Every week I am emailed a list of the keywords people have searched this site for when they use the search box at the right (don’t worry – it doesn’t tell me who makes these searches). No more than one in ten of these seem to be searching for anything that makes sense to me, however. I just don’t understand what these people are looking for and why they think I might have alluded to it.

I am even starting to wonder whether somehow I might be getting someone else’s searches… Here are the 12 searches made last week:

200 million
200 million hours
dilmah
filipino
megan schoendorf
new survey
pedo
phillipines
sdfg
tabb

Could anyone who made one of those searches tell me why? Any other strange search stories people would like to share?

Interesting article about the effect of weblogs on Google. Briefly, Google favours sites that update regularly and sites with lots of links – weblogs tend to have both. And there are lots of them and many weblog owners are reading each other’s sites, so many sites can end up linking to the same site at the same time.

In other words, weblog owners can have a disproportionate impact on which sites come up when you do a search using Google – something that was demonstrated when a weblog campaign was formed to criticise a company called Critical IP by linking to the critical page. (The campaign since lost force because the links “dropped off” the pages of participating weblogs as new entries replaced them).

The article and a follow-up go on to examine whether this phenomenon is open to abuse. Inevitably, it occurs to me that this is a chance for me to do myself a good turn, so if you have a website and have a reason to provide a link to a UK Internet consultant (using those words and that link) I would be grateful…

Interesting piece on Sputnik which is trying to create an ad hoc commercial wireless network through “affiliates” who make their broadband connections available to Sputnik’s fee-paying members (presumably receiving some kick-back from Sputnik when they do so).

What isn’t mentioned in the article above is that to use Sputnik you have to dedicate a machine completely to acting as a server and you have to burn a CD-R with the software for the machine to boot from. My guess is that this will limit the user base to eager early adopters. If it were a Windows/Mac app that people could install and run in the background, then it might really take off…

Also not mentioned is what happens if DSL providers find large amounts of their bandwidth is being used by a bunch of people who are not only not paying the ISP any additional money but are paying some third party company. Sputnik itself asserts “Sputnik offers many benefits to ISPs” (without enumerating them) and they add, “Sputnik does not support any activities that violate an ISP’s acceptable usage policy”.

It remains to be seen whether they can resolve the underlying problems – but it is still good to see inventive people trying to create new solutions to the “last mile” problem!

P.S. Boingo Wireless is also offering wireless roaming, but with a more conventional business model.

William Shatner has a messageboard on his site and posts to it from time to time. I wonder if he is jealous of Wil Wheaton (the actor who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek) – his weblog has received several awards…

Have a happy International Women’s Day!

And a happy birthday to me…

In email conversation with a complete stranger the other day I discovered that not only did he read my weblog regularly, but he had actually made it his home page! Surely no greater compliment is possible… I have “borrowed” some code from Yahoo so that you, too, can make blog.org your home page with a single easy click – check out the right hand column under my “email notification” box.free movies hardcore fuckpussy movies hot freemovies free lesbian kissinglesbian free movies pussyfree lesbo clips moviefree masturbation movies maleclips movie free xxxsex clips movie free Map

Perhaps I haven’t publicised it enough but there is a space about two thirds of the way down this page on the right where you can enter your email address and be notified whenever I post anything up I consider particularly significant (the preceding post, for example). Hardly anyone has signed up yet, though. Please do if you are at all interested – I promise not to abuse it!no 5000 credit or poor loanamerican general loans san fernandostudent 1000 loan1st mortgage loan homepart 2 loans10 loans down7 loans aloan a program 8mortgage advice home loan60 day loansand loans student achievepersonals site loan personals adultonline credit adverse loan secured unsecuredloan federal aid student money directfinancial aid loan student directstudent loan grant financial aidalaska auto alaska boat loans insuranceloands alberta student Map

I have recently finished Nick Hornby’s How To Be Good and reviewed it on epinions.

It reminded me of my own struggle to define what it means to me to act ethically, which began in my third year of university with a Philosophy course – the Introduction to Moral Reasoning.

I discovered then that I was a utilitarian, and that this makes certain demands on one’s behaviour. I was particularly struck by the notion that gross inequities around the world are un-justifiable and wrote an essay (now lost) that made what was to me a convincing argument that I should sell my goods and distribute the balance to the poor (or work only in order to maximise my income available to give away). Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist, wrote recently about his struggle to do this – living in London on £7,000 a year (only a preview of his article is available for free).

Needless to say I don’t have the courage to do this myself. Like most liberals I content myself with donating at least 1% of my income to charity – there is a campaign to encourage more people to do this – and doing a little voluntary activism on behalf of my local park. But is this really enough? What is enough?

It is this question that Nick Hornby’s book raises, but does not answer.

By an odd coincidence, a similar struggle with conscience is published in the well-known community website, Fray, this week – a story of a man who tries to help a disabled man but ends up regretting his initial generous impulse when he feels more is being demanded of him than he can bring himself to give.motorola 1.99 vt3 ringtonein rd haubstadt 47639 warrington 1141ringtone 21028ge3-a melody2c 22east pa norrington 22free ringtone download nokia 2312313302312333232i download free nokia ringtoneaudiovox cdm 105 ringtonebarrington 1239 street halifax Map

Just thought I’d mention that if you visit the website of the Newington Green Action Group (of which I am the press officer and webmaster) you can read about a scheme to improve the Green which at long last has been given Council approval and will start going forward towards the end of the year. It isn’t everything we had hoped for but it is a good beginning.20 online advance cash loanpaydayloan cash advance onlinepaydayloan cash advanceadverse only us credit unsecured loansadverse loan unsecuredohio in bankruptcy loans after autoak automobile loanauto al loan Mapsloan aleshaloan services american educationcompany credit adverse loanloan ace paydayloans chance 2nd paydaystudent wachovia acs loanamericash loans100 loans Map

Would you buy a “game” called – in all seriousness – Potty Bear Goes Poopy? I found it in among the rest of the games at Download.com. Here is the description:

“Potty Bear Goes Poopy is a multimedia program to instruct and make toilet training more enjoyable for your child. It has a step-by-step video section, an interactive storybook which is printable and two easy games (one pure fun and one more edutainment covering the steps involved in going potty).”

What I find most worrying is that it is a demo with “limited features”. Surely this is one area where you don’t want to end up only getting halfway through the lesson!