Current Trends

The current issue of Back Home magazine has good articles on rainwater storage (large quantities) and using yards for food production. You can't read the articles online but you can order a single issue copy for $5.00 Would be a good introduction to the magazine as well as getting the value of the articles. These two trends are signs of the times -- preparing to become self-sustainable in terms of food and water.

Cuil (Cool)

A new search engine, Cuil (say "cool," old Irish word for knowledge) comes online today, developed by some former Google Ph.D's. Theoretically searches three times as many web sites as does Google.

Most folks know that Google returns search results ranked by how often the returned sites are linked to by other web sites. In other words, the web itself (web users) determine the ranking of results. Cuil supposedly has new technology that analyzes the content of web sites and ranks them in the returns on the basis of pure content, not popularity among other web sites.

When I tried Cuil this morning it was noticeably slow in returning results compared to Google's instantaneous feedback. I'm sure speed will improve over time. The returns are formatted totally differently from Google. Because it's different, it seems "strange" -- but that's just because we've been Google-ized.

One other good thing about Cuil: Searches are private. Unlike Google, Cuil keeps no record of search histories or information about users. And it has an optional "Safe Search" (turned on by default -- nice) feature that theoretically blocks pornography, etc., from appearing in returns.

Cool Kid

A friend sent a link to this story -- there are many of these out there, stories of people with handicaps who achieve great things. But this one had a great video available and it's about a tough little eight-year-old guy. Adam Bender had one leg removed due to cancer when he was one year old but is now a standout catcher on his Little League baseball team. In a game he mostly uses his crutches once he gets on base -- functions on one leg the rest of the time. A good reminder of what's possible and why there's no whining in baseball (and shouldn't be any in life). This is a cool kid. (If you have, or have access to, kids of your own, show them this video.)

I linked above (in the title) to the Lexington, Kentucky, news web site where the video and an audio interview with his parents are if you want to go there. But the same video is on YouTube, so here it is:

Final Tour Sweepstakes Key Words

The last three key words for the Fly to the Finish Sweepstakes are:

champagne
yellow jersey
paris

Enter here.

The Tour de France is over -- a worthy winner this year. Two or three dopers caught and quickly removed from the Tour -- it appears that the anti-doping system is working. After last year's sad experience with cheating everyone wondered if the Tour would make a comeback this year and it definitely appears to have done just that.

Bikes and Gardens

Three young women took a 2,000 mile bike trip from Washington, D.C., to Montreal and back to document community agriculture (garden) developments and efforts. Their web site is here and a short trailer (of a forthcoming documentary? -- not sure) is below. These young women are obviously amateur videographers, but their hearts are in the right place: