April 29, 2004

I'll smack you with my pimphandle...

check it out:

http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp

it's worth a moment of your time. And just maybe next month YOU can be the Pimp of the Month...

Posted by closhep at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Feeding Time

Came across a site the other day called The Feed Room - which offers video clips from several news sources.
They offer several different RSS feeds.

There are definitely a lot of clips listed that I had never seen before. Admittedly, I do not watch local news so it's odd that I would watch local news stories from around the country. I'm sure the next step will be customized (perhaps RSS-style) clips per person with some local news thrown in.

Posted by shs4 at 08:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Your Chappelle Show Catch Phrase of the Week

Boom-Pow Surprise! OOOOOhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by shs4 at 07:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 27, 2004

Ding, DENG, the witch is dead!

I promise, I won't shed a tear...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=1790631

Posted by closhep at 08:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My Brillance on display again

One more check mark in the column of why I decided to leave my last school before getting a PhD. There is an article posted currently on slashdot about a program called NETI at Georgia Tech (direct link to wired article).
These sort of tests are not new, the godfather of network testing Vin Cerf for example wrote papers on similar experiments years ago - the exciting idea is to get a large population of users to contribute to the testing.
What angers me is that I had this idea (I'm sure others also have) and the protoype back in 2001. In fact, it's tangentially what I went to graduate school to study. However, my department was horribly unenthused with the idea, even though they are considered a top networking group. Oh well, a lesson for the future.

Posted by shs4 at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 24, 2004

The Importance of Tradition

This story of tradition at Princeton, courtesty of Amy's Robot Link Factory.
The fact that there are 60 minutes in an hour and in 2 and a half cases of beer can't be a coincidence....

Posted by boo at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Tests!

This time the Geek Test.
My score was: 25.64103% - Total Geek

Thought it would be higher, but while there was a couple of sections I almost swept, I was shut out on a couple. Oh well.

Posted by boo at 02:12 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 23, 2004

American Hero

In an attempt to be quasi-breaking news, let me express my deep sympathy for the loss of and respect for Pat Tillman, who lost his life in combat today. I remember well the news of his decision to stop playing in the NFL in order to attempt his life long dream of joining the Army Rangers - a kind of reverse Amazing Grace and Chuck. The thing I remember most about his decision is that while people in the press were somewhat flabbergasted by his choice, there was no dissenting voice. While there was more discussion at the time over whether he would be able to play again after his 3 year stint then the possibility of him losing his life, I am sure the latter weighed most heavily on his mind, yet he voluntarily chose to serve his country anyway.
This strikes close to home for me since I recently made some comments to a loved one about the (very unlikely) possibility of a draft and how if selected I would be honored to serve my country. With 5 men in my immediate family having served or currently serving in the military, I feel especially indebted to the sacrifice this man and his family have made. While there is currently much debate and disagreement over the conflicts of the moment, let us never forget the men and women who have chosen to fight for both their country and ALL the people who compose it.

Posted by boo at 12:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 19, 2004

He Knows

For those who know, he knows.

Posted by shs4 at 11:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Morals, morals

Since we love posting online tests, here is one about morality courtesy of kuroshin. I don't know what it means and I didn't think too deeply when answering it, but my results were:

Moralising Quotient is: 0.37.
Interference Factor is: 0.40.
Universalising Factor is: 0.00.

Posted by shs4 at 11:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 17, 2004

Wi-Fry

Learned from p2pnet.net the other day that McDonald's plans to bring Wi-Fi access to some Raleigh area restaurants. If any one knows which ones, feel free to post here. I'm a little discouraged by their pricing plan, $2.95 for two hours, since I originally heard every value-meal purchase would be worth some Wi-Fi time. Yeah, it's cheaper than others, but then again there are a few coffee houses in the area that offer this for free. When Panera Bread finally offers this locally, you'll know where I'll be.

Posted by boo at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique

4.5 (5.0 for both Volumes) on Movie Lens Scale.

Just got back from the sequel to the Murder of William. Terrific. Just terrific. The 'cheesy', retro gore of the first is not as prominent, but the dialogue and action are still amazing. Main reason that I don't rate it a 5 is that it "requires" the first for completeness, though it is enjoyable on its own. The time just flew by in the theater.

The trailer for Hero also showed some promise for Crouching Tiger fans.

Posted by shs4 at 01:55 AM | Comments (446) | TrackBack

April 10, 2004

Durham - Last in Flight Taxes

Let me get this straight - RDU Airport is at least 50 years old depending on how you want to define their opening, and it has only dawned on Durham City and County now that they may be entitled to some of the sales and property taxes for something they partly own and generate income for? Good job, City of Medicine!

Posted by boo at 01:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 09, 2004

Google Ad's - No Sense

This afternoon KissaBoo applied to join Google's Ad Sense program. Knowing our current hit rate, the goal was not as much to raise funds but out of curiosity of what ad's Google would associate with KissaBoo. Well, a few minute's ago (much faster than the suggested 2 days) Google declined the application citing the generic reason of "Inappropriate Language".
While Google is free to do whatever it wants, I for one find this reason insane.

