BaggersBlog

video blog test

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 13:46:06 -0800

Trackback test

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 14:59:52 -0800

This is a test of trackbacks to the CCI blog. Hurrah!

When Ad placement goes bad...

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 14:16:02 -0800

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...

Follow up: Berkeley Professor told Porky Pies?

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:03:21 -0800

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.

Note To Self: Never Steal A Berkeley Professor's PC

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 11:03:22 -0800

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...

The Remote Control Rat

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:29:47 -0800

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....

This Blog is More Good than Evil

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 16:26:01 -0800

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...

Google rentals

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 19:11:59 -0800

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...

Get Perpendicular

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 19:04:02 -0800

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?

I can see my house from here...

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 09:50:16 -0800

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...

The best Aprils Fool Jokes on the Web

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 20:36:30 -0800

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.

Genius or Impostor?

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:54:27 -0800

I'm really conficted about if this person is a genius or a total git. I ssupect that both are applicable. I mean, you've got to admire the guts of someone who makes paintings then sneaks them into the most famous art galleries in the world...

A British graffiti artist has managed to evade security and hang his work in four of New York's most prestigious and well-guarded museums... Some of the pieces went undetected for several days - such as a beetle with missiles attached to its body... Banksy raided the Metropolitan Museum, but decided to spare the Guggenheim. "I would have had to appear between two Picassos," he said. "And I'm not good enough to get away with that."

These Tentacles were made for Walkin'

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 09:37:29 -0800

And that's just what they'll do,
'Cause one of these days these tentacles
Are gonna walk all over you...

(with apologies to Nancy Sinatra)

A Solar Eclipse...on Another World

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:52:06 -0800

Chalk another one up for the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity: NASA has just released some very cool videos of their observations of the moons of Mars crossing the sun. So that's a solar eclipse on another world. How cool is that?

[NOTE: I guess that they aren't technically eclipses since the moons of Mars are too small to block out the sun, but I still think it's freakin' cool.]

French drivers should be more like the English?

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:43:37 -0800

I find this a little hard to swallow, having been nearly mown down numerous times in London by taxi drivers, bus drivers and various lunatics riding bikes...

French motorists are being urged to copy British drivers and their "legendary civility" during a national road courtesy day on Thursday.
The government-backed campaign says the "British recipe" explains why it has some of the safest roads in Europe and far fewer road deaths than France.