idealist.org

Cool site with volunteer opps world wide. Appears to be a leader in this field. Active.

cleaing up my windows computer

Here's a command under cygwin that will show the size of all subdirectories
$ du -h | sort -rn | du -hsc * -m | sort -n

personalized search scraps

from http://searchengineland.com/google-now-personalizes-everyones-search-results-31195

How Search Personalization Works

For those unfamiliar with how personalized search works, see my Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History. It goes into great detail about how Google personalizes results.

The short story is this. By watching what you click on in search results, Google can learn that you favor particular sites. For example, if you often search and click on links from Amazon that appear in Google’s results, over time, Google learns that you really like Amazon. In reaction, it gives Amazon a ranking boost. That means you start seeing more Amazon listings, perhaps for searches where Amazon wasn’t showing up before.

The results are custom tailored for each individual. For example, let’s say someone else prefers Barnes & Nobles. Over time, Google learns that person likes Barnes & Noble. They begin to see even more Barnes & Nobles listings, rather than Amazon ones.

Of course, people will be clicking on a variety of sites, in search results. So it’s not a case of having one favorite that that simply shows up for everything. Indeed, Google’s other ranking factors are also still considered. So that person who likes Amazon? If they’re looking for a plumber, Amazon probably isn’t close to being relevant, so the personalization boost doesn’t help. But in cases where Amazon might have been on the edge? Personalization may help tip into the first page of results. And personalization may tip a wide variety of sites into the top results, for a wide variety of queries.

also http://searchengineland.com/the-promise-reality-of-mixing-the-social-graph-with-search-engines-12032

Set List @ Egan’s Jam House

There Is No Greater Love

Footprints
The Blues
Beatrice
Darn That Dream
Shadow Of Your Smile
Epistrophe
I Know You Know

Witch Hunt
No More Blues*
Smash
Deluge*
Stella By Starlight
Lila’s Song*
All I Need

So What
Flim
Coffee Splat
All Blues
Inspire

twittering might be quicker

http://twitter.com/#!/permakultur

Dwolla

Using Dwolla, you can send money to people via Twitter, Facebook or a handful of other social media sites. Currently, Dwolla operates as a web-based service -- so anybody with an Internet connection can sign up through the site -- with applications available for iPhones and all Android-based phones.

From The Atlantic

New Chicks

The easter bunhy brought is a treat this easter - two baby chicks! One is a "Barred Rock" pullet and the other is a "Black Sex Link" pullet.

Finally Ditching Quicken

After 13 years of using quicken to manage the bills, I am done. Today they stopped communicating with my bank, demanding that I upgrade for another 2 years of great quicken magic. I am done. I am using my bank to make online payments, and using mint.com (also owned by Intuit) for financial planning.

Hope it works!

Start Your Own Currency

How to Start Your Own Private Currency - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic

It sounds complicated, but really it's as simple as three steps.

Bitcoin

Here's my bitcoin address: 1FF3UT9zRF7vy2vj9rBVrXNxSY4orFqc6B

Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. It is also the name of the open source software designed in order to use this currency.

I am not sure about its scalability.

The Man Who Stopped the Desert

Yacouba Sawadogo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Over a period of more than two decades, Yacouba Sawadogo's work with zaï holes allowed him to create a forested area of approximately fifty acres

Yacouba Sawadogo is the subject of a documentary feature film 'The Man
Who Stopped the Desert' made by 1080 Films, first screened in the UK in
spring 2010.^[5]

Cedar Hot Tubs

Wood hot tubs and wood-fired hot tubs - Snorkel Hot Tubs (manufacturer)

Founder of MicroLendeing Speaks out on it's Decline

Sacrificing Microcredit for Megaprofits - NYTimes.com

There are serious practical problems with treating microcredit as an ordinary profit-maximizing business. Instead of creating wholesale funds dedicated to lending money to microfinance institutions, as Bangladesh has done, these commercial organizations raise larger sums in volatile international financial markets, and then transmit financial risks to the poor.

Good Books on Economics

Must-Read Economics : Planet Money : NPR