That’s what I think when wathcing the latest video from Dancing Matt. He’s had his last dancing trip around the world posted on his website for a while. I can’t help but smile while watching it.
An unexpectedly good surprise. I’ve recently started a new project and got a good start to it today. Debbie and I got what amounted to a private car show. So, despite my project not really being ready for prime time, I thought I’d give you a peak at it anyway.
The short of it is that we stopped to take some pictures of an old car we spotted for sale, and got a chance to see some true works of art thanks to a great guy who was willing to show us his garage. And boy what a garage it was!
So go check out RustingAway.com to see what I’ve been up to. (outside work that is)
A sudden burst of black smoke mushroomed up into the air just as I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. I picked up the phone and called 911 and headed in the direction of the smoke. It was only about four blocks from where I lived. The emergency operator let me know it had already been called in just as the police passed me by.
By the time I arrived, the police had already taped off the area. Fire engines were followed shortly behind. A duplex was burning quite rapidly and people from the neighborhood were gathering. I find it rather odd that the police were protecting the scene armed with shotguns, but regardless, I grabbed my camera, found a spot around the corner and started taking pictures.
I managed to talk to the occupant of the end of the duplex that was not burning. A mentally ill woman lived in the part that was burned up. As I stood there taking more pictures, I noticed the fireman getting a backboard from the paramedics on the scene. They weren’t in a hurry. That’s when I realized they weren’t rescuing someone but retrieving what was left.
I deleted the pictures and walked away.
* thought I would mention that meth labs are not common in around here.
From what I saw of the opening performance, it looked magnificent! Though, I could really have done with out the sports announcers giving constant commentary on it. I could also have done without the commercial interruption. From looking at the pictures of it on-line it looks like there was a good bit missed because even though it was recorded earlier they cut the commercials in just like it was live.
Also I have have issue with some of the crowd booing the Iranian team. These are world class atheletes, not the politicians who are causing all of the problems. I have a great deal of respect not for the leaders but the atheletes who have put all of their life into what amounts to a single performance in front of the whole world.
Amidst war, terror, fundalmentalism, and political pressure.
How many people can say they have risked so much for a single chance on a single day to shine?
Thought I would say hello to all of my former coworkers who over the last couple of days have let me know they read my blog. 
Happy 08-08-08.
If you pay attention to the tech industry, or more specifically the Search Business, you have seen a lot of hype surrounding both Google and Cuil. Google recently announced they had reached the 1 Trillion mark. Cuil just came in with a bang saying they have indexed 120 Billion web page stating they have indexed more web pages than anyone else. So who is the biggest? Is someone lying?
Neither one is. It’s plain and simple marking. Both are playing with numbers and slight of terminology so that the detail is easily missed.
It is quite possible that Cuil has spent more resources on their crawler to scan web pages. They simply have managed to put a lot more effort into the gathering of data. It is quite possible they have managed to index 120 billion pages. This is no small matter. In my own exploration of indexing web pages, I found that the index really is a gigantic set of data. For 7000 indexed web pages, my index has 12 million records. It’s not optimized in any way, but you get the idea. Put in that context you can see that number may not be representive of what is important to the person doing the searching.
Look closely at the Google statement though. It says “1 trillion URLS”. It does not say they have indexed 1 trillion web pages. Those are two different things. Again, back to my own exploration of search engines. For 7000 indexed web pages, I have 300,000 URLS. Again, what google has done is no small matter, but needs to be put into context. What good are those 293,000 URLS if you can’t find them in the search engine.
So who is right? Which is better? What’s the meaning of all this? Pretty much nothing. It’s all marketing.
My personal opinion is that Google does a much better job of finding relavent data. Period. I do an ego search on Google, I find a few book reviews I’ve done on Amazon. If do the same on Cuil, I get the Amazon results but they are burried under a pile of websites that have hijacked Amazons book reviews. The reason for this could be that Cuil’s index is bigger, or that Google is doing better ranking of the same data. I can’t tell.
I do like the context and suggesting that Cuil does. And it has a slick interface. I also like the simplicity of Google seach. I think the results that Cuil presents will begin to improve as they gain experience and figure out what is really important to the users. Google will then really have something to watch out for.