Until I started looking at the Analog 6.0 stat reports for the site, I had no idea what a shemagh was. Now I know it’s a it’s a style of head wrap which originated in the Middle East. If you really want to know how, ActionGear.com has a pretty handy tutorial (with pictures!).
However, you’re probably wondering what middle eastern head and face protection has to do with site analytics. I am rather mystified myself!
Observe the following:
Up until this very post, I have never talked about shemaghs. How could I if I had no idea that such a thing existed? (Well I’d seen the head wrap in films, mainly, but never in person and never knew what it was called.) I don’t show up in the first five pages of regular Google search results for the term “how to tie a shemagh”. Ditto the first five pages of image results. Nor blog search results (although I personally think I should show up for a lot more terms in the blog search category, this is one I should not show up for which makes this outcome unsurprising). Yahoo’s first five pages of results also pulled up no mention of my name. I checked the first five pages of MSN as well, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Still no mention of this site.
So what gives? Where does this rogue data come from? I am on shared hosting, but this is just plain out of the blue.
I am on shared hosting, granted, but my stats thus far has been without grievous errors like this. Any masterminds want to take a stab at why such a thing might happen? (Also, feel free to make fun of me for the quality of the other search terms that I legitimately DO show up for. lol mudkips.)
So I came into work this morning, only to have a co-worker mention to me that AdCenter, MSN, and Hotmail all weren’t working for him. I checked a couple things and the sites loaded up just fine for me, but when I tried to log into AdCenter I got a friendly message saying that they were down for the time being.
Curiouser and curiouser. Then my first tweet of the day appeared:
trodrigues: msn servers are down. thousands of young portuguese girls commit mass suicide.
Intrigued, I decided to start tracking instances of “MSN” through Twitter IM. Boy, was that ever a mistake! The messages - most of them not in english - began pouring in, and my IM window has been blinking like mad all morning.
Some of the highlights:
(matheusodorisi): gente, o msn naum entra de forma alguma! appocalipse now!
(s1mone): @kakah o MSN morreu! Vida longa o GTalk!!!
(pvdp): Kom msn niet op.
(jonviray): MSN down for anyone else? people here at work are getting piiiissseed……
(hdur): Supongo que MSN enfurece a los dioses de Pakistán.
(Hausdorff): MSN産経のページ，なめてんのかって位重い
(justinkeller): Adium users: is MSN giving you problems today?
(jcloop): what the fruit is wrong with MSN messenger AND Hotmail??
(agenteinforma): MSN fora do ar não só no Brasil: http://tinyurl.com/3a4qyr
(jaredavery): What a nice start to my day. Had to help mum get in to Hotmail because MSN Messager did not want to work for her.
(cl0): who cares if you can’t get on msn? chances are not many people will wanna talk to you lot anyway ;)
And tons more comments like that. Lots of suggestions to try Meebo or defect to Gtalk. None of them seem to have any concrete intel on WHY MSN/Hotmail/et al are down, or if they do I don’t know enough portuguese/spanish/insert-other-languages-here to make it out.
I would like to note, that from my end, MSN messenger (using Pidgin) worked just fine, as did visiting LiveSpaces. The home page of Hotmail loaded up but I didn’t bother trying to log in.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established to allow for Federal enforcement of equal-rights voting within the individual States. This was renewed for 25 years by Congress and signed by President Bush last year, well in advance of the 2007 expiry date.
“The prohibition of voting rights discrimination on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of slavery was first codified by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. Soon after the failure of Reconstruction, southern states found other means besides those enumerated in the Fifteenth Amendment to deny the vote to blacks, through violence, intimidation, via Jim Crow laws that included literacy tests, poll taxes, and also grandfather clauses that permitted otherwise disqualified voters whose grandfathers voted (thus allowing some white illiterates to vote), all with the aim and effect of re-imposing racially motivated restrictions on the voting process that prevented blacks from having political and economic power.”
Even though we live in some dark and troubled times of suspect legislation and shadowy government actions, the looming threat of equal-rights voting being allowed to expire is one monster-under-the-bed we can truly see as the pile of stuff (and nonsense) that it truly is.
Stay sharp, and stay educated, because knowledge is power.
Ever wanted a quick visual representation of a particular set of search options from multiple engines? Search Crystal has you covered. It provides 3 different ways to view search results: clustered, spiraled, and listed. It will show you which engines pull up which results, too. So if Google and MSN are showing the same results, it will show you the difference in ranking. (Note: I have no idea at this time what they base their “rankings” on.)
I can picture this being not only a good tool for things like media seach, but also for SEOs to do a sort of litmus test for certain day-trader type terms on the fly.
As an example I have chosen the always interesting topic of Cthulhu! (It ~is~ Cthulhu Cthursday afterall.)
Thanks to the magic of RSS, and the writings of Wired’s copy chief, Tony Long (aka The Luddite), I’ve discovered a major media political analyst whose statements I actually find worthwhile during this time of discussion on the events of September 11th 2001.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
Keith Olbermann, of MSNBC news of all places, has a few articles up right now that really impressed me. I tend to dodge the news, as it’s typically rather depressing, highly skewed in ways I have to question, and generally not useful. While these articles are undoubtedly skewed, they are skewed with the air of human opinion, instead of reeking of propaganda. While these are depressing, they are also hopeful, because they’re written with the idea that Americans are not the sheep we’re being made out to be. The usefulness is dependant wholly upon the impact and reach of the article. It reached me, and I’m spreading it. The impact on me was immediate and profound.
A lot of people have been writing about the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and the planes which were destroyed during this series of attacks. Mostly, where they were on the day. I know right where I was. I can’t forget, it was a huge event that no one in America could realistically avoid.
In the article “This hole in the ground”, Olbermann addresses not so much the event but the national progress since then. In our dedication to the adage-nouveau “Never Forget” some of us - a lot of us - have elected to focus solely on the event. Which is understandable to a degree, it was horrific, it hurt a lot of people directly and indirectly. The circles of effect that radiate out from that series of assaults runs far and fierce, there’s no question there. However, the history of what has occured as a result of these particular incidents is just as important to address - if not more so - than the original events themselves. I recommend reading beyond that particular article as well; it illustrates my point better than I probably could myself.
Where are we going?
What are we doing?
Who is driving?
What do they want?
What do WE want?
Who among us will stand/are standing for the desires of the majority?
What is accomplished by fear?
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a 1 author project, with periodic guest posts. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail.com if you'd like to play here to.
