That is actually a good thing?

So, what we should take from this is that any foray into any art is useless, therefore we should surrender any and all creative impulse to faceless companies.

Fuck no.

I’d rather distribute my work for free and have it read and enjoyed nonetheless than not write at all.

They accomplish that and the already diminutive presence they have in the world will shrink even more.

The French Foreign Legion is an elite force, open to non french individuals to enlist.

Because it is, by nature, a multicultural force, the legion has a specific trainning regime to develop unit spirit. These are not cannon fodder: any individual that can make the FFL, can after three years of service request french citizenship.

Russia seems to be just trying to find bodies to fill the ranks.

Exactly

Connery was a good actor but I think he got stuck to the role of the secret agent/military man/though guy, although I enjoyed his performance in Finding Forrester.

Lazenby was the forgotten Bond, right? I agree. He had a presence but I think he was badly received after the Connery era as his Bond was more mild mannered. When Roger Moore took the character and broke off the previous mold, it simply erased the previous Bond and started the fan theory that Bond was a codename and not an individual.

Timothy Dalton was the best Bond, closest to the books.

Today, I was the 1% getting to know something new.

Done!

Hate requires too much emotional investment. What I want is options.

You can’t know everything.

You’re welcome.

It’s a hobby as it is.

If I ever manage to sell enough copies of it to be able to pay for a Kagi subscription, I’ll do it and make it public knowledge.

Read somewhere on the thread Ecosia is part of Bing ecosystem.

That was one of the most out of the blue comments I have ever read. It sounded so… unreal. Something out of a sitcom. Then I read “sugartits” is the name of the lemmy you were replying to. That’s was really top mark. Kudos for you.

Okay.

Now that we already know we are pretty much at the hands of one pupeteer, what options are there?

I already read about Kagi (apologies if mispelled) but I like to write as a hobby and 300 searches per month go fast.

What other options are there?

Edit:

For those who may be arriving now:

• Kagi seems to be a good option for an alternative search engine; it is a paid service, for which I don’t have the €€€ right now. Many speak very well about it.
• SearXNG is a thing as well, to my understanding a decentralized search system. Worth the try, in my opinion. If it’s something that is decentralized, it is worthy to support and divulge.
• There is mojeek.com, supposedly not very good but any option that goes against the monopoly is worth the try! I’m going to try this one.
• Brave.com is an option but is a bit shady.
• You should try Ecosia if you want to support reforestation efforts. Read somewhere in the thread it is part of the Bing ecosystem.
• Yep is a thing as well. Somewhere in the thread, a lemmy points they use the search results for AI trainning. So… That is that.
• And it seems there is a search engine by the name of dogpile.com.
• Startpage is another search engine (portal?) suggested by another user. I’ve used it before and like it. Read somewhere it somehow piped a standard google search but removed tracking and ads.
• and I just remembered Presearch.com. This is a really shady one (crypto warning!) that I suspect is a fork/collab with Brave Browser. I’ve used it, they have reward-per-search reward system (or had) where they give you crypto for every search. Good results, some that don’t come up neither on DDG nor Google.

p.p.s Should I start categorizing these from “shady” to “worthy”?

p.p.s 2 Does anyone remember StumbleUpon? I know it was never a search engine to begin with but it was the best source of good internet content I ever got acquainted to.

Can we get something like that back?

Ouch!

It should. An open technology standard should gain traction over closed proprietary ones.

Stronk. The joke is “stronk”.

Come again! We act all Mondays and Fridays!