`One of the most common questions we hear from librarians is “How does Google decide what result goes at the top of the list?” Here, from quality engineer Matt Cutts, is a quick primer on how we crawl and index the web and then rank search results. Matt also suggests exercises school librarians can do to help students.’
When I can be fucked, I’m gonna read this thoroughly and see if I can’t improve my rank for “biphallic” or “dildo” searched a bit more. :)
`PHP is a terrific language for the rapid development of dynamic Websites. It also has many features that are friendly to beginning programmers, such as the fact that it doesn’t require variable declarations. However, many of these features can lead a programmer inadvertently to allow security holes to creep into a Web application. The popular security mailing lists teem with notes of flaws identified in PHP applications, but PHP can be as secure as any other language once you understand the basic types of flaws PHP applications tend to exhibit.’
There’s probably a bunch of these in my PHP code. [sigh] I’ll find them and fix them one day, but until that day, please be nice. :)
`Outrage and protests mounted in India Wednesday after TV channels showed police officers repeatedly slapping, punching and pulling the hair of young women on a date in a public park in a north Indian city.
Indian media reported one couple was so humiliated by the police action in front of TV crews they have not returned home. [..]
Since Tuesday, shocked TV viewers in India have been watching images of female officers pummelling and abusing crying young women in Meerut in what the media is calling “moral policing.”
TV footage also showed male policemen with sticks surrounding the scared women and taking them to women officers who beat them. Several of their male companions were beaten also.
The police operation, termed “operation Romeo,” in a popular park in Meerut Monday was touted by police as a move to prevent sexual harassment of women.’
`Pope Benedict XVI resembled a clean-shaven Father Christmas when he donned a red velvet hat with white ermine trim to face a winter chill for his weekly general audience. As temperatures hovered around nine degrees celsius (48 degrees fahrenheit) thousands of pilgrims who gathered in the square were treated to the rare sight as the 78-year-old pope arrived for the audience in his popemobile, waving to the crowd.’
He looked like a very, very evil clean-shaven Father Christmas.
I love these Grow games. So cool. This is a minature version of the others, especially for Christmas.
`Police know him as Andrew Sanders, supposed white supremacist. His neighbours know him as a quiet 25-year-old who cannot leave home without his mum. And computer nerds know him as Valiant, international cyber hacker.
Years before the Cronulla riots prompted police to allege a link with white supremacists and raid his home, Sanders was the head of a hacking organisation called Halcon, which claimed to be the nation’s most popular. [..]
Police arrested him and four others in Ramsgate on Sunday, accusing him of being linked to white supremacist groups. Officers raided his house on Monday and said they found a haul of weapons and suspicious items.
He is charged with possessing an unlicensed firearm, a prohibited weapon and an item used for disguising a face.’
This guy used to use a BBS I also used, many years ago. He was an idiot. Still is, by the sounds of things.
Seems pretty crazy to me.
(1.5meg Windows Media)
`Officials are investigating the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico. The material was stolen from a bunker owned by a bomb expert who works at a national research lab outside Albuquerque, N.M.
ABC News has been told it’s one of the most significant thefts of high-power explosives ever in the United States. [..]
The missing 400 pounds of explosives includes 150 pounds of what is known as C-4 plastic, or “sheet explosive,” which can be shaped and molded and is often used by terrorists and military operatives.’
Amusing story about the differences between Christmas in America and Europe.
(14.8meg mp3)
see it here »
`A squabble in an online chat room has landed in an Ohio court.
A man in Medina County said he was humiliated online by two other chat participants and has sued them and America Online for refusing to do anything about it. [..]
George Gillespie said the two men made his life so miserable that they’ve inflicted emotional distress.’
Just another one of these images that makes your brain go “WTF?”.
Not safe for work, unless your boss is on Christmas holidays already.
see it here »
`Investigators described a marijuana-growing operation discovered inside a cave in Trousdale County as something out of a James Bond movie.
“It’s pretty amazing what they had under there – water for irrigation, special lighting, devices to keep the humidity just right. These guys were professionals. They knew what they were doing,” said District Attorney General Tommy Thompson of Hartsville.
The cave was beneath a stylish A-frame home where authorities say three men were able to grow as much as 100 pounds of marijuana every eight weeks. [..]
