Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying out the Bing search engine instead of my usual Google. Bing is Microsoft’s revamp of Live Search, which was its revamp of MSN search.

I’ve never really liked Microsoft’s offering to the search engine industry, mainly because I don’t like its online presence. I hate MSN, I hated hotmail, I don’t like Live mail. I think they are all inferior products, and I really can’t understand why people don’t make the switch to Google’s online products. Up until now I would never have given Microsoft’s search engine another look, but I don’t like things staying the same for too long so I thought I’d give it a spin.

Firstly, I think Bing is much prettier than Google. They have a new background image every day, and the whole design is obviously more deliberate than Google’s 1990s colour scheme. I appreciate that. I never liked Google’s boring logo, nor its ugly results page.

Also, the images search function is light years ahead of Google’s. With Google you get 20 pages of about 100 image thumbnails that you have to laboriously scroll through. With Bing you get a sidebar of thumbnails which is refreshed with Ajax. You never have to leave the page, and you can still view all of the thumbnails it finds. I like the efficiency, convenience and cleverness of it.

They’ve copied Google’s novelty logo idea. Google puts up a special image for Christmas, New Years’ and special occasions, like famous scientists’ birthdays. There the focus is on learning more about, e.g., the famous scientist. With Bing, it’s more about you using their search engine, which I don’t like. It’s a sneaky way of promoting yourself by promoting someone else. It’s funny to see how deep that runs in Microsoft. They’ve resisted web standards, preferring instead to release their own proprietary codes, right up until IE7. I really hate this tendency in Microsoft.

As for what was going through their heads when they called it Bing, I can only hazard a guess. It’s a dreadful, awful name. Interesting to see that they’re stepping away from all their other branding (Microsoft, MSN, Windows, Live, etc).

I hate, and will always hate, multimap. This is probably irrational, much like my hatred of Yahoo. And there’s video adverts on the main page. I hate video adverts.

As for the quality of its search results — obviously the most important thing — I haven’t really looked into it all that much. I guess my expectations in that area are mostly unconscious ones, so I’ll continue to do side-by-side comparisons for a while till I find out what I prefer.

So far, Bing doesn’t feel like proper searching yet. I must confess I don’t really care. (It’s not exactly the most hugely important question in life, is it.) What wins is whatever works easiest. Bing is pretty and excellent with images and media, but has a dreadful name. Google has a boring design, but it’s familiar.

It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out in the long run. My personal prediction is that in a year or so they’ll have another rebrand (they’re on their fourth as it is). We’ll be introduced to “Swish”, or some other equally silly name, but unless they do something fundamental to searching online muchbetter than Google it will fail to raise much interest.

Maybe pay people every time they use Bing. And change that wretched name!

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I’m reading Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath.

It’s one of the most refreshing books I’ve ever read, I think. I studied biology at university, and I have amused myself for endless hours thinking about the tension between creationism and science. This book doesn’t address that issue directly, but does talk around it somewhat, focussing on some of the claims made by Richard Dawkins as to the validity of faith in the wake of science.

Happily, McGrath doesn’t try to settle the question as to whether evolution is true or not. That’s a far too complicated and scientific question to try to resolve in one book, and it’s one that will only really be solved given another hundred or so years of research and development. Evolution is too big and too fundamental to modern biology. Creationists treat it as though it were a sideline theory that can be done away with harmlessly, but it’s not: it’s the whole foundation of current biological thinking, with massive implications for every single discipline within biology, from animal behaviour to biochemistry.

C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Evolution has the same position in biology. The view currently is that evolution makes sense of literally everything. To question evolution is to question biology, it’s that central.

Which is why it was such a wonderful relief to find McGrath leaving the question to the scientific community. Christianity is open to such a lot of intellectual ridicule because of the noisy protestations of a few people who treat evolution like some great evil of society, like drugs. They argue that it leaves people thinking that life is pointless, and that people are worthless, the product of a series of accidents.

Well, I think that’s rot. It’s lazy thinking and bad theology. No-one got depressed because they learnt about evolution. You can’t blame post-modernist despair on science. No, post-modernist despair is the fault of post-modernism, which in turn is the fault of, you guessed it, human nature. To blame despair on evolution is exactly the same as criticising faith because fundamentalists exist. Evolution produces despair no more than faith produces narrow-mindedness.

No, the thrust of McGrath’s book is pointing out where Dawkins draws invalid conclusions about faith, and the impact that science has on faith, with focus on evolutionary thinking. I don’t want to go into too much detail, since you should just buy the book if you’re interested. But the main impact this book has had on me has been to restore my intellectual dignity. Dawkins makes some pretty offensive comments about people with faith, and reading some of the material about creationism on the internet, you begin to wonder if he isn’t right. McGrath, unlike those creationist cranks, is cool-headed, and writes with clarity, logic and authority.

If you’re a Christian and have been struggling with the question of evolution and faith, I recommend this book. If you have a perception that logic and reason are a threat to faith, I recommend this book.

Finally, if you’re an atheist, and you see Christians as people who have left their brains behind, I recommend this book. No, in fact I challenge you to read this book and really think about what it says.

Let me make one thing clear. I despise record reviews. I think they’re always written by

Sorry, those sentences weren’t going anywhere. I liked them though, so instead of deleting them I’m going to leave them there with a line through.

Anyway, record reviews. When the writer has taken great pains to squash as much praise into his words as his humanly possible, it makes me want to run him over with a lawnmower. Disgusting! Disgusting! Disgusting! So it is with this thought that I start my review.

