Cuil (pronounced cool) is a new search engine. It aims to compete with Google. I have no complaints with Google, which i use extensively every day. In fact i am always impressed when Google picks up my latest posting on this blog within minutes of its first appearance. I am even more impressed when Google ranks my blog posting very high on many topics including, strangely enough “pretty ladies in hard hats.”
But ever keen for the new, I tried Cuil. Try as I might i could not find this blog or any of its postings. For example a search using the blog name I THINK MINING brings up many articles on information and data mining….but no blog. Strike one.
Then i tried to find something on heap leach pads. There on the first page they have a link to an obscure piece I wrote long ago. Nice to know but not really the best i have written
I began to have faith when i tried a search with keywords “tailings liners’ . Hey presto, they have a few of the pieces I have written on the topic.
The ultimate test is of course what comes up under “mining” plain and simple. An most interesting melange of sites appears, prominent among them MiningWatch followed by Joy Mining Machinery and West Virginia University. What a strange picture of the mining industry ranked by their secret ranking formula.
The best success, in my opinion, was a search for “oil sands.” The Oil Sands DIscovery Ceenter comes up first. I acknowledge it is a nice place, well worth visiting. In fact on Saturday I stopped by to buy a T-shirt emblazoned with large trucks. I got teased at dinner in Vancouver for wearing it though. Just as I will get teased for the vanity of seeking my own stuff via a search engine and rankng my worth relative to others doing the same kind of thing by reference to a search engine ranking.
What an inspiring article!