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Daily Archives: August 30, 2011
11 posts
Gawker Media intern and soon to be infamous internet person, Alyssa Bereznak*, decided to share a dating story on Gizmodo, the site she writes for. Now, plenty of people share their dating tales of woe but for Bereznak, her story quickly turned into a tale of WHOA! See, Bereznak went on a date with a guy who is extremely accomplished at being what some people would call a nerd, identified the guy she dated in her piece, and BOOM went the internet. Continue reading
Don’t be shy, we know you’ve heard of it. The upstanding citizens at CougarLife.com help connect ladies with younger men. It’s a simple formula but not one that mainstream outlets like to promote. But thanks to the world’s catchiest jingle they will get into your head and stay there until you suddenly find yourself going to YouTube and putting it on repeat. Continue reading
A Nevada physician accused of over-prescribing pain killers has went on the attack against litigious patients and is suing the family of an overdose victim who was under his care. In a report for ProPublica, reporter Marshall Allen details a lawsuit filed by Dr. Kevin Buckwalter from Henderson, Nevada against the parents of one of his patients for filing an action against him after their daughter’s death. The lawsuit is unusual, and it represents a departure from the usual strategies that doctors take in the face of malpractice lawsuits. Continue reading
Bill Murray continues to be a stubborn old coot; Babyonce’ is already stopping the world in its tracks; Leo DiCaprio will build an Oscar out of your ticket stubs; Ricky Gervais probably shouldn’t do some things again; Runaway brides come out of mediocre movies, and a party of five could mean a fist to the face!
Today’s Hollywood Dish is the Key Master. Continue reading
In 1950, the mathematician Alan Turing came up with an elegant way of testing a computer’s ability to “act” like a human. If machines could truly “think,” they would surely be able to communicate in such a way that humans wouldn’t know they were interacting with a computer.
The Turing Test was born. Then in 1991, researchers and technologists turned Turing’s thought-experiment into an actual competition: The Loebner Prize.The goal is to trick human judges into believing they’re chatting (via text) with an actual human.
So Discover Magazine decided to arrange a conversation between of the world’s top-ranked computer chatbots, ALICE and Jabberwacky. Continue reading
You’ve seen me before. Maybe it’s in Petco, checking out a cat climbing tower or deciding between bags of catnip like they’re fine steaks. Maybe it’s in Target or Wal-Mart, with a 20 pound bag of catfood on one shoulder and a big bucket of kitty litter in the other. Maybe it’s in the office, where every article of clothing I own seems to have cat hair on it. You probably think to yourself, “Wow, he’s such a dedicated boyfriend/husband to be taking care of his girlfriend’s/wife’s cat like that.”
Well, you’d be wrong. I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife. The little furball I buy cat stuff for is all mine.
I am a Cat Man. Continue reading
One of the most storied conferences in College Football is going down in flames. After Nebraska and Colorado left the Big 12 last year the demise was well under way. Now, as of last night Texas A&M filed papers with the Big 12 commission announcing an intention to leave. There is little doubt that the Aggies will be joining the SEC along with another as yet unnamed team. There is speculation that the 14th team in the new SEC power conference will be either Virginia Tech or Missouri (turning the Big 12 into the Big 8). Continue reading
Back in the good old days, every American boy took shop class from a grizzled Vietnam veteran with a quick temper and a missing thumb. Shop class was where boys could be men, where the future bro of American learned how to have a near-brush with permanent handicapped status while building a wrought iron bird feeder.
Chicks dig scars and glory is forever. And even though you now work in a cubicle making Excel spreadsheets all day, without shop class and its dozens of deadly power tools, today you’d probably be opening up a fancy yogurt stand and/or traveling to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Continue reading
His name is William Boyd. Anything? Though the British novelist has written twelve novels, numerous books of short stories and non-fiction, is a contemporary of Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Kazu Ishiguro, has been short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, Boyd seems to fly under the radar of much of the literary cognoscenti. People I know who wouldn’t be caught dead not having read Atonement or Remains of the Day have often never even heard of Boyd. I’ve been doing my part, believe me; whenever anyone asks for a smart, gripping novel to read, I push Boyd on them. No one’s ever been disappointed. In fact, I think I’ve made more than a few lifelong fans. Continue reading