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March 31, 2006

50 Reasons Why

Today Seth points us to Scott Heiferman's 50 Reasons Why More People Aren't Using Your Website.

So, here they are and here are the answers related to my site, just so you don't start thinking about leaving.

1 Because they don't want to generate content, they want better lifeNo content generation here. Just reading.
2 Because it solves a problem they don't havePretty sure I've never solved a problem here.
3 Because it won't help them with their problemYou have problems? Sorry. I thought I was the only one.
4 Because oprah didn't mention itShe will.
5 Because everyone they know isn't using itExcept for Billy, I though you were telling everyone you know about it.
6 Because it doesn't let them spy on people they care aboutTrue, unless you care about me.
7 Because they just don't care about what they seeBecause you haven't read this.
8 Because nobody at work said they should use itYou have a job?
9 Because it's not fun enoughRight.
10 Because it doesn't make them smileBecause you haven't read this.
11 Because it doesn't make or save them a ton of moneyI did too save you some money.
12 Because it doesn't save them a ton of timeUnless this article inspired you to a solution for time travel.
13 Because they can't think of what they're passionate aboutYou might try being passionate about Chipotle. It works for me.
14 Because it doesn't save lives or save the worldAgain, see my opinion on time travel.
15 Because it's not as exciting as vegasHave you been to Vegas?
16 Because it sounds like a citibank ad and they hate citibank adsGet Tivo and skip the ads.
17 Because nobody's waiting in line for itTrue, with the possible exception of those using dialup.
18 Because they've got jobs & kids & they're busyBut you still need a diversion.
19 Because they've got an appointment with american idolOr you can just get your results here, here or here.
20 Because they're scared of the computerMe too. And cockroaches.
21 Because they've got enough friendsCan you ever have enough?
22 Because they don't write wellYou don't have to.
23 Because more people are using craigslistBut does Craig have a picture of himself being electrocuted?
24 Because you don't tell them what you want them to doYes I did.
25 Because nobody will think they're a loser if they don't use itAnd nobody will think you're a loser if you do. Just don't tell them.
26 Because it's a thing for weirdos or losersSo? Don't you also have a Palm, a PocketPC, an iPod, or a cellphone. Now imagine how you would have looked to someone in 1972.
27 Because it's clearly something for "computer people"See above.
28 Because someone will steal their identity or snatch their kidsIt's a blog. Just read.
29 Because they don't understand your college wordsFortunately for you, I didn't study words in college.
30 Because they're better at something else that you suck atThere is no doubt in my mind you're better than me at everything except possibly falling down stairs.
31 Because they're not good at the computerBut you're better at it than your parents.
32 Because they were born before 1985I hope so. I'm much funnier if you were born circa 1970.
33 Because they're shyI was the fat kid. I know shy. Just read. If you feel like commenting, type slowly.
34 Because it doesn't work like yahoo or amazon or ebayYay!
35 Because it's more than 1 screen to learn, unlike googleNo learning. Just reading.
36 Because they're depressedThen read this. Note: if you're depressed about a personal event related to flatulence, don't read the aforementioned.
37 Because they don't want to sit in front of the computerStand up and read.
38 Because they tried to use it, but something got messed upNothing to mess up. Just don't click this. You might mess something up.
39 Because they've never heard of itNow you have.
40 Because there's something better to doName one thing. Okay, name 42 things.
41 Because us-weekly is more interestingBut is US Weekly so easy to click?
42 Because it says "tags" or "rss" and they feel stupidOkay, I'm still trying to get over feeling stupid about RSS, too.
43 Because a friend or family member needs themYou can read together.
44 Because they don't want to look dumbNo matter what, you probably couldn't do anything that would make you look dummer than this.
45 Because they've never heard of flickr or delicious eitherDon't learn about that, just read here.
46 Because there aren't enough people using it yet to make it usefulAt least three people read this site. It's usefulness may have peaked.
47 Because there's no nudity or celebritiesYeah, but I have Grape Nuts. Which, after thinking about it is probably not a good thing to say in conjunction with nudity.
48 Because it doesn't tell them why to use itYes I did.
49 Because it doesn't get them sex and/or loveIf you avoid all of the mistakes in my short stories, it might.
50 Because they just don't want to read what you want them to readThen don't read this.

