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There was a bit of a buzz recently when America Online changed its instant messenging Terms of Service. The change seems to state that AOL is allowed to use anything posted by users whenever it sees fit. Which, of course, means that if you told a buddy "AOL sucks!" while on AIM, you could be in big trouble and possibly be forced to sit in the back row of a Village People concert.
I've never been much of a snooze bar pusher, but I can't say the same for some of my college roommates. I never understood why they would purposely set their alarms early and then be awakened six or seven times before actually waking up. That's more than an hour's worth of sleep lost to, in my opinion, just being lazy.
In case you missed it (or somehow, didn't even know it existed), the Eighth Annual USA Memory Championship was held March 12. Ram Kolli, a 24-year-old computer science student at Virginia Tech, placed first and now has the opportunity to compete in the World Memory Championship in London on August 13-15.
Not all people troll the Internet looking for happy things like puppies, flowers and pot pies. While you could certainly find them, they are not nearly as easy to find as corporate hate sites. Maybe hate is a strong word ... then again, after checking out some of them, hate is pretty mild. "Loathe" and "personal vendetta" come to mind when describing them.
Your local (or not-so-local) scientist is currently busy trying to figure out many things, including cures to terminal illnesses, ways to make the environment safer and the reason why reality TV is so popular. But on top of that, there are numerous other things that have researchers scratching their heads, wondering basically why the universe doesn't collapse on itself and why aliens keep playing peekaboo.
Louisville Mayhem on Friday, July 28, was a success. We had a pretty good turnout, a lot of food, people took home some nice prizes (and some silly ones) and we raised a little money for Volunteers of America. Thanks to everyone who made the evening possible, and for the great turnout.
Here's the list of winners:
Carl West - four-color pen
Eric Bailey - bingo bucket
Mary Rising - bingo bucket
Nick Ress - Integrity computer bag
Dave Plummer - tub of cheese puffs
Sharon Adams - smiley face t-shirt
A few weeks ago, while doing research (if you can call it that) for a column, I came across a site devoted to myths and legends. I thought I had visited just about every genre of Web sites, but boy did I miss a big one.
Paranormal Web sites seem to be fairly normal these days. Not that I'm completely surprised by this, but I was shocked to see the latest reports of phenomena. I really must be out of the loop because now there are theories on Mothman, Owlman and Goatman out there. I swear I did not pull these names from an episode of "Power Rangers."
Apparently, they (meaning the New Oxford American Dictionary) name a word of the year every year. This year, the winner is "podcast," which of course is what a pea plant wears after breaking its stem. Rootkit and lifehack finished behind podcast in the voting, although I'm still not sure who voted. Read more about it on BBC News.
There are things I'd rather do than clean my computer
mouse. Really, there are. For instance, licking envelopes
is fun. I also like to cut duct tape with dull scissors.
The thing that separates these other items with cleaning
a mouse is that I need my mouse to perform about 95
percent of my work duties. I need duct tape and envelopes
the other 5 percent whenever I mail chain letters to
I found out the other day through an internal company email that AOL has recently purchased two companies as part of its local strategy initiative. I was immensely surprised when checking out one of them, Patch, which is essentially a community-based website geared toward providing info with a small-town flavor.