I prefer Apple to Google. My preferences side with Apple because their hardware is superb, their OS is a lovely shiny UI and ecosystem atop a solid UNIX foundation, and their interests align with mine: they make hardware, I buy hardware, we both win.

There’s no denying the centrality of Google to digital life, however. If you want to find more information something, see a video of something, or communicate with colleagues, chances are you’ll use a Google service. And for some weird reason to do with our perceived value of non-tangible objects, we refuse to pay for this central fact-of-life, and so Google has found ways to monetize that aren’t directly inline with my interests.

For instance, Andrea Shalal reporting for Reuters via John Gruber:

Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday. Carter unveiled the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, saying it would give the Pentagon access to “the brightest technical minds focused on innovation.”

Makes perfect sense: software is a munition, after all, so why shouldn’t Google be a defense contractor? I hope this relationship truly is about innovation within the military which ultimately brings good to world instead of increased spying on citizens, or worse, more effective destruction.