When people post on any forum, whether it's a serious Mozart discussion forum, Something Awful, or PayMeToHumpThings.net, they usually act in a manner that's presentable to the outside world. Of course they do, because someone else is going to read that and they wouldn't want to look like a fruitcake in front of everybody. But behind that relatively normal exterior there are things they're wondering about and want to know, and they type these things where they think nobody will ever see them, like into search engines for example.
If you're more of a nerd than most, (and let's face it, you're reading Something Awful) you probably heard that a week or two ago AOL mistakenly released 3 months of logs from its AOL Search engine, and now the logs are all over the place online. AOL has already apologized for the error, but they shouldn't because these are some of the most awesome things I've ever seen.
Before we get down to business, let me explain what's happening in these images. One of our forum goons, xGryph, coded up a nice little search tool to let us easily look through the 2 gigabytes of logs. The big number on the left is an anonymous user ID AOL provided so advertisers or researchers or whoever's looking at the logs can track an individual account's search habits. Next to that is the search term used.
MacOSX::File and psync: Bootable Firewire Drive Backup
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:49 pm EDT, Aug 17, 2006
MacOSX::File is a perl module that allows you to get and set HFS file attributes. And psync is a perl script that uses MacOSX::File to implement inclemental backup and restore.
The hard drive in my Macbook Pro died, and I could not work for a week. That sucked. So I got a backup firewire drive. psync creates a bootable backup onto my firewire drive. Even if my own hard drive dies, I can boot from the backup and then pull the new source code from svn. I only have to update as often as I upgrade libraries to keep coding with a dead drive, with no downtime.
Israeli pilot flies an F15 on one wing and a full tail section after a midair collision. He throttles up with after burners and lands at twice the normal speed, so the F-15 behaves more as a rocket than a plane and he is able to control it. Guy had no idea he was missing a wing the whole time.
Fish Hooks Man - Fisherman speared by blue marlin off Bermuda - Jul 24, 2006
Topic: Miscellaneous
5:25 am EDT, Jul 25, 2006
Card and his father, Alan, both operators of a charter fishing boat and experienced marlin fishermen, had just hooked the fish Saturday when it suddenly leapt out of the water, impaled Ian Card just below his collar bone and knocked him into the ocean.
Territoriality in Collaborative Tabletop Workspaces - Innovis Research - EPS
Topic: Miscellaneous
6:42 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2006
Territoriality in Collaborative Tabletop Workspaces
Casual piling of paper-based media during traditional tabletop collaboration is an important practice that helps coordinate task and group interactions. Previous research has shown that the ability to move piles around on a table plays a critical role in accessing and sharing task resources. However, existing casual storage techniques for digital workspaces only provide access to stored items at the periphery of the workspace, potentially compromising collaborative interactions at a digital tabletop display. To address this issue, we introduce storage bins, a mobile storage mechanism that enables access to stored items anywhere in the workspace. We also present an exploratory user study involving the use of mobile and peripheral storage mechanisms on a large, hi-resolution collaborative tabletop display. Findings from this study demonstrate the utility of storage bins and further our understanding of the impact of mobile and peripheral storage mechanisms on collaboration at a tabletop display.
In addition, current interfaces do not effectively support collaborative work at a tabletop display because standard interface components are not appropriate for large, horizontal displays. Consequently, the fundamental components of tabletop groupware interfaces must be reconsidered. New interface components and interaction techniques must be developed to provide the basic building blocks for tabletop groupware designers, analogous to the interface components used by designers of desktop systems (e.g., buttons, sliders, and drop-down menus), before effective tabletop groupware systems can be developed.
