System 13 » asides

What are folks looking for when they find… me?

Josh — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:30:51 +0000

While poking around in my blog stats, I noticed something peculiar: quite a few people are now finding my site by googling “nazi swastika.” I thought this was weird because the only thing about it I’ve ever written was the entry I posted on June 9th – a mere 2 days ago – about Nazi swastikas in video games. Lo and behold, though – thanks to the way Google’s PageRank system works (System13.org has a 5PR out of 10) – my post about swastikas in video games is now the 8th result on Google for “nazi swastika.” I’m not sure whether to be glad that Google’s system thinks my site is worth something, or to be concerned about my position in the search results for those keywords.

System 13 ranks pretty high for some other… “interesting” searches. A few examples:

I’m #4 on Google for “rotten shark.”
#6 for “ninja penguin.”
#7 for “hardwood floors and dogs.”
#10 for “I can has cheezburger.” (Heh…)
Â #3 for “stargate languages.”
#2 for “stargate everyone speaks english.”

Don’t take this post the wrong way. I’m not being narcissistic (at least, no more than any other blogger…) – I just find a lot of those funny. If you could dig into my stats, you’d probably be surprised at just how much traffic I get from searches like that. In particular, I seem to get at least a few hits every day by someone who’s looking for information about Icelanders eating rotten shark meat which has been soaked in shark urine. I’m not kidding.

You internet folk… you’re some weird people!

Why would someone do this?

Josh — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 01:30:22 +0000

I read in the daily newspaper today that over 100 headstones and monuments in one of the local cemeteries were knocked over last night, many of them completely destroyed. Many of them were knocked over and then purposefully smashed, most likely with a sledge. Some of them dated back to the 1800s. Why would someone do this? What is there to gain from destroying headstones and monuments which families have bought to honor and remember deceased family members? I suppose if someone were angry at a particular person, they might destroy a headstone belonging to a relative of the person. While that would still be extremely mean and low, it’d make sense. But just to rampage through a cemetery destroying stuff? Why? I really don’t get people sometimes.

CSS on WordPress.com has disappeared

Josh — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:56:15 +0000

Just a note to anyone visiting my site directly: I haven’t gone insane and reverted the look to plain text on white. A bunch of WordPress.com blogs are having the same issue. We bought the CSS upgrade; the custom CSS is still in the Presentation area; but our blogs aren’t actually showing it.

So, worry not. It’ll be fixed soon, I’m sure.

Update: And things are back to normal.

Remember: Enable ClearType in Windows XP!

Josh — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:05:03 +0000

I just came across this entry, which reminded me that I hadn’t enabled ClearType yet on the computer I usually blog from. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to that entry and learn. You’ll thank me for it. ClearType makes the text in Windows so much prettier. Less stressful on the eyes, too.

The end of the universe – what’s there?

Josh — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 04:42:11 +0000

Sitting here browsing various blogs, something just popped into my head: what’s the end of the universe like? Does it even exist? Let’s say in theory, we had a spacecraft that could move fast enough and far enough to reach the ‘edge of the universe’. What would be there? A wall? A sign that says “dead end, turn back here”?

Hrm…

Ninja Penguins can kill you!

Josh — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:16:04 +0000

I just took a look at my blog stats, and I noticed that someone got here from the search “Ninja Penguins can kill you”. I find it odd that someone would be searching for that to begin with; I find it even more odd that yes, my blog is the #1 result for that search string at Google.

Thanks, Cas. It’s all your fault. Do the search and you’ll see what I mean.

WordPress.com login bug fixed (seemingly)

Josh — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:22:32 +0000

Whatever was causing me to be bounced to a blog I’d deleted when logging in at WP.com seems to have been fixed. Whenever I login now, I’m sent to the System 13 dashboard.

Coolness.

Goats riding a bike… ?

Josh — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:47:32 +0000

I just took a looksie at the stats page for my blog here, and one of the ways someone got here today was via this search:

GOATS RIDING A BIKE

Okie dokie…

20 things you didn’t know about…. death

Josh — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:57:57 +0000

20 things you didn’t know about…. death.

DailyLit – Read books in small chunks

Josh — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:43:11 +0000

I saw this over at Lifehacker. DailyLit lets you get manageable chunks of books delivered to your email on a schedule of your liking. Admittedly, it makes the old “I don’t have time to read a book!” excuse a bit weak. Do you have time yo read an email? Then you have time to (slowly) read a book.

You can browse the full selection of books available from DailyLit right here. Personally, I just signed up to get a chunk of On the Origin of Species every weekday. By my calculations, it’ll take me 50 weeks to read the entire book, in small-email-chunk form. Nifty.