I hope that helps!

Squidoo Payments Have Begun

106435353_c2ce51f2b3_o.pngSquidoo officially announced their payment system is active today and retroactive to the first of March. Personally I think they should have made it the 15th of March so we'd have one less reason to "beware the Ides of March," but that's just me.

If you are an expert on something (and everyone is), you should begin your lens today. For an example of a lens, see my lens on creating Google Homepage Modules and my lens on The Agency Delta. For an example of a good lens, see this list.

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In Transition

I just uploaded another chapter of The Agency Delta today. This is another short, transitional chapter.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I loved creating the Bryan character in The Agency Delta. Everything about him is so repugnant that you just dislike him all the way through. I liked creating him and his world because it allowed me to explore all the lazy and nasty and repulsive, bring it to the front, then let it take care of itself.

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Sunday, 13 March 2022 – 7:00 a.m. MST

 

Bryan had spent most of the night working. He had thoroughly reviewed all of the information from the rogue message. It contained more details about the futurestream and its implementation than he had been expecting. He had built a prototype program of his own to tap the futurestream. He reveled in his brilliance. He wouldn’t be working for Q-Morrow much longer. He would own Q-Morrow.

When a call rang in, Bryan jumped back in surprise. It was Valerie. He had been so obsessed with the work that he had lost all track of time.

“Any news of the message?” she asked.

Bryan rubbed his nose and ran his fingers through his stringy hair. “Nothing certain,” he answered. “I’ve been focusing on containment rather than investigation.”

“Quinn will be in shortly. I expect that he’ll want a better update than that. I’ll call when he arrives.”

Bryan shook his head. He had very little time to decide what to say to Quinn and Valerie. He considered the possibility that they might have been investigating it themselves. “Not likely,” he said out loud. He would have an answer for them.

 

March 30, 2006

Commenting on Comments

empty blank for your commentWow! There have been a plethora of comments lately. You can't know how appreciated they all are. Rather than commenting on comments in the comments section (did you get that?), I'd like to comment here. In no particular order:

Jonno lets us know that Generation E is alive and well down under by pointing us to this article. That's too bad.

Darren's comment made me laugh. If you liked the binary joke, I highly recommend this article. If it makes you smile, you're definitely a geek. It's genius.

There are too many comments on Reddit vs Digg to list separately. I thank everyone. Apparently we've all had about the same experience.

Stefano comments on my overview of The Agency Delta. He points out that the post is too long and that this is the web where people "scan more than they slow down to read." I don't disagree. It's an interesting spot I'm in, though. The whole premise of this blog is reading. Some of my entries can be scanned, some must be read. I suppose it's about what you are here for. If you have a minute, though, please read.

Jeff would like to know how Google's link to me affects traffic. I'll keep you posted, but for what it's worth, traffic here is great. Every day this week, I've had over 500,000 hits, over 230,000 page views and over 15,000 unique visitors. My Alexa ranking has gone from about 200,000 to about 40,000 and my Technorati rank has gone from about 800,000 to about 90,000 (in the past 3 weeks). This is all because of you, the readers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Again, I sincerely thank you all for the comments. It's starting to feel like a little community of friends to me.

PS. I'll do this as often as I can, but I may not be able to comment on all comments. Also, I'm going to be adding more of my regular commenters to my blogroll as soon as I can. I have some new favorites.

Huh?

broken cell phoneWas your phone broken Tuesday night? It must have been, because Katherine McPhee landed in the bottom three on Idol last night and there can be no other explanation. Katherine is the only female performed on Idol worth keeping. Kellie is cute (but not that cute); Mandisa is good, but not an idol; ditto for Paris.

