Brian Gongol
Republican River rule compliance gets harder for Nebraska
Someone chipped a piece off of Stonehenge
Apparently, officials used to encourage people to take a piece of rock home with them. That policy has changed, so now it's a crime -- as it probably should be.
Google says it's speeding up Gmail
They claim to have stripped a bunch of unnecessary steps from the loading process. A little efficiency isn't a bad thing, after all.
Photos from a wedding near the center of the Chinese earthquake
Of course, it makes sense that people would've had cameras available and out at a wedding -- but it's still a little bizarre to see dust clouds from fallen structures around women in bridal gowns. Some people have posted videos that they say show colorful clouds appearing shortly before the earthquake. Whether that's truly the origin of those videos, and whether there's any connection to the quake whatsoever remain up to question. More interesting, though, is some surveillance video of the tremors. The ground simply kept shaking and shaking. Related: A BBC editor explains why he sends reporters to countries where they're not welcomed by the authorities.
Tax competition is alive and well: Palatine residents want out of Cook County
Confirming the suspicion that city-county mergers aren't all they're cracked up to be, some residents -- apparently including city officials -- are thinking of seceding from Cook County, which is dominated by Chicago. The reason? They're tired of tax hikes and unresponsive county government. None of this should come as a surprise, since consolidation of political power tends to breed corruption and inefficiency far in excess of the promised economies of scale.
