11/13/09 - Posted by Carmel Hagen under OneRiot News
On Tuesday of next week, OneRiot’s Tobias Peggs will be joining Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch), Akhil Wable (Facebook), Vik Singh (Yahoo Inc.) and Gerry Campbell (Collecta) at New York’s Web 2.0 Expo to discuss the internet shift from static to realtime.
If you’re attending the conference, drop Tobias a note - he’d love to see you there.
What: Web 2.0 Expo New York
Where: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
When: November 16-19, 2009
Panel Information: 10:05am Tuesday, 11/17/2009; Room 1A21
More panel info after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
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11/13/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under US
The Story: A man gets jail time after making a booty-call to 911. OneRiot helps you determine when you should, and when you shouldn’t, dial those three little digits.
The Search: Sex 911 Call
According to the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, “911 lines are designated for emergency calls, such as reporting a crime in progress, reporting a fire, or requesting an ambulance.” Notice that nowhere in that official description is there mention of a “sexual emergency”. If only Joshua Basso had access to that description prior to calling those three digits, he’d have saved himself from a heap of trouble…and not sexy trouble like getting a flat tire in a porn film. The 29-year-old Tampa Resident was arrested after aiming lewd comments at a 9-1-1 operator and subsequently throwing in a little “my place or yours” action in the hopes of completing a titillating tryst with said catastrophe clerk. While we understand Basso’s reluctance to dial a 1-900 number on account of the hefty cost, there are certain things you just can’t justify calling a public emergency hotline for–and dirty talk is most certainly one of them. In order to get a handle on other emergency phone-pas, OneRiot is taking a stroll down memory lane and throwing in some new suggestions of our own of when not to call 9-1-1.
1.Fast Food Fix- From the woman in Haltom City, Texas who dialed the three magic numbers to complain that her local Chinese restaurant had been skimping on the shrimp to the recent incident in Hawaii when a drive-thru customer rang to complain over a missing box of OJ from his Mickey D’s breakfast; these are situations best left for a managerial complaint or the Better Business Bureau, lest the cops consider the withholding of a single prawn to be a hostage situation.
2. When You’re Being Adorable- Kids are adorable…and sometimes adorable kids make life saving phone calls. Sometimes they just want help with their math homework. Awww. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 9/11, emergency, Sex
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11/13/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Because We Feel Like it, Life & Culture
The Story: Approximately one million Xbox live users were banned after illegally downloading a game. OneRiot helps them cope with life after gaming.
The Search: Xbox Ban
Some one million Xbox users got a shock when they found they were banned from the console’s Live component, which allows for interactive online play, game purchasing, and various other features that users have become dependent upon, the confiscation of which could result in mental breakdowns worldwide. Microsoft decided to enact the ban after a large number of gamers with modified consoles downloaded pirated versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, leaving the users with a bad-ass game and no one to play it with. It is predicted that after a few hundred hours of desperate solitary game playing, jumping in on consoles of unbanned friends, crying alone, and throwing up from withdrawal symptoms, each of these individuals will emerge from their dens with a thirst for a new hobby and all the time in the world to seek it out. We’ve got a few suggestions to expedite their journey.
Sports!
Actual sports are a lot like games such as FIFA World Cup, Madden, and that new sensation Tecmo Super Bowl, except they are played outside with actual equipment. And guess who handles the ball; you! Not your favorite star or some totally random avatar you unlocked with cheat codes, but your actual self. Because most of your limb muscles are likely atrophied from the long years of inactivity, we recommend starting off with something a little milder. Read the rest of this entry »
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11/13/09 - Posted by Christopher Reinhard under Because We Feel Like it, Life & Culture
In celebration of quirky occult holidays (like today), we thought it would be interesting to get down to the bottom of what makes Friday the 13th significant. To be honest, we always thought it was just a great movie premise.
Friday the 13th is a day of superstition in countries worldwide, and the actual Greek terminology for a fear of the day is paraskavedekatriaphobia. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it breaks down to Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), anddekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). Strange…we always expected there to be a bigger reason for people being afraid of this particular day, like a pagan sacrificial ritual or a Babylonian massacre or something cool like that. But unfortunately, it turns out there’s really not much to it as far as history is concerned. There are some notable births (Margaret Thatcher) and some notable deaths (Tupac Shakur), but that’s really about it. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Holiday, TGI Fridays
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11/12/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Gossip, International Affairs
The Story: Carrie Prejean became extremely flustered while on-air with Larry King. OneRiot breaks down her interviewing tactics, and helps her further her public speaking skills.
The Search: Larry King & Carrie Prejean
With all the pseudo-celebrities emerging over the past decade or so, we at OneRiot have grown increasingly concerned that people are getting famous for being stupid, as opposed to the days of yore when they became famous for having skill or talent. Because most people try to avoid doing or saying stupid things for the sake of an antiquated concept that our forefathers called ‘dignity’, we rely on live TV to hand us these candid moments. Former pageant winner Carrie Prejean has had several of these opportunities, the most recent of which occurred when she walked off the Larry King show.
Prejean was clearly wary of falling face first into yet another of her now famous ‘incidents’, refusing to answer King’s questions and repeatedly calling the man ‘inappropriate’. While we agree that wearing suspenders during prime-time is extremely inappropriate, that still didn’t take away from Prejean’s knack for making a scene. It became clear to us in this most recent incident, the seemingly simple Prejean may actually be a genius taking cues from the greats of live TV blooper-makers, and not just the old lady who makes a sexual reference on a game show, or a swear word that made it past the censors. We’ve broken down her tactics by influence. Read the rest of this entry »
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11/12/09 - Posted by Courtney Walsh under Life & Culture, OneRiot News
Today OneRiot officially turned one year old (or shall we say young?).