So what happened? You misdialed and got Bucky instead of Katherine. Ug.

I was right about Lisa and Ace. Bucky looked as surprised as I was when they announced Katherine in the bottom three. Let's all try to make sure this doesn't happen again. Remember, vote for Katherine and Chris.

Use your broken phone for everyone else.

I ♥ Google

Google has recently redesigned Google Code. This is the place where nerds go to find out how to integrate their software with Google. So obviously I spend a lot of time on that page.

They have added a "Featured Projects" section. Today, my traffic module is one of the featured projects. You should go there now so you see it before they feature someone else's project.

March 29, 2006

Idol Chatter

Not much time left before the show, so here's the rundown:

1. Last night's show was lame. Only Katherine was interesting.
2. Bucky, Ace and Lisa will be in the bottom three.
3. Lisa is going home.

Back tomorrow!

Welcome New Readers

Read the Classics 3For all those who are new to my blog, I welcome you. In the past few weeks I know there are many new readers, so I'm back to restate the purpose of the existence of this blog.

If you have been perusing the front page, you will have no doubt stumbled on my excitement about movies, American Idol, technology, Google and my desire to discuss general strangeness.

You may be thinking to yourself, "with this guy's wit and style, why isn't he doing Ryan Seacrest's job?" I would, but Fox apparently went to great lengths to find someone with no sense of humor and with no concept of the music industry, but who has good hair. Otherwise, I was a shoe-in.

However, I don't want to be a television host, I want to be a writer. Currently I'm a software developer, which is good if you want to be on the inside of this joke:

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

But, since I've already been there, I'm looking to do something new. So I've written a novel. And I'm seeking an agent or publisher to publish it. Here are the relevant links on this site to read it and find out more about it:
1. Why you will want to read it
2. Why I want you to read it
3. How to read it

Don't forget to comment!

Because You Asked

pageviews.gifAshok asked me to compare my experience of the Digg effect with this article. Here are the basic points of the article:

1. Digg users do not click ads
2. Digg users do not use Alexa
3. Digg traffic does not generate new users, comments, or posts.
4. Every site on the front page gets flamed in the comments.
5. The digg effect brings in a moderate amount of traffic and uses a lot of bandwidth.
6. Digg users are more polite than slashdot visitors.
7. The digg effect is much less on a weekend.
8. The best digg post regarding a topic is not always the one that reaches the front page.
9. Digg may or may not have positive effects on your google pagerank.
10. After a site is highlighted on the Digg front page, it will start showing up in the other social bookmarking systems soon.

My experience with Digg can't cover everything, but I will say that it was obviously a short-lived phenomenon. The graphic in this article shows my Google Analytics traffic. The first unusually tall bar is the day that my EZDigg article hit the Digg front page. Traffic returned to about normal immediately after that day. I'll talk about the second unusual traffic day in a minute.

My experience:

1. I do use adwords and I will say that I got more clicks that day than usual. But I'm not retiring on my adwords revenue anytime soon.
2. Some Digg users must use Alexa because my Alexa rank went through the roof that day.
3. I received one comment related to all that Digg traffic. I agree.
4. I get flamed no matter what I do, but it's true.
5. Lots of traffic, lots of bandwidth. Very short lived.
6. Everybody is more polite than Slashdot users.
7. Don't know.
8. Agreed. The Digg front page doesn't necessarily have the most relevant information, but that's true of any social web site. Why else would we all have seen the Numa Numa kid?
9. Likely Google pagerank won't be affected, but I don't think pagerank is affected by traffic, only by links.
10. Yes, and a front page article gets blogged by a lot of bloggers.

I do want to comment on Reddit now. Reddit is another social bookmarking site, but is much broader in scope than Digg. Yesterday I posted a link to one of my short stories there and it hit the front page. (Look on this page for "How NOT to Check Battery Life" and don't forget to vote.) In the past day I have received nearly as much traffic as I previously received from Digg, but the quality of the traffic is better. I have received many comments, I have not been flamed (yet) and the traffic seems to be more consistent over time.

