How to say no in Chinese

Heartening news on either side of the Times’ front page today: Conan O’Brien says “screw you” to NBC, and Google says “screw you” to China. Both, of course, have many dollars to cushion their fall, but these moves take courage.

Even Bing is trying to get into the populist act today, telling us in their pedantic way: “This plain’s residents turned the tables on the ruling elite in 2005.” I wonder, though, if Bing will whip right over there if it turns out China doesn’t like uncensored search engines.

I’ve had Google’s beta Chrome browser on my desktop for months – I think I’ll install it today in celebration.

It’s raining on my Gmail!

It’s a little weird to find a search engine patronizing, but that’s how I’m beginning to feel about Bing. Today, for example, one of the little boxes that appear when you scroll your cursor around (that I used to find so appealing) says to me: “Residents of the hottest place of earth are notoriously combative. Who are they?” What am I, in third grade?

Meanwhile Google has become quite restrained in its Doodles, although the Sesame Street birthday series was a bit much. And they seem to have stopped telling us how many people had searched for the same thing, which was quite cool if you were famous and Googling yourself. I’ve tried Google Trends, but it’s mostly depressing – lots of Tiger Woods these days, for example.

But one of my favorite things about Google’s offerings is the Gmail backgrounds. Mine is called “Tree,” and as far as I can tell it’s the only one that tells you what your very own weather is! If it’s snowing (which I’ve only seen once or twice since the globe is quite warm around here), little snowflakes accumulate on the window. Today, with the monster storm, it looks like a tornado is about to hit.

How do they do this I wonder? I know they know my zip code, but do they program in weather for every zip code?

And so, naturally, I asked the Google, but all I found was people complaining that their Tree theme showed the wrong weather.

Dear Bing: Gmail’s Tree theme shows the weather. Can you tell me how they do this?”

Neptune

I think Bing is beginning to encroach on the Google Doodle territory (as well as mine!). Today, instead of just a random, beautiful picture, they have this beautiful picture of Neptune, discovered on this date 163 years ago.

But then, then they seem to have just lifted text (and images) from Wikipedia about how it was the first planet to have been discovered not by an actual sighting, but by mathematical prediction. Even though they cite Widipedia as a source, this doesn’t seem quite right, even if Microsoft thinks it should own the internet.

No financial meltdown, just a crop circle

So they’ve figured out that Google’s showing us crop circles today, only the “L” is missing and for some reason a spaceship (I thought it was a farmer’s hat!) is hovering overhead. And what’s that weird green thing above the missing “L”?

Google twittered some coordinates that take you to the place the War of the Worlds UFO landed, and so the word is that all this (meaning this, and the strange spaceship a few weeks ago*) is leading up to Wells’ birthday on September 21.

My conclusion about all this? The person I wish I could be, the one who comes up with the ideas for Google Doodles, is also a marketing genius. Who cares about Bing’s pretty pictures anymore, when we have these mysteries?

Plus, it’s a terrific distraction from what was happening on this day just one year ago, that still doesn’t seem quite fixed.

*before I figured out how to screen-capture!

09 09 09

If you go to Bing, you find out that it equals 0.111111, that Facebook wants 999,999 members by today, something about bowel incontinence, and something about romance after 60. If you go to Google, you can find out why 09/09/09 is special, what it means (for example, that it’s the upside-down 666, those scary devil numbers), and how to get ready.

I’m not really interested in Facebook’s marketing strategy or the other two things. After 12/12/12, there are no more repeating dates till 2101 – and I’m not going to be around by then.

So Bing, you have only three more years to prove yourself. But I understand the world is supposed to end in 2012 anyway – could you explain that to us?

Google, please help: Is this what “recursive” means?

They’re called Google Doodles, I learned today, and I wish I could be twenty again, good at graphic design, and working at Google.

I love them all, the way they integrate design with what happened on that day. Bing’s photographs are prettier, and the little link-boxes are cool, but they’re random. Like today, for example, they invite us to learn about karst topography, if we really care.

Today, though, Google is inspired. There’s a UFO beaming down, and when you click on it you get lists of unexplained phenomena, as well as news articles wondering why Google has this link today, many of them not responding because the servers are too busy. No surprise: “unexplained phenomena” is the top search so far today.

And so far Google’s not explaining its own unexplained phenomenon.

Dear Steve Ballmer

Steve, I really like Bing, especially the way you change the picture every day. Google only does that when they can figure out a way to turn their letters into a graphic, but when they do, it’s actually cooler than a photograph. So if they start doing that every day, I may have to leave Bing.

But Steve, I have one very big problem that I wish you’d fix. There’s something really wrong with your Word spellchecker (and okay, here I have to admit I have only the very old Word 2003, so maybe you’ll tell me if I’d just spend a few hundred dollars to upgrade I wouldn’t have this problem).

But here it is: I just don’t think it’s right that when I type “Obama,” it corrects it to “Osama.”