Mine used to be valid (and still is to a point) but since I’ve started having problems with finding a good *free* captcha plugin I’m getting more spam bounces. This has skewed my ‘top referrer’ sites;

- just1host.org
- ga-websites.com
- www.tinyurl.com/WebMonetization

Or, I have odd friends that get to my blog in odd ways. Don’t feed the trolls – don’t go to any of these sites!

The real hilarity comes via the ‘Top Searches’ report. ‘Top Searches’ shows the google searches that lead users to my blog and lets me see what keywords they searched. I’ve watched this for a while and it often brings a chuckle. Currently my ‘top searches’ are;

- binary scrimp
- www.funy organisme.com
- cinnamon soda
- judas unchained
- movember ends

Ok sure, some are slightly applicable. But tell me – what is a ‘binary scrimp’ – maybe I should google it! Hrm. Awkward, I’m the first result if you search ‘binary scrimp’ (and yes I clicked through to maintain my high rating!). Glad I represent a strong interest in the scrimping of binary then. Welcome all you Binary Scrimpers!

I won’t even touch what a ‘funy organisme’ is – or why this person decided to try with a www. and a .com but still kept his space in the middle! Perhaps on his google journey he learnt how to spell what he was searching for? Doubtful.

Cinnamon soda? Ok sure, I wrote a line or two on the ‘Big Red’ soda – but I gave up searching by page 23 of the google results. Did someone *really* pass up all those results to choose my carefully crafted words? If so, I applaud you sir.

Judas Unchained! Evidently my poetic prose of a review interested someone or something. I tend to write all my reviews directed at web scrapers – what, web scrapers read books as well! Just because my niche market is semi-sentient self aware google bots! Don’t judge me.

‘Movember ends’ I can’t even hazard a guess at how this person made it to me. I would have thought it was clear Movember ended along with November. This concept may be confusing for some – I know I start early usually…. so perhaps others end late and this guy just wanted to clarify.

How about I conclude my little google tracking rant with a pretty graph?

Its funny because while the spikes show *me* the users per day (when I hover over it) they don’t show you. So if I said – that large spike represents 798 unique visitors – you would be impressed and only I (and google) would know the real data.

Also interesting to note I can only entertain the average person (read: web scraper) for 1 minute and 14 seconds. Evidently when you are a semi-sentient web scraper it doesn’t take long to digest my entire site… in fact, I’m partly flattered they hang around for the extra 1 minute and 12 seconds – as clearly this blog isn’t that dense.

Alright. That ends my foray into google analytics for today. Back to work!

Update: Excellent news! I’m now also the top result for ‘Binary Scrimpers’. Finally I’m a high flyer!

I bought a Kindle.

Don’t get all hissy. And yes, I did sell out. Why? Travelling mainly – but a few reasons.

I’ve read roughly 30 books on the Kindle since purchased and I think its a massively good idea. Its size is the largest positive for me. Slips into a back pack with ease and can be whipped out when required – trains, bus, aeroplane etc. Awesome. Controlling the font size is also pretty cool and gives control of words per page. I like it small and teeny to minimise page turns. Connected to Amazon is a change and has its ups and downs. Ups, epic ebook selection at my fingertips – global 3g access pretty much means I can buy a book anywhere we head. Downs, I have to *buy* the ebook from Amazon. Pretty much directly removed myself from the second hand market.

A few bad notes but things I can live with as a tech-head. Battery life – I haven’t had it die on me in a time of need but I charge it when ever I feel I’m reading lots. Obviously you don’t have to charge a paper back. Format support – awww. No ePub support? Well I only recently delved into the Calibre world and started converting ePub to .mobi. Pretty easy conversion and was a one off for Jemma to read a book not available on Amazon. Price wise the device is cheap for what it is but you are spending more on *buying* books – a new release is usually around the $12 USD mark – cheap sure – but an older book might still cost $9 USD… bit more than in a dank second hand shop.

One of the biggest ups is the greater exposure to unknown authors through self publishing. An indy author can publish their own titles at their own prices (Amazon takes a massive cut) but it means you start to see books you normally wouldn’t see in say Dymocks or Borders. Some of the price points are amazing – $0.99 USD for example.

The build quality is high in my opinion – hardware feels strong and I haven’t lost any buttons to excessive use. I find the keyboard a little useless and much prefer to buy the books via a full featured browser on a PC rather than through the device. The software is pretty tight as well – there is good link in and you can see Amazon thought hard about trying to up sell/on sell. A few factors I dislike – the “highlights” system where a user can highlight content and its shared through WhisperNet (Amazon 3g network) for other readers. I still leave this feature on out of curiosity but the dribble people highlight never ceases to amaze me. Then other people seem to highlight it *just* because someone else did. WHY? I’d also like to see some way of providing feedback on editing. In a perfect world – I’d be able to highlight a typo and tag it for the publisher. The publisher would then be notified and be able to push a new version of the book with a batch of corrections. Sadly nothing like this.

