Duck Duck Go is not a good search engine.
~
Good evening! I'll have an absinthe, thank you. Ice water, no sugar.
Where I live, we're finally getting some autumn weather, though we're not done with days over 80F for the year yet. And the trees don't change here, really, they just turn brown, though there are probably some colors less than a hundred miles away in the mountains.
I'm trying to shut the world out, too, and mostly trying to enjoy autumn, the one good season.
yea, I make a clear (mental/personal) distinction between "shutting off" and "shutting down". I avoid news all the time (except to watch the FB death spiral and the Twitter/Musk hell drama - I find entertainment there). I just read a lot of small blogs, and write a blog, and sometimes stop in at a forum throughout the day. Fall weather adds to the enjoyment of "personal" time. Best season.
I successfully avoided "the news" for a couple years, but recently bent over for it again due to what I want to call "becoming too alien", by which I mainly mean having too little basis for interaction with non-screen others.
Instead of going back and forth with others over the quark-splitting minutia of hyperbolic fictions, I was perpetually hearing and having to explain "What? You didn't know about *that*?", which was becoming a combination of boring and embarrassing.
So lately I began typing "news.google.com" and hitting <enter> again, then scrolling about so maybe a few ridiculous tidbits here and there would stick, allowing me to break into public musings about such at bars, wineries, while waiting in some line, etc.
And it works. I've found I no longer take any of it seriously for having become so strongly convinced it's all mostly N-th hand, "info-entropy" ridden fiction. And I'm used to others having faith in things/"facts" that they'd normally fall into hysterical fits of laughter over when on display by *others* in the form of faith in things they consider silly, e.g. "God", "Jesus".
So why not run with it? Why not engage? Why not enjoy becoming borderline theatric while verbally exploring the illogicity - if not the "woke"-centric unrighteousness (OH.. MY.. GOD..) - of it all, while inwardly smiling for having successfully gotten others to take it personally to the point of chest poundings, all the while remaining inwardly calm for realizing its fictional nature?
"CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE WHAT TRUMP DID NOW!"
"AND HOW OBVIOUSLY SENILE BIDEN IS?!??!??!"
"AND WHAT SUCH AND SUCH CELEBRITY SAID?!??"
OH...
MY...
GAWWWWWWWWWWWWD!!!!!
(hehehehehe)
(Of course, it helps immensely knowing all the while there's a place to escape from the aforementioned called Midnight Pub, where one can avoid such glassy-eyed, spittle-heavy "interaction".... <wraps arms around screen, squeezes, kisses its edge>)
yes, def feels sincere (dare I say "intimate") here at The Midnight.
And the "news.google.com" search on random - that's like internet Russian Roulette where the chips are rage, rage, or rage. I go the DDG route, because everything is DDG for me, and I keep the terms specific, because even then there will be all manner of "hyperbole" clutter in the results. I even refine it to "Past Day" in the filters, so as to not see a bunch of pre-clicked purple links.
Stay safe out there, Inquiry, haha. And remember the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is not your friend. (idk really, I never clicked that button in the years I Google'd) ;)
Heh, I'd completely forgotten about that button.
Does DDG have a specific news link?
I mean, the only reason I go "news.google.com" is because I did so in the past, so it's all I remember as a quick way to possibly be exposed to a variety of sources. Not necessarily a good variety, mind you, but see I'm not actually looking for news as though it's something I believe I could believe in - let alone be nourished by. As I explained, I just don't want to be completely clueless as to what others might be murmuring about in public. I like being able to inject smart-assed comments here and there, if for not reason other than to not seem too much a snooty, above-the-news pariah in public.
no specific news link - just duckduckgo.com/=?news yada yada yada. But the "News" section can be toggled before hitting search (or 🔍) and then it's ALL the News! ;)
I'm in the same boat about not wanting to be an isolated under-the-rock dweller and having to know SOMETHING about what people are saying about XYZ hot topic.
I'm far past the "mainstream press is evil"/hipster phase of my life. I just sincerely don't dig into random news stories because one of infinite things will happen - I get frustrated and furious - infinitely.
