Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

I’m having trouble getting my work email at home, so I thought I’d goof off.
Referrers
Like most webloggers, I peruse my stats and look at what pages are linking to my site. These are commonly know as ‘referrers’. I look at these regularly. OK, I check them daily.
Many of the referrers are search engines. As an example, here are the top keyword searches from this month so far including the number of times someone has gotten to my site from a search engine.
Atari 10-in-1 57
how to make a cup of tea 20
important quotes 19
buildabear 15
crawfish boil 13
history of hdtv 12
baseball cap washer 12
cantenna 12
washing baseball caps 9
Clan MacGregor scotch 7
“Pictures of dead people” 7
burger king tacos 6
Dr. Pepper and the imposters 6
Beyond the keyword, it’s always interesting to see the site that point to me.
Here are a few examples…
An eBay auction is pointing at my cantenna page. If he sells it, I wonder if I get a cut.
Adventures into the Well Known has a link to me somewhere. When I read the About page I saw that he must be part of Matt’s circle of DC bloggers. I then read that he grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. Small world. Guess who else grew up in Lawrence, Kansas? Yeppers, Martin and Jennifer!
There’s a link from g2gk.com. I’m not sure what g2gk.com is about, but they like the site.
That’s just an example of what I see in the referrer links. Now I need to see if I can check my work email.

The question is:
Brush then floss or floss then brush?
Personally, I’m a floss then brush person. All you brush then floss people are crazy.

Saturday morning and Michele is out of town. The kids and playing up front and have no idea we are going to Camp Snoopy at Knott’s Berry Farm today.
Linkage: The Fark Photoshop trhead on warning signs. Good stuff. Don’t click on it if you don’t have broadband or are easily offended. I warned ya…
Thanks to Thompsonian I was shown the Milky Way® Comparison Page. Excellent work gentlemen! You are to be commended for your scientific work.
Outnumbered and outgunned
This morning Zoe requested to use the ‘small’ computer. She meant the laptop.

It’s clear to me now that they are smarter, faster, and more persistent than I am. My only edge is knowledge and guile. I’m doomed. By the time they are teenagers, they’ll be telling me how to run the computers.
Run in with Homeland Security
Michele loves Roger Moore as James Bond. Don’t ask me why, but she says he’s the best James Bond. She wanted to have the Live & Let Die DVD but is hard to find since it was only released in the US as part of a Bond collection. I resorted to eBay to find her a copy.
I found a reasonable price and bought out an auction. THe DVD looked real and not a bootleg. I soon realized that the seller was in Bangkok, Thailand. I paid the money and within a week, the package had arrived.

Yes, US Customs, a division of Homeland Security, had opened my package to make sure I wasn’t receiving information from Al-Queda. Assured that I was only being shipped a movie, they resealed my package and sent it onwards to me.
I can only imagine what they are looking for by opening the mail. Terrorist literature? Porn? Drugs? Cash? Who knows? All I know is that they touched my ‘rare & OOP’ Bond DVD.

The DVD is not a bootleg and plays fine. Much happiness for Michele.
Of course I now wonder what the entry in the Homeland Security database says about me now… “Suspect like Roger Moore as James Bond. Movie involves interracial sex. Watch more closely for other ungoodthink.”
Time to get ready to take the kids out. Have a good Saturday.

I finished Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom this morning. My self restraint is low and I blew through the book.
I enjoyed the story and can’t seem to get whuffie ideas out of my head.
Michele is leaving for a four day trip tomorrow and I need to get some rest.
The expansion for Battlefield 1942, Road to Rome, arrived today and I played for a little bit. The seems to be some problem with the sound. I’ll check for a patch tomorrow.
At the office we recieved one of the new 12″ Mac laptop computers. While many Macaddicts drool over this computer, I saw it as nothing more than a prop for a gag photo.

The web page is courtesy of Mister P.
I pondered quite a bit about how to show my disrespect. I couldn’t think of a funny thing to show me doing to the computer. The best I could do was put it in the microwave and threaten to cook it.

What should I have done to the laptop?

Michele and the girls just rolled out on the morning school run. I’ve got a few minutes to tidy up and even blog before heading to work.
I’ve started reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctrow. It’s not long, and I’ve blown through about half the books in two days. I kinda feel like I’m eating candy in the movie theater and the taste is so good, I’ll have an empty box before the movie starts. I should probably slow down a bit and savor it.
I like Doctrow’s take on the idea of ‘whuffie’. Whuffie is roughly a measure of the esteem others hold you in. Imagine having an eBay feedback measurement for not just your buy/sell behavior, but for how you deal with people and how hard others perceive you work. At work, we often refer to it as ‘juice’. It’s intangible power given to you by others because they believe you are doing good things. Kinda hard to explain, but believe me, ‘juice’ plays a big role in how Disney works. Yes, title rank is important, but those with the most ‘juice’ are the ones that drive the company.
In Bruce Sterling’s book, Distraction, he also talks about ‘trust networks’ and their role in future society. I have to agree with these guys that this type of whuffie/trust rating is going to play a larger role in our society going forward. The net has brought people closer together, but in a way that eliminates society’s previous methods of introduction. People needs a method to evaluate those they met online as only a screen name or web site.
You can see the beginnings at places like heatware.com, a feedback/trust site outside of a specific trading site. If you go to resellerratings.com, you can see what other people think of online merchants. It’s quite nice to review other people experiences with a company before handing them your credit card. Will it ever be orgainized into a single database like ‘whuffie’, not for while. But will it happen? Yes.
OK, time for work. More later.