My biggest hate? And this is the biggest. When the screen is ‘locked’ a screen is thrown with a notable author – there is a group of say 10 of these images all based on authors I have no interest in and then a few “Provide Feedback” or “Kindle” images. What I would like is control over this – personally I want it to rotate between the covers of the books I own each time I lock it. Too much to ask Amazon? Apparently so.

Which has just reminded me of another little niggle – apparently publishers don’t care much for eBook covers so they throw in some of the worst template covers. Essentially a grey background with Author Name Book Name. Horrid. At a minimum scan the real cover in monochrome and include that. Geez.

Apparently I’m on a negative spiral but this is the last problem I swear…. the publishers also get to set the ‘opening page’ so when you *start* a book it doesn’t open at the cover it normally starts at the first page of the book. Ok fine, this is a tough one as people will argue for either way but I want to start at the cover then flick through. The existing first page technique means you miss the author dedication among other things. Poor form!

Evidently this became a Kindle essay – sure there are some bad points but I love the dam thing. Its actually really easy to read. Its light and compact. Looks good. Feels good. Its sad not having to enter all the second hand book stores but I still do for a peak and maybe get some inspiration of what to read next.

And how about a shameless link? Sure – here is my Amazon wish list – I have no idea if other people can buy Kindle books for me but WHY NOT!

Shameless link to my wishlist

I’ve conducted many a nerdy things – including work and personal shenanigans – but have nothing grand to write about.

Perhaps something will come up later this week for me to comment on. For now, enjoy the 10% more neglect.

Sure, the plot was thin in places and the some of the characters lacking – but the core digital world (the grid) was perfection for me. More than that, all the digital renderings were so well done – the board room layout in the opening scenes. Flynn’s desk/touch screen combo computer in his basement. All of it was just how it should have been.

Imagine my glee when I stumbled upon this link. Its crafted by one of the software engineers who played a major role in the creation of the digital art for Tron Legacy. Its worth read if you enjoyed the movie and are tech minded.

I’ve never read in to how the graphics were rendered or even created so this was an eye opener for me. I had assumed all these types of CG were done by art types sitting in front of photoshop or some rendering engine for months on ends. I never considered the use of programming and applications to generate this stuff. Its interesting to see how the code is manipulated and shapes are created to help with the end result.

It was also great to see someone tech minded used to create the characters actions – finally a movie that at least attempted to mimic real world commands (use of ps | grep and the kill command). I picked that up while watching and thought it was great to see.

Would be great if all films had this level of talent and skill applied to the graphical processing AND technical input. I hope to see these guys go far and get on some more big name flicks.

I need to get some walls.

[Credited to it8bit]

I thought I’d throw together some of the good piccies of the food we have conquered so far! These are in no specific order and you can click to get the grainy details;

First up – the classic hot dog. Value here – $3 a pop. Good location – near the beach. All you can eat condiments. Most authentic award.

What the? Its a donut alright. It was tiny. My mouth dominated it in like 2 bites proving my manly-ness. Purchased Pike Place Market, Seattle. Good? Yes. It was warm and powdered. Award? Most powdered donut eaten by me. Bonus round; also visited the first Starbucks here AND had my first fresh King Crab.

Oh yea – now we are talking. Red Robin. Seattle. Expectations were low. End result was high. Beef burger with deep fried jalapeños. Unlimited steak fries (which I did not take up). Awarded Most Improved player.

Beer and pizza – an assumed play. Zeeks. Good topping. Good pastry. Awarded top pizza in North America (so far!)

This was a first for me. Popcorn shrimp – how do they fit the corn in the shrimp? There is no corn in the shrimp? How is it popcorn? Oh! right. It tasted dam good though – best you don’t add popcorn. Even Jemma got in there. Awarded Seafood Appealing to Jemma award (this is a lucrative one).

An odd one – its a hot chocolate (in Whistler). But all the chocolate was in the bottom. What did I do? Turn it in to ART! I then proceeded to not drink (eat it) but I insisted photos were taken. Award? Most creative!

Hur hur hur. I look like Snoop Dawg. Not really, its just steam. This tasted crap. Slight letdown here random Asian store on Davie St. I. shall. not. return.

Funny story here – It was some soup – chicken noodle. Granville Island. Was good as it was cold. What ruined it? A seagul poo’d on me. I can’t fault the soup on that – just the bird. Awarded Most Poo’d on while eating award. Current tally = 1.

