Govt and unions opposed to innovation? Who knew

Download an app to your smart phone.  Need a ride to or from the airport?  Type the details into the app and someone responds.  You share gas costs.  Seems like the ultimate in efficiency and conservation, right?

Well, unless you are a unionized taxi driver or the City of San Francisco, in which case they will protest and cite (respectively), claiming that you are running an illegal taxi business.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/07/29/sfo-citizen-arrests-internet-rideshare/

Interesting.  I thought the whole point behind carpool lanes was finding some complete stranger going the same direction as you so that you could reduce the number of cars on the road.

From Instapundit

Next Blog?

So up at the top of my blog page (as I see it) is a link called "Next Blog". No idea what it does.

Maybe it is some sort of Minority Report thing where blogspot tells me what I am going to do in the future. That would be cool. I wouldn't have to spend as much time thinking up cool ideas and could go to the range (or grade all those tests that are sitting on my desk).

Or maybe it is a random generator that takes me to another blog. In that case, why not call it "Random Blog" or "I feel lucky" (Oh, wait, google already got that one) (Oh, double wait, blogspot is a google company). Anyway.

Maybe blogspot parses my posts and blogs I've subscribed to and has put together a list of things I might be interested in.

Maybe Next Blog actually means that there is a giant list of blogs stored in the computer somewhere and I will go to the Next One on the list if I click the button. Well, if that's true, what a stupid button. It would take me to the same place every time unless the list changes.

Well, only one way to find out.

Trauko Metal Attack. Guess what, not as interesting as it sounds. It isn't Trauko's blog devoted to ways to survive during the next global holocaust with a stockpile of awesome yet legally available weapons (which of course would only be a knife with a blade under three inches in most countries in the world), it isn't a collection of pictures of main battle tanks, nope, nothing like that.

Nope. Instead it's some cheesy metal band and not only that, it's all in Spanish. Which I don't read. Huh? WTF? Is is alphabetical? T doesn't come after V so that theory is out. Random? Why not call it random? What makes Traukometalattack the next blog? Is there a way to pony up a little cash to ensure that you are the next blog? Or is it luck of the draw?

I guess next time I am really bored I'll click it again and see if Trauko is still next on the list.

PS: Trauko, dude, link to some of your music or something. And put something in English. Most of the world speaks at least a smattering of English, including Chileans (at least they seemed to when I visited). Maybe if I knew just enough to click on some of the links I'd discover that Chilean Cheese Metal is my next passion.

PPS: I must really not want to grade that giant stack of tests. Here is a sample from the website. "Acá les dejo el disco de la mejor banda de Chiloé" I don't know. Something about disco. "mejor banda"? Major band? Really? Then people get mad when we just add an "a" to the end of an English word and speak with an accent to pretend we know Spanish? (OK to be fair, usually people are making fun when they do that so I'll concede that point). From what I can tell, Trauko Metal Attack (stupid band name, btw) is the biggest disco band in Chile. Although their picture looks like cheese metal and there are all sorts of skull type drawings. Oh well. I've probably wasted enough of your my time here. If your time was wasted it's because you kept reading, even after you figured out that this post was meaningless.

Godwin's Law

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Demonstrably true through scientific means.