Today, I got an email from Trip Advisor advising me on things to see and places to stay in Lausanne, Switzerland--out of the blue, just like that. And, as a point of fact, I am planning on going there in early July. Coincidences can sometimes just be happy accidents, but in this case, I think it's more pernicious--a matter of the various internet sites conspiring to make my life easier. Did I end up on a Trip Advisor page while looking up Lausanne? I certainly didn't log in. Or did Google communicate the info? All the internet sites are apparently talking to each other now, so it's possible. [As in, Facebook and Yelp can collaborate to know what to recommend.]
In a coincidence of a more pure nature, I was trying to write "tâcher" in an email today but wrote "tacher" instead. I felt hesitant about it and looked it up to be sure. Sure enough, they are conjugated the same way--and I would pronounce them both the same--but tâcher means "to try" while tacher means to stain--like to get a stain on your clothes. So, just now, in lieu of watching another episode of "The Atheism Tapes" (which I'll get into later), I decided to watch some "Merci Professeur" on TV5.org. I don't think we have anything like this aux États-Unis. It's a web programme in which this affable professor type passionately explains the subtilités of French grammaire and origines of the more obscur words. And the one that came up? Tacher or Tâcher. He's worth watching even if you don't understand, but I had to download some Windows mumbo-jumbo (Media Player?) to watch it.
Apparently Safari is not the most popular internet browser, accounting for less than 5% of internet traffic. Firefox is ~50% and IE8 is just ahead of Chrome at around 15%. I learned this when I looked it up after being told that American Airlines' website doesn't support Safari. After making it all the way through the reservation process, I got an error message on the very last page. I called them, and they told me to use Firefox. Which I did and have my ticket, but couldn't they program their website to tell me not to use Safari-at the beginning? It's a good thing I have Firefox and Chrome installed--just in case. I use Chrome for my alias Twitter account but that's about it.
[Update, I looked at my browser history and found that I did, in fact, get directed to Trip Advisor from a Google search. And I'm apparently still logged in from months or years ago, so it was just Trip Advisor following up with info they harvested themselves. Still, I swear, the internet is becoming more conscious.]
I leave you with this video I came across today. It's amusing. My internet is nowhere this fast regardless of browser.
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