house

Ex-Googlers launch Rentbits, a mediocre search tool for rentals

I'm in the middle of a hunt for a new place to live, and have been using a variety of tools to keep an eye on local openings. The best offense against the horde of competitors seems to be finding those small, obscure listings, as well as utilizing as many sources as possible.

A new service called Rentbits, created by some former Google employees, is officially launching this morning and is joining a crowded group of other search verticals that help people solve this problem.

The tool grabs sources from all over the Web with its crawling technology. In … Read more

Google search reveals plagiarism by columnist and White House aide

His name is Timothy Goeglein, and, as Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo points out, it is quite ironic that Google should be the cause of his professional demise.

Goeglein is a White House aide and, until today, wrote as a columnist for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. He was outed for plagiarism this morning when Nancy Nall, a former employee at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, posted a blog entry detailing an innocent Google search she conducted on one of Goeglein's subjects. The search revealed that his latest column was almost completely lifted from another source (Jeffrey Hart, in this case, in an article for the Dartmouth review).

Since Nall's original posting, her readers and other bloggers have identified multiple instances of plagiarism. Timothy Goeglein has also fessed up. He told the Journal Gazette, "It is true. I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses." The News-Sentinel has announced that Goeglein will no longer be writing for the paper and will look into just how many of his columns may have been cribbed.

It's unclear what the fate of his other job will be. Goeglein serves as a Special Assistant to the President and works in the White House's Office of Public Liason. In 2004, the New York Times published a profile on Goeglein's role in the White House. David D. Kirkpatrick suggested Goeglein is an extension of Karl Rove, "even Mr. Rove has his limits -- calls he cannot make, hands he cannot shake and meetings he cannot attend. For those, he has Timothy Goeglein."… Read more

Spy gadget recovers deleted text messages

Thought you could get rid of those incriminating text messages with a simple Delete? Not so fast, Tex. Gadget blogs are all abuzz over a little device that purports to enable users to recover and view deleted data stored on almost any cell phone SIM card.

"Have you ever wished you can spy on your wife, husband, teens, or colleague's phone to see what they are up to? Are they being suspicious when on their cell phone?" asks New York-based BrickHouse Security, which also sells marijuana identification kits and all manner of spy cameras. It says it … Read more

Politicos squabble over 'missing' White House e-mails

Democrats and Republicans were warring Tuesday over reports that the White House has "lost"--or simply failed to keep--archives of e-mails belonging to the president and his advisers.

Since last spring, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been investigating reports that an estimated 5 million messages from 473 days between 2003 and 2005 allegedly vanished from e-mail servers housed within the president's office.

A hearing convened by the committee gave Democratic leaders a new chance to press White House officials publicly on how and when they expect to recover the … Read more

Housing goes back to the future

I just read a fascinating analysis of housing trends in the United States in The Atlantic. Following on a January/February report on how the subprime credit crisis is driving suburban homes into foreclosure...leaving the other homes in the neighborhood that much less valuable due to perception (overgrown yards, etc.) and renters.

In an increasing number of cases, urbanites are moving out to the suburbs in search of affordable housing, while suburbanites move into the cities in search of excitement and culture.

But as Christopher Leinberger suggests in the March issue of The Atlantic [Not yet online], this long-term trend back into the city for the middle and upper classes started long before the subprime crisis. Research by Arthur C. Nelson (Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech) "forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes...by 2025 - that's roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today" (71). As this happens, the projection is that the affluent McMansion neighborhoods of today will likely become the slums of tomorrow.… Read more

MPAA-opposed college piracy amendment vanishes

As the House of Representatives presses ahead with a sweeping higher-education bill that includes new antipiracy obligations for most universities, it now appears it won't be considering an amendment designed to clarify that schools can't lose federal financial aid for failing to fulfill those requirements.

By way of background, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, which is scheduled to be debated by the House starting as soon as Thursday, dictates that universities participating in federal financial-aid programs "shall" devise plans for "alternative" offerings to unlawful downloading--such as subscription-based services--or "technology-based deterrents to prevent … Read more

Controversial college antipiracy bill nears House vote

The U.S. House of Representatives is preparing to vote as soon as Thursday on a mammoth higher-education funding bill that contains new antipiracy obligations for most universities.

Only this time around, it appears that an attempt may be made to water down the thorny new requirements included in the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (PDF). It's not clear, however, that such changes, if adopted, would be enough to appease university officials concerned about the measure.

Here's the deal: right now, a small section of the bill, which sailed through the House Education and Labor Committee last fall, … Read more

MPAA: Linking college funding, piracy is 'perfectly legitimate'

WASHINGTON--What's wrong with Congress being a little stingy about doling out taxpayer dollars to universities if they let peer-to-peer file-sharing pirates run amok on campus networks?

Not a thing, says the Motion Picture Association of America's top lawyer in the nation's capital.

On the heels of a House of Representatives committee's passage of a higher-education funding bill that includes new antipiracy obligations for universities that participate in federal financial aid programs, MPAA Washington general counsel Fritz Attaway suggested it's reasonable to condition federal education funding on copyright enforcement efforts.

"When the government is subsidizing … Read more

Politicos poised to pass anti-P2P rules for universities

Eds. note: This story was updated at 8:07 p.m. PST to give an update on the expected committee vote time.

WASHINGTON--So far, a U.S. House of Representatives panel hasn't done anything to alter part of a bill that would deprive colleges and universities of financial aid for their students unless they make a plan to provide "alternatives" and deterrents to illicit peer-to-peer downloading.

Debate on a massive Democratic-sponsored higher education spending bill (PDF) began around 1:30 a.m. ET and continued late into the evening on Wednesday. But no amendments were expected to … Read more