Photo by Arthur Chapman

A Son’s Silly Facebook Update, a Father’s Quest for Relevance Lead to the Discovery of Trailmeme and the Clover Coffee Story.

That’s the Twitter version, if I were to share this story quickly. Here is the full, hyperlinked version:

My oldest son posted this status update:

It made me think of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief.”
I tried Googling the seemingly incongruent phrase. Other than the surprising number of pages that contain most of these words, I found nothing that would suggest that my son wasn’t making up something random. Since I knew that “Tinker, Tailor” has many variations, I googled tinker tailor beggarman.

That’s how I discovered Venkatesh Rao‘s blog, ribbonfarm.com.

I enjoyed the post and the ensuing comments. I timidly left my own two cents, trying to add a little more than “Great Post!” Ironically, the post was so engaging, I totally forgot to follow up on the history of “Tinker, Tailor!” I’d noticed the use of the term trail in the search results, but it didn’t register at the time. The story may have end here.

However, Venkat responded to my comment and also visited my blog. He commented on my Security Mind Map and mentioned Trailmeme and a writeup he did. I took a look and immediately decided that this would be something to explore.

In the comments to his post, Venkat was explaining a feature to a reader. He included a link to a great example of a “trail”: The Clover Coffee Story.
I spent fifteen delightful minutes reading about an $11,000 coffee maker. It’s a bit out of reach for the average Tinkers and Tailors of the world.
Which reminds me, I have to go read about the history of the rhyme.

Postscript:

Kyle answered my question:



That’s Life