This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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As many of you know, for the last 100 months I have held a monthly email contest. I kind of can’t believe I’ve been doing this silly thing for a whole 100 months. That is eight years and four months! Wow!
In any case, to celebrate the 100th month of the contest, I took a suggestion made by Rebecca, and created a retrospective on all the winners of the contest during those 100 months. Check it out!
First 100 Months Retrospective
Below is some information on each of the 16 people who over the last 100 months have found themselves at the #1 spot on the monthly email top ten lists. It is in order by the month the person first made the #1 spot. Thank you to each and every one of these people for sending email and making my computing life fun over the years. You guys are all great. Looking forward to the next 100 months…
If you are reading this, and have not yet won, perhaps now is the time to start sending me more email!
A little bit ago I annouced the results to the winners, but they are now public. Here are the results of the January 2004 email top ten contest. (Which was, by the way, the 100th month of the contest!)
January 2004 Top Ten
January was the month that Erica Livingston decided that she really wanted to win the month. She started out the month sending around 30 messages a day. Sometimes less, sometimes more. As the month progressed she started increasing her pace. Then on the 24th of the month she went into overdrive and sent 321 emails in a single day. This compares to the 246 emails she send in ALL of 2003. After that, she started putting the brakes on again as the end of the month approached.
Now that Rebecca has registered her blog Home-Schooled By a Cackling Jackal on the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem I’ve added a line for her on my chart of my own Ecosystem ranking. We can see over time how our two blogs fare. Now, I don’t write much that others would want to link to, and I don’t go fishing for links from other people, so I’ll probably just continue to drop. Rebecca may rise. We shall see.
TTLB Rankings Graph
One thing is odd though. Right now both of us link to each other. That should be reflected in our stats at the ecosystem, but right now it shows both of us linked to by nobody. Our links to each other should be showing up! Darn it!
I update this graph periodically (every couple weeks or so) but I don’t usually post to the main blog about it unless something interesting is happening. So if you are interested in the graph, remember to check it occationally on your own.
Now that Reb is on TTLB, next thing will be to get her to add the ICBM metadata to her meta data so she can show up automatically on localfeeds and the various other geographical based systems. If you want to Rebecca, I have your latitude and longitude info! Just ask! :-)
The complete email results for 2003 have now been posted. This includes not just the top ten for the year, but as usual, the full counts broken down by month for anybody who sent me at least one personal email any time during the year. Enjoy!
Final 2003 Rankings
* I received 23663 personal emails. (Up 124% from 2002)
* On average that is 1972 messages per month, or 65 messages per day
*Â That email came from 258 different email addresses. (Up 26% from last year!)
*Â The top ten accounted for 85% of the email. (Up from 81% in 2002)
*Â 22 addresses made the monthly top tens this year. (Up from 18 in 2002)
*Â The lowest ranked monthly top ten winner on the annual list was ivanbou@compuserve.com (Ivan Bou) who came in at #25 for the year
*Â The highest ranked address that never made the monthly lists in 2003 was renshine@yahoo.com (Rеni Gorman) who came in at #19 for the year.
Those who made the list found out several weeks ago, but now, posted for the public, December 2003’s Top Ten Email list.
December 2003
Meanwhile, Matt decided he really liked keyboard shortcuts. Based on one message as a template that he could reply to, he would hit the shortcut for reply a few dozen times, then the shortcut for send a few dozen times. Shooting off absolutely identical emails very very quickly. I was online when this started, and immediately called him on using automation, which is against the rules of the contest, and is not counted. He explained his little keyboard method, and insisted that it was manual and not automated, and required work for each email. I was not overly impressed, but grudgingly admitted that some manual work had occurred. They were however completely identical emails, sometimes with many coming in a single second. There was no way to distinguish real emails for extra duplicates created by a filing error or various other things. I informed Matt that his actions were borderline, and he needed to be creating like other people who have tried over the years, and like Erica this month.
