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wickline (135)

wickline
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Journal of wickline (135)

Wednesday August 07, 2002
07:09 PM

Holy vanity, Batman!

[ #6969 ]
Every several months or so, I type my name in a couple of variations
into google.

Why? Well, the first time I did it was after my natural father had found
me via the internet. I wanted to see just how easy it was to find me. I
wasn't trying to be hidden, or to be visible... I was just curious. So,
I typed in a handful of variations of my name in a few search engines.
This was in the pre-google days, and the altavista advanced search was
my favored search engine (back when altavista wasn't just another web
portal).

Every several months it occurs to me to repeat the excersize. I don't
really have any good reason for it. I'm not looking to see if I've been
keeping a low enough profile to be unobserved and I'm not looking to see
if I'm famous. I'm just wasting time basically. People do that at times,
ya know? I don't try all the search engines anymore, just google. ...but
I still try a few variations of my name. I've found that there are a few
folks with my first and last name who are somewhat famous. I'm not one
of them. There are also a few less famous folks with my name. I've had
email from three strangers asking if I was their long lost relative or
high school classmate. I'm not.

Today I googled for 'wickline'. It's my last name, and I'd expected to
see oodles of strangers and an occasional relative. I did *not* expect
to see something of mine in the #3 spot! ...but that's what I found!

As I type this,
    http://google.com/search?q=wickline
has as the third hit
    http://wickline.org/yapc/maps.html

Given the way google's page-rank system works, I'm interpreting that
result to indicate that this year's YAPC was more important than just
about anything wickline-related. YAPC beats out every wickline in the
world but two!

Bravo! Way to go YAPC! :)

On google images, there's a couple of nude women. I think you can
search for just about anything and find porn.

On google groups, strangers and relatives.

On google directory we find that use.perl.org is more important than
any wickline entry in dmoz.org (source data for google directory). My
name just happened to be on use.perl.org (because of that yapc post)
on the day it was last indexed by google, so as I type this, the u.p.o
page comes up on a search for wickline... and because u.p.o is better
ranked than any wickline-related page, it comes up first.

And if wasting time at google wasn't enough, I'm now wasting time here
talking about my waste of time.

What a waste of time. :) I think I need to get some sleep...

-matt
   

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  • you might be ranked higher if you let google index the contents of your site.

    What's with having everything in <tt>tags?! It's almost unreadable. I often skip your comments because I can't be bothered deciphering the tt text.

      - ask
    --

    -- ask bjoern hansen [askbjoernhansen.com], !try; do();

    • > you might be ranked higher
      > if you let google index the contents of your site.

      ...but I'm not particularly interested in being ranked higher.
      If I were, I'd also have keywords and description meta tags,
      more discoverable content, more content period.

      > What's with having everything in <tt>tags?!

      I post using the "code" option. I started doing that after
      wrestling with the other posting options while trying to
      post some comment about perl6 regular expressions. I got
      sick of escaping everything. N
      • Ahh, finally found a purpose for that "Foe" ranking. Thank you for being the designated target.
        --
        • Randal L. Schwartz
        • Stonehenge

        • > Thank you for being the designated target.

          Is that because you're also not fond of monospaced fonts?

          ...or have I caused offense? (or both?)

          I'm honestly not trying to annoy folks. :/

          I didn't intend any "tone" to my text. It just means what it says.

          It's good to set your browser preferences to make things easier
          for you to read. Change fonts, change sizes, change stylesheets if
          your browser lets you. It's *your* browser and *you* are the one
          who has to read what it shows you. Make it work for you.

          I did

          • I'm honestly not trying to annoy folks. :/

            In that case, please move out of the 80's, and into "real" text. I like to be able to adjust the width of my screen to a comfortable wrap. Your text doesn't flow into that wrap. And there are no constant-space fonts that look anywhere near as good as the rest of the text.

            I'm actually pretty surprised at your response. I did figure you as some a-hole that says "damn you for even trying to listen to me, but I'll be continuing to speak in a manner of my choosin

            --
            • Randal L. Schwartz
            • Stonehenge

      • I post using the "code" option. I started doing that after wrestling with the other posting options while trying to post some comment about perl6 regular expressions. I got sick of escaping everything. Now I don't worry about it.

        Try using Plain Old Text or HTML Formatted, and then use <ECODE> when you want to post code.

        My recomendation would be to set your browser preferences so that your default monospaced font is one which you can read. Try using whichever font/size you use in your text e

        • > Try using Plain Old Text or HTML Formatted,

          I am a reformed man.

          Since earning a 'foe' mark, I have changed my ways. If you slash hackers were wondering whether the 'foe' idea was productive or not, I'm an example of how the feature encouraged pro-social behavior in the wild :)

          > and then use <ECODE> when you want to post code.

          I ran into an unexpected insertion of semicolons when I used it for some HTML in this post [perl.org]. Is there some documentation of ECODE somewhere or should I browse the sourc
          • The "insertion" of the semicolons is not related directly to ECODE, but was a by-product of another bug (actually, it was incorrectly splitting on "&nbsp;" so it became "&nbsp ;"). The post modes, including ECODE, are documented to some degree in the Slashdot FAQ [slashdot.org].

    • I don't notice his font anymore. This is mainly because I'm
      using a text browser, so everyone comes out non-proportional.



      I can tell it's him though, due to the narrow columns,
      which, mind you, are generally easier to read.



      --
        ---ict / Spoon
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