Two more biggies gone

In the latest wave of Internet madness, two very useful services have taken their leave for financial reasons. I hope there is some revenue for them somewhere, and some consolation where some reasons may be personal.

I was trying to think of an image for the great drain on venture capital, but none of them were very attractive and I didn't want to insult anyone -- at least not in such a blunt and direct way. It saddens me to think that fear of losing money is what causes so many losses -- and I guess it's just more visible now -- but the investors aren't the only ones who lose when money and/or carpets are pulled from beneath ventures.

The first one to which I refer is Diggit! Image Search Engine, and while I just thought of a real and practical use for it today (while I thought it was neat and all that), I only played with it because I liked it before. Also in the land of Where can I find it? was All-in-One Search Page whose usefulness is hard to dispute. All search engines don't find the same things in the same way (which can get to be an altogether different subject, but I'll practice some discipline today), so it's nice to have a few pages around that submit your queries to a number of different engines, thereby increasing your odds -- that seem to turn maddeningly on a letter or two.

We'll miss ya, folks . . .
posted by Ernie Cordell 5:50 PM

Faisal's Quotes

Faisal Jawdat -- I give him his attribution though I have not met him and did not ask his permission -- I think of this as a sort of a referral with a small sample attached. I was impressed by the quote:

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society aquires new arts, and looses old instincts...The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet ...His notebooks impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue....The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

. . . which shows just as much in taste for the selector as it does in wit, wisdom and perception in the author.

Credit to Quote File - e
posted by Ernie Cordell 5:40 PM