To be fair, the article I posted at Digg is not exactly in the vein of the purpose of this blog, while the story I posted at Reddit is exactly in line with the purpose of this blog. In any case, I'll take Reddit over Digg right now.

March 28, 2006

Follow Up on Service

empty blank for your commentJeff makes a good point in his comment on my article, Superlative Service.

Excellent service is a process, not an event. I would say that there are very few places/people who provide great service 100% of the time. That's unfortunate, but true.

I'm not sure that commenting on good service necessarily causes laziness and feeds into bad service, but it may be the case in some situations. I think we always have to allow for "off days" in any situation. I also think that we can give positive criticism (is that an oxymoron?) when necessary. For example, if you're used to great service and one time receive poor service, that should be noted without being overly critical. If that type of comment is received poorly, then perhaps it's time to move on.

I will say that when you find someone or someplace that really excels at what they do, you should pass that along as often and as with as much emotion as you do when you have a bad experience. Justin Cook is an example of consistent, fantastic service in his area of expertise. Here are some more places/services where I have received excellent service:

  • The Melting Pot - Fondue Restaurant Chain. This is a dining event.
  • DirecTV - Seriously, I love DirecTV. They have been so great about upgrading and keeping my service current.
  • Netflix.com. What could be easier?
  • Z'Tejas - Restaurant. Always great food. Always great service.
There are many more, but those are the first to come to mind. When was the last time you passed along a bit of positive feedback to a friend?

March 27, 2006

Superlative Service

Number OneWhen was the last time you recognized excellent service? Last week, I was having lunch at a place that I tend to go about once or twice a month. I was with Dan, my caricature-creating best friend and co-worker. We realized that the service was above normal and so Dan asked the manager to stop by and we told him how great things were that day. Those comments were obviously very well received and appreciated.

Unfortunately in life we tend to only remark on negative service and rarely point out the positive. Today, however, I'm going to point out one fantastic example of remarkable service and I hope to continue the tradition as often as I can.

As I mentioned previously, we have been working to sell our house and buy a new one here in the area. There aren't words to describe the excellent service we've received from our real estate agent. This isn't our first move or our first interaction with a real estate agent, but this is by far the best. Everything has gone well, everything is moving quickly but we're not feeling out of control or rushed in anything.

I can't say enough good about this agent. If you live in (or are moving to) the Phoenix area, particularly in the East Valley, I highly recommend using Justin Cook.

Thanks, Justin!

Monday Movie Review

This week I spent most of my free time getting my house ready to be listed. We're going to be moving locally soon and so I've spent too much time painting and cleaning and no time watching movies. I am far overdue to finally list my least favorite movies of all time.

Now, there are many reasons a movie can be hated. Obviously a bad movie is just a bad movie, but an ordinary bad movie probably won't end up on this list. For example, Solaris is a really bad movie. As far as I'm concerned, there was nothing about the movie that made it worth watching. However, it doesn't make my list of worst movies because it was just a generically bad movie. To make the list, it had to be remarkably bad or have completely missed the mark for my expectations. I'll provide as much detail as possible as to why these movies are on the worst of the worst list:

  • Unbreakable
    After seeing The Sixth Sense (which I enjoyed very much), I mistakenly thought that M. Night Shyamalan was going to continue to roll out great movies. Wow. Was I wrong about that.

    Unbreakable was a horrible disappointment. This movie never did anything. There was so much opportunity and so little delivery. Obviously I'm a big action movie fan, but I can enjoy a drama. Unbreakable just teased me for a while letting me think that I was watching a superhero movie but left me with the realization that I had wasted two hours trying to care about one man's pathetic loser life. And I never cared. Not for one minute.

    I hated it because there were so many places this movie could have gone that would have made it likable, but it chose to go none of those places.


  • Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

    A wrote a complete discussion of why this movie is in my hate list here.

