Links and Minifeatures 2008 07 28 Monday

Over at my other site, I've published the second in my series on the Neighborhoods of La Mesa. In this case, it covers La Mesa Village, also known as Downtown La Mesa.

Carnival of Personal Finance

Ex-Google engineers introduce a new search engine called 'Cuil'

For starters, Cuil's search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that's at least three times the size of Google's index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index's breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

It's not just how big the results are. Its how they rank them. Google certainly comes up with some counter-intuitive search results, because they consider the link somehow "authoritative". Ask is usually better, although it doesn't have the breadth.

Patterson enjoyed her time at Google, but became disenchanted with the company's approach to search. "Google has looked pretty much the same for 10 years now," she said, "and I can guarantee it will look the same a year from now."

That wouldn't be a problem if they didn't need to improve. But there's always room for improvement. If you won't keep improving, eventually your customers will go someplace that will.

Virgin Galactic shows off mothership aircraft

White Knight Two has a 140-foot wingspan, about the same as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the World War II long-range heavy bomber. White Knight Two is designed to cradle SpaceShipTwo under its wing and release it at 50,000 feet in the air. Once separated, SpaceShipTwo will fire its hybrid rocket and climb some 62 miles above Earth.

One thing engineers know: It's easier to design for doing fewer things very well than a lot of things in a kinda sorta fashion. Separating the functions means that they get to save weight, use wings as far as wings will take them, and that the rocket doesn't need to waste it's power system on the thickest part of the atmosphere.

Some real perspective on the Tennessee church shooting

Your brain on Hope

An actual campaign commercial for Obama that looks a lot more like a parody to me.

Where did SEIU get $150 million for politics?

Now the SEIU suddenly has $150 million, from which they've already committeed at least $85 million specific to Democratic candidates. That money got squeezed out of the locals under duress, in obvious violation of the spirit and letter of federal law. The union knows how to protect itself and its interests, and the lockstep nature of their support for Democrats should awaken voters to the threat their policies comprise. This is nothing more than a closed-feedback loop for Democrats, and Card Check is the prize that will ensure its rapid growth. The Department of Justice needs to put an end to this shakedown racket immediately.

Jimma Hoffa and Richard Daley would be so proud.

One thing I am utterly disgusted about George Bush about:

White House sees record budget gap in 2009

We have a sudden need or desire to spend hundreds of billions of dollars fighting Islamic terrorism. Let's forget for a moment the fact that this need was just as present, and would have been far more effective, for at least ten years before 9/11. Let's just focus on post 9/11.

Anybody with a lick of sense would economize in every other area possible.

Not George W. Bush. Not any of the last four congresses either. Can't jeopardize the pork. Can't jeopardize the political payola. Wouldn't be prudent.

Ladies and gentlemen, the government checkbook comes out of our own pocketbooks. The game has always been to make certain the other guy pays the largest share possible, while you pay the lowest. This creates problems. Regularly, reliably, as certain as gravity.

I think we'd do better than we are now with a return to strictly per capita taxes, as was the case until the amendment permitting income tax in the early 20th century. When everything the federal government spends money on becomes a hit of so many dollars per person, and no dodging, people will get a lot more rational about what the government should and should not be spending money on.

And boy would the government shrink.

One more reason it'll never happen.