Where does Googlebot crawl from?  Posted on April 1st, 2014 by Chris Brunner. Filed in Random Thoughts, Technology.   Comments OffSomeone on Stackoverflow asked where Googlebot crawls from, and I needed a place to put the map.  So, here it is:Your mileage my vary, but in the case of one of my websites, the crawls emanate from Illinois (46.35%), Arizona (15.68%), Wisconsin (14.95%), Virginia (11.85%), and California (11.17%).  The web servers that have been subject to these crawls are located in Virginia.Again, others will have different experiences, but this is what we observed over the course of March 2014.John Stossel’s Illegal Everything  Posted on July 1st, 2013 by Chris Brunner. Filed in Cool Links, Politics.   Comments OffI came across this John Stossel’s Illegal Everything and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is well worth the time it takes to watch it.Primary YouTube Link | Alternate YouTube LinkAlternatives to Mt. Gox  Posted on April 11th, 2013 by Chris Brunner. Filed in Cool Links, Technology.   Comments OffAs I type this, Mt. Gox is offline.  Again.  This has happened more times than I could ever count.  It’s giving Bitcoin a bad name, because people tend to associate Bitcoin with the exchanges.To be clear, I am not recommending any of these companies. I am merely offering a list of alternatives to Mt. Gox, in order of popularity.  Caveat emptor.So, here it goes:BTC-EBitstampBitfloorCampBXBitcoin-24VircurexThere are a few others, but their volume is so small that they would be difficult to use on a reasonable scale.So, check them out and decide for yourself who you want to do business with.If anyone has comments about any of the above exchanges, I am all ears.  Please leave a comment.Inbox Bankruptcy  Posted on February 7th, 2013 by Chris Brunner. Filed in My Life, Random Thoughts.   Comments OffFor the first time in as long as I can remember, my email inbox is finally empty.  It’s nice, but frankly it’s also a little uncomfortable.  It’s going to take some getting used to, as strange as that sounds.This morning I had over 18,000 unread messages in my inbox, some dating back to 2006.  After doing some basic math, I determined that it would be nearly impossible to catch up at this point, and it’s pointless to respond to emails that are years old anyway.So, today I caught up to the beginning of the year… Jan 1, 2013.  I created a new tag, “pre-2013″.  I highlighted everything in my inbox, tagged it, and archived it.Now, for nearly the first time ever, my inbox count is meaningful (3 messages since I starting composing this blog post).I would highly recommend this approach to anyone who is hopelessly behind on their email.  Take the plunge.  It’s worth it.Bobsled: It Could Have Been Awesome  Posted on February 11th, 2012 by Chris Brunner. Filed in Random Thoughts, Technology.   2 comments filedI’ve been a happy customer of T-Mobile for over a dozen years now, well before t