Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

I’m having fun playing with the new search engine called Cuil (said “cool”). They show images based on tags, next to each search result. The results are counter-intuitive in only the way that artificial intelligence can deliver. The image shown does not always (or frequently I’ve learned) come from the website that Cuil links it to!

Check out this photo of a search for “abandoned stuff” and also for “small dead blog”:

My blog shows up as the first result, not bad if I say so myself. But that photo I’ve never seen before, and the guy in the second result is not even me or anyone I know (but he must be important and bloggy because he shows up next to the top search result for “stephen taylor” as well). Even more odd are the suggested Explore by Category options where nearly every option is captioned. The captions have spelling errors (like for Progressive Bloggers), and Rick Mercer’s caption says “Richard Vincent”!

“Small Dead blog” on google brings up Small Dead Animals a few searches down from the top. Yet on Cuil, it’s not even in the first four pages of results! I stopped looking after 4. And the first result is a malicious parody/indictment of Kate’s blogging. Cuil (or whoever enters/generates the descriptions for categories) describes Kate McMillian as “a popular Canadian blogger”. Good thing they didn’t pull a quote from Canadian Cynic or MWW’s blogs? Speaking of which CC dominates the front page of Cuil with a search for “canadian cynic”. Why does Cuil hate Small Dead Animals?

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Why Cuil will fail (besides its terrible name).

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Blog navel gazing moment:
This is my 2005 blog post on AbandonedStuff.com . I have many more posts on other blogs, some even included in the 2005 count.

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You can listen to stupid or mentally ill people (it’s not clear) on You Tube, after they’ve been put there by British police.

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Hat tip to Slashdot.org

I don’t agree with Saskatchewan Government Insurance’s assertion that the biometric scanned and RFID embedded card will enhance trade with the USA. It’s just a shameful experiment with a form of technology that has dangerous implications for our privacy. It’s also a sham that it will enhance border security or keep trade more open, when the cost is much more than a $25 license, and lasts only a year compared to a passport which is good for five years.

As a joke I’ve carried my passport wrapped in foil, for years. It’s about to get to the point where it’s no laughing matter. SGI is wasting money by pursuing the Radio Frequency ID license. It’s already completely useless and dangerous that we have magnetic stripes on the back of our photo ID card. Here’s an explanation of why faceprint (or fingerprint) biometrics is a sham if we’re concerned about security.

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Hat tip to SaskLibertyTrain - As one commenter correctly said over there, this ID is about “security theatre”.

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Cross posted to 1337hax0r.com

2:20PM there were still warnings issued for Regina and area for tornadoes. I saw funnel clouds 20 minutes prior to then. I’ll have photos up later this evening (if I’m not blown away). It’s sunny sky to the west, and dark dark dark to the east right now.

UPDATE:
The warnings ended within a half hour of them being issued.

A video may come later, depending on the time I have to put it together.
UPDATE 2:

Check out the lightning at 31 and 51 seconds, and there’s more too.

ACTA is an unconstitutional (American, and likely Canadian constitution too) effort to enforce copyright and trademark law at the ports of many countries. Along with the SPP, it is possibly the most scary acronym that our corrupt governments have concocted with the new power holders of the world — CEOs of large corporations. Voters having power over their governments is becoming a thing of the past, as ACTA, SPP, and Bill C-61 are demonstrating. Voters are not in control of law, corporations dictate it, and get governments to legislate and enforce their rules.

ADDED: And don’t count on the TV news to tell you about ACTA, and why it’s so seriously messed up. They are too busy taking money from the “information property” holders like McDonalds.

The American Senator who described the Internet as a series of “tubes”, was indicted. The Google has no comment.

Watch out for those red markers, they are hazardous apparently.

There are even videos that show how Google Maps are out to get you.

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Hat tip to Miss C

It might be worth your time filling out the Technorati survey they are conducting, so long as you have a blog. It should yield interesting results.

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It’s been a while since I did some blog navel gazing.
415,412 pageloads with over 10,600 coming this month alone.
Google PR 5 and Alexa 342,115
Technorati Authority: 127 with Rank: 46,617 of blogs they track in the world.

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Photojojo had an interesting link to Kite aerial photography.

This photo is just taken from the 6th floor of the Archer Library

and shows rain from several weeks ago. Right now Regina is under a thunderstorm watch.

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The Saskatchewan Roughrider won their 5th in a row this season, making their best start to a season in modern history. I think even with the 3 costly injuries this week, we’ll pull together another win next week. It’s so impressive that we did this using 3 different quarterbacks.

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The SaskBlogs BBQ was yesterday, and the weather was perfect, defying the weatherman’s chance of thunderstorms. Unfortunately car trouble, ill family, the Rider game, and conflicting engagements all kept quite a few people away, so I’ll make a better effort next year to pick a date more people can make it. Monty from Canadian Money Advisor came out again, and several of my friends and family, and most of us got stuffed on hamburgers, hotdogs, noodle salad, chips, garden peas, and cookies.

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I watched “National Treasure 2″ [8/10] and the last hour of “Knight Rider” [5/10], and caught the odd first half of “Batman and Robin” [6/10] in the last weeks. When it’s not pouring rain, it’s been a very good time to get outside and enjoy the city, so blogging has naturally taken a bit of a back seat the last while.