So, apparently someone has filmed the Loch Ness Monster.
Okee. Interesting?
Monthly Archive for May, 2007
BEVERLY HILLS, CA—An estimated 150 million people continued to be without social lives Tuesday as a massive system failure at MySpace.com entered its third day.
MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
I usually don’t link to such things as Onion articles, but I saw this headline on the dead-tree edition and just had to post it. Just the thought provoked by the headline alone is funny.
That would have been a lot of work; very creative.
BusinessWeek reports that Intel is going to produce the world’s thinnest laptop.
Wow. I can’t decide whether I want one, or whether I’m afraid it will break while I’m typing.
No, not Microsoft’s Live… My Live Search proposes to be real-time “live” (as in right now) web search.
More here
From the article:
MyLiveSearch is fundamentally different. It works through a small browser plug-in. The search terms are put through Google, or other indexed search databases, but those results are treated as “starting points” alongside the user’s bookmarks and other popular web hubs.
From there, the live search takes over, crawling through hundreds of web pages connected to those starting points in search of more information relevant to the search.
Mr Gabriel says the results come back in seconds, and are almost always richer, more detailed and more useful than a standard, index-based search. His product can also search the so-called “invisible web” of dynamically-generated web pages that search engines have trouble indexing.
So, it does rely on, or piggy-back on, some results from traditional index-based search engines… and then goes on from there to search the web “now.”
I’m intrigued. I don’t see this toppling Google, though; from the hints in the article, I would more expect this to be bought by Google, or some other large search engine.
wis.dm is a new, um, site of some kind. Maybe I’m strange, but I found it interesting for all of five minutes.
For this, they were able to raise $5 million in venture capital?
Um…. I can come up with an idea for a lame site where people can waste 5 or 10 minutes before they get bored and never return… $5 million, please?
The Telegraph reports that David Beckham will be playing soccer for a US team, the LA Galaxy, apparently. A few thoughts:
Previous to today, I had no idea there was such a team as the “LA Galaxy.” This is because, as everyone knows, the US is among the only nations in the world not to be whipped into a nationalistic fanatical sports frenzy by the game of soccer (which the rest of the world insists on calling “football.” ;-) ).
Now, just to gauge the state of US interest in the sport, I did note that there was an appreciably higher than normal interest here in the last world cup. I get the idea that this is mainly driven by Americans who are not from America, but all the same, I thought it received more coverage and buzz than I had noticed before.
A friend and I talked once about this a few years back; that is, the relative disinterest in the US and Canada to the sport of Soccer (I’ll keep calling it soccer, sorry international friends; in the US, “football” is irrevocably linked to the sport with the oblong pigskin and, remarkably, almost no kicking but quite a lot of carrying and throwing. And tackling.). His thought was that it had to do with a stretched attention span; a sports fan in the US or Canada was most likely to be interested in (American) football, baseball, or basketball, possibly all of them. If in Canada and certain parts of the US, Hockey would probably be the next major league sport to vie for our attention. My friend’s reasoning was that, beyond that, a sports fan in the US simply didn’t have time to be a soccer fanatic.
On the whole, I think that could be the most likely explanation. However, for good or ill, Americans do seem to really really like being the best at things; it’s always possible that part of the US disinterest in soccer is simply that we don’t dominate in the sport. I hate to admit it, but having a “superstar” on a US team might well be enough to get Americans interested in it.
Mental note for marketing to my fellow citizens; if you can make people win, you may just have them sold.
Heh; someone is suggesting a new programming language based on IM/h4×0r speak… LOLCODE; follows is their idea of possible syntax for “Hello World” (which, in LOLCODE, is apparently HAI WORLD):
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE “HAI WORLD!”
KTHXBYE
Funny. If this ever becomes a real interpreted language, that is proof positive of… something. I’m not sure what. People with too much time on their hands? Trouble is, half the internet as it currently exists (this site possibly included) is proof of people with too much time on their hands…
Sanctuary For All is the home of a new made-for-the-web sci-fi series, Sanctuary. I have only just barely started watching it, but it looks promising. It may be as interesting to see how the distribution model works as to watch the show itself.
Since there is generally a dearth of good sci-fi television out there, hopefully this is a worthwhile series.
Having recently rediscovered some of the music I haven’t listened to in ages, I thought I’d just share a short list of the music that’s been dominating my playlist recently…
- Blind Faith: These guys only made one album, but it was fantastic. It’s also relatively unknown. Although you may not have heard of the band, chances are you’ll immediately recognize the members: Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood & Rick Grech. Yep, all of the above. Clapton and Baker were fresh out of Cream, and I guess Winwood was just taking a hiatus from Traffic do something a little different. This is a great album, and you will not be sorry if you check it out.
- The Who: Okay, everybody knows the Who. They especially know a few extremely popular tunes, but maybe not much else. Do yourself the favor of picking up some actual albums. The Who are completely amazing; I would even say they were ahead of their time. I maintain that the only way one could not like the Who is to simply not like rock and roll.
- Traffic: I mentioned these guys in a recent post, but the recommendation bears repeating. I notice that my personal “top ten” lists of bands/albums is in constant flux, depending how I’m feeling and what I’m listening to, but I still think that John Barleycorn Must Die is one of my favorite records by anyone, ever.
- Rush: Another one that everyone knows… at least, they know a few songs that they heard on the radio. Just put off buying that Coldplay album and pick up an old Rush album instead. My personal favorites include Caress of Steel, A Farewell to Kings, and Hemispheres.
- Black Sabbath: They’re a lot more than just the canonical First Heavy Metal band; when you actually go beyond their eponymous song, beyond Iron Man, beyond the other few songs that they’re mostly remembered for, there’s a surprising depth to their work. I’m referring exclusively to the Ozzy years; in my considerably biased opinion you can overlook everything Black Sabbath did after Ozzy left. If you’re a Dio fan you may disagree, but that’s my view. Sabotage is a good album, a good example of the depth of musical style and lyrics that Sabbath really had.
Yes, I know there is good music from today; but that’s not what this particular post is about.
Also, if you’re a Christian you may object that these bands are all, well… not. You might especially balk at my recommendation of Black Sabbath. It is true that Sabbath has songs that most Christians would probably object to: NIB, War Pigs, Snowblind, among others. They also have a few that would pass in the dark for Christian rock: After Forever, Lord of This World, and probably some others. I don’t want to actually launch into a Black Sabbath apologetic, as I certainly have better things to do; I’ll just suffice to say that they made a lot of great music, and if some of the songs bother you, just don’t listen to those ones.
