbelly of the Internet? It also is a tool: it is a tool of incredible power, for it is truly omniscient regarding Internet use, knowing everything each of us queries, enters, posts, deletes. It is watching, shaping not only efficiency protocols to assist us, but marketing protocols to assist those who want to directly market products to each of us. Imagine that not only does Google know our queries, it owns Blogger, and thus is a repository for opinion, analysis, and too-often intensely personal data; and it also owns Gmail, where it reportedly screens every email so as to more finely-tune its marketing strategies (and Gmail deletes nothing, apparently). Some folks, of course, find this all rather creepy. Amazingly, most of us permit such creepiness without a word of complaint (yet we shout loud about President Bush's "domestic" wiretapping, while this [dated] report suggests that Google may be in breach of wiretapping laws.).

My point in belaboring this is simple: Al Gore has found the perfect means of consolidating media power by using the Internet, and our Google behaviors, for shaping opinions, news, and markets. Moreover, with Google owning Blogger, it is evident that Google holds the power to promote some blogs over others, as it in fact does on its "Blogs of Note" sidebar offered to Blogger members. Who, pray tell, really determines a blog of note? Is it notable because it is popular, or is it made popular by being noted? In other words, is it really true that some ideas, or some opinion-makers, are promoted democratically? Who knows?

Please, this is not about me either being paranoid or resentful. It is about asking an intelligent question of Al Gore and his Plan: Is Mr. Gore actually creating a monstrous, powerful tool that is shaped not by events on the ground, like REAL news in REAL time in REAL history, but by the actions of keyboard queries, blog discussions, and any other manner of elusive (and potentially nefarious) digital activity? Is Mr. Gore's enterprise actually just another form of control, though disguised as liberty? Is Mr. Gore really just one or two steps ahead of the rest of us, proclaiming "democracy" when he actually intends to suppress it; to subdue it by silencing, marginalizing or otherwise rendering someone extraneous whose views do not achieve the elevated status his plan gives mere lip-service to? If certain blogs are not of note, are certain truths, certain people, certain lives similarly unnotable?

Do with this as you will. I have offered nothing much. I have (at least) merely pointed out Mr. Gore's glaring contradiction: he has turned to the consolidation of power to wrest from others what he believes is too much power. And what if Gore is wrong? What if it is his venture that portends the death of democracy?

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Al Gore, Current, Google, Democracy

There Is No Disinhibition Here: Blogging The Mind

Daniel Henninger's Opinion Journal essay is especially noteworthy today. If you are a blogger, or if you are a non-blogger who just can't help but peek in on the blogosphere, you might not only find Henninger's essay engaging, it might even give you pause.

I have already had my identity crisis regarding blogging, and I am now comfortable not only within the medium, I know my rôle: It is indeed performance art and someone has got to do it. (OK. It is more than that. I just wanted to use the word rôle for the sheer fun of using that little doo-dad over the O. Perhaps it is not so much performance art but digital graffiti. Alas, it all makes me rather circumflex. [That's a ridiculous pun.])

Not a few of you might find this prognostication all too prescient. If you have not yet viewed Epic 2014, then I urge you to swig Henninger's piece and chase it with Epic, a short film of considerable impact (it is particularly ominous when listened to with headphones). You can view Epic 2014 (you might need to follow a link or two) rather easily from RobinSloan.com, should my links not work satisfactorily. Then, try Epic 2015 - The Update. My guess is that, after watching these pieces, some of you might even consider to stop blogging altogether. Seriously. I am not suggesting that Epic is accurate. But I am suggesting that it is very interesting.

Earlier this year I asked the writer of the film, via email, why he did not include the new TV network, "Current TV", to his auguries. (In case you do not know, Current is partly the brainchild of Al Gore, and is a marriage between television and Google. It is an amazing thing to watch, particularly when you see how Google uses our Google searches to influence Current's programming and news.) Here is what I asked on January 9, 2006:

Dear Mr. Sloan,

I recently viewed both EPIC Flash pics, and I was impressed. But I am
curious as to why EPIC did not mention Current TV as another part of
the emerging behemoth of information. While it fits under the broader
umbrella of Google, I am surprised the piece did not mention it, as
Current seems to be equally vulnerable to the Orwellian-esque
predictions EPIC offers.

Bill Gnade

And here is the reply:

Hey Bill --

Good question! The real answer is that a) Current didn't exist when we
made the original piece, and b) it's not really big enough to play in
the same arena as Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

But you're right -- like any other media company, Current has got to
be smart in the next couple of years...

--
Robin

***

Let me know what you think of both Henninger's piece and Epic. I find it all mind-blogging, so to speak.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Disinhibition, Epic 2014, Blogging, Robin Sloan, Daniel Henninger