The Obama administration's missile defense system against the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats.

Homer Tribble passes at age 42

A tribute to a tribble.

First, let me deny that this post exists simply to prove I know about subjects Soubriquet has never heard of.

Homer Tribble was not just any tribble. 

I know that's a pretty brash statement because, well, ALL tribbles are just like any other tribble, right?

Homer is the tribble in the cup on the left, above, being held by Kirk's well-manicured right hand.

Fact: tribbles are born pregnant.

Some of you knew that. The result of this odd genetic characteristic is illustrated in the below photo.

A closer look (below) shows Spock feeling Homer's rump as he ignores Bone's inane blathering about there being no toilet paper in any of the johns on the observation deck. One doesn't even want to contemplate what Bone's bright idea to solve this problem with tribbles is. Some have asserted (as a matter of peripheral interest) that Nimoy was sexually aroused in this scene, due to a latent fur fetish.

Note that Bones has his medical scanner hung around his neck. The is the same scanner that always seemed to turn into a Tricorder during landing missions. Why bother paying for extra unneeded props? No reason.

Trivia question: How did they finally get rid of the tribbles?

a. Spock gave them all the Vulcan nerve pinch

b. Scotty incinerated them in an anti-matter pod

c. They transported them onto the Klingon vessel

d. They were unable to get rid of them and the series was cancelled

Homer was buried with full honors on Rigel 7, Saturday last. Nurse Chapel represented the Federation. Travel arrangements by Priceline.

Preambling into a new experiment in government

The Articles of Confederation had failed to achieve the vision of the leaders of the several states - the founding fathers, as we have come to call them - or at least those who were around back in the beginning we call founding fathers.

Why did they try again? They could have gone back to being individual states. They were pretty friendly with each other now, after the war.

They tried again because there were still enough people who believed in the obvious benefits of a formal union between the states - at least in the benefits of a common defense against unfriendly outsiders, and the regulation of commerce between the states.

Virginia probably didn’t care terribly much about how Massachusetts and New York conducted their internal affairs, and the feeling was probably mutual, but there WAS still a desire to cooperate in things that affected all the states: again, mostly commerce and the other things that were common problems and common opportunities. Speaking with one voice, on certain issues, at least, was recognized, even then, as being a valuable thing.

Still, nobody particularly wanted to give up any soveriegnty, either. Shades of the later EU.

So, the need for a Union - a more effective union than they had had under the Articles of Confederation - was still recognized. And the issue of soverignty - states’ rights - was still in need of a compromise being hammered out. Our present-day constitution is the result of that desire for a union, and that eventual compromise, spelled out in words.

In fact, the reason for the constitution is actually stated pretty clearly in the document itself, in the Preamble: “... in order to form a more perfect union... “

The complete statement of purpose - the entire preamble - reads as follows:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The capitalization of certain of the words was in the form of the day. They capitalized whatever words were important. Which is to say, whatever they felt like capitalizing. The rules of grammar were easier to teach back then: you made them up as you went along.

The actual constitution was written by a relatively few men, but the debate as to what points were to be put into it and how it was to be worded, involved many people. Then, once it was written, it had to be sold to all the states. Some of them weren’t buying at first.

[next: part two of 1,027 parts.]

(Well, I hope not.)

[Note: I can almost hear the wheels clicking and turning inside A.’s delightful head. “It was either perfect, or not perfect. If they didn’t like it the first time, then it could not have been perfect. If it were perfect, they would not have wanted to change it. Therefore, the purpose can not have been ‘to form a more perfect union’.” Sigh. Ah, well. Just chalk it up to the times: the founding fathers were just that way. They wore ruffled shirts. Puffy pirate shirts. They wore powdered wigs. That’s just the way they talked. They were... effusive.]  :)

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Your page may be rank

A lot of people care about PageRank, apparently. Ettarose the saint slash comedienne is obsessed with PageRank. Even my delusional friend Gavin Fukwitski over at pwn greenland is concerned about PageRank. Always has been, although he would probably not admit it in public. That would not be cool. Right now he is mostly irritated that people in India who speak broken English and and have no PageRank are trying to be his friends on BlogCatalog. But I am drifting off subject.

What is PageRank?

A lot of people are under the impression PageRank has something to do with Google's rating of your blog slash website. Those people are correct. My point here, however, is to give you more information than that. Perhaps even some USEFUL information. You never know.

First piece of information is that you need to have a tool in your browser's toolbar to find out what the PageRank is of the page you are visiting. If you have Google's toolbar, then you already have it, of course. There is also one (a better one) on Safari for Mac, but I am not going to tell you where to get that tool because you have all, at one time or another, scorned me for using a Mac in the first place. So I guess none of you need to know. Except Canucklehead who also uses a Mac but who won't read down this far in the post so never mind him.

The next thing you need to know is, once you have that tool to tool around with, is what the number means. PageRank goes 0 through 10 but one is low and 9 is high. So if you have a 4 like most of us, you are not that great but pretty cool. I am only saying this because some of you aspire to have a 1 PageRank and I thought I would clue you in that that is not a worthy goal.