Under further details: "We don't allow
websites with excessive profanity or potentially offensive content to
participate in Google AdSense."

In 150 articles plus comments, I can only find two instances of profanity, so the problem must be "potentially offensive content".

So what content does Google find "potentially offensive"? From their policy page:

Site may not include:

  • Excessive profanity

  • Hate, violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against
    any individual, group, or organization

  • Hacking/cracking content

  • Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia

  • Pornography, adult, or mature content

  • Gambling or casino-related content

  • Excessive advertising

  • Pop-ups, pop-unders or exit windows that interfere with site navigation, obscure AdWords ads, change user preferences, or are for downloads. Other types of pop-ups, pop-unders, or exit windows may be allowed, provided that they do not exceed a combined total of 5 per user session

  • Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank

Reasons 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 any reasonable person can agree just do not apply to KissaBoo.
Now as for reason 2, while the members of KissaBoo do not advocate violence or intolerance, there are probably articles that could be considered "against" an individual or organization. KissaBoo is about opinions and sometimes those can be against things / individuals. At first glance I couldn't find any great example of an opinionated site using Google's ads, but doesn't this ongoing article on Microsoft come close? At the minimum, I do not believe KissaBoo contains any serious attacks against a person, group, or individual. Tell me if I'm wrong.
As for reason 5, this site is written by adults for adult discussion about adult things. Now of course this isn't the adult they are referencing. Of the top of my head, there are probably 3 or 4 entries that link to "adult" sites or information for the purpose of discussion, but can anyone really claim that KissaBoo is pornographic or "adult"?
Google really dropped the ball on this one, but I'm not going to do anything further than mention this episode here. Since it is in google's interest to get as many ad's out there as possible, really they are just spiting themselves and their Ad-word clients.

Posted by boo at 11:30 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Girl Next Door

1.5 on the MovieLens scale

Time for me to give a fast review for a movie I saw a few weeks ago to prevent the public from seeing it under false pretenses. The plot of this movie screams classic Teen Sex Comedy, yet it manages to be neither funny nor sexy. Admittedly I've only seen the first hour of the movie, but its general tone doesn't promise a major switch after that point. Fox did so many free screenings of this movie that it raises a flag. Heck, my parents went to a free screening of it after being sent tickets.

I just never cared for the protagonist of this film. I've seen the actor, Emile Hirsch, before playing a scientist's son in the throw away Sci-Fi film Gargantua, where he might have shown more honest emotion over a baby monster than for Elisha Cuthbert. The humor in this film, as dictated, is provided by his uncomfortableness when confronted with the sexuality of Elisha Cuthbert's character. Somehow his sweaty teenage angst when she disrobes to her underwear for a swim or his attempt to bed her after discovering her past just made me feel uncomfortable for him rather than laugh at the scenarios. While there are moments of humor (pretty much all shown/hinted at in the trailer), this movie has the feel of a drama about him "saving" her from her past, which is ridiculous. If the acting was more over the top it would have some camp value, but it even misses on that account.

Elisha Cuthbert is, of course, attractive through out, but once again the trailer or the clips on ifilm.com show her best work.

If you plan to see this film, just remember that you won't be rolling in the aisles, but occasionally ogling Elisha for an hour and a half.

Posted by shs4 at 09:09 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 06, 2004

Telephone Rings - Kottonmouth Kings

Another Weird Ohio story (one of these days this website should make better use of categories), but in this case an Ohioan gets the upper hand - of course, over another Ohioan. A girl called her stolen cellphone and managed to hoodwink the thief into disclosing her address, which she gave to the cops who in turn busted up a car theft ring.

Posted by boo at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft and round like imPEACHment

that's a figure of SPEECHment....

Well, America has been a democracy for over 200 years and it has never CONVICTED a president through impeachment(Nixon resigned), while Lithuania has removed their president due to impeachment after a little less than 13 years of independence - becoming the first European country ever to do
so. Perhaps some countries just can't handle democracy....

UPDATED 4-9-04
A story about the people really running Lithuania

Posted by shs4 at 02:15 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 04, 2004

Mascots of Mine

A school in the area where I grew up is dropping their nickname (Indians) after 53 years. While I don't agree with the decision, the article did mention that two local elementary schools have also changed their mascots for the same reason. This got me to thinking that it is odd that elementary schools have mascots (I guess it raises morale) and reminiscing about my past mascots. I have been a:

Fox
Eagle
Falcon
* Engineer
Sabre
* Terrier
* 49er
Blue Devil
* Husky
Tarheel

* are summer / part time schools I'm including to pad my stats

I wonder what this says about a person and what some other people's mascots have been (though there will be a lot of similarities among readers of this site).

Posted by shs4 at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack