To Friday’s District 27A political debate.

It makes sense in late July or early August to have debates for candidates who are vying for votes in the Aug. 18 primary election, but it makes no sense to have a debate this time of year between candidates for whom voters won’t cast ballots until Nov. 4…or so we thought.

We were a little skeptical on how the District 27A debate would go on Friday. People don’t want to be cooped up on a hot summer’s day indoors, but the debate was well attended with about 80 people in the Marion Ross Performing Arts Center.

We applaud the people of Albert Lea for their dedication to learning about their politicians and to make educated decisions on which candidate they want vote for, even if that means sitting inside a theater on a nice, hot summer’s day.

To Google Maps.

Yes, this website and cellphone application has a lot going for it. It is handy and without a doubt modern. But for all of its existence, Google Maps hasn’t seemed to care much about rural addresses. The worst mistake an urban person can make when attempting to locate a Freeborn County farm is to plug the address into Google Maps. It will send people far away from an address. This happens despite the county having a clear and easy-to-understand addressing system.

For instance, type in Myre-Big Island State Park, and it provides the correct location. However, type in 19499 780th Ave. (the park’s official address), and Google Maps sends the user to the REG biodiesel plant a mile west of Glenville. The address there is actually 15200 780th Ave.

And despite the Tribune informing Google last year of the misspelling of Commercial Street in Hayward, Google Maps continues to label it as Commerical Street. The feedback aspect of Google Maps doesn’t seem to function for rural places. An error in downtown Minneapolis gets fixed with alacrity.

The best online bet for finding a place is to use the property database of Freeborn County Assessor’s Office. The next best thing is to have a good understanding of the county’s Emergency 911 addressing system, which enables anyone to nail down an address to at least a one-mile stretch of road, then look for the blue signs along driveways.

To the University of Minnesota.

It makes Minnesotans proud to hear our state’s largest university is a leader in research. On Friday, the university provided a prime example.

It celebrated the completion of a experimental particle detector in northeastern Minnesota. Near Orr in northern St. Louis County, the 14,000-ton device is called the NOvA Far Detector. Yes, the “v” is lowercase. It is designed to detect subatomic particles called neutrinos, shot to the detector from a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in Chicago. The goal is to learn more about how neutrinos behave, which gives scientists a better understand of the universe during its early formation.

A press release states: “NOvA is a $278 million initiative involving 39 universities and laboratories in seven countries, with primary support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. The University of Minnesota operates the detector under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The NOvA lab is expected to complete all requirements for full operation later this year.”