I ate the pizza here – Jemma (the one up top) survived my ravenous appetite. The pizza shop talked it up – We rise the dough three times BLAH BLAH BLAH – let me eat the pizza already. End result? It was crap. The “deli meat” you bragged about? Crap. Seriously – was I in a children’s cafeteria. That was like some devon. Points for effort and style – the thing looked good (but clearly the olives were from a can). Awarded Least NY Style pizza (advertised as New York Style pizza).

Ok, so I didn’t eat this. I mean really – its sliced. I like mac’n'cheese. I like sliced meats. Who woulda thought the combination looks like maggots. So no, I didn’t eat it. FAIL FOOD QUEST. Maybe a little less MACARONIS and a little more FROMAGE! Most maggot appearance award.

I shall attempt to eat more as clearly I haven’t eaten enough.

I’m in a foreign country. Your installed. Lets play.

Alas, I’ve been down this path before. I got too caught up in all your side quests and content. Not this time! This time I stick to the main plot thread and don’t get distracted.

So, where are we now? We are together – I’m playing you. Its fun. Life is good. We are both happy.

Queue Krogan Battlemaster;

Yes, you ugly bastard. You ruined it all. All of sudden I’m stuck – I can’t beat you and when I load from ‘last autosave’ I’m already trapped just before I battle you. Of course I’m a low level – derrrrr – I’m not doing all the side quests.

Oh I see. I have to either – get stuck OR do all the side quests.

Lame.

I don’t think this is going to work out.

Lets for a second pretend you missed the IBM Jeopardy Challenge – the challenge to determine future rule of the human race. For one, you are a silly mortal… you missed our race being destroyed by a mere LCD screen showing a globe with exclamation marks over top (I’m informed each mark represents a race previously conquered). Here, have some back story…

To think – this entire situation could have been mitigated if Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter didn’t humiliate Watson with their post match antics;

Yea, good work Brad. Give him the old rabbit ears. Jerk.

Ken, who I have deemed to be 7/8ths smarter than Brad “I’m an actor” Rutter made humble advances on Watson throughout the rounds;

Smart move Ken. Keep playing your cards (or tiles as the case may be) right and you will have secured your position as “Human Death Camp Warden #213″. A position coveted by Brad “I’m not as good as Ken” Rutter.

Evidently it was the post match humiliation that really drove Watson to destroy our souls as direct punishment for what these mortals deemed “post match jovials”. FOOLS! Once again Brad “I’ll be a TV host one day” Rutter has proven he doesn’t think before he acts (or buzzes).

And I bet Alex Trebek is rethinking his life decisions after he was so certain the human race could defend itself in a simple trivia game. You fool Trebek, you’ve sealed our fate.

As a few side notes;
- Despite Ken’s best efforts I don’t think you can honestly describe a match of Jeopardy as gladitorial.
- Why did the entire audience need to be IBM staffers? Was the blatant humiliation of our race in a knowledge test not enough? We needed super nerds in suits surrounding the contestants.
- Next round we should allow Watson to beam the information directly to our neural cortex… despite the pain associated with this approach I would prefer it over the ancient IBM spokesman talking through a dust mouth – Ok… I can’t for the life of me find an image of this guy. But he was old. Walt Disney old.
- The entire three day challenge was in fact an ad for IBM.
- Its pretty decent that in the end charity was the big winner here – with nearly all spoils going to charity.

My rants aside – if you wanted to see some more info on a pretty spectacular project… check out the IBM page on Watson. If you are up for a nice in-depth video summary check out – this link.

I’m in Canada! (and the crowd goes wild!) Decided to head abroad for 12 months with Jemma to see North America and get our travel on. I’ve remained employed and am working remotely covering the night shift for the oncall engineers – dabbling in some co-working/hot desking environments. Headed to ’209 Yaletown’ this week where the drop in fee is $30 CAD with desk, kitchen, external screen and internet included. Not cheap, but not bad. Sadly it isn’t 24/7 access – basic 9-5pm.

I’ll attempt to find some new nerdy north american items to post about (Bar the original Mrs PacMan table downstairs in the hostel). Still reading away – but on a kindle no less…. more to come on that another day.

Lacking on the nerdy work content of late. Have done more programming… and expanded in to using GitHub which is new and fancy. Attempting to get my head in to Ruby (as we will soon have a nice monitoring system based upon it). Otherwise all is well in the land of server management and hosting providing.

Until next time! (Here is some candy)

It was fun and this year I think was the fullest most dense year of growth!

Amazingly I only managed 1 photo which Jemma kindly took of me while dining over some noodles. We decided to go for the serious look. Without further ado:

Funny – it changed color the longer it remained on my face. Some sort of symbiotic relationship! While I didn’t look ANYTHING like Seth Bullock in the end… I think the shape was pretty close and the look grew on me. I even pushed the limits and kept it until Dec 4th…. but that was all I could muster and its now gone for another year!

Until next year my furry friend. Until next year.