  • A River Runs Through It

    This was the longest movie of my life. Every fly-fishing filled minute of it was a painful wasted hour of my life. Normally I don't feel too bad about wasting a couple of hours on a bad movie, but this was the kind of ordeal where I had to continually take myself to a happy place in my mind just so my autonomic nervous system wouldn't shut down completely.

    This was another movie where nothing happened. A lot of stuff almost happened, but nothing actually happened to any of the characters. If Brad Pitt's character had actually died in one of the many events that could have killed him, then something would have happened. But, alas, there it is ... a movie about nothing.


  • Friday Night Lights

    I covered this movie already here.

    I watched this film because of movies like Miracle and Remember the Titans. I was expecting some kind of feel-good underdog turned champion sports film. Nope. Just crap.


  • Forrest Gump

    Forrest Gump makes this list for two reasons: 1) I just didn't like this movie and 2) My expectations were overly high. Everybody I know loves this movie. I heard about it from everyone. "Have you seen Forrest Gump yet?" "You need to see Forrest Gump."

    So I went to see it and I hated it. Unfortunately I probably disliked it more because I was disappointed than that I actually thought it was bad. It was not fun to watch. I didn't like it. But most of all I was expecting to love it and it didn't even come close to that for me.

    For me, that box of chocolates contained only nasty lemon-flavored cream covered in white chocolate. Run away Forrest. Please.



March 24, 2006

Where are you?

Globes

Some of you may have already seen it, but there's a new section in the right-hand column (on the main page) of my blog called Local Promotions. If you happen to live in Utah or Arizona you'll see a personalized message. Utah visitors get a coupon. Arizonans will soon see a coupon there too. They are for local items, so it doesn't make sense to show them for everyone.

I think geo-targeting is pretty cool. Yes, I'm a geek.

I'm expanding GeoTrackr in the future so others can use this feature as well, but for now I haven't released it publicly.

Dan Brown

DaVinciCode.jpgI've read four of Dan Brown's books, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. Before I had read any of these books, I had never seen a book written with such short chapters. What I like about that concept is twofold: 1) it moves quickly from scene to scene (like a modern movie); 2) as a reader I feel like I can always sneak in just "one more chapter" before bed (or whatever is next).

I originally started writing The Agency Delta as a screenplay because I had always envisioned it as a movie. So my story was divided into very small scenes from the beginning. My brother recommended writing it as a novel, but I had a hard time conceptualizing the conversion of what I had already written as a screenplay into a traditional novel. Then I read Dan Brown. Those short chapters were perfect. That's why The Agency Delta is written the way it is.

I just uploaded Chapter 52. It may be the shortest chapter in the book, but it is an important transitional scene.

P.S.: Dan Brown fans probably already know, but his next book, The Solomon Key is listed on Amazon now (for email notification).

Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Sunday, 13 March 2022 – 7:00 a.m. MST

 

Daniel slept restlessly as Sireesha sat contemplating their situation. Her plan had been interrupted, but it was still salvageable. She still had leverage over Quinn and they both knew it. Even if he had the device, she still had his wife. She sent a short message to her contact at Q-Morrow.

Continue to monitor Ramesh. Notify of any relevant information Ramesh obtained in Durban.

 

She reclined in her seat. It had been nearly eleven years since she had last seen Quinn. She had spent eight years with him, trying to understand him, trying to understand his motivations. They had discovered a phenomenon that they could use for any purpose. He seemed only interested in the money, never in the political opportunity. There was so much more they could do. She had spent hours with him discussing the opportunity for more than just financial gain. He never understood her vision.

Eleven years later, Sireesha finally had the infrastructure to do it herself. She refused to fail and she would not allow anything to affect her plan. She was driven to completely control the future. There was no room in her future for error, no room for inexplicable deltas. She would eliminate the agency delta to perfect her control.

 

March 23, 2006

A Tale of Two Blakes...

An astute reader just pointed me to this web site: Blake Photography. Any statisticians want to tell me the probability of that?

