libertus

O sweet perfume!

How my heart trembles to your touch.

My lover blooms,

and as a butterfly

I must find her scent,

return its strange caress.

I invite discussion on the future of Microsoft Internet Explorer. If things keep going the way they are, not only will I not care about IE, the figures will give me a reason not to.

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What the f**k is the Department of Trade and Industry doing with £35,018,993,000 in “non-operating appropriations in aid”? That’s as much as the entire NHS costs to run.

Please read the Appropriation (No. 3) Act 2005. Find out how much your government spends, on what and why.

Why? For access to your search history from anywhere on the internet.

Just be careful with the weather. Given the limited range of regions and cities available, Google are likely using it to target advertising. If I can’t have the weather for Kota Kinabalu, the service is of no use to me.

If I could offer my blackbird to trade its sweet voice for a weapon to thwart the hungry cat, how would it choose?

Warning!

This is a topic of inherent value / fundamental importance. Know your limits.

What does one advertise to people who want to read about “Violent Pornography on the Internet”?

According to Google, maternity clothes and pregnancy advice.

Is that tasteful or what? Machine intelligence at its best.

No better or worse than a MP who speaks in Parliament the names of websites publishing pornographic images, forever making the Parliamentary record an unsafe place for inquisitive children.

No better or worse than my bringing attention to it. My God, where will it end?

And left woefully ignorant of how.

Well, no, actually, the BBC didn’t say that. I just made that up. They couldn’t, but this programme sequence I’m watching might as well have that in BBC News headline format along the bottom. The do say you have to learn how to shop. What a work of genius.

“Learning Zone”, BBC2, 2am-4am. No-one is watching.

Almost perfect. Almost. Unfortunately, I was watching. Oops!

This is the message from the BBC. Tell everyone you know. “Treat yourself. Stop spending.” Shop with your mind, not with your heart. Do not enslave yourself to debt. Shops and banks are not trying to help you achieve your dreams. They are deliberately manipulating you to consume more than you need. You can have everything you want for cheaper if you put a little more effort into it and you can have more fun doing it.

Nowadays, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home! Why shop at the mall if you can shop while having sex? What could be more perverse?
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More fun conversing with Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” searches. Or is it? Liberta, I respectfluffly challenge you to determine whether a computer or a human supplied these links in answer to these questions. Is this just technology or is it behaviour? It made me laugh.

“how the speed of light is measured” yields Measure The Speed of Light With Chocolate and A Microwave

“no really I want to know how the speed of light is measured” yields The Speed of Light which has the audacity to say that light always travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second, no matter how its speed is measured.

What, even if I measure it with chocolate and a microwave?
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Recalling a newspaper article I read while travelling.
Recalling certain laws of physics I learned while becoming a divemaster. Understanding that gas pressure gradients seek equilibrium over inverse proportional time.
Accepting that carbon dioxide exists at a certain partial pressure in the atmosphere.
Accepting that carbon dioxide exists at a certain partial pressure in the oceans.
Assuming that partial pressure of carbon dioxide in atmosphere and oceans is not equal.
Asserting that gradient exists between partial pressures of carbon dioxide in atmosphere and oceans.
Deducing that atmosphere and oceans exchange carbon dioxide according to laws of physics.
Concluding that system adapts according to design.
Verification complete.
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Sherlock Holmes asking Dr. Watson to have a glass bottle checked for fingerprints. ROFL!

Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” searches:

“history of sherlock holmes” yields Sherlock Holmes
“history of fingerprints” yields The History of Fingerprints
“fingerprints are not unique” yeilds The Myth of Fingerprints

Hmmmm…