But, I keep up with a few headline themes that bring me joy. The downfall of Facebook, the "drama" of Musk up-ending Twitter (the service deserves it, and people still Tweet-storming around there probably need an undeniable reason to leave the service, once and for all), both of which are "tough love" scenarios, but, call me a "tough lover", lmao! No one helped or held my hand when I was jonesing off social media in 2019, just like no one coddled and comforted me when I was sobering up from narcotics as a teenager - it was "have fun and good luck - no sobriety? No roof over your head" - reality-smashing shit like that.
But, it is what it is.
Most news/info of the world comes via blog for me, though. blogroll.org/planet (or, their RSS feed), Read.write.as, my own 1Feed RSS acct, etc. Things will "seep in" to my orbit should I NEED to hear/read them, so I sort of expect that. Haven't been let down, yet :)
I guess what I meant to ask (but didn't know the correct terminology) was whether duckduckgo had their own news *aggregator*, which I guess is what news.google.com is.
But they don't seem to.
Even their news "bang" (https://duckduckgo.com/bang) - which is allegedly "!news" - merely directs the DDG browser to a not-very-news-specific search page.
Oh well....
Prime ministers come and go, but Earth, Earth abides.
That being said, we've been getting some weird weather. Concentrated clouds of flashing light, like a private disco that only pilots are privy to.
yes, inner cloud lightening here last night, too. More amusing is when a plane would slowly reveal it's lights from within to be at visible cruising speed while coming in for a landing at Lambert in STL. Same "pattern" for them, it seems. SE going NW across the Mississippi, and they cross straight over my balcony, albeit at inaudible heights.
Fun to notice patterns like that. Like the nightly migratory patterns of three stray dogs at my childhood home after sunset when I would be in the backyard smoking weed, only to go back in and write about said canine movements on my first "blog".
there are these three or so crows that fight seemingly every other evening for the prime perching spot on top of my neighbours antenna. I wonder about his satellite signal sometimes
Brings to mind the blood thirsty "war birds" that lived in the breezeway outside my apartment. For three months they swooped battled about, scaring off all other species of bird (they were a small, brown/white bird of some type). One constantly stayed perched on the railing at the bottom of the stairs, another on the roof adjacent to my balcony - standing post, chirping nearly non-stop the entirety of the day. Not songs, just continual monotonous chirping.
It was three weeks before the cardinals and bluejays and robins came back after a leasing office staffer knocked down their straw "fort". I think he sprayed some sort of "Bird-Be-Gone" in the small openings in the bricks, too.
Will forever be thankful that they are gone.
And my neighbor's dog. It barked in watch-setting cadence nearly non-stop, as well.
Peace at last
In the old apartment, we would be inundated with cars rushing past at all hours of the night. I slowly grew used to it, even convinced myself that the woosh of cars was akin to the rush of waves crashing at a beach, but it did bother me a lot sleep-wise.
Now that I live in a more village-y apartment with a road that's barely used, I'm suddenly aware of much more different kinds of noises: animals, birds, babies crying -- anything that would break the otherwise peaceful silence.
It's super distracting too! The contrast between infrequent nature noises against silence, vs the contrast between discourteous motorists against background traffic is way waay higher than I'd thought, despite the latter being on average magnitudes in decibels louder.
TLDR: I've come to the conclusion that I can never be happy with my sleeping situation.
I was in a similar bi-polar (environmental) scenario.
I went from living in midtown St Louis in 2015, along the busiest road there (South Grand) to moving to Pevely, Missouri, where the nearest *anything* was a Mr Fuel 1.2 miles away.
It was like an isolation chamber. Thick walls, thick floors, thick ceilings. I would step outside and my ears would almost hurt from the sudden impact of SOUND!
I ended up "pacing" a lot in that apartment when my lease was near over. Then back to the consistent serenade of a crowded side road of Baumgautner in South St Louis County. A bike or horn may rise above the rest sometimes, but I was used to it after a year.
The courtyard three buildings over, where I'm at now, works best. Quiet, calm, but not deafeningly silent nor noisy.