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Comment Dye Supply (Score 4, Interesting) 88

About sixteen years ago, I toured the factory of a dairy coöperative in Vermont; they are fairly well-known in New England, and distribute there, but also have had some success further down the east coast of the US. They were talking about their flagship cheddar cheese, and how especially in the midwest, people came to expect cheese to be yellow in color. In New England, they do not add dyes, but when they ship their products elsewhere, they would use carrot juice to give it the more yellow/orange color.

I had wondered how that would affect the taste, but I also thought that it was nice that they did not use artificial dyes. I had not considered the supply chain issue, though; this was a smaller group of independent dairy farmers who came together to make products in order to share costs and to reach a wider market, but being smaller, they probably have an easier time getting things like the yellow-orange dye from carrots. But it also raises the interesting marketing question... there is no reason that cheese needs to be dyed in the first place. People in certain areas became used to it, and then expected it, because of lower-quality cheeses that had been produced there for ages. But to add dyes purposefully to make a food product appealing that otherwise would not be is another level - one wonders with the potential supply-chain issues how long some of those items will last and be popular.

Comment Re:Same with google cycling directions. (Score 1) 101

As I was reading your post, I was thinking of a rotary near me that is very similar, and that has been treacherous even in a car since they changed the lane configuration a few years ago... and then I clicked your link and saw that it was the same one I had in my mind! Especially alarming since the REI right off of it is where I get most of my gear. Glad to know that Google would route over it... I have not biked there yet, but would probably go up Walnut Street; the problem is that then you have to go pretty far north and then drop back south to get there without biking across the rotary (I live south of 95/128).

Comment Re:Scroll lock! (Score 1) 939

Another nice thing about the FreeBSD console is that you can set your caps lock key to be control, which is useful if the caps lock key on your keyboard (like my laptop at work) is next to the A key, where the control key belongs. I have not figured out how to do this on Linux (except in X).

Google

Submission + - Firefox Creator No Longer Trusts Google

watashi writes: Blake Ross the man whose scratched itch became the Firefox browser explains on his blog why he has a problem with Google's policy of promoting their own products over competitors' in search results. His main gripe is that the tips (e.g. "Want to share pictures? Try Google Picasa") result in an inability for other products (perhaps even Parakey?) to compete for the top slot on Google.

The tips are different — and bad for users — because the services they recommend are not the best in their class. If Google wants to make it faster and easier for users to manage events, create a blog or share photos, it could do what it does when you search GOOG: link to the best services. To prevent Google from being the gatekeeper, the company could identify the services algorithmically. But if that sounds familiar, perhaps that's because Google already works that way. After all, Google is predicated on the idea that the democratic structure of the Web will push the cream to the top. Search for "photo sharing" and you should already get the highest quality services. According to Google, Picasa is not one of them.

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