Not completely sure how it works, but evidently if you link Santorum with the web site http://spreadingsantorum.com/ then that tends to keep Santorum name properly associated with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.

Something about Google bots picking up Santorum’s name each time Santorum is mentioned and linked online like that.

So to review, when you link Santorum with the web site http://spreadingsantorum.com/ then that tends to keep Santorum’s name properly associated with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.

Evidently this happens every time Santorum’s name is mentioned and linked online, so please be careful when you do mention Santorum’s name, and especially when you may associate Santorum with the web site http://spreadingsantorum.com/ and then further reference Santorum with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this notice about Santorum.

just had to post about this. While browsing Google News, I saw a headline in the Entertainment section which said “Jackson Death Being Treated As Homicide”, which linked to this article on the FOXNews site.

Immediately beneath that headline was the MSNBC headline, which read “Jackson Probe Not Being Treated As Homicide”.

Of course, I had to read both to compare – I’m like that!

Turns out that FOXNews simply spews what it sees on other websites – it reported directly from a TMZ article, with no additional validation whatsoever.

MSNBC, on the other hand, actually called LAPD and asked them direct. They said “No, it’s not being treated as a homicide”.

Hats off to MSNBC, well done.

FOXNews – just go away and report on another virgin mary cheese sandwich, and stop cluttering up our lives with your rabid, sensationalist fear-mongering.

Peace
PatMan

Really need to get back to that – oy, that’s gonna be tough!

While digesting my lunch today, I was reading about the current Amazon controversy surrounding their search results – specifically their apparent de-listing of gay books. I happened to scan the Comments section of one of the posts I read (not the one I just linked to), and read that Google disregards the word “homosexual” in their Search Suggestions. (Search Suggestions, like when you type your search term and the drop-down list of suggestions appears, and it shows you how many results there are for each term? Yeah, that.)

Google?, says I. GOOGLE?

Surely not, says I.

Being the empiricist that I am, I investigated. Here are my results. Note that my Google Preferences were set to “Do not filter my search results” for the duration.

Image Capture #1 – “Sexuality”

Alright, no problems here. 30 million isn’t too shabby! 4.7 million definitions is scary, but never mind. Onward!

Image Capture #2 – “Asexuality”

Good, not a lot of suggestions, but they are there. Next…

Image Capture #3 – “Homosexual”

Uh-oh. I haven’t even got to the “e”, the list is small, and the word “homosexual” isn’t there. Here’s the list of suggestions when I add the “e” to the search term:

There appear to be about 351,000 people who cannot spell. That’s not as disturbing as contemplating what is missing from this list. Not one person has searched for the word “homosexual”? On Google? Ever?

It gets better. Of course, the word “lesbian” is nixed…

Image Capture #4 – “Lesbian”

And this is where it gets REALLY interesting.

I performed my inital investigation about 4 hours ago. When I started writing this post, I repeated the same searches so that I could get the screenshots.

4 hours ago, the word “bisexual” appeared in the drop-down list as a suggestion, on a par with “sexuality” or “asexuality”. Here is the screen cap I took 20 minutes ago…

Image Capture #5: “Bisexual”

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that Google is actively removing search suggestions from the list that they present – and it’s happening right now.

Google’s justification for cooperating with the Chinese government is that it is better to do business (no matter the cost) than it is to do no business. Does the above imply that there is a cost to doing business here in the US? (Or anywhere else for that matter – I have checked google.ie, google.co.uk, google.de and google.fr, and all display the same behavior as google.com.)

My sincere hope is that this is the result of some misguided individual’s “moral conscience” within the Google organization. If this is a policy decision by Google leadership, I’m really going to have to change my search engine.

Can anyone come up with a definitive answer about what is happening here? If you do, let me know – please!

Peace
PatMan

I’m talking about pot. Weed. Marijuana. Mary Jane. Bud. Whatever you want to call it, it is the focus of an intense debate here in the US. On the one hand, you have the “moral minority” who oppose the use of this most useful of plants. They state many reasons, most of them hysterical, sensational, or outright lies. On the other hand, you have the vast majority who recognize that prohibition is senseless and that there’s nothing wrong with blazing a bowl once in a while. On the gripping hand, you have the demonstrated medical value along with an enormous potential for revenue – which is what I want to talk about here.

Yesterday’s clarification of the Obama Administration’s position on state versus federal law with regard to medical marijuana cultivation is an indication of a significant change in attitude by the federal government (whether they like it or not!) In light of that, the question must be asked: how much revenue can a state derive from growing marijuana? California is already proposing a tax on the bud (in addition to the sales tax that they are already collecting). Oregon is considering setting up a state growing program. Let’s think about the financial implications here, and how best to maximize them.

A state can get revenue from both sales tax, and a weed tax, as already stated. Oregon has gone one step further, and wants to get the sales revenue on top of the taxes. Excellent – huge cash opportunity (and everyone knows, California needs it right now).

Now ask the question: at a state level, where is the best place to operate a growing program from?

Consider state prisons. Security is in place already, land is available – and the inmate population are most likely extremely familiar with the growing process and the product. So, not only does the state get the sales tax, product tax, and sales revenue, it gets the added cost-saving of zero labor costs and zero acquisition costs! It’s a triple-whammy!

