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April 28, 2005
When Ad placement goes bad...
Spotted this on Fark: a news story about how a guy had his truck reposessed at a gas station without the repo men realizing that his daughter was still in it. The advert that ran in the story struck me as being a little, erm, badly thought out...
Of course, this sort of thing is generated automatically, but it still strikes me as being in bad taste: rather like the advert for a tropical vacation I saw (complete with people longing on the beach) that ran in a TV news cast just after a story about the SE Asian Tsunami with footage from some people who were on vacation at the time...
Posted by baggers at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
Follow up: Berkeley Professor told Porky Pies?
According to this follow up story on the Berkeley Profeesor and the stolen laptop, the laptop hasn't yet been recovered, and the professor may have been a little, erm, economical with the truth in some of the ways he claimed it was being tracked. The Inquirer does their usual hatchet job, though: the headline "Redfaced professor made up scary story" isn't actually backed up by the story, which claims that he "may have exaggerated his story a tad.".
But strangely enough, the story that the Inquirer based it on (which was run by ABC news) seems to have been pulled: it's not even in the Google News cache anymore.
Posted by baggers at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2005
Note To Self: Never Steal A Berkeley Professor's PC
So some bright spark at Berkeley decided to steal a professors notebook PC, supposedly to gain access to a forthcoming exam paper. But what this twit didn't realize is that the professor had all sorts of private data on there, and that he'd report it to the FBI, SECC, etc... And, being a Berkeley preofessor, he was smart enough to understand how to track it using the wireless connection. And I always thought you had to be smart to get into fancy colleges like that...
Posted by baggers at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2005
The Remote Control Rat
According to We Make Money Not Art, researchers have wired a rat for remote control. They trigger centers of the brain with electrical impulses, then train the rat to move accordingly. Press the left curosr key, the rat moves left, etc. They've also mounted a camera on the back of the rat so they can see where it is going.
The intention is to train the rats to sniff out explosives, so a potential explosive device could be tracked down by a pack of explosive-sniffing rats. Just as long as the terrorosts don't use a dummy cheese-scented bomb, we should be fine....
Posted by baggers at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2005
This Blog is More Good than Evil
Personally, I'm surprised: I would have thought that I'd be more skewed towards evil. but I guess I'm really just a goody-goody without realizing it...
Perhaps if I posted more rude words. Like bottom...
Posted by baggers at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2005
Google rentals
This is a beautiful example of how, with a bit of clever programming, the Internet makes it easy to pull data together from different locations to create something new. This site connects Google Maps with the for rent listings of CraigsList, mapping the rental locations onto the map, and even showing the photos in the little pop-up tabs on the map. If I was looking for a place to rent, I'd be all over this...
Posted by baggers at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)
Get Perpendicular
Ladies and Gentlemen, we present perhaps the greatest animation ever created by man... Get Perpendicular.
It's got dancing bits, disco hard drives and the Super-Para Magentic Effect. What more could you ask for?
Posted by baggers at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
I can see my house from here...
Have I told you how much I like Google Maps? It's a beautiful piece of web design: clean, useful and simple. Now they've added satellite imagery to it, so you can zoom in on your own house. If you look really closely at our house, you can just about make out me and Fester going for a walk...
Posted by baggers at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2005
The best Aprils Fool Jokes on the Web
In my opinion, anyway...
Proof of Water on Mars released by NASA
Monkeys prefer Windows XP to Macs
Quench your thirst for knowledge with Google Gulp
Curing Obesity through Sterility: California 's Controversial Program Under the Microscope
Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to be an April fool: The BBC sent an e-mail requesting an interview with reggae star Bob Marley, 24 years after his death.
Posted by baggers at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)