09/26/02 DotNotSpam [Dot what the Internet should be]: The idea of a dotDNS branch on the Internet tree, is a good one. If we can't clean up the Internet that is-- why not just build a new, better, more efficient, Internet on a clean, solid foundation --"whatis" the way it should have been. Call it Dot honest descriptions only or Dot no lying Shysters or Dot members of the Internet Better Business Bureau only or just DotNot, simply distinguishing it as NOT the same old DotJunk and DotChaos. In brief it might work something like this: 1. Consistent with the dotDNS proposal addresses would merely be an assigned random number. (no actual "name" ownership to fight about) 2. A nonprofit organization (either existing or created) would "sell" or assign addresses based on a "at cost" fee structure that would provide content providers the ability to buy into a level (rank) of whatis/whois indexing that would represent a willingness to guarantee the integrity of description information. 2a. The guarantee would be in the form of a legal contract establishing certain monetary penalties for deliberate, material deception regarding sites content description. 2b. Copyright and trademark holders would be guaranteed on relevant keywords a top listing in search results. 3. The Internet public would be offered a bounty (percentage of penalty assessed) for finding contract violations and notifying the organization managing the description database. 4. Once an address is established in the database it can be removed at the purchasers will (contract terminated) but no substantive changes can be made to address (website) description information. If address owner wishes to substantially change content provided at site location a new address must be purchased. After some initial seed money the whole thing would be self-financing and self-sustaining. permanent link

09/25/02 Minor Update: According to this spider food post : "Apparently it is very common for new sites to be picked up by Google and then thrown out again after a few days..." Yahooie [finders losers]: It is a sad fact that the search engine/directory that pretty much started it all has become such a grotesque perversion of the useful navigational tool it started out to be. Sadder is the fact that it can apparently live on its old reputation forever and remains one of the Internet's most visited "search" portals. It is strange that the only question that merits "news" speculation is, will yahoo remain a google reseller or will it resell some other search engine wears? The dismal quality of yahoo's own directory provokes the logical question, why should anyone use this tacky reseller (that has no value to add) as an Internet navigational aid. The fact is yahoo is not a search engine, or even a search motor it's just a place for Internet tourists to go to get ripped off. To its credit, a visit to yahoo can make you laugh-- this line belongs in the Internet Hall of Fame. "Tell us how Yahoo! Search changed your life, attitude or business" permanent link

09/24/02 The old In-and-Out [gratuitously smutty innuendo]: Well this page is now back "in" the google index. The page rank has dropped a little bit-- but I suppose it doesn't matter much where you finish once you're out of the top-10 anyway. The page hasn't yet been listed in the Dumboz directory but it's SOP for them to let submissions get good and moldy before they look them over --a "green" lizard thing I guess. What do you say [thank you]: I am grateful to John of webword.com for posting a reference to my whatis proposal on his daily usability blog. The subject wasn't a big hit with his readers, but they're kind of part of the insider crowd that doesn't want things to change. On the subject of in-bound links, last week I tried to generate some page rank points for my local interest InMendham.com site. The site is by any objective standard at minimum a top five reference on the subject "Mendham"-- yet it languishes as google listing 40+ on the keyword Mendham. A state portal site [njDOTcom] advertised a free listing in a community directory it provides. The fact that I actually couldn't find, through the clutter of their home page, the referenced directory didn't stop me from thinking a link is a link--even if I can't find it. I filled out the user-unfriendly form, and figured that would be that. A couple days later I received an e-mail informing me that the site wouldn't be listed because it was a for-profit business. I applied my standard charm and composed this reply "Even a really stupid Bitch should be able to take one look at the site inmendham.com and see it contains no for-profit enterprise" Surprisingly there was further communication and it was explained to me that the fact that my site is a dot com site means that eventually I must intend to make a profit off the site content. I countered with the argument that Dot anything became Dot irrelevant a long time ago. I got this final reply I did take, not a quick, but a long look at your site. Your local links section goes against our guidelines of linking to for profit sites (your links to businesses). When we get town sites that are not the official town sites we scrutinize them carefully. We do this because, just like us, for example, although we provide free content and free resources to the community, we are for profit. Therefore when we get a town site that is an unofficial site, as we are, we look for signs of money making opportunities. As you can imagine we get people trying to slide through the cracks to get a free service for their online/offline business. It is not unusual for people to provide this type of service to their community with the intention of eventually getting local business sponsorship.So as I stated your business links section is what makes your site questionable. The fact that google so pridefully rewards this kind of unlinkable logic and the narrow, closed Internet it will produce, should make some of you a little uncomfortable. permanent link

09/23/02 Catch-22 [chocolate covered spam]: I found this detailed and interesting yet completely crazy explanation of the subtle mechanics of google's page rank. It might be best to eat a few aspirin before you start reading as letting this stuff sink in will be painful. I think google's Catch-22 works something like this: If your egg is already a chicken we will let it cross the page rank road-- but if your chicken is still an egg we will throw it against the wall of eternal invisibility. Craig Silverstein unexplains (4/2001). Personally I'm still a bit hungover from trying to figure out why google only indexed this page for like 12 hours. I would ask if any of you had any ideas how this happened-- but being that there aren't "any of you" that might be seen as crazy. What is really crazy are these top search engine query lists. With so many people using yahoo to find yahoo I'm a little surprised there's so many requests for Internet jokes. - JumpYossarian permanent link

