Entries Tagged 'Meta' ↓

I'm not a big fan of lies, or damned lies, but boy do I love me some statistics. If I can quietly keep track of what's going on and then get numbers and percentages and graphs (especially the graphs), I will be happy.

Last.fm is a perfect example of a site that is doing it right. For all that iTunes records play counts and dates added and whatnot, all of that becomes useless as soon as a hard drive dies without the iTunes database being backed up properly, or when I use it on different machines that aren't synchronised.¹ Last.fm, though, provides me with not only proof of my listening habits (with graphs!), but also a whole lot of data about other people's! Combining statistics, music, and spying on people using the internet - could any site be more perfect? The Last.fm staff would probably call this "community-building" rather than "stalker-enabling", but to each their own.

To tell the truth, the social aspect of Last.fm has never really taken off for me (I can only keep up with so many social-networking-web-2.0-buzzword sites) but sometimes it's just what I need to save me from myself. Witness what I have been listening to for the last seven days:

In tangentially-related statistical news, I love all the intriguing information (and graphs!) that Google Analytics gives me for this blog. The vast majority of the search keywords bringing people here are, unsurprisingly, Mountain Goats related; this has also been bringing in the spam-bots, with a good 25% of spam comments since the blog's inception coming in the last week or so. There have been a few surprises, though, such as:

cack handed anathem
Not sure why two people were searching for this. I also don't know how they got to me using this search; I can manage it using "cack handed" +anathem, but the keywords on their own generate pages of results for "anthem" and "anathema". One of the internet's great mysteries, I guess.

exceptional skeleton price is
No idea why anyone was searching for this. Did they really expect the internet to tell them what an exceptional skeleton price is? And is that the price for an exceptional skeleton, or an exceptional price for a skeleton? Why did they even include "is" in the search?

gene wolfe john darnielle
I'm sorry, what? I don't even know who Gene Wolfe is. At least, I didn't until I looked him up just now.

Also, a map overlay showing what country visitors came from - and then what city, if I ask nicely - is just plain cool. So are graphs showing visitors vs. pageviews per visit, visitors vs. new visitors, and almost any useful or useless thing I might want to see. Nom nom nom.

1. Or when I finally find something to replace iTunes to my satisfaction and leave it forever. Any day now. Any day. [↩]

I: Needs Moar Pictures

The more observant readers of this humble blog may have noted the complete absence of Project 365 pictures (indeed, of any content at all) over the last few days. While I continued to take daily pictures, it became (was becoming? has become?) increasingly clear that my current circumstances make Project 365 not only difficult but downright counter-productive. After a few consecutive 9pm realisations like "oh, it's the end of another day in which I did nothing but feel unwell and went nowhere but the next room, and I have to find something new to take a picture of", it gets to be a drag.

So, rather than turn something I enjoy into a obligation that rubs my nose in my misfortune, I have resolved to keep taking pictures of picturesque things as they present themselves, but to put Project 365 on hold until it can be what it should be: a way of recording something interesting that I come across each day, instead of a dreary search for something to photograph in defiance of the day's complete lack of novelty.

II. Needs Moar Words

When I started using this blog it was my intention to escape from the shackles of LiveJournal and start actually writing down stuff that I found interesting, without feeling constrained by the expectations of the disparate mob of family, friends, acquaintances and internet strangers that had gradually boiled down my LJ-voice to a flippant, ironic shadow of itself. Since this is strictly an opt-in business (and untainted by the social pressures of "friends lists" and the like), I feel safer in the assumption that anybody reading is either a) interested enough in what I might have to say to make the effort (however trivial), or b) if not, then certainly bringing their disappointment upon themselves.

All that is a long-winded way to work up to saying that turning thoughts into words and then sharing them with other people is something that I find rewarding, so I am resolving to knuckle down and throw off the inertia that has kept me from doing so for so long. I am also focused on returning to a more ert state in the real world, so here's to riding that wave all the way back to frequent(ish), enjoyable blogging.

III. Needs Moar Comments

For those reading this via the syndicated feed on LiveJournal, a reminder that it is fairly difficult for me to keep track of (or even notice) comments made directly on that feed, and they get deleted after a couple of weeks anyway. My attempt to insert a comment link in the feed itself has failed (due to the flakiness that Feedburner has been exhibiting since being acquired by Google, boo hiss), so for now the best way to ensure that I will see your comment is to click on the link at the top of the feed item, which leads to the post itself, and then leave your comment. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Postscript: If you enter your email address (which is not displayed) when you submit your comment, it will have a unique pattern-y thingy or your Gravatar if you have one! Isn't technology wonderful? If you don't trust me with your email address, your pattern-y thingy will be the same one that all the other distrustful folk get.

1. Sign up for things. Put up some kind of placeholder page. Maybe install WordPress or something.
2. Procrastinate by not doing anything else with it, preferably for several months.
3. Procrastinate by tinkering with themes and layouts. Consider learning PHP because everything that everyone else has ever made is terrible. Realise that learning requires effort; settle for whatever abomination you have mangled the layout into so far.
4. Procrastinate by compiling an exhaustive "Links" or "Blogroll" list. Be sure to leave out several essentials so that people have something to get upset about.
5. Procrastinate by reading the entire internet two or three times.
6. Think about what this "blog" should be "about". This stage of procrastination can be extended indefinitely.
7. Settle on a well-defined yet broad topic, for instance: "Things that I think are awesome and/or interesting and/or to do with me and stuff that I have done".
8. Procrastinate by thinking about all the abandoned projects that can now be resurrected and then abandoned all over again in this brand-new, exciting space.
9. Think about writing something to post. Realise that paragraphs are kind of long.
10. Write a numbered list. Post it.