To harvest the illegal crop, Thompson said the men would hire a half-dozen Hispanic workers in Arizona and drive them to Tennessee. For part of the journey the windows on the van would be covered so the workers did not know where they were.
“They would drive right into the cave and let them out to begin working,” Thompson said.’
`A child porn offender in Germany turned himself in to the police after mistaking an email he received from a computer worm for an official warning that he was under investigation, authorities said Tuesday. “It just goes to show that computer worms aren’t always destructive,” said a spokesman for police in the western city of Paderborn. “Here it helped us to uncover a crime which would otherwise probably have gone undetected.”
The 20-year-old was caught out by a version of the “Sober” worm, a prolific Internet virus which can invade computers and then send out messages from a host of fabricated addresses.’
`The grandparents of a 12-year-old boy waiting for a lung transplant are charged with emptying the charity account set up to pay for his medical expenses.
Charles Norman Vaughn Sr., 61, and Phyllis Vaughn, 55, were each charged Tuesday with felony theft of more than $10,000 after the boy’s mother said an account for collecting community donations was found empty. [..]
Terry said she hopes people who previously donated won’t be discouraged by the charges from giving to similar causes in the future.
“I know it’s too late for us now; our ship has sailed,” Terry said. “But please, please, people, there will always be other families and other children who need a transplant or who have cancer or leukemia.”‘
`The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.
Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia’s top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.
According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.”‘
`A 23-year-old man suffered fatal injuries when he fell from his Mt. Prospect balcony during a spitting contest with his friends, police in northwest suburb said Tuesday. [..]
Drobek, his brother and a friend, were competing in a spitting-distance contest, according to Ollech.
He said at one point, Drobek crouched down and sprung up to spit off the balcony and went over the railing. [..]
Drobek had been consuming alcohol prior to the fall, Ollech said. No citations were given out to anyone involved, he said.’
For those who don’t know, BackOrifice is a backdoor program that lets people take control of a computer. Fun stuff.
Anyways, have a look at the first picture, then the second. Funny. :)
Not safe for work, but everyone should be on holidays by now so it won’t be a problem. :)
(1.1meg Quicktime)
`A man died this weekend after he accidentally shot himself at a gun range near Ocala, Fla., according to a Local 6 News report.
Authorities said the 39-year-old man was practicing a sport called cowboy action shooting when he shot himself.’
Sounds like a great game.
` A 34-year-old man celebrating his birthday was killed Sunday when he was ejected from the party bus he was riding in and run over by another vehicle, police said.
The 1999 Ford bus was carrying 17 passengers on the Long Beach Freeway about 3:30 a.m. when the right-side door suddenly flew open in the East Los Angeles area, the California Highway Patrol reported. Three passengers were dancing on the bus when the door opened and two of them tumbled out, according to a statement from the Patrol.’
`Animal control officers came to get the owl, and when they did, they made a shocking discovery!
“I kept smelling him and smelling him, saying ‘What is that odor’. It was lying there as happy as can be,”says one animal control officer who was at the scene.
“Curiously enough, the owl’s feathers smelled very, very potently like marijuana,” says Animal Control Officer Dering. They examined the owl, looked at its eyes, big owl eyes, and the owl was, in the vernacular, stoned.”‘
This guys is cool. Says some good things:
`If it’s true that it causes people to feel despair, that’s tough. It’s still the truth. The universe doesn’t owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn’t owe us a nice warm feeling inside. If it’s true, it’s true, and you’d better live with it.
[..] Wouldn’t it be lovely to believe in an imaginary friend who listens to your thoughts, listens to your prayers, comforts you, consoles you, gives you life after death, can give you advice? Of course it’s satisfying, if you can believe it. But who wants to believe a lie?’
`When human body cells are removed and put into a cell culture, they weaken and die quickly, usually within about 50 divisions. Without the rest of the support structure—a heart, blood circulating, a digestive system and so-on—body cells can’t survive. Body cells also age, so even if you were to simulate the body’s environment in a test tube or petri dish, the cells would eventually perish anyway. The basic mortality of the cells reflect the basic mortality of the organism they comprise, which is why there’s no fountain of youth or medicinal procedure that’ll give you biological immortality.