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Glass Half Full

Oops!Well, I picked the bottom three, but I missed the bottom one.

Kevin Covais went home last night. I thought he had more cute kid appeal than he obviously had. I wonder what is harder, though: going home or being in the bottom three and not going home. Lisa and Bucky (and Ace) have to know that the clock is ticking.

March 22, 2006

Tivo Woes

Remote ControlThere needs to be another control on my Tivo that disallows children from messing with recordings. Last night, my daughter inadvertently cancelled the recording of American Idol, so we were only able to catch the last four performers. The good news is that there is an Internet, so I was able to find Chris Daughtry's performance online at YouTube.

Based solely on the recaps at the end of the show, I'm placing Lisa Tucker, Kevin Covais and Bucky Covington in the bottom three tonight. I would put Ace there just for his performance, but he's going to get the sympathy vote tonight from last week's surprise.

Since I have to pick one to go home, I'm going to say Lisa Tucker.

Google Taking Over?

My Google Page Creator account just opened up today. If you happen to have a Google account (GMail), then you may already have a Page Creator account too.

You can see my first page here. It took me less than five minutes to login, figure out the software and create that page. As usual, Google has done an outstanding job. I'm a little bummed that I can't add Javascript (or at least I wasn't able to figure out how to do it in five minutes), but everything else went amazingly quickly. The image upload/resize/position tool is exceptional!

I expect we'll be seeing a lot more Google Page Creator pages in the near future.

P.S. Thanks to Dan for the image!

March 21, 2006

Monday Movie Review on Tuesday

Yes, yes, this is becoming a habit, but life is busy, so you'll have to take the Monday movie review late sometimes.

We took the kids to see the remake of Walt Disney's Shaggy Dog. My expectations were exceptionally low based on my experience with these types of movies. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was actually entertained.

Everything went exactly as expected, so don't go into the movie hoping for a plot twist or cliffhanger, but this movie was fun. It may be better if you take your kids and watch their reactions with one eye. There's a lot of visual humor that really works for the nine-and-under crowd.

All in all it was fun. 1.25π.

Google Idol

All I have to say is that I'm glad this didn't exist when I was going through my home-video stage: Google Idol.

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March 20, 2006

GeoTrackr Beta Release

geotrackr.gifMany of you have noticed and commented on the visitor tracking system that I have on my blog. It is a service that I developed for myself, but since I have received so many requests to use it, I have decided to make it publicly available. To use it, you must register and download code from this site: GeoTrackr.

It is still in what I would call an early beta phase, so you should expect some bugs. If you find bugs, tell me. It should be very simple to use for people with any experience with HTML and websites at all. Please let me know what you think.

There is a possibility that I will restrict access to GeoTrackr again, depending on the initial response. If my server becomes too loaded to handle all the requests, I may have to disallow new registrants.

Australian Reaction

The headline reads: Cyclone Larry Lashes Northeast Australia, but what caught my eye is this section:

"Australians are very good at responding to these things because everybody pitches in without restraint," he told reporters.
I couldn't help but think about Generation E. Is Gen-E just an American thing?

Flame on.

P.S. My sincere best wishes and prayers to all affected by this cyclone. -- Blake

March 17, 2006

Why?

QuestionI received this message from a new reader today:

Hi, I got to your site from digg. And then I saw the blue box about a novel. The link about why I should read intrigued me. And the page was funny. But didn't answer the question - why should I read the book? Not why do you want me to read the book - why should *I* read the book? Being part of a social phenomenon holds no interest for me. I am not a lemming. I don't even know if it's fiction or non-fiction. What would the cover look like? Who are the characters? Why should I care about the characters?

First of all, let me say that I'm not exactly sure what a lemming is. For some reason I think of them as furry and cute, like tribbles, but that's just speculation. I don't think of any of my readers as lemmings if that's a bad thing, but if it means you're cute (and possibly furry) and that's a good thing, then I welcome all lemmings.

Now, for the details.