I have been a fan of Björk since my friend introduced me to her when I was 16. She got me into music, and I have been a loyal fan of hers ever since. When I bought Vespertine, I was horrified to discover that I didn’t like it. I blamed myself, of course, and after hours of hard work it clicked and it took up residence in my head like some sort of parasite (or foetus, depending on whether or not you like Björk) for years afterwards.

That exercise, I purport, stretched my ears out of shape. I now cannot listen to music unless at least one of the instruments is amplified earwigs walking across wax that was made by blind nuns in Norway. If there’s not trombones played backwards, underwater, by buffaloes, I don’t want to know.

The upside of that is that Volta, Björk’s 6th or 8th studio album depending on how you count things, made instant and complete sense to me the first time I heard it. It took about half a listen to get into it, and now it’s sitting in my head further messing up my musical tastes.

So that’s enough of this review!

Recently (i.e., over the last few years) I’ve been noticing a new form of humour. Maybe it’s always been around and is becoming more fashionable, I don’t know. I’m not really someone who likes to take creative things completely to pieces to look at them, I think it’s disrespectful somehow. Find out how they work, yes, but don’t tear it up so much that you kill it. This goes for art critics, music critics, people who study English Lit, whatever. Take things so far, then remember that you shouldn’t be too scientific. Being too scientific is rude, and could be dangerous to your health.

But yeah, my friend told me to search for Anthony Jeselnik on YouTube because he thought I’d like it. Now let’s be fair: I like this kind of humour. It’s politically incorrect and challenges some people, which I think can only be a good thing. But I have discovered something: it’s too easy and is boring.

Let me first clear up what on earth I’m talking about. It’s that type of humour where you can say something offensive, but say it ironically so that it’s funny. For example, I recently read two blog posts on Chelsea Perretti’s blog, entitled “Merry Christmas” and “Cancel that Merry Christmas (due to Jews)”. I may not have quoted it perfectly, but that’s the gist.

Now, I like that. I like it very much, in fact. It’s just funny. But I think there’s a danger of taking things too far so that they’re not creative any more. Anyone can make a racial slur and not mean it. There’s no wit, no cleverness, no cheekiness. This humour works because people go “did she really just say that… no wait — she’s joking!” Once it becomes too formulaic, it’s just not funny any more. Like, “racist + not meaning it = funny”.

I guess maybe jokes need context like a jellyfish needs water — once you remove it, the whole thing collapses into some big, shapeless, useless blob that just leaves you feeling sorry for whatever it is you have in your hand. That and in a lot of pain — pain that can only be cured by peeing on yourself. (Though I just saw that that’s a myth. Alas, Google, thou art too quick.)

You should all go out immediately and buy his album. I’ve been listening to Want (2 discs!) and I’ve been really impressed. His music is really varied and generally amazing. If you’re familiar with classical music, you’ll recognise its influence on a lot of tracks.

I also like the way he’s worked with loads of people that Björk’s worked with: Marius de Vries, Isobel Griffiths … well, that’s about it, but in fairness Björk has worked with approximately ten million people so two is fairly good going.

I’ve been listening to some of Matmos’s stuff since they worked on Björk’s fifth album, Vespertine.

I’m currently listening to Lift up your hat! which is from their album Quasi-objects. It’s made entirely from samples taken from the needle of a record player catching on the last track of an LP, and I find it extremely comforting for some reason. There are no annoying lyrics or crappy boring vocals to get in the way, it’s just calm and repetetive, made of completely gorgeous sounds.

Anyway, their latest album is called The Rose has Teeth, in the Mouth of a Beast, and you can hear the title track (actually it’s called Roses & Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein) over at www.matadorrecords.com/matmos/music.html and it’s genius. Download a few of their other tracks while you’re at it.

It’s based around a passage from Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher:

‘A new-born child has no teeth.’ — ‘A goose has no teeth.’ — ‘A rose has no teeth.’ — This last at any rate — one would like to say — is obviously true! It is even surer than that a goose has none. — And yet it is none so clear. For where should a rose’s teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And neither of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says it has no teeth. — Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast. This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look for teeth in a rose. ((Connection with ‘pain in someone else’s body.’))

Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, eds. G.E.M. Anscome and G.H. von Wright, trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscome (N.Y.: Harper, 1969).

Also cited in places as: Philosophical Investigations. I don’t know which one is correct, though. What am I, a librarian?

I like it because they know how to make genius beats, and it shows such a wonderful sense of humour. Check out the goose noise!

I have to say, I’ve gone completely off music lately, I find it’s all just boring crap which dies in my ears, but Matmos’s stuff is fascinating. I’ve always loved sounds, just normal sounds like the humming of a fluorescent light-bulb or an electric fan, and they take these normal sounds and make something amazing out of them.

The music is all the more fascinating because I know it’s been made out of noises made by, for instance, a balloon or hair or a heartbeat. (Or even, in the case of Lipostudio, samples from actual liposuction surgery — you can download the mp3 from the link above).

So I say, hurrah for Matmos!

PS: one of the people saying “The Rose has Teeth, in the Mouth of a Beast” on the track is our very own beloved Björk!

I’m pretty sure that we heard this song while we were in South America. I think it came on the radio or something, and I remember Claire laughing her face off at it and saying how excellent it was (I believe the word she used was “terrible”).

And it is pretty excellent to be fair.

The bit that elicited this response from Claire is the clip which follows shortly (it’s the female background singers that do it) and it’s pretty much been in my head ever since we got back. I think it’s total genius and at the same time hilariously cheesy, and it’s growing on me more and more.

It’s the kind of song that could only be sung if the background singers were in drag, and the background singers are obviously (when I say “obviously”, I mean obvious to me) the whole point of the song.

It’s from Van Morrison’s song, Did Ye Get Healed, and you can hear it on Amazon.com.

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