A long time ago I switched to Firefox mostly because of its extremly useful plug-in model (which also includes add-ons such as ieTab). I do use Internet Explorer (IE) from time to time since certain sites still are optimized (or only work) for/on IE.

Then came Google Chrome along and at a first brief encounter (installed on my Windows Server 2008 machine), I wasn’t impressed with the promised speed along with the fact that there were virtually no plugins out there to use.

A couple of months passed and I kept reading in blogs and other places about the amazing performance of this browser (e.g. test done by ExtremeTech), so I decided to give it a week on my Vista machine just in case in case…and surely I started seeing results. Web pages do load faster and I really find the omnibar very useful saving me both time and click as it tends to find what I am looking for 85% of time as the first result.

So even though I have to give up a few of my plugins (and thereby features) due to chrome being so new on the market and lacking proper plugins, I still find it worth it even if the speed gain is 2.3% (according to the tests). You may think above certain limit small gain in speed does not matter and it’s more of a marketing ploy. I disagree because performance hit even in small dosage is very noticeable and frustrating, so I take performance over feature richness if I have to.

It’s been a while since my last post and multiple reasons for it. Primarily because other things in life have higher priority (e.g. our daughter Carmel who just turned one). But I have also noticed that my initial purpose for this blog which was to note down items, links, thoughts etc that I suspect I would want to come back to (and be reminded of the context) and the same time share with whoever that might find it interesting are being served through other means, be it I posting on Facebook or sharing through (Google) reader which enables me to still track things down. These channels enable better distribution, quicker feedback and since far from majority know how to subscribe to a RSS feed or care to do so sometimes it’s quicker to just do things in those forums.

Still, there are many instances where I do wish I had something on my own blog, so to all my 22 subscribers  out there (according to feedburner.com), I will be posting a bit more frequently going forward.

At the airport the other day, flying with American Airlines, I was thinking to myself why the symbol of both this airline as well as the USA is a bald eagle. So I did some research and found different stories depending on who you ask and what their perspective is. Some say it is because of its long life, great strength and majestic looks, and also because it was then believed to exist only on this continent.

Others believe it was because at one of the first battles of the revolution the noise of the war woke the eagles up who were circuling above these fighting men and represented the freedom.

A third opinion (and in my personal findings most relevant) goes to the significance the eagle has in the native Americans’ lives and the story of creation for many of them, i.e. as the earth was flooded and everyone were being killed by this flood, a beam (spirit) from the sky materialized into an eagle that saved a woman and flew her to the tree of life where she rested until the earth reappeared after the flood and gave birth to the new generation of mankind.

What we do know is that in May 1782 a committee was established that consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and J Adams and they were to decide what the seal of United States should be. Franklin suggested a turkey and Jefferson had an eagle in mind. It is unclear why they wanted these two birds and as I mentioned the opinions differ here. Nevertheless the eagle suggestion won and was taken as the symbol of this nation. Added to that the, phrase “E Pluribus Unum.” (from many comes one) was adopted as the motto, thirteen arrows and an olive branch was to be carried by the eagle in each talon, thirtheen arrows for 13 colonies that declared independence from the Great Britain. The olive branch represents a universal sign for offering of peace. While the emblem was finally accepted officialy in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following about accepting the eagle as the nation’s symbol:

I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him…. Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest. . . of America.. . . For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.