Oh-oh! Look out! Bing maybe catching up to google.

Some time you should do a google search for "best cheese knife", "cheese cutting", or "best cheese cutter". I began a very frustrating search several weeks ago for such an item, using Google as my primary search tool. This is totally normal for me. I do this each time I need to make a pricey decision.

Mac-N-Cheese has become a little bit of an obsession with me lately, and I can tell you many things about the subject. I can tell you that there are two basic renditions: (1) A soul food version which uses a cold sauce and relies entirely on baking for results, (2) a French Mournay sauce approach. I can also tell you that grating cheese is a serious pain, and wasteful, even with a KitchenAid. I can tell you that cutting cheese with Ceramic Kyoceras is a serious pain. Kuro, my Wusthof Santoku, does it better, but it is far from perfect.

So I went looking for special blades that will do the job of breaking up chunks of very hard, medium and soft cheese. Google frustrated me. I found endless joke lists about "cutting the cheese". I found lots of lists of knives including every knife under the sun. [Won't just about any pieces of steel cut cheese?] I found a few specific references to products on amazon.com.

What I wanted was a round-up review. I wanted somebody to conduct a test and show me test results.

Amazon was much more helpful than Google. They were willing to show me lists of anything tagged with cheese. They would sort the products by price, by user reviews, etc. I was able to determine that there was a little plastic-synthetic blade called "The Cheese Knife" that created a lot of excitement among amazon buyers.

Well, to make a long story short, I bought my solutions this afternoon, but that is a subject for another post. Whilst reflecting on the difficulty I had encountered in finding my solution, I spied a commercial for Bing! the world's first decision engine. I scoffed. I wondered how Bing might have helped me make a simple decision, like "which cheese knife?"

Without further ado I went to the computer, surfed to Bing.com, and typed in "Best Cheese Knife". The website for "The Cheese Knife" was first in line. This is the favorite of Amazon buyers. Bing knew that. I was shocked to find some serious forum threads with posts written by professional cooks. They gave a large assortment of options, and they didn't fight each other religiously over the suggestions.

Clearly, the Cheese Knife, the Wusthof set, and a little knife by Cutco got a lot of respect. Of course, everybody uses the Microplane grater to grate cheese. There is nothing better. Bing didn't exactly give me a pro-round up, but this was the closest thing to it I have seen. Bing would have helped to make my decision faster.

Does the government have any idea of which direction it should shoot?

Once in a while I read something that makes my blood boil.  Yesterday, around noon, a flurry of articles were published indicating that the Department of Justice intends to begin stricter enforcement of antitrust laws. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney said the Justice Department is abandoning legal guidelines established by the Bush administration in September 2008.

So who is in the cross-hairs of the sniper rifle this time?  Sure it is Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, right?

Wrong!  Google, Intel and Microsoft are the main targets.  Obama is shifting to the European approach to anti-monopoly action.  Since Google, Intel and Microsoft are constantly in trouble with European regulators, we can expect the same from the good old Federal Government.

Now, as much as I like small competitors like Borland (now dead), Yahoo (dying) and AMD (also in trouble), I know better than to think that monopoly power did it.  AMD simply failed to compete with Intel.  There were some very bad decisions there, such as the merger with ATI.  I know Yahoo has not been competitive with Google in terms of apps & hard information research for years now.  That isn't Google's fault.  Yahoo wanted to be a celebrity tabloid machine.  They decided move towards People Magazine on their own, and now they are fucked.  Borland died because it didn't seem to know how to market to corporate America.  They had awesome persuasive powers with true programmers, but they had no idea that they needed to market direct to corporate officers.  The CIO needed to be in the crosshairs.  They also had no idea that they needed to recruit MS Office power users.  It is a horrible thing that Borland basically died, but market-wise, they were stupid.

So, instead of breaking up the Banks, who fucked the entire world, the Justice Department intends to prepare anti-trust proceedings against Google, Intel and Microsoft.  These are the three most powerful and important firms in the high-tech sector of the world.  Incidentally, the tech sector is the only thing keeping our American economy afloat right now.  Boy, these supreme assholes in the Justice Department really don't have a fucking clue do they?

I have nothing against Trust Busting.  Teddy Roosevelt did it all the time.  He is one of my favorite guys, and I don't much like presidents and politicians.  If you are going to bust some trusts, bust the dangerous ones.  Don't go after the healthy, useful and benevolent ones.  For crying out loud!  Shoot strait will yah!?!?!?

This new policy statement indicates indicates that the Government does not know the difference between its ass and hole in the wall.  This has to be the most AFU announcement I have heard in sometime.