09/22/02 ROI [Rotten Overture Imbecility]: I got a colored piece of cardboard in my regular Snail Mail Box from Overture yesterday. [Here are some scans if you must see it: cover/back, inside left, inside right.] The advertisement sells the idea that Overture can provide the "Super Hero Power" of ROI. The first problem I have with this stupid ad is that it assumes that everyone knows that ROI stands for Return On Investment. Then there's the whole environmental issue of using oversized, unnecessarily thick, and heavily inked wallboard. But the brain killer is the illogical concept of Internet Companies sending snail mail junk to addresses they no doubt got off an Internet company registration list. What kind of idiot buys Search Engine Exposure from a company that has to resort to snail mail-junk mail to sell itself. The topper was they weren't even Internet savvy enough to provide some clickable ads to other junk on the abundant White Space. In a related "why are we letting these jerks, who have no respect for the Internet's value and potential, define its destiny" story. Three or four weeks ago there was a mini-catalog from Amazon.com amongst the adv-o-junk I get "for free" in the middle of my Sunday paper. When the most highly recognized .com companies have to resort to using very expensive [environmentally destructive] traditional advertising venues, no one's going to convince me the Internet isn't really, really broken. permanent link

09/21/02 He likes it [yes it happens]: I accidentally noticed that this Blog has been indexed by google. I was doing a search looking for other references and surprisingly the 11th listing out of 2,720 results was a link to this page [I like that they used the Dumboz Dirt line as a description] I don't know what the actual "pagerank" is but considering there's almost no external links to this page on the Internet, and I have done no "optimizing" -- I certainly have little to complain about regarding this Blog's initial rank. However google's inability / unwillingness to index my year+ old message boards remains a mysterious circumstance. Just plain fn weird update: As of 8:00 a.m. this page is no longer in the google index. I think I will make a claim of "shenanigans" -South Park Archive [literary old folks home]: It's time to send a week's worth of this stuff to the archive-- I've told it it's just going to Dairy Queen. If you feel like visiting any of these old cranks here is the address. ...if the dumboz "brainless-trust" had an imagination ...the king of social parasites ...submit your website to over 300,000 search engines ...words that are often part of "like site" domain names ...the Good fellas at Web Master World ...danger, of always rewarding the popularly established ...direct descendants of Cro-Magnon Nerd. ...just looking to get by on square wheels ... hold the pickles, hold the lettuce ...There's google goo on my shoe ...knock old ladies on their ass ...spammerspace ...2 years and $800,000 later permanent link

09/20/02 Always thinking [wishfully]: How about an alternative to the current "pay to list or place" that gives content providers a way to prove there integrity and allows them web visibility at its real cost--ie forces liars and cheats to pay the full cost of Spam management. I would be willing to sign a contract with a listing service (index) Stipulating that if I misrepresent any material fact in describing the content to be found at my site that I would be legally obligated to pay a $10,000 fee. By allowing such contracts to be made and in-part ranking sites based on the "integrity bounty" content providers are willing to risk-- honest indexes could be built. If the indexing company charged say $10.00 per page/site listing. It could collect enough capital to finance the required legal actions against contract violators. By offering the public a 10% bounty on "spam checking" the company would have little or no overhead in turms of forcing compliance beyond legal fees, which would likely be recouped from prosecuted contract violators. Lower listing price, More honestly described content, Better navigation...Who but a lying spammer could hate this idea? I did find this all most related stuff. "I can't understand why the search engines aren't professional enough to put their anti-spam efforts into a detailed agreement and have anyone that wants to be listed sign their agreement. Such an agreement would spell out very clearly what is and what isn't allowed. Anyone breaking the rules would be subject to specific penalties or banning, but would be notified and have a chance to fix the problem especially if the infraction was not too serious." permanent link

09/19/02 I'll Be Back! [Start thinking I will catch up later]: Anyone interested at all in classification, ontology, taxonomy, etc. etc. should check out 20Q.net. The potential benefits of applying similar technology to Internet Navigation seems pretty apparent. Think about what could be done if the +-20 questions were reduced to one or two word requests on a single check off form. Are you looking for: how to Reviews/Critiques no popups no reselling manufacturers only in New Jersey ... Think among yourselves... I will get back to this important subject if and when there's enough eyeballs to make it worth my time. Currently this page has more paragraphs then it has had page views, In fact I got more pieces of junk mail today then this page got glances in the last two weeks. The point being ...there really is no point, right? Curious [and curiouser]: A few days back when I submitted this site for inclusion in the ODP category ... Blog/Technology there were 182 [162@google] "contestants", today there's only 180. It might be interesting to find out what was removed and why? being that the category editor only "works" 2 categories-- I think it's fair to ask the question why should it take any longer than say a week for a site to be reviewed and if appropriate included in the directory. Web Blogs aren't exactly complicated web sites, and hardly require extensive review. permanent link

Archived Pages Week1 09/06/02 - 09/11/02 Week2 09/12/02 - 09/18/02