On Nov. 12, 2008, our realtime search engine burst onto the internets, and a year later we have a lot to celebrate. From getting bundled into IE8, to predicting American Idol winners, to distributing our search results to lots of partners, to launching the first ad network for the realtime web, to partnering with Taptu to release the first realtime search engine for mobile, it’s been quite a ride!
Check out our birthday cake after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
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11/12/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Science
The Story: An Asteroid narrowly missed crashing into earth. OneRiot gives you a survival guide to avoid becoming space-toast in future impact situations.
The Search: Asteroid Misses Earth
While the likes of Kelly Osbourne and Aaron Carter might suggest that the concept of stars moving gracefully is a fairly new concept, the Earth’s existence in a veritable minefield of asteroids and comets is proof positive that Dancing With The Stars has been a vital element to our planetary survival for billions of years. Every so often one of those soaring celestial bodies threatens to bring our civilization to a crashing halt with little to no warning. Such was (almost) the case on November 6th when the Catalina Sky Survey noticed that an 23-foot wide asteroid known as 2009 VA missed the blue marble by a mere 8,700 miles. Although we weren’t quite prepared for impact this time, we have a few suggestions in the case a similar E.L.E. (extinction level event) were to threaten your well-being in our OneRiot Guide to Asteroid Survival.
1. Be Smart- If you are in school and get good grades, the government will most likely pick you to join their earth re-population colony. You will be notified only a few days prior to impact, so study hard because you never know when the big one is about to hit. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Science, Space, Survival
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11/12/09 - Posted by Christopher Reinhard under Health
The Story: One little girl is machine-gun sneezing up to 12,000 times per day. OneRiot helps her, and others like her, cope.
The Search: Lauren Johnson
Having hay fever is the pits. From the itchy eyes, to the stuffy noses, sufferers of the common allergy are forced to walk around for days at a time looking like jerks and interrupting conversations with the most annoying physical reaction of all: the sneeze. How many times can innocent bystanders be forced to politely say ‘God bless you,’ ‘gesundheit’ or ‘if you’ve gotta sneeze, please sneeze more quietly because I’m trying to watch TV’? But while it’s inconvenient having to deal with the occasional case of sternutation, one little girl from Virginia deals with it a little more often. Like, 12,000 times a day.
Lauren Johnson suffers from what doctors are suggesting is irretractable psychogenic disorder, a stress-related issue that causes her to sneeze uncontrollably at all hours of the day. Johnson, henceforth known as The Almighty Sneezer, will only go about six seconds between achoos—and it seems that her physicians have no answer for the incessant stream of sneezes. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Health, Sneezing
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11/11/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Gossip, US
The Story: Diaper-wearing Astronaut Lisa Nowak was sentenced today for her cross-country crime. OneRiot casts the movie featuring the out of this world love triangle.
The Search: Lisa Nowak Sentence
Astronaut love is not like regular person love. Maybe that’s why the 2004 story of Lisa Nowak and the space-love triangle that caused her to drive 1000 miles to threaten her adjacent angle, Colleen Shipman, was so amazing to the public. Today, we receive an update on this torrid tale as Ms. Nowak found herself walking free with only the burden of a year’s probation and 50 hours of the dreaded penalty known as community service. The slap on the wrist came bundled in a plea bargain that was agreed upon despite Shipman’s certainty that, “It was in her eyes, a blood-chilling expression of unlimited rage and glee I am 100% certain Lisa Nowak came here to murder me.”
We at OneRiot know commercial viability when we see it, and this real life story has us jumping with unlimited rage and glee…mostly glee. We know this would make a great movie and to prevent the ensuing studio battle over the rights to this incredible story, we’ve taken the liberty of casting it. Don’t thank us, Hollywood. Just make us proud.
Bill Oefelein: The man at the center of this triangle…or I suppose he’s one of the angles…is a real piece of work. While married, he had an affair with Nowak, only to later leave both his wife and Nowak for Colleen Shipman, prompting Nowak’s infamous diaper ride. Wow! Just ’cause he’s an astronaut, doesn’t mean he’s not a complete bastard, right? There’s only one man who could play such a rotten guy while still allowing the audience to see what these ladies see in him: Bill Paxton. You might think that his roles in Apollo 13 and Big Love led us to this decision. Wrong. It was his role as Coconut Pete in 2004’s Club Dread. Don’t bother trying to figure that one out, it’s way over your head. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Astronaut, Drama, Love
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11/11/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under US
The Story: A United Airlines Pilot was arrested after reportedly attempting to fly the plane drunk. OneRiot lists other professions that don’t mix well with mixed drinks.
The Search: Drunk Pilot
We’ve never been a fan of the applause most airplane passengers give upon recognition that their pilots have spared their lives in favor of the option of landing on the runway and taxiing towards the gate. The general gist of being able to secure such a job as pilot or even cashier (if there’s a gun behind the counter) is that most employable persons be able to do their job with such skill and ease that no one’s life is put at risk in the first place. Unfortunately, sometimes employees put lives in their own hands when they handle their duties irresponsibly.
It seems a United Airlines pilot, John Vermont Washington (yes, he has two states in his name), was removed from a plane and arrested at Heathrow Airport prior to it taking off en route to Chicago, due to suspicion that he had been drinking. Now we here at OneRiot know that doing any job drunk is not a good idea…but there are a few that can be ably pulled off…like on-air personality or OneRiot Blogger…and then there are some that should never be attempted while alcoholically impaired. The following is a list of just a few aside from the obvious Airline Pilot and other forms of transportation provider:
1. Beauty Pageant Judge- Being soused while judging a pageant and donning a set of beer goggles might ensure that Miss America has too much of a “winning personality” for those who will ultimately be judging Miss Universe contest later on that year. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: careers, News, Pilot
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