So close to bed, just a few things to update before crawling into bed.
Tonight I finished all 547 pages of The Singing Sword. It the second book in the Camulod Series by Jack Whyte about the era before the time of Arthur at the end of the Roman Empire in Britain. I am really enjoying the books, they are a great mix of history and legend with interesting characters. As I read through the denouement tonight, my heart raced as I read through the action. There are five more books in the series and I need to take a break. My nightstand has several other books waiting for my attention.
Eye news:
My mother called me today with news of a ‘medical miracle’. She had seen a story on Oprah about a woman with keratoconus that could see with scleral lenses. Bless my mom, she thought she had found the magic cure for my eye problems. I explained that I knew about scleral lenses, and that they really weren’t for me. She’s always on the alert…
Weblog news:
My brother Matt is back in action after brief technical trouble.

I was in a meeting at the office and we were discussing a bunch of changes to the computers we are going to make. I had a list of issues we were discussing and most of them seemed fairly reasonable.
When we got to discuss ‘The Links Bar’ the room got quiet. First, they looked at me like I was from Mars. I said, “You know, the Links Bar!” Then everyone looked at me with a sad face.
Before going forward here’s what the Links Bar looks like:

The Links Bar is kind of like a displayed set of Favorites/Bookmarks that resides in your toolbars so that you don’t have to pull down a menu to get to your frequently hit pages. It’s called the Links Bar in Internet Explorer, but the feature exists in most modern browsers.
Back to the story…
I began asking why the Links Bar was locked and hidden away. They all gave me a look that said, “You poor out of date man. What are you going to ask for next, a fax machine?” I said, “Am I the only one that uses the Links Bar?” They all nodded. I simply couldn’t believe this. I find the Links Bar invaluable. “Really, none of you use it?” I looked around the room and the eight other people all looked at me, shaking their heads.
Unable to wrap my head around this I asked how they got to their bookmarks. “Umm, we use the pull down…” Much head nodding.
They tried to be nice and humor me. They offered to unlock the Links Bar and put whatever bookmarks I wanted there. But the damage was done. I was the weird one, using the quirky feature noone else values.
The next time I am about to jab my Mom or Dad about the strange things they do on their computer that seem silly to me (electronic post-it notes and an upside-down touchpad instead of a mouse), I will remember this and cut them some slack.
Does anyone else use the Links Bar?

I posted to this weblog when I was at the last SoCal Wireless User Group meeting. My play by play updates generated little interest or comments. While I was there, I talked to a reporter there about my cantenna and he wrote up a brief story for the LA Times.
No wires to get syrup on
Here’s the scanned story:

The reporter added 10 years to my age, I’m only 35!
Michele was quite impressed with my fame. For about five minutes… They she demanded I fix the ‘drip drip sound’ in the toilet. Five minutes from wireless technology god to plumber.

And some people wonder why we travel into space with all the risk involved.
y6y6y6 a poster in a Metafilter thread explained it clearly. I quote:
“Why do we even bother?”
Think about where we were as a species 300 years ago. As humans we explore. 300 years from now we will look back from space and think that asking such a question was quite simpleminded.
I’m sure 300 years ago people said the same thing about explorers and heros setting off in ships.
I’m sure 3000 years ago people asked the same question about families heading off across the tundra.
I’m hopeful that there will always be people who are willing to explore. And I’m thankful that there will always be governments to fund them.
How could we not bother? How could we sit in our couches and say, “That’s it. That’s enough. We will explore no more.”
You nailed it y6y6y6. Thank you.

You all know the news that the Shuttle Columbia has been lost. An amazing record of the landing is here.
I was sitting down at the table to drink my coffee and read the paper. The laptop was sitting there and I decided to turn it on. I sipped on my coffee and read the paper. I looked up at the computer and saw these word on the Yahoo front page – Space Shuttle Apparently Disintegrates. I simply couldn’t believe my eyes. I ran to the TV and turned it on. The now famous image of the shuttle falling through the sky with debris falling off was there. I felt the sick feeling in my stomach that I remember from college when the Challenger exploded.
They were all gone. The shuttle was gone.
Michele and I watched the news for a few minutes. Soon enough Zoe walked in the room. She looked at the TV and said,”What’s that?”
I realized that I was going to actually say it. Like many times in life, thoughts, ideas, and realizations run through your mind without you saying them. In my mind, I knew the truth, but in watching the news with Michele, we had not said much other than ‘Oh my god’. Zoe was looking at me expecting an answer. I grasped at how to explain this tradgedy to a 7 year old.
It took a tremoundous amount of will to summon these words, “The space shuttle crashed.” She looked at me, still not comprehending why Mommy & Daddy were sitting in front of the TV with tears their eyes. She ran off to play.
Michele and I watched until we had heard all the news we will hear for the next several days until they sort things out and have some answers. We turned off the TV. I walked up front to check on the girls.
Zoe wanted me to play videogames with her. I told her I was feeling sad and didn’t want to play. She asked why. Why? Again, I had to actually say it. I had to say the truth. “I’m sad because the spaceship crashed” She again asked why, still unable to wrap her mind around what could make her father sad. I swallowed deeply and finally said, “There were people on spaceship. They’re all gone now.”
At this, the tears fell from my eyes. The sadness overwhelmed me. Zoe hugged me and told me that everything would be all right. I pulled it together and got her and Mira playing some games.
I went to go read more news, and then it hit me.
If talking about seven deaths is difficult, how will I explain War to my daughter.