Further down the line, the prisons will start to empty out due to the reduced number of convictions for possession. They can then be turned into growing-only operations, retaining the existing staff and creating opportunities for locals to gain employment.

Is it just me, or is this a no-brainer?

Peace
PatMan

Yesterday, I installed Twitterberry on my phone. The fact that it integrates into my Notifications (thus giving me the ability to trigger a sound on receipt of a tweet [rhyme!]), and the presence of an application icon means that I know when I get a reply and easily see when those that I follow tweet – that’s as “on the go” as I need. Twitterberry has the potential to keep me tweeting for quite a while…

The more I contemplate the Twitter model (metaphor?), the more confused I get. I understand the concept, and I see why “making waffles for little people” or “having a beer at the Gruene” can have value to the immediate “followers” around you. What I don’t get is why no-one has come up with a viable business model for Twitter.

Is it because the power of the model is at the limits of comprehension? It’s not MySpace or Facebook – neither of those models belie the abstraction that they are. It’s difficult to use them casually, without sitting down at a keyboard and logging in to interact with the site. Twitter is different. It enables random expression of consciousness by huge numbers of people in a public space. The ability to trend and aggregate the thoughts of so many people is something that any number of industries (think Marketing, Advertising, Sales, etc.) must regard as some sort of Holy Grail – and now that they have it, what the hell are they going to do with it?!

I look at services like TwitScoop, and I feel like I’m looking at the thoughts of millions of people. I see applications like TweetDeck, and I see R&D deptartments scrambling to define a paradigm – and failing. It’s been 3 years since Twitter was launched. Many rumours have circulated about it being bought out, yet none have panned out. It attracts masses of venture capital, but it generates no revenue. Something different is happening here, and I don’t think anyone has quite figured it out yet. It’s kinda like Cloud technology – good idea, but what’s the best way to utilize it?

I’m going to keep tweeting for a while, I reckon – follow me if you like!

The above passage is from the short story “Life-Line”, by science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published in Astounding Science-Fiction in 1939 (© Street & Smith Publications). Apparently, the “notion” has continued to grow!

Says it all, really...

I’ve had enough with the whole Santa Claus drama, seriously. I was perturbed enough as a child by the thoughts of a large stranger secretly entering my house, no matter how generous his intentions were. Now, I’m disturbed by the (apparently) complete abdication of responsibility by parents – of control over their own children – in favor of a lie.

The linked article above describes schoolchildren “burst[ing] into tears” when told by an exasperated teacher that it was their parents who put the gifts under the tree, not Santa Claus. Ask yourself the question – why would this cause children to cry? Loss of innocence, perhaps? At 7 years old can they really conceptualize that? Maybe it’s the fact they realize their dreams have no hope of come true – there’s never going to be that pony waiting under the tree on Xmas morning? Perhaps.

Personally, at that age, if I had (not already!) come to the realization that my parents were liars, I would have burst into tears too. At age seven, your parents are pretty much the only people you can trust – them and your teacher. And if your teacher rats out your parents, which way do you turn?!

I smelled a rat early on – the careful interrogations during the writing of letters to Santa regarding gifts; the subsequent threats should behavioral standards be breached; the ultimate reception of said gifts, no matter how much the limits had been pushed – everything pointed to a conspiracy. Easily revealed, given the opportunity to accompany my father to work one day – I couldn’t find anything at home, so I figured everything was being stored at his office. A quick foray into his filing cabinets confirmed my suspicions.

I was a precocious 5-year old.

Kids are not stupid. They apply the same yardsticks to the world around them as we adults do – and sometimes they measure things that we (in our wisdom?) neglect, such as sincerity, logic, and honesty. Trust is a highly-valued commodity when you are still aware that the world is constantly teaching you. It’s your filter. When that trust is breached, it is often traumatic – and on occassion, fatal.

Don’t lie to your kids, just because you are too lazy or irresponsible to discipline them yourself. If you want your child to be calm at Xmas, here’s an idea: stop feeding them refined sugar, and prevent them from getting agitated by the constant bombardment of advertisements by turning off the goggle-box and sending them out to play.

I have spoken. Act like you know.

Peace out,
PatMan

The story is set on an Earth-equivalent planet called Arbre, and is narrated in the first person by a young man named Erasmus. Our hero is a member of a mathic concent (read: monastery, but practicing science as opposed to worshiping religion) who discovers an anomaly in the skies. He is summoned, along with many of his fellow Avout (members of the concent), to study and ultimately board what turns out to be an alien spaceship. In doing so, he learns that reality is not what it seems – and if you devote enough time to it, you can shape reality…

Thematically, this masterpiece resonates with me – I am an empirical scientist, and if you cannot prove it with valid and reproducible data, I’m not having any of it. Having said that, I’m also bent towards theoretical physics – which is kind of like making it up as you go along! Purity of thought and openness to debate are two attitudes that, combined, lead to great discoveries – and discoveries that are untainted by personal desires or biases. In Anathem, Stephenson balances these two ethics to provide a framework for an almost-perfect world (much like our own!)

I could go into reams of detail, and post a blog entry as long as the book itself, but I shall refrain – if you come across it, pick it up and have a read. April is two-thirds of the way through it, and is reading it avidly at every available opportunity – if nothing else, it is an engaging read… and you might feel better about yourself having read it

Peace out
PatMan