Then.... well, you don't REALLY need to know this but PageRank is named after the inventor of the algorithm and his name is Larry Page. So that is where the name came from, not because you are having a "page" on your blog ranked. Well, you are, but.... never mind.

PageRank is a trademark. Page gave the trademark rights to Stanford University where he was going to school when he was inventing ranking algorithms and devising innovative search engine techniques. Page and his friend Sergey Brin, another Stanford student went on to perfect their little algorithm ranking thing and also their search engine which the boys gave the outrageous name of "Google" to. What a dumb name. But then they went public with their little company recently and cashed in for billions of dollars each, so I guess I shouldn't belittle them.

Although there have been many innovations which make the original concept more sophisticated, PageRank continues to be the basis for all of Google's web-search tools.

What you REALLY want to know is what PageRank really is, what it represents, and, perhaps, how to make your own PageRank higher than it is right now.

Because of all your snotty comments about how long my posts are, I should make you wait until tomorrow to tell you that. I have a notoriously short attention span though, so I will just tell you what I found out right here and now.

First, since PageRank is based (mainly, at least) on how popular you are (doh) it stands to reason that your number is related to how many incoming links there are to your site. Your page, I mean. And if you have links coming in to you from "important" sites (like this one), you get more brownie points in the algorithm. So if the linking website has a high PageRank, you get more "credits" under the algorithm parameters. (An algorithm is just a fancy name for a "system" for getting some job done, in which you include all the variables you can think of to be taken into consideration, so your conclusion is more valid. The dictionary may have a better definition than the one I just gave you off the top of my head, but only losers look at dictionaries, right?)

So... how do you raise your page rank? First you send Larry Page some money. Kidding. He sold out. What you do is make a donation to Stanford. Or Sanford and Son. Kidding again. No, what you do is you (ta DAH!) try to induce people to link to you, and also do things yourself, proactively, which cause links to be placed from other sites to YOUR site.

Jesus, Ettarose, you still have that blank look on your face.

Stuff like commenting on forums, and posting a lot on your blog. Getting on many bloglists (those count as incoming links, and so do those new Google "follower" widgets now.)

Write articles and guest posts on other sites and make sure you put a link to your site in the guest posts. Be nice to others as well: when I get done with this post, as I nearly am, I intend to go back and create links to Ettarose and even Canucklehead. [If you have a blogspot blog, then make a lot of comments on other blogs, because you leave behind a link that takes interested people to your blogger profile. I guess you should make a lot of comments on ALL blogs, not just Blogspot blogs. Sorry.]

There are MANY more things you can do to cause more links to be coming in to your blog or other site. Study up on it. And try to suck up to the very popular sites (like this one) because those sites are weighted more in the algorithm. Stay away from worthless sites like Pwn Greenland or Canucklehead. Some sites are worth paying them money to link to you (like this one.) Kidding. NO site is worth paying to link to you.

[You know what? It just occurred to me that Entrecard could help you (which I just quit), not because of the widget (nobody, including Google, cares about how much 2-second worthless traffic Entrecard gives you), but because several other members might have you on a "drop list" and that is usually a list of links they click on. Hmmmmm. Too late now.]

Of course, there are still those who say the algorithm can be manipulated. Go figure.

If You Write It
X-Men Origins:Wolverine
6 hours ago

Rocket Scientist
Everyone Has a Weakness
8 hours ago

Ask Me Anything
For Shakespeare: Parenting Guidelines Part 1
10 hours ago

Kitchen Retro
The Birdbrain
15 hours ago

The Virtual Dime Museum
"Important to the Party Interested": A Victorian Personal Ad
17 hours ago

A Postcard a Day
UNESCO WHS week: Vienna
1 day ago
Sanity on Edge
My Time Capsule
1 day ago

A little piece of me
My big purple ball
1 day ago

Angelika
To know more about me
1 day ago
A Changing Life
PhotoHunt: walking
1 day ago
Wise Herb's Random Jottings
Saturday Satire : The Bottle of Wine
2 days ago

Ocean Africa
BIGGEST THATCH IN THE WORLD?
2 days ago

Lady Sarcasm
Lady Sarcasm get's roasted...
2 days ago
Sharp Words
Another month’s worth of failure
3 days ago
Grit in the Gears
More Tractors....
3 days ago

EleanorBlog
A Room With a Truffle
3 days ago
Inside Candy
climbing hills towards the future
3 days ago
The Voices
World Hunger Day
4 days ago
Because I can ....
Hide and Seek
4 days ago
Life | Canucklehead.ca | Canucklehead
Change is inevitable ...
5 days ago
Horror Blog of zombies, vampires & B movies
Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell
1 week ago
Paperback Places
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
1 week ago

Pwn Greenland
Interweb Cancer: Part One
1 week ago
Adventures in the 32-Aker Wood
April 'Appenings
1 week ago
Wisdom Hypnosis
Mesmerizing The Cats?
1 week ago
Song of Happiness
Caromie is back in town,
2 weeks ago
The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely
Lord Likely Bangs
2 months ago
Britishspeak
It has been real. Surreal, in fact
3 months ago