I sorted the Metaphone rules into a more aesthetically pleasing order, basing some decisions on the commentary at http://aspell.net/metaphone/metaphone-kuhn.txt. I read up some on approximate string matching, but was overwhelmed by the quantity of last names in the Wikipedia category on string matching algorithms and so decided to come back to it another time. Clearly what I needed to do instead was learn about servers and web apps! I got some basic information from Kat and then she helped me install Node.js on my Dreamhost server… which is not allowed by their ToS and I was promptly booted from the network. This coincided with the server going down for scheduled[?] maintenance, so it was unclear for some time how much of my inability to connect and the site’s inability to load were my fault. Anyway, that’s why this blog has not been updated in a bit.