The Agency Delta is fiction. Specifically it is a book that I categorize as a science-fiction suspense novel. It's not really hardcore sci-fi and I don't want to characterize it that way because I really wrote a book about people, not technology. There is no cover (yet) as it is not published. If you want to design a cover, feel free. When I get the book published, I might be able to use your artwork. Just a thought.

The main characters are:

  • Quinn Sorensen: The central character whose Internet-related discovery has created enormous wealth and power.
  • Laura Sorensen: Quinn's wife, a lawyer, a US Senate hopeful and the anchor of Quinn's life.
  • Valerie Decker: Quinn's Executive Assistant. Valerie plays a much larger role in Quinn's company than that of a traditional EA and is one of the few employees who understands the true nature of the business.
  • Ramesh Kapoor: A South African-born Indian engineer cum ethicist whose personal tragedies have made him reclusive and distant.
  • Sireesha Naidu: Native Indian, Sireesha helped Quinn launch his discovery into a business. Her political views eventually created a wedge between her and Quinn. She returned to India to launch her own technological empire.
  • Daniel van der Merwe: South African software developer. Daniel worked closely with Sireesha both before and after her return to India.

The storyline:

The Agency Delta is set primarily in Tempe, Arizona and the Phoenix metropolitan area in the year 2022, but much of the story occurs in Durban, South Africa and Bangalore, India. Quinn has just recruited Ramesh to help him protect a mutual friend and discover a potential business and political threat from Sireesha. Reluctant to leave his reclusive life and reluctant to aid Quinn's cause for personal and ethical reasons, Ramesh struggles with his decision to help. When the requests become personal, Ramesh joins Quinn and is rushed into a world of technological deception that he could not have imagined.

While Quinn is the central character to the plot, the story is at least as much about the personal growth and change in Ramesh's life, so the story focuses on him a great deal. As an ethicist, Ramesh provides the moral spine of the story and effects much of the interpersonal conflict between the primary characters. Sireesha's political and personal perspective drives the storyline as she tries to drive the future Asia into world economic dominance.

There are many readers out there. I welcome your comments. Perhaps you can give your perspectives on the plot, the characters, etc.

Chapter 51

Chapter 51

Saturday, 12 March 2022 – 9:45 p.m. MST

 

Jordan Sorensen received First Runner Up in her Junior Miss pageant. She had performed a wonderful violin solo and scored well in all other categories. She was sure that her interview was the one area in which she had scored poorly. She reacted well to not winning the pageant overall, but she was disappointed.

As they drove away from Mountain View High, Jordan sat with her head on her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t want to talk about the pageant any more. It had exhausted her and she was ready to do something different.

It was late, but she was hungry and in the mood for just going out as a family. She suggested her personal favorite, The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant that she had loved since she was little. At first she looked forward only to the final course, the chocolate fondue, but as she had grown she found that she actually preferred the cheese fondue. Occasionally she craved it. Tonight was one of those nights.

The family agreed and invited Valerie. The six spent the next few hours in pure enjoyment. Quinn had relaxed when Valerie messaged him that Bryan had partially contained the infection. He assumed that if Bryan could slow it immediately, he would eradicate it eventually.

As the dinner drew on, young Julie Ann fell asleep in the booth. At that, the family decided it was time to finish. They said goodnight to Valerie and returned home. Quinn and Laura put the children to bed and retired.

Quinn lay awake for a moment reveling in the joy he felt. Never in his years of exciting corporate growth had he ever felt that type of peaceful joy. There had been happiness, pride, excitement in his work, but never true joy. He realized how much he looked forward to moving on. His plan had always been to step down at Q-Morrow when Laura won the senate. He had never voiced his plan. He wanted to surprise her with it. He hoped that he would be able to follow through.

 

At six a.m. as Quinn sat in his study looking over the morning news he received a distressed message from Ramesh. He replied.

I will arrange the return flight immediately. Please call.

 

Quinn passed the return flight planning off to Valerie. She knew better than he how to make the arrangements. The call rang in.