There is, however, one human being who is biologically immortal on a technicality, and her name is Henrietta Lacks. In 1951 she showed up at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, complaining of blood spotting in her underwear. Samples were taken of her cervical tissue and sent to a lab for analysis, which came back with a diagnosis of cervical cancer.’
`West First Avenue in West Deptford had been a relatively quiet dead-end street until about two years ago.
Then one day a flatbed truck with a steel shipping container rolled up the block, stopped at a blue rancher, and deposited the box in the backyard.
Neighbors thought Jerome L. Wigmore Jr., a drywall contractor who lived there with his wife, Betty, and mother-in-law, Alice Boozer, was using the container to store his work equipment.
“I thought, ‘Hey, that’s a pretty good idea for a tool shed,’ ” Kenneth Koen said last week. “I didn’t know it was going to end up being a chamber of horrors.”
According to police, Wigmore held at least two women captive in the padlocked container, which he had turned into living quarters complete with air-conditioning units.’
`The new Superman is giving movie bosses a headache – because of the size of his bulge.
They fear Brandon Routh’s profile in the superhero’s skintight costume could be distracting, reports the Sun.
Hollywood executives have ordered the makers of Superman Returns to cover it up with digital effects.
The Sun’s source said: “It’s a major issue for the studio. Brandon is extremely well endowed and they don’t want it up on the big screen.’
`Until the recent development of digital cameras, most photography involved the use of films coated with various light sensitive compounds of silver. The sensitivity of certain silver salts to light was known from about 1727, when Johann Heinrich Schulze published his findings in the Nuremburg Academy of Natural Philosophers. But many natural things are sensitive to light. Long ago people noticed the effect of light on green plants, or how it made coloured fabrics fade. It is the effect of light on plants that makes Roman Photography possible.’
`The problem I have with this “Web 2.0” slogan is that it is a contrivance, meant to imply a unified movement or wave toward a better Web. Just the very numbering of the thing brings out my moo-goo detector: 1.0 sounds like a beginning. 2.0 (as opposed to a tenth-decimal, such as 1.7 or a 2.4 implies – by its very roundness, a coordinated, standards-based, like-minded rebirth, reconstruction, renaissance, resurrection, whatever you want to call it. 2.0 is the ideal number for such an impression: it implies a concerted, noble effort at refreshing an inspired, but now aging, creation. even “3.0” implies, well, we didn’t get it right the first time, 2.0 was transitory and is getting long in the tooth, so here we are transitioning to 3.0. But 2.0 sounds good.
Well, Web 2.0 is bunk. [..]’
I concur.
`Uber environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to put the kibosh on plans to build the kind of wind-farm he regularly touts as an environmentally sound alternative to fossil fuels, saying it would block views of Nantucket Sound from Cape Cod – which just happens to be home to the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis port.
In an op-ed published Friday by the New York Times, the hyper-green Kennedy tried to explain the contradiction:
“As an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many.” [..]
The global warming crusader complains that the turbines will pollute the views from places like “Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket” – some of the Kennedy family’s favorite haunts.’
`The British-educated Iraqi microbiologist known as Dr Germ is among two dozen senior Baathist prisoners who have been freed after more than 2½ years in US detention, it was disclosed yesterday. [..]
Huda Ammash, the US-trained scientist nicknamed Chemical Sally or Mrs Anthrax, has also been released. She and Dr Taha were both high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s party and had been accused of being central figures in his biological weapons programme.
Dr Taha was even named in the dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction that the British Government released in September 2002 to make the case for war.
Other high-value detainees released without charge from prison in the Iraqi capital in recent days include Humam Abd al-Khaliq, the former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Like Dr Ammash, he featured in the 55 most wanted deck of cards released by the US military during the 2003 invasion. [..]
The timing of the women scientists’ release was particularly acute, with President Bush conceding his Administration’s “intelligence failure on weapons of mass destruction”.’
`Singapore is preparing to partially lift its famous ban on chewing gum – in order to comply with a free trade agreement with the United States.
But only gum aimed at helping smokers to quit will be allowed when the new rules come into effect on Thursday.
The government will allow the sale of Nicorette, a nicotine gum, because the agreement with the US says “therapeutic” brands should be allowed.
Singapore banned chewing gum in 1992 because of a litter problem.’
