Let me Google that you for you, a new online service, lets your friends know how completely moronic they are when it comes to the Internet. For example, if your friends ask you what time the Northwestern game is on Saturday and you want to make them feel like a dumbass, go to this site and type in their question. Then, send them the link that appears. The site will take care of the rest. Try it out for yourself.

The CAESAR course selection system at Northwestern is a piece of crap. Sure, it had an upgrade about a year ago. We now have shopping carts and stuff. Sounds fantastic. At any rate, here’s my list of CAESAR add-ons that would make my life so much easier.

1. Stop having the search function default to the previous quarter. Oh, this pisses me off so much. I’m trying to register for my Winter 2009 classes, but CAESAR likes to default to Fall 2008 classes. I’m sure this has happened to numerous people: You’re sitting and looking through classes and you find an amazing class on Lumberjacking Techniques. “OMG,” you say, “let me add that to my shopping cart.” But you can’t because that class already happened. Would whoever controls CAESAR just update the damn thing in a timely fashion?!

2. Get a recommendation system. “Based on your CTEC reviews of Lumberjacking Techniques, you also might enjoy The Fine Art of the Blacksmith.” It would be just like iTunes, Netflix or Amazon’s systems. CTECs would still remain anonymous. The data would just be anonymously harvested for this process. Yes, I know it would take some time to code this, but it would be eternally useful. I don’t have time to search through every department. Give me some recommendations. Better yet, get the Computer Science majors to code this as a project. They’d love it and it would save NU some green.

3. Nix the shopping cart, add a wish list. The shopping cart sucks. Once you add stuff to the shopping cart, you have to enroll in those classes. Yes, you can hit the little trash can icon, but if I ever want that class back, I have to search for it again. If I had a wish list on CAESAR, I could add every class that I’m thinking about taking (usually 7 or so each quarter) and simply check the ones I want to enroll in when my time comes. Sometimes, I want to drop a class and add one of my other choices. If I had a wish list, this would be simple. Ultimately, this could be easily fixed by just adding check boxes to the shopping cart in addition to the trash can.

4. Let Quikpay communicate with CAESAR. There are times when I get behind in my quarterly payments and Northwestern puts a registration hold on my account. Understandable. But once I pay the balance due, the hold is supposed to be lifted. However, in order to have the hold lifted, I have to call some office at Northwestern and speak to someone. Why? Why can’t these two systems talk to each other? And if I pay my balance on the weekend, why do I have to wait until Monday to get my hold released? Absolutely ridiculous.

Have any more ideas? Let us know in the comments.

Last night, at approximately 11:45 p.m. Central Standard Time, I was looking at my ever-open Gmail window and trying to find an email from a teacher. I was entering a search for emails from this particular professor when my account froze as if there were no internet connection. Seconds later, everything returned to normal.

I wrote the whole ordeal off as a typical glitch in the matrix, but then I noticed that the small green dot next to my Gchat contacts had morphed from a simple circle to the shape of a video camera.

Let there be video and voice Gchat.

What does this mean for the average internet user? Probably not a lot. There are plenty of great video chat applications as is; however, I speculate that it will be endlessly useful in chats across operating system, so get ready to see a lot more of your parents who have been desperately trying to skype you from their new-fangled Vista machines.

Google is one step closer to being able to do everything. Embrace it.

View images and read about new features here.

If you were watching CNN last night, you might have noticed that Jessica Yellin was beamed into Wolf Blitzer’s studio all Star Wars-like. While nerds across the Internet are claiming that CNN’s hologram isn’t a true hologram, it’s still pretty damn close and still pretty kickass. Singer Will.i.am was also beamed into the CNN studio from Grant Park that same night.

Gizmodo has a good article on how it all works.

I have no words. Why is the dog sitting on the iPhone? Is he using the vibration function as a pleasurement device? Why is the dog talking? Does anyone speak Japanese? I knew I should have tried harder in school. My mom always told me that I wasn’t the quickest gazelle in the lion hunt. This post is getting very degrading, very quickly. I’m going to go think about voting for Obama tomorrow while dreaming about how Palin could have been America’s first VPILF.

This post made just about as much sense as the people who read this blog: None. I’ll try better next time, promise kids.

Photo by reallyboring on Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.

By now, you’ve heard about touchscreen voting machines and how they are either switching votes before people’s eyes or not recording votes. While the problem is probably not as big as the internet would lead you to believe, it still seems like somewhat of a problem. Hell, even Oprah had problems with the machines.

But what I don’t understand: Why touchscreens? As much as I love my iPhone’s touchscreen, it has its glitches. Sometimes when I try to drunk-dial my ex, I end up calling my grandmother.

And from Florida’s problems with chads, we know those don’t work either. Let’s also stay away from those Scantron cards. I hated them in highschool. I hate them in college. They present us with the same problem as chads.

I do agree with the move to computers for voting. It makes data management a breeze. And as long as the technology guarantees a fair election, I can even see internet voting happening in the near future. If we’re not going to make election day a holiday, at least let the masses vote from from their desks at the office.

But these touchscreen voting machines are vile creatures. I know my grandparents have never used at touchscreen in their life. They’ve used computers, though. So why can’t we just have a voting machine with arrow keys? Highlight your choice and push the enter key. It’s visual. It’s haptic. It’s cheaper. And it’s a method that’s proven to be a successful in nearly every typewriter and computer since their inception.

For the next election, let’s not be early adopters. Let’s just make it work.

I love music mash-ups. In fact, this past weekend I headed into Chicago with friends to see some of our favorite mash-up artists perform. While the concert made our heads spin, the actions were (mainly) voluntary. That said, there comes a point where mash-ups go too far. Like when the music is mashed-up with muscles in your face.

Daito Manabe’s electric facial stimulus machine does just that. By feeding small electric shocks to his facial muscles, Manabe is able to program the machine to make his muscles involuntarily dance to the beat.

Scroll to about halfway into the video. It gets better.

via Gizmodo

Microsoft Surface, an interactive tabletop device, has already been featured in bars such as The Mirage in Las Vegas. At the Microsoft Surface table, you can order drinks, play music and even text–or “flirt”–with other tables around you.

Now, Microsoft is working on an experiment called SurfaceWare that can detect how full a glass is when someone sets it on the table. By using special glasses, the table will alert you or the server at just the precise moment you need a refill. And honestly, I can’t complain. When someone else tells me to drink more, I usually do it. However, I have a feeling that this might drive some people MADD.

On top of that, who is Microsoft going to sell this thing to besides bars? No one needs a computer the size of an elephant in their house.

via Geeks are Sexy

Internet voting is the American Dream. Er… at least that’s my dream. You would like to think that we could at least register online. McCain and Obama both have sites where you can start the process, but you are kindly asked to send stuff in via snail mail.

But for about 700 U.S. citizens abroad, they will vote for the next president over a PC. According to Gizmodo, these PCs are stripped bare. No hard drives. No nothing. Obviously, it’s to prevent any hackers from tampering with anything. But as Giz writes, at least it’s a step in the right direction.

via Gizmodo

Don’t cha just hate it when, after a long night of Jungle Book sex, you know that you probably should tell your partner about the herpes you contracted from that sex slave two years ago?

inSPOT, a website dedicated to letting your partners know via cute e-cards, makes it easy. Simply pick out an e-card–my favorite: “I got screwed while screwing, you might have too”–throw in a personal message and send away. Hell, you can even send it to multiple people at the same time. Talk about a time saver.

Just remember kids: Wrap up The General each and every time.

inSPOT via Geekologie