“Ramesh?” Quinn answered.

“Yes.” His voice was low and raspy.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” The answer clearly denoted incredulity that Quinn had even asked. “I’ve just come from the house of my best friend where I found him dead and I’ve just caused a multiple-car collision on the N3. Quinn, I’ve just spent the past few days dealing with this disaster you created. I am most definitely not okay.”

Quinn had no response. He had meant to ask if Ramesh was physically well and out of danger. “I’m sorry.” He truly was sorry, but sorry offered nothing.

“So am I.”

“Valerie is arranging your return.”

“Thank you.”

“Ram?” Quinn wanted to ask if he had found out anything that could help. He wanted to know if there was some bit of information that could help them get back on track. He deferred. “Take care. I’ll see you when you arrive.”

Ramesh heard the pause. He knew that Quinn was anxious and resented that Quinn was still interested in his personal agenda. But it was not in Ramesh to be vengeful. No matter what happened, Ramesh was above that.

“Yes. I’ll see you then,” he responded. “I’m sending you a recording that Brad made for you. It will help you with the current problems. He seemed so pleased that you would have come to see him. It’s unfortunate that you didn’t.”

Quinn felt both a wave of relief and a wave of shame. “Yes. Yes it is,” he said quietly.

“It appears that Valerie has just messaged me. She has arranged a flight already. I’ll see you soon.” Ramesh said then ended the call.

Quinn sat in his study. The peaceful joy he had enjoyed during the night was now replaced with anger, fear, doubt, self-loathing, emptiness and loneliness all wrapped up in one ugly package. He leaned forward and held his head in his hands. This was not the life he had endeavored to create. This was not the future he wanted.

 

Results of The Digg Effect

As promised, here are the results of yesterday's digg.com effect. At the time of this writing, the article had been dugg 995 times. The digg story was posted 1 day + 18 hours ago.

According to my web logs, there have been 6,094 views of the referenced page. Overall, hits were up 26% to 462,746 total site hits yesterday. Page views were up 11.5% percent to 180,306 pages viewed yesterday. Unique visitors was up 38% to 18,291 visitors yesterday. For the übergeek readers out there, I kept an eye on my server's load average throughout the day. Most of the time it was around 0.50, but it spiked to as high as 2.21 at various times. Fortunately I didn't have any real trouble with the load.

I use Google Analytics to track actual (human read) pages also. You can see from the graphic below that human-read traffic was more significantly impacted by this event than even the numbers above show (click image for full size).

analytics.jpg

Not only did I receive a lot of (mostly-)positive feedback about the digg utility, but I also received some very good feedback about my novel, The Agency Delta. And that really is the whole point for me. I appreciate all the feedback and support from everyone. I know my blog goes all over the place. It's my place to just express my random thoughts, so I truly appreciate those of you who keep coming back whether I'm talking tech, books, movies, TV, politics or bacon. I especially appreciate you who have taken the time to read my book online and give me comments. I'll be posting another chapter later.

Thanks!

March 16, 2006

Idol Predictions: Correct Again

Gold StarI want to reiterate that picking the person that's going to be voted off American Idol is not a difficult task. It's not rocket science, and it's not reciting 8,784 digits of π. It's just not that tough.

However, I'm giving myself a gold star for last night. I got it right again.

I do want to comment on the fact that Ace was in the bottom three, though. The whole audience seemed to be surprised he was there, but here's my theory: Ace is a decent performer, but he's neither the best nor the worst. I haven't voted for him for several weeks because he's not that good. My theory is that most Idol voters assume that someone else will be voting for Ace. That's what I think. He probably won't be in the bottom of the votes again for a couple of weeks though because the people who like him more than somebody else will include him in their voting. But I still won't.

The Digg Effect

EZDigg hit the digg.com front page this morning, so my site is getting slammed. I'll post the results tomorrow, but it looks like it's going to be a banner day.

Sincere thanks to everyone!

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