Notable

From: Google itself

Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools. http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has its best practices, rules, and studies; and knowing a little bit about it is a good idea. If you were looking for information on that and arrived here, I mean no disrespect. Here is a good place to start:

• High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization, (A List Apart)

But if you already know the rules of thumb, you probably are a geek like me and spend little time outside. My challenge to you: Go outside, or at least to the window. Fresh air FTW!

Per your request, I did an extensive search regarding monkeys that are native to Canada. Unfortunately, I could not find the required information within the allotted 20 minutes.

Excellent service, right? This answer received by Wired’s Chris Hardwick after only one hour, as he tested outsourcing via the Ask Sunday service.  The answer also included: rental car reservation, information about two Moose Lodges, and a store address, per his 4 question request.  This tempting service lets you make up to 15 requests-almost anything that’s doable in 20 minutes for a small monthly fee.

Chris Hardwick’s enjoyable review of 3 books about time management: Get Things Done,  Never Check E-Mail In The Morning, and The 4-Hour Workweek, is a good read. What sticks with me though is this anecdote above. I don´t have my own assistant, but am imagining the possibilities now.  What I do have is Twitter and MSN.  My network is my “personal assistant”.  Google and Wikipedia are now like air — second nature. I probably search these resources 20 times in the course of a day with out thinking about it.  I am not alone, in my increasing use of these tools to find answers, and work smarter.

The rub though, is that they can be deemed distractions. Any briefly intentioned look at Twitter, Google, or MSN can quickly entice one into “checking something out”, reading an interesting tangential post, or starting on a new project after being inspired by something you read. In other words distractions. If I had an assistant I could avoid said distractions and stay focused, right? Wrong.  We need these small distractions.  My “breaks” entail learning, and I almost always, find that these breaks pay off in some way or another.  I do stay focused, entranced really, writing, coding and fixing sometimes for 10 hours at a time.  My real problem is procrastination for those tasks that aren’t so fun anymore.  The answer I think: finish them fast, so you can get on to the more interesting jobs. I’ll tell you how it goes.

read the article: Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting With the 4-Hour Workweek.

I love the Tour de France. Crestfallen by the repeated daily debacles–falls, drug use, and irresponsible press coverage of it all–I was restored to good cheer when I stumbled across this Vande Velde diary post from 2005. I was actually searching for a picture of the new discovery team bus to prove I was right in a silly arguement. Velde is a pretty good writer, and his rider post still amuses me with a visual image when I think about it.

… after a few Fast Freddie coffees on the bus, Dave decided that we need something different to listen to. We’d been listening tot he same CDs over and over again, when Dave suddenly remembered a good mix of music that he had burned onto a CD four years ago when we were on Postal. We had called it the “Four Days of Dirk” (as in Demol) and Dave was sure that the team still had in on their bus – the same rig with a new Discovery Channel paint job. So he decides he wants his CD back. Dave runs into the Discovery bus, obviously without asking permission to get on, and starts digging around in the CD collection. He runs into Savoldelli and Dave basically tells him to “shut the $#@& up, if you know what’s good for you,” and keeps searching for the CD.

I’m pretty sure Savoldelli had no idea what he was talking about.

After his hunt for the CD – successful it turns out – we head over to the sign-in and Dave proceeds to shout at everyone he sees. He didn’t care who he shouted to. He just wanted to try out what little Italian he’s learned from Giovanni (Lombardi) on anyone he saw, be they Dutch, French, German or Italian.

I would LOVE to hear the infamous CD: Four days of Dirk.