Today in the mail I got the pay stub confirming that the last severance payment from my old employer has been direct deposited in my account. So at this point I am completely done with that part of my life. Goodbye Old Bull! Shall I say good riddance? Nah. They did a lot for me, especially in the first few years. Out of the just under 7 years I was there, I’d say the 3 were really good, 1 was horrible, and 3 were “bleh”. But overall, it was a good experience, and there are certain aspects of it I will miss. But it was definately time to move on.
There is one opportunity that is percolating right now that looks very good, and would involve a move away from Pennsylvania, even though I just got here. I have mentioned it to a few people in person and in email, but I won’t be saying anything more here until it is certain. I give it a good chance right now, but nothing has been finalized yet. So we shall see. With luck, it will come through and I can start there before I run out of available funds and have to start selling kidneys to pay the mortgage. (Not that anyone would want mine. :-)
More news when there is actual news. :-)
A few hours ago I went and took care of the last thing related to my move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. I had already moved where I slept. And I moved all my stuff. And I got PA plates on my car. I did address changes on all my bills. Today I got a Pennsylvania drivers licence. They actually looked up the old licence I had in Pittsburgh, and I got the same drivers licence number as before. And so here I am, once again completely a resident of the great state of Pennsylvania.
At least for now.
I do regret that I forgot to take a picture of my NJ licence before I turned it in. Drat! Oh well.
But I am now fully Pennsylvanian! I guess. :-)
Over the last few years, ever since I got the Saturn back in 1995, I’ve said I would keep it essentially until the wheels fell off. Over the years my formualtion for what that REALLY meant has changed a bit.
At first it was “I will get a new car when the annual maintenence bill is more than the value of the car”. But that passed a couple of years ago I think. And I wanted to keep the car.
Then it was “I will get a new car when I take it in and get a single repair estimate which is more than the value of the car.”
Well… that just happened.
Took my car in for regular service, and because the cigarette lighter adapter had fallen inside the dashboard, and the battery was dying on me, and it was burning oil. They also found some other stuff that was wrong. Without the oil issue, there is about $600 of work that needs to be done. But they couldn’t find an obvious oil leak, so that means finding what is causing my rapid loss of oil. In order to investigate more, they would have to start ripping apart the engine. Estimated cost… another couple THOUSAND dollars.
The car is only worth about 2 grand last time I checked the Blue Book.
So we have reached that point. I ordered the $600 of work, but told them to not do the other. For now, I will just check the oil more often and add oil when needed. But I think this marks the point I had always said would be the “new car” point.
Of course, I also still don’t have a job. That may change soon though. (Watch this spot for updates.) But it looks like I should RATIONALLY get a new car soon after the job situation is resolved.
On the other hand, I love my Saturn. I am also tempted to just spend the money, get a new engine if needed, whatever, and keep it running forever. There are still Model-T’s running today. No reason my Saturn couldn’t still be going when I retire!
Hmmm…. or a nice new car doesn’t sound bad. :-)
Oh well. Once I have a job and am all settled in it, then I will consider these things more.
Hey! Rebecca has a blog now!! And yes Rebecca, this does make you cool now!
Cackling Jackal
Most blogs annoy me. It seems like everyone has them and are using them to say very little. Most are dull, insipid, self-absorbed and inane. Some are interesting. Some are even fun. So they can’t be all bad and despite my original pooh-poohs, I’m going to give this a try. Why not, I broke down and gave in to Tivo and Friendster, why not a blog? I’m weak like that. Get off my tip.
I’ll have to adjust my links list….
The results were given to the winners almost a month ago, but the November 2003 email contest results are now posted online.
November 2003 Top Ten!
Barb made a valiant try in November for the #1 spot. She sent tons and tons of email… mostly forwards… but she also got into a sort of email fight with Al, Chris, Rebecca, Chad, Ivan and Erica… but made friends with Brandy and Marilyn apparently. Kelly was not involved. It was kind of amusing to watch, although I gather some of the participants got a little upset. I just watched from a safe distance. It was fun.
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