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.

Someone pointed out this link to me

The Internet Makes You Stupid

Sha� interactive catalogs include X-rated pornographic content intended for adults only. These catalogs can be downloaded for private use only, and in no case should be transferred to non-consenting individuals or to minors. This website automatically alerts Parental Control Systems regarding its X-rated content.

This may be the first pron recommended on memestreams, but I'm recommending it because its really innovative. This is an interactive pornographic catalog. They do product placement, and then you can highlight an icon and it tells you about it. This shouldn't be limited to pron, its a good idea for all kinds of video and product placements. But pron is a really simple way to generate 'valuable' content that people will watch... as this is pretty hot pron, and then place products there. So this is first... but it won't be the last time this is stuff is done?

Sha� - Women Men SexPacking Summer 2006 Catalog

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.

Its uncommented perl, which is a downside.

MacOSX::File and psync: Bootable Firewire Drive Backup

"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," he said. "We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It's not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants."

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Warrants are so 20th Century. Thats the meme of the year. Remember, the Constitution talks about Warrants, but it doesn't say you always have to have one. It just says that you can't perform an unreasonable search. If the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security thinks its reasonable, then obviously it must be. In the future, Warrants will only be required when you're searching the offices of a corporation or a public official. I'm not kidding. Mark my words.

The strategy here is to win the 2006 elections on an anti civil liberties platform.

We have to get away from this concept that we have to apply civil-liberties protections to terrorists," Peter King (R., N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee

What is a terrorist, Mr King? Who determines who is or is not a terrorist so that we know when to apply civil liberties and when not to apply them? What is a trial, Mr. King? What does a trial determine? How can you determine guilt without a trial? If you don't need a trial to determine guilt, then why have them? What is their purpose? Has the federal government ever prosecuted an innocent person? How many, exactly? Has the federal government ever spied on anyone for an inappropriate purpose? Has the federal government ever detained someone for an inappropriate purpose?

Meme of the Year: Warrants are so 20th Century

Accredited Investors

Under the Securities Act of 1933, a company that offers or sells its securities must register the securities with the SEC or find an exemption from the registration requirements. The Act provides companies with a number of exemptions. For some of the exemptions, such as rules 505 and 506 of Regulation D, a company may sell its securities to what are known as "accredited investors."

The federal securities laws define the term accredited investor in Rule 501 of Regulation D as:

1. a bank, insurance company, registered investment company, business development company, or small business investment company;

2. an employee benefit plan, within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, if a bank, insurance company, or registered investment adviser makes the investment decisions, or if the plan has total assets in excess of $5 million;

3. a charitable organization, corporation, or partnership with assets exceeding $5 million;

4. a director, executive officer, or general partner of the company selling the securities;

5. a business in which all the equity owners are accredited investors;

6. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase;

7. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or

8. a trust with assets in excess of $5 million, not formed to acquire the securities offered, whose purchases a sophisticated person makes.

For more information about the SEC’s registration requirements and common exemptions, read our brochure, Q&A: Small Business & the SEC.

Accredited Investors

Floating-point arithmetic is considered an esoteric subject by many people. This is rather surprising because floating-point is ubiquitous in computer systems. Almost every language has a floating-point datatype; computers from PCs to supercomputers have floating-point accelerators; most compilers will be called upon to compile floating-point algorithms from time to time; and virtually every operating system must respond to floating-point exceptions such as overflow. This paper presents a tutorial on those aspects of floating-point that have a direct impact on designers of computer systems. It begins with background on floating-point representation and rounding error, continues with a discussion of the IEEE floating-point standard, and concludes with numerous examples of how computer builders can better support floating-point.

People do not care for rounding errors in their financial reporting software.

What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

The appeals court said that expert testimony established that terrorists seek predictable and vulnerable targets and that the subway search program "generates uncertainty that frustrates that goal, which, in turn, deters an attack."

If you see they are searching today, you can take an alternate means of transportation, or walk to the next stop. Terrorists are unlikely to do this, because it screws up their operational plan. Frankly, if they can search everyone getting on an airplane, they can search people getting on trains. They can search people going into schools, going into malls, going into stores. They can search people everywhere. They can search them all the time. As long as its possible that a bomb might go off there, the searches will be considered reasonable.

Searches of Bags in Subway Upheld

HOTSOUP will create a new community of influence among those in government, politics, business and entertainment who make the decisions and those who want to impact them. It will bring the inside world out and the outside world in, and create a richer dialogue and stronger connections among all of these Opinion Drivers.

HOTSOUP.com

Verizon Wireless and Novatel Wireless Announce Commercial Availability of Wireless Broadband ExpressCard

Novatel Wireless’ V640 ExpressCard/34 Allows Notebooks to Connect to Verizon Wireless’ National Wireless Broadband Network

As soon as they repair my MacBook Pro 17 which lost a hard drive from an 8 inch fall (weak sauce), I want one of these.

Verizon Wireless and Novatel Wireless Announce Commercial Availability of Wireless Broadband ExpressCard

Buy me this.

Ever-Together Designs - Wallet - Dot Matrix (billfold)