My new favorite quote of all time

"What we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed." 


Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue


http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/3599/a-strange-solar-flare-connection

Don't be evil... unless you think it will be good for everyone

This morning, I read this:

Google and Verizon 'near deal to end net neutrality'

Search giant said to be close to agreeing (on) a deal that would let the telecoms company prioritise categories of online content

So, what exactly happen to Google's supposed mantra?

The main thing that sold Google for me as a search engine back in the late Paleointranetic Era was that they would display content fairly. Many search engines back then would give you results based on how many times someone put the word you were searching for on the homepage. You'd get pages that would have pages of blank space at the bottom, and when you highlighted text, there would be every term anyone would ever search for.

Google's approach was different - they based search engine priority on a system of links between pages, to determine what content was actually relevant. You could count on Google's results to be the pages that were most visited, most linked, and most likely to be the results you were looking for.

I'm under the impression that favoring one content provider over another when they pay more to be listed would sort of fall into the grey area between light and dark. 

I mean, sure, this deal is for providing better connections to providers that pay more, which, in a way, kind of makes sense. They are using bandwidth, and that bandwidth does cost money. So if a content provider pays more, then they should get a larger share of the bandwidth, I suppose. Or should they?

What we need is for someone to fairly decide a way to allocate the I/O stream and...

Uh oh. I can see where this is going.

END OF LINE.

Police raid an organic market for... wait for it... milk.

Today I learned about a bit of news that probably isn't even a footnote in the city it came from.

California police raid stirs raw food controversy

LOS ANGELES - With no warning on a sunny weekday morning, investigators entered the organic grocery with a search warrant ... Then, badges out and guns drawn, four officers fanned out ... they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.

http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/daily_updates/article_e589627c-9996-11df-9e96-001cc4c03286.html

There's even video of the raid from a security camera. I'm serious.

Some people think this story is funny. It might even have been on the network news as the 'funny' story before Jeopardy comes on. I don't think it's funny. The market was breaking the law by selling unpasteurized dairy products, true. And respect of the law is what defines a Republic, what makes us able to function as a society.

But I have to ask a simple, almost silly question. 

WHY DO THEY HAVE THEIR GUNS OUT? 

What if some teenager came out of the damn walk-in with a price scanner? BLAMO. Oh well, another accidental police shooting. When did it became standard operating procedure for a cop to pull his gun to do the simplest, stupidest things? 

Are they aware that the purpose of drawing your gun is to kill? Guns are provided to the police to protect the officers from armed suspects, not to force compliance. When the citizenry respects law enforcement, they DON'T NEED A GUN to get public compliance for the law.

Another footnote to this story was that it took FOUR police officers to raid the market to find the illegal milk. Meanwhile, undoubtedly, there were countless assaults, moving violations, and property crimes in Los Angeles.

I'm catching the next boat out of here. How's the climate in Australia? More importantly, how about the political climate?