The decline of the Internet

I've just been searching the internet for information regarding the source of bubbles coming into my pool from the filter return lines.  Not that it's a big deal, at least I don't think so but I wanted to see.  BTW, the pool is now up to 80F and just wonderful, shorty (grandson) won't let me go a day without a swim and I feel like the summer fitness program is well under way.  Great way to get a good night's sleep after a swim.

But anyway, back to the bubbles an internet search yields what seems like a lot of useful results.  But on closer inspection, they are a lot of duplicates and the sites are simply aggregators.  I mean like: Ask.com, Instructables, Wiki answers, Wikihow, Ehow, Homegardenguides.com, and Yelp.  Ehow is my least favorite, the article is a bunch of generalities (did you know that air in the pipes can cause bubbles?) surrounded by ads and links to other marginally useful articles.  Although the link to a pool demolition company may be the ultimate solution.  (I did not appreciate the redirect through an ad site to get there.)

I thought our friends at google had made changes to lower the page rank or aggregators, at least there was some fuss about it a year or so ago.  But they seem to be going strong.  How about a search that then removes duplicate articles?  I'll take $10 Billion please.

Olympic Indians

What happened to white suburbia in the East Bay?  Used to be when I took my kids to swimming lessons they were all white except for the occasional Asian.  Now I'm taking my Grand-kid and it's now majority Indian.  Huh?

I do think it's important for people to learn to swim, especially in a neighborhood full of pools.  Is there an Indian history of Olympic swimmers?  No.  My kids were dreaming about Mark Spitz and maybe Summer Sanders or just playing in the water.  Has there been a Rajit Gupta Olympic swimmer?  No.  In the last summer Olympics the only medal won by an Indian was in shooting.

So 15 years from now, will we see a bunch of Indian swimmers from California?  My friend from the subcontinent says no,  their moms will make them all go to medical school.  (or Engineering or etc...)  They're looking for safe careers defined by education, not for any go for glory sort of sport thing.  Except maybe Cricket, but then we don't have that here.  So break out the Biology book and get to work.  In the meantime, I'm glad you can enjoy the water.

Greece to Hell

Austerity will send Greece to hell, warns Alexis Tsipras

For those of you paying attention to the Euro disaster, you might have noticed that bankers keep good books.   That headline was from a recent Guardian article.  It seems to be a surprise to some Europeans that money borrowed needs to be paid back.

In fact banks go to great lengths to keep track of how much has been borrowed and not paid back.  That's what they do!  So the Greeks who managed to borrow billions and now can't pay it back are surprised?  I guess they figure it was the banks fault for letting them have the money.

At some point it gets beyond numbers to the issue of people's survival.  Yes, banks can show billions owed, but can they starve the people to get it payed back?  No.  The banks need to forgive and forget and keep making their billions and we all at the 99% can then change the rules.

Swimming in suburbia

I've been taking my grandson for lessons at the local swim center.  It's been really a deja vue experience.  His mom took lessons there, swam on the Aquabears team and was also a lifeguard.  So I was wondering if I would see some of the same coaches and I did.

Mike was the head coach at the level my daughter had been in and we met each other under the veranda.  We both stopped and stared for a second and then recognized.  What a hoot!  He remembered my daughter and a few minutes later I brought over the little guy to get introduced.  This is all about 25 years after his mom's original lessons.  Later on the way out, I recognized Rick the head coach who has been there at least 40 years and we shook hands and smiled.  I wished him luck with getting an expanded facility since his is just jammed with activities.  There's the lessons, the Aquabears (multiple age groups), the Seniors, and the world famous Aquanuts synchronized swimming team, and by the way a local high school team has been working out there while their pool gets redone.

Besides the swimming I know that one of the greatest things my daughter learned there was getting up and being on time to open the pool at 05:30am for the lap swimmers who would be already waiting outside the door.  Can't teach that in school.  And it's served her well every since.