Changed default search-engine on my laptop and cellphone. I still use google but rather as a fallback and I have to actively type in google into the address-bar.
I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo as my standard search engine and I'm super happy with it. I found it quality-wise indistinguishable from Google, and even better since no sponsored spam.
Thanks for nudging me that way again. I'd tried DDG before and was slowly moving towards, but had still been relying on !bangs.
However, I just replicated the most obscure search request that I can remember, an extremely obscure automotive request for help - and, in one go, the DDG result actually got to exactly the end result it had taken me ages to Google.
It is not only about a US-boycott for me, but also about an increase in consciousness about how our choices _do_ have influence. It _does_ matter, which products I buy and I use.
Yay! I had a course with Prof. Matoušek: Topological methods in combinatorics and geometry. It a was mostly about using Borsuk Ulam theorem to prove other theorems in different areas. Can't remember a whole lot, except it was fascinating and beautiful.
Ah yeah and of course at least a bit of Borsuk Ulam. In my own words: "for every continuous function from the n-sphere to R^n, there exists a pair of antipodal points on that sphere that will map to the same point in R^n". Example in 1-D: in a heated a metal-ring with some heat-distribution on it, there are to points exactly opposite from each other which have the same temperature.
