Mine the Harvest

A couple weeks back I posted about Firestats. I really have been amazed by this little gem. I love seeing all the countries people come from, what blog and wiki articles they read, what the most popular pages are, etc. It is like geek candy.

I was surprised at the amount of traffic I am getting and the Google rankings some of my wiki pages have – they are surprisingly good.

So, I decided to add some additional features to my blog and wiki.

You will now see an AddThis widget at the end of each post. This has a menu popup  allowing you to perform a number of social bookmarking functions – you can Digg a post, or add it to a number of social sites.

I have also made it so any blog post that gets Dugg will have a Digg Badge show at the top of the post.

If you want to do the same, I wrote a wiki article that might help  you. I am hoping to see some of these pretty soon:

I am still working out the kinks on using the AddThis widget in MediaWiki, I have the plugin showing up correctly, but can’t seem to get a pop up style button to work, and need to see if the one I have is really working, etc. I would love to get this working fully on my wiki. I don’t see wiki articles Dugg very much, and think this could be pretty cool.

If you read a post or article you like, I would love it if you would use the widget at the end to link it to your favoriate social bookmarking site, Digg or otherwise. And comments are of course always welcome. I see lots of pople reading articles but not many comments, so I would like to do more to encourage this.

Thanks, and as I learn more I will share what I discover here on on my wiki.

I’ve often wondered what a complete collapse of the core infrastructure of the country would be like – ala Jericho (the ABC TV show) style. Today was a great example . . .

4:43 In Line

The high school student moves to scan my very last of 10 items when it happens. The EMP hits. All the registers go down simultaneously. All systems are off line. The UPSes begin chirping.  I wait for the systems to reboot. It’s not looking good. People are starting to look pretty confused. New people walk in and are stunned – they start to mill back and forth.

4:47 Take Action

Time to militarize this operation. “Can you do a manual ticket?” I inquire of the young lady. “I would have to get okay from my manager . . . ” She replies. “Great, let me just borrow that pen and I’ll be right back.” I take a paper bag and head off to get my prices. The lines are quite long now. The store managers direct cookies be passed out to calm the masses. The teenager behind me on her cell phone does not appear to notice anything is out of the ordinary yet. I wonder if the phone actually works.

4:49 Operation Dinner Liberation

Mapping the most efficient route I quickly obtain the prices for my select staples and return. (The lights go on and off a few times – perhaps switching backup power sources) I ask customer services to write a manual ticket. I ask if the phone lines are up to accept credit cards. Nope. No problem I will be right back.

(continue reading…)