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Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

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The fifteen most popular search engines

Link here. Considering the increasingly fascist attitude of Google towards its employees and its users, I thought it worthwhile to provide this list of alternatives. I use Startpage, which isn’t listed because it is actually a slightly different version of Ixquick.

There is no reason to blindly and mindlessly depend on Google. There are many choices out there. Use your freedom and choose. It is our own personal responsibility to do so.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

21 comments

  • Edward

    I didn’t know that WebCrawler still existed. That is the first web browser that I ever saw, way back in ’93 or ’94 (although I am not that old), when a colleague of mine showed me this new internet thing called The World Wide Web. It was supposed to be much better than FTP.

  • wayne

    Edward- good stuff.
    The home page of my ISP (circa 1998) consisted of search boxes for 10 different services. Alta Vista comes to mind as one that functioned fairly well on my dial-up connection.

    Google’s Entirely Far Left Leadership!
    -Louder With Crowder 8-8-17
    https://youtu.be/5aZ0DgK0_C8
    (7:43)
    “Following Google’s viral debacle and the firing of James Damore’s “anti-woman manifesto”, we decided to do some digging to find out just how “diverse” Google’s leadership actually is! Hint: they’re all hard core liberal SJW activists.”

  • wayne

    I’d like to get into Search deeper from a purely user end perspective, but for right now I’d pivot back to the google “diversity” stuff, with a highly interesting podcast from Richard Epstein at Hoover:
    http://www.hoover.org/research/libertarian-google-controversy

  • Joe

    Switched my safari os to default to DuckDuckGo, will be experimenting with others, very tired of all of the diversity crud, you should succeed on merit, not your skin color or chromosones.

  • Brendan

    Duck duck go and StartPage are derivative browsers. Neither has their own search engine. They use google, bing, yahoo (and done others) but give you privacy when you search

    Ms bing is pretty good. I don’t think the leftist disease has infected them… much.

  • Brendan

    Some! Not done! Stupid autocorrect!

  • wayne

    Brendan-
    Good point, ref- derivative search servives.

  • DougSpace

    I use Google News because it gives me a variety of news sources on each topic. But I find that the top results are highly biased towards the left with WaPo, HuffPo, and The Hill being listed far more than it seems that they should and their headlines highly biased against conservatives.

    Can you all suggest an alternate news aggregator?

  • DougSpace

    Both Bing and Yahoo record and suggest my previous search results on my iPhone. Is there a way of turning that off?

  • Bill

    I agree, start using a search other than Google. Another I use Google feature is maps. How about a list of alternative map sites, and don’t say bing, I refuse to use MS alternatives.

  • wayne

    Bill–
    It’s going to depend heavily on what you need from a mapping standpoint– personally, I access my State’s GIS database for “maps,” (in State). But that will not give you directions, total time/mileage, etc.
    ————————————-
    I’d be interested in hearing HOW people use search; what sort of steps do people take, to search for something?

  • wayne

    For my fellow Michiganian’s–

    “State of Michigan GIS Open Data”
    http://gis-michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/

  • Brendan

    A majority of Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon employees surveyed also opposed Google’s decision by margins of 57-43, 56-44, and 54-46, respectively. Nearly two-thirds of Uber’s employees surveyed also opposed the choice to terminate Damore.

    Lyft, LinkedIn, and Apple, however, all favored Google’s decision by margins of 65-35, 53-47, and 51-49, respectively.

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/10/survey-most-google-employees-disagreed-with-decision-to-fire-memo-writer/

    I think that the MS and Amazon results are good news. Washington State is still relatively not crazed.

    I use the Brave browser with StartPage It uses google but scrubs my identity. But I’ll be using other browsers for non pc results. Google gives pc answers. Not wrong , but weirdly presented. The example I’ve seen is American Inventors. Tried in a Spanish google browser and us you get different results.

  • DougSpace: The important thing is to use many different news sources. I would suggest Free Republic, Lucianne.com, and Drudge as three good conservative alternatives.

  • DougSpace

    Thanks Bob. I wish that there was an aggregator site that brought both sides of the debate together rather than having to bring together biased sites. I do routinely view Drudge as he has links that are interesting and no one else seems to know about.

    Question: What should be the top-line objective of good journalism apart from maximizing revenue?

  • wodun

    @DougSpace

    I recommend Instapundit for a good libertarian(ish) pov. It is run by a law professor with a handful of contributors. Usually low on commentary and high on links, addictive!

    Philip DeFranco on YouTube also does a daily rundown of the day’s news and controversies. His stated goal is to explore all sides of an issue.

    Good journalism should just be honest. Everyone has their own biases, don’t hide them. And just be ethical in reporting. Simple concept but our current journalist class is a massive sinkhole of dishonesty and lack of ethics.

  • wayne

    DougSpace-
    Not my specific bailiwick, but historically in the United States [newspapers being the dominant medium] our Media was always partisan, but they didn’t lie about it or pretend otherwise. (Political affiliation was even in the Titles of most newspapers.)
    My understanding is the whole “journalism as neutral player’s” thing’, (and “journalism as a Profession”) was an outgrowth of Progressive thought transferred to “news and information.” And the more overly educated “journalists” have become, they less they apparently know about a whole lot of things.

    The transition from physical-print to on-line digital distribution, totally up-ended their advertising Models, and is a huge issue unto itself. For that I have no easy answer.
    — My personal preference is that Reputational-attributes drive and self-correct “journalist.” Present facts in a logical order, don’t editorialize unless it’s an opinion piece, etc.

    I would like to hear what Mr. Z thinks, ( and especially as it relates to Colonial America and our heritage.)

  • wodun

    Not my specific bailiwick, but historically in the United States [newspapers being the dominant medium] our Media was always partisan

    Journalists used to be regarded as the lowest of the low. It wasn’t until recently that they claimed they were a branch of government but unelected and unaccountable. Many think of themselves as a medieval priestly caste, unquestionable. But they are also very corrupt.

  • DougSpace: Wishing for an objective news source is a vain pointless effort. When the news made believe it was non-partisan (for most of the 20th century), it used that fake preening to successfully hide its leftist tendencies.

    I much prefer the situation today. I know the agenda of these sites, and can thus appraise the news they push intelligently. To make it work, however, you must make the extra effort to visit a wide range of sites, with different agendas. That way you get a wide perspective on the news, and can judge what is happening with some real understanding.

    The only sad part of this cultural change is that the most of the leftist sites (such as the New York Times) refuse to admit that they are partisan. The political culture would breath easier and be healthier if they finally did so. And it might actually improve their reputations (and their reporting), because it would show everyone that they are finally being honest with us, and themselves.

  • wayne

    wodun/Mr. Z.–
    Good, stuff!

  • wayne

    This has nothing to do with Search.
    -Often called the father of the pulp-magazine format, Frank Munsey (among others) brought inexpensive magazines to mass nationwide audiences at the start of the previous century.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Munsey
    Where-upon the Ruling Elite declared it all junk and low-brow. Only their select newspapers & “slick” magazines were true Culture and enlightened (progressive) thinking
    Love him or hate him, and most everyone hated him apparently, if you read any of his newspapers you knew exactly which “side” they were on in any given city.

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