5 ms·

At my very first internet job, in 1998 or so, I was hired as a temp. They said they wanted me to find websites that would be good publishers for their content

At my very first internet job, in 1998 or so, I was hired as a temp. They said they wanted me to find websites that would be good publishers for their content network. They said to do so by searching AltaVista for sites, and then looking to see if they had a web counter, the kind that say "You are visitor number XXX". If the counter said over 100,000 they considered that a good sized publisher and someone else would be in charge of recruiting them. In retrospect, of course, there was no indication of how long it had taken the site to get that 100,000 visitors, nor did any good site use the counters much. But I didn't really know all of that then. So I ask the other temp, "How do you do this?" And he says, "Well, right now I decided to find sports sites, so I just search for the word 'football' and click each result, scroll down, and see if there is a counter over 100,000." I said, "How many do you usually find?" He says, "Yesterday, I found 6." I did this for about 2 minutes until I got smart. I searched for 'You are visitor number' and instantly got only sites with counters. Within a few hours I had logged a ton of sites. At the end of that day, they fired the other temp and asked me to work full time, but the agreement with the temp agency said that they couldn't hire me for 90 days after they let me go. So, they fired me and told me that I could work from home as an independent contractor for the 90 day period. They would pay me to keep finding sites, and offered to pay me $10 per site that I found for up to 50 sites per week ($500). They had no idea I was able to find sites so quickly. I spent the next 90 days building a Rage Against the Machine fan site with my friend at home and, every Friday, I'd spend 20 minutes logging 50 sites using my "You are visitor number" technique, drive into the office, drop off my list, and collect my $500 check that they thought I had worked all week to earn.

earbitscom 16y ago
Also...in High School typing class, I was a two-finger typer. Every morning we had to take a two sentence typing test to see if we had improved. Rather than learn to type like I was supposed to, I just memorized all of the two sentence phrases that made up the tests. Within a couple weeks of the class, it didn't matter which phrases popped up, I was two-finger typing over 80 words per minute.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  When did you learn to type, or are you still paying for this "hack"?
  - earbitscom 16y ago
    Oh no...I finally learned to type around 1998. I moved to L.A. My roommate bailed on me and left me here. I discovered Yahoo! Chat to pass the time and somehow that's what finally forced me to become a better typist. Just tested myself for shits and giggles - adjusted speed of 71 wpm. ;)
- bhickey 16y ago
  Typing was required in my high school. As I'd been touch typing QWERTY since I was 11 or so, this made me a bit grumpy. On my first day of class I opened the textbook to the last assignment and completed it in a few seconds. My teacher was a good sport about it and demanded that the department transfer me into computer science. I spent the rest of the year ignoring some over-engineered OO fishtank.
- DEinspanjer 16y ago
  I had already learned to type qwerty a few years before taking my high school typing class. The first time that our teacher tested us, I was already typing over 60 WPM. By the end of the class, I was typing at 95 WPM, a good thirty WPM or so above the next student. Unfortunately, at the end of the class, my grade was 69.45 (70 was passing). The reason? Every week, the teacher required us to turn in a five page hand-written essay that we would type on Friday. I had originally learned to type because I hated hand-writing and I would turn the paper in typed and printed from my home computer (An Apple IIe). The teacher would give me a zero every week for not following the rules and I would argue with her that I was taking a typing class, not a penmanship class. On the last day of class, before she turned in the grades, she offered to let me write an essay in exchange for 1 point. I decided practicality in this case was better than stubbornness and wrote the essay. I believe I chose a theme of practicality, stubbornness, compassion, and compromise.
awakeasleep 16y ago
That is beautiful.
m-photonic 16y ago
>I spent the next 90 days building a Rage Against the Machine fan site with my friend at home Is it still around? ;)
- earbitscom 16y ago
  No. And boy did we find every picture and fact ever. I wish it was.

earbitscom 16y ago

Also...in High School typing class, I was a two-finger typer. Every morning we had to take a two sentence typing test to see if we had improved. Rather than learn to type like I was supposed to, I just memorized all of the two sentence phrases that made up the tests. Within a couple weeks of the class, it didn't matter which phrases popped up, I was two-finger typing over 80 words per minute.

jedbrown 16y ago
When did you learn to type, or are you still paying for this "hack"?
- earbitscom 16y ago
  Oh no...I finally learned to type around 1998. I moved to L.A. My roommate bailed on me and left me here. I discovered Yahoo! Chat to pass the time and somehow that's what finally forced me to become a better typist. Just tested myself for shits and giggles - adjusted speed of 71 wpm. ;)
bhickey 16y ago
Typing was required in my high school. As I'd been touch typing QWERTY since I was 11 or so, this made me a bit grumpy. On my first day of class I opened the textbook to the last assignment and completed it in a few seconds. My teacher was a good sport about it and demanded that the department transfer me into computer science. I spent the rest of the year ignoring some over-engineered OO fishtank.
DEinspanjer 16y ago
I had already learned to type qwerty a few years before taking my high school typing class. The first time that our teacher tested us, I was already typing over 60 WPM. By the end of the class, I was typing at 95 WPM, a good thirty WPM or so above the next student. Unfortunately, at the end of the class, my grade was 69.45 (70 was passing). The reason? Every week, the teacher required us to turn in a five page hand-written essay that we would type on Friday. I had originally learned to type because I hated hand-writing and I would turn the paper in typed and printed from my home computer (An Apple IIe). The teacher would give me a zero every week for not following the rules and I would argue with her that I was taking a typing class, not a penmanship class. On the last day of class, before she turned in the grades, she offered to let me write an essay in exchange for 1 point. I decided practicality in this case was better than stubbornness and wrote the essay. I believe I chose a theme of practicality, stubbornness, compassion, and compromise.

awakeasleep 16y ago

That is beautiful.

m-photonic 16y ago

>I spent the next 90 days building a Rage Against the Machine fan site with my friend at home Is it still around? ;)

earbitscom 16y ago
No. And boy did we find every picture and fact ever. I wish it was.