slamboard

I grew up in the 80s. I witnessed the birth of the music video. When a Teen Vogue model in 2008 reminds me of that soundtrack music video with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and Danny Devito danciing around, it’s not a good sign.

A handful of people have been finding my site via search queries on Ask.com. I hadn’t bothered investigating this until today. I was very surprised to see that Kimkins.com does not show up on a search for ‘kimkins’. Not on the first page. Not on the second page. I actually looked through a number of pages and it just didn’t seem to be there.

Here is an explanation of how Ask.com works…

Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm provides relevant search results by identifying the most authoritative sites on the Web. With Ask search technology, it’s not just about who’s biggest: it’s about who’s best. Our ExpertRank algorithm goes beyond mere link popularity (which ranks pages based on the sheer volume of links pointing to a particular page) to determine popularity among pages considered to be experts on the topic of your search. This is known as subject-specific popularity. Identifying topics (also known as “clusters”), the experts on those topics, and the popularity of millions of pages amongst those experts — at the exact moment your search query is conducted — requires many additional calculations that other search engines do not perform. The result is world-class relevance that often offers a unique editorial flavor compared to other search engines.

Clear as mud, Right?

I have actually taken a course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. I chose my title based on my experience. People who are learning English as adults generally love idioms. This post is mostly a shout out to a school with a very cool advertising campaign. I first saw this video on something called The Pop Culture Translator. This thing is a promotional tool for the Canadian College of English Language.

I did the math, the cord should have been fine with the electric kettle. It wasn’t. Last year, we bit the bullet and bought a half dozen good quality surge protectors for the office. The bargain cords and multi-plug gizmos have been relegated to less vital tasks. I have another one of these KHiND extension cords and I don’t think I will use it for anything.

The thing that disturbs me is that the plug contains a 13 amp fuse that did not blow.

With fuel costs breaking new records everyday, lots of people are considering curtailing their driving. For some people, this may involve putting a car into storage for months or longer. I was considering it and I realized that there are probably a few things that I should do to the car if I want it to stay in the condition that it is in. Here are a few links with helpful information:

Mothballing your car

AAA has advice that seems to cater to people with really nice cars.

After moving in 2005, we went carless for a whole year. It can be done. I consider my 1990 Skoda to be a time saving device. It is not a necessity and it is not a part of my identity.

I was just checking out one of many online businesses that claim to operate on Christian principles. I am skeptical but respectful of this practice. Basically, I consider it a branding decision and the degree to which it is ethical is entirely dependent on how well they follow through with that promise. Actual churches don’t always measure up, so it is highly probable that many ‘Christian’ businesses register fairly high on the hypocrisy meter.

This particular Christian business seemed okay and what caught my eye was that they felt it was necessary to have a front page disclaimer related to advertising. The most prominent advertising was coming from Google.

Many webmasters and bloggers put contextual ads on their sites and take a buyer beware approach. These ads are so ubiquitous that we tend to feel zero responsibility for their content. Maybe we are wrong.

Actually, I don’t have one for this blog. I just noticed that the site is down because of an electrical fire where its server are housed.

Yesterday, I was helping to hook the printer up to my son’s PC because he had a big project to print off. I had just started the BBQ 10 minutes before that and my son chose the exact right moment to say that he smelled something burning.

Scott McClellan is free to write, publish and promote a book that is critical of his old boss George W. Bush. Everyone else (in the USA) is free to read it and talk about it. That is a good thing.

I was obsessing about politics and I saw some derogatory term that I didn’t understand. I went over to the urban dictionary. None of the ‘definitions’ for my term were remotely plausible, darn kids.

I noticed that scientology is paying to advertise on urban dictionary as well as YouTube.

I am willing to sell this blog to scientology for a reasonable offer.

The founder of lifelock has famously displayed his social insurance number on the splash page for his product. Detractors like to say that his identity was stolen (or at least that an attempt was made) shortly after that. I say ‘SO WHAT?’

The service offered to consumers does not involve publishing your information on their homepage. It involves periodically triggering the heightened vigilance that is inherent in the system. Certain large companies are upset because they carry out the heightened security and it costs them money that they cannot legally pass on directly to individuals. That gets another SO WHAT? from me. Lifelock provides more security for its customers and they have a huge guarantee should this security get breached. I would hate to have my identity stolen and I worry about it occasionally.