Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
For those who went or read about the Google Dance 2004 you would have noticed they ran out of beer early within the party. What is really funny is that Yahoo! did something to mock that at their search engine.
Search Yahoo on the keyword phrase ses party rule #1 and you will find some entertaining results (screenshotted at the above site, if it ever gets fixed). Link via Waxy.
So it’ll look like Pepsi, but taste like crap. Yummy. They’re also introducing a “Pepsi Holiday Spice”: “Pepsi-Cola with a spicy finish of ginger and cinnamon.” I can picture this being more popular with the cocktail drinkers out there than the actual normal consumer. That just doesn’t sound good to me.
In an effort to curb prostitution in Omaha, the names of 16 men convicted of soliciting prostitution have gone up in big, bold letters on billboards in central Omaha. Full Story.
Thanks to some comment spamming that I didn’t catch (but will soon fix), I’m getting search engine traffic for porn searches (update: and another one). Lovely.
Something for the bookmarks, quoting Al’s Morning Meeting:
Eliyon Networking uses corporate, personal, and government websites to track where people work and where they used to work. The site says it has information on more than 21 million “former co-workers.”
Just enter a company name and let the fun begin. Think how useful this would be if you were investigating a company and wanted to find former employees, just for example.
The website says that every day, it scans millions of corporate websites, SEC filings, and other online sources for information about people and the companies for which they work. It is completely computer generated. No humans search for information.
The site is free, but for a fee you can expand your search for people who have a specific degree from a specific university, for example, or you can search for a person by name. You can also find “current” employees in companies using the premium edition.
This is really handy site, and I’ve looked up a few old friends of mine to figure out where they were working now.
I don’t get cable, but I could still watch a great deal of the upcoming Olympics online if it weren’t for NBC’s stupid (and expensive) licensing agreement. Full Story, debate on /., and an argument for pirating the games.
Last month, Deschutes County required the SROA to change the name of Squaw Mountain Lane here in Sunriver to Diamond Peak Lane because the word Squaw is considered offensive. Because of this, we have to change a pile of internal paperwork and have to change our Web site because we rent two homes on that street (and I’m sure we’re not the only ones out here in this boat).
Really, the word isn’t as offensive as people would like to think (though it can be used offensively, but so could a lot of words), but thanks to a very vocal minority, it’s been deemed offensive. I’ve yet to see Squaw Valley, Big Squaw Mountain, or Squaw Creek change their names. Heck, the Squaw Creek up by Sisters, Oregon, is in the County’s jurisdiction, is it not (Update on 8/9: It maybe National Forest territory, I’m still looking into it)? Are they going to change the name of that Road, Creek, Cemetary, and other things, too? That area is full of history. I’m sure the County is full of stuff like this.
But really, it’s just going to be a mess if we keep this up. Just looking at the names of some of the lanes here in Sunriver, are they going to rename “Indian” lane? Are they going to rename “Foursome” lane because it could have sexual connotations? Are they going to rename “Killdeer” because it promotes violence to animals? “Salishan” was named after Native American tribes, too. I’m sure “Stag” could be taken a bunch of ways. What if I’m a Mets fan, can I be offended by “Yankee Mt.”? I know we’re stretching it a bit here, but you see my point: Anything can be offensive if viewed in the right light.
And now it’s only going to get worse. On Monday’s Deschutes County work session agenda is the proposal to change Hooter Road to Snowberry Lane. Last I checked, the “Hooter” referred to the owl, not the woman’s breasts. Heck, even at the Hooter’s Restaurant, their mascot is an owl, not a big boob (granted, it’s their girls that sell the food, not the owl, but that’s another story entirely, and here’s the company’s word on that debate). I’m all for removing horribly racist, sexist and bigotist names, but it’s all gone overboard. Unfortunately all it takes is one very vocal person to make a difference — and anger everybody else in the process.
I’m aware of the negative connotation of the “S” word, and believe it should be changed, too, but I think the mass name changing around the area (and nation) has brought more attention to the word that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Most folks I’ve talked to thought it meant just a native American woman, not a reference to her genitals. The name changes have probably brought more publicity (and possibly more use by ill-mannered folks) of the word, now that they know what it means.
Thanks Barney for the tip.
Update on 8/9: Looks like they changed Hooter, but for a decent reason.
Just type in what you’re drinking, and it’ll tell you the type of person you are. It’s surprisingly accurate (after surveying some friends of mine).
And CNN needs to hire one of them so that when they do a story about Open-Source software taking over the world, they don’t use a screen-shot of VisiCalc in their graphics. Link via NTK.