Friday, January 26, 2007

Comings and goings

Here are some new albums of pictures from Lauren's visit and My mom's visit. Lauren finally decided to exercise her veto power over my beard, and I wasn't sorry to see it go.

Most have you have probably seen this since I've sent it around, but the Google search for miserable failure is very different as of this afternoon. (For those not familiar, the first result used to be Bush's biography.) This was part of a ranking change that I worked on with a coworker to fix google bombs. It's gotten a little bit of press so far, on the Google webmaster blog, on my manager's blog, and on Search Engine Land. The wikipedia page was changed 3 hours after we saw the google blog post go live.

No matter how much experience I have with the internet, it still tickles me every time I do something that gets talked about in a language I don't understand, although the last time it happened it was a little more embarassing.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Christmas and xkcd

Christmas was great this year, although a little awkward as I slowly transition from the status of poor college student to not-so-poor person with a job and all that that entails about gift giving. According to my grandma, the buckeyes I made this year were the "the most delicious things I've ever eaten," so if you were the recipient of some, I hope you enjoyed them, and if not, be jealous :b. My mom got me a Roomba, which is as I speak busily cleaning my apartment for me in preparation for Lauren visiting tomorrow. It's kinda like having a huge slow-moving cockroach that cleans for you. That might not sound like an endorsement, but remember I used to have madagascar hissing cockroaches as pets. A few other favorite gifts include a book of Charley Harper's artwork, a T-shirt that says "Google is Ruining Everything!" a laser level, a hand painted pot from Lauren, and lots of assorted candy and food.

I wanted to share with you all a webcomic I've been enjoying for the last few months called xkcd. The humor is best appreciated by geeks, and in particular, geeks with exposure to higher math, but there's something there for everyone. Here are a few of my favorites:

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