Spreading confusion over the internet since 1994
I really should be less reluctant to write short posts. In the golden age of blogging, I’d think nothing of typing a sentence or two and publishing, these days I ruminate endlessly, and then publish nothing.
I am happy with Mastodon as a replacement for XTwitter aka Xitter, btw. I guess that is my current stand-in for pithy posts.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not quite sure how often I’ll use a “Micropost”, as years of mental memory route such thoughts to social media (Twitter, pre-Musk, and now Mastodon), but this is a new feature in MarsEdit 5, so I’ll try it for a few days.
Via my webhost, pair, and a new Knowledge Base:
Google Site Kit is the much anticipated Google WordPress plugin. With this plugin, you can monitor your site’s visitors, see what pages they land on, how long they stay, and more!
Installing and Activating Google Site Kit WordPress Plugin
To install Google Site Kit on your WordPress site:
Open your WordPress Admin Interface
In the left sidebar, click Plugins
(click here to continue reading Google Site Kit Installation Guide | pair Knowledge Base.)
Why not? Maybe Google will help my site get slightly more traffic? In the golden age of blogging, I got 20,000 to 30,000 visits a day, with occasional spikes up to 70,000. That sort of traffic is long, long gone (didn’t help that I stopped posting frequently, and generally became a lazy blogger, also the industry changed, Facebook and Twitter became channels of communication, yadda yadda), perhaps I can recapture some of that magic?
I wonder if I should add back Google Ads? I never see them myself because I use a tracker blocker, but if they are irritating, it isn’t worth it for the amount of money it could bring in, especially if my daily traffic is less than 1,000 visitors a day.
Where’s The Any Key?
Twice now I’ve opened up my blog and discovered error messages in my header that look something like:
Deprecated: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is deprecated, use preg_replace_callback instead in …/wp/wp-blog-header.php on line 1
Both times, when I logged into the WordPress Admin page, it looked weird too (as if there were no template or CSS file available). I reinstalled WP 4.2.2, and everything seems ok. Still weird, and I’m not sure how or why this happens.
Just out of curiosity, have you noticed anything weird in this space?
Earlier today…
Based on courtroom transcripts, Densmore works up a cautionary tale of the ugly collision of art and money. Densmore writes that the opposing legal team attacked his character and labeled him un-American and a communist for not taking the Cadillac deal. "They tried to convince the jury I was an eco-terrorist because I am involved with a handful of peaceful, credible environmental organizations," said Densmore, who was once arrested with Bonnie Raitt for protesting the cutting down of old-growth trees. "I couldn’t believe some of things I heard them say. I felt betrayed, hurt and very alone. . . Now, you can probably google my name and al Qaeda will come up. Great, let’s go to Abu Ghraib! It was really disturbing." During the trial, several musicians –including Raitt, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Tom Petty, Tom Waits and Randy Newman – all showed support for Densmore.
Via:
The Doors’ John Densmore Talks About the Band’s Ugly Feud | Music News | Rolling Stone
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The Written Word A Lie
Parenthetical note: I’ve had this domain, and thus some sort of a blog for over ten years now1. I feel guilty that I neglect my blog these days: I used to spend a lot of minutes every week crafting mini essays, responding passionately to the news of the day, journaling my life, or just venting. I currently have no motivation to do that. I’m still processing enough photos that I can usually count on a a handful of decent images a week, but as far as deep thoughts? Meh.
I still write blog posts in my mind while showering, or drifting off to sleep, but rarely do I follow through and type those up.
I’ve noticed that my traffic is a sliver of what it once was, and why would you visit this page when there are so many other options to choose from? In 2004, Twitter didn’t exist, Facebook didn’t exist, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, yadda yadda.
Is it Twitter, sapping our creative energy? Twitter trains you to speak in cryptic headline, limited to 160 characters, including a valid URL, perhaps because I post so many links on Twitter, my blog has suffered. Or else…
Footnotes:
Earlier today…
There is an actual set of facts here (re fiscal cliff). They are central to understanding the current situation, and belong in every account of what is going wrong:
1) Democrats have offered a comprehensive proposal that meaningfully details the tax hikes they would like to see and contains substantial deficit reduction, but Republican leaders have not offered a comprehensive proposal that meaningfully details the spending cuts they would like to see. And what Republicans have proposed — such as it is — doesn’t contain nearly as much in deficit reduction as the Dem plan does.2) Many experts believe that substantial deficit reduction simply requires Republicans to drop their opposition to raising tax rates on the rich.
Via:
The Morning Plum: No more false equivalence. Both sides are not equally to blame. – The Plum Line – The Washington Post
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I am frustrated by how people who suffer from mental illness, chronic illness and who are intellectually deficient are treated. I am frustrated by: How they are ignored, ostracized and made to feel that the burdens they bear are deserved, assuming they’re even acknowledged in the first place. It’s as if we’ve forgotten that we as a people are social creatures who need to be touched by family, by friends, and by the people who we interact with daily.
ABC News ran a sting against dirty TSA inspectors by leaving behind iPads (with tracking spyware) at ten airport checkpoints known for theft and following them electronically. One iPad, left at an Orlando checkpoint, moved 30 miles to the home of Andy Ramirez, a TSA inspector at the airport. Initially, he denied stealing the iPad, then he blamed his wife…Republicans have promised to fix this problem by firing the unionized federal workers and replacing them with private contractors. Because private contractors — not directly accountable to the government, insulated by layers of contractor/subcontractor relationships — would never, ever abuse their authority. Which is why mall security guards are the pinnacle of policing efficiency.
Via:
iPad left at airport checkpoint ends up at TSA inspector’s house – Boing Boing
Media analysts project that campaigns, Super PACs and “social welfare” groups will spend a record-breaking $3.3 billion on political ads by Election Day.
…
And let’s consider these stations — are they offering any local news coverage to debunk the lies in these ads? Are they exposing the deep-pocketed interests behind the groups buying ad time?…Free Press took a deeper look at local news coverage in five of the cities — Charlotte, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Tampa — where ad spending has been highest.
We inspected the political files of stations in these markets, identified the groups most actively placing political ads and pored over hundreds of hours of local news transcripts. In all five of these markets, we found that local newscasts were lacking when it came to covering the ads that dominated their stations.
In other words, they provided no local stories exposing the special interests behind these ads, and only one station among the 20 surveyed devoted eve
Via:
TV Stations Accept Political Ad Cash — and Leave Viewers in the Dark | Free Press
Johnny Cash once called 1968 the happiest year of his life. It was the year his masterpiece At Folsom Prison came out, the year he was named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year, and the year he married the love of his life, June Carter. So it was a fortunate time for a young filmmaker named Robert Elfstrom to meet up with Cash for the making of a documentary. Elfstrom traveled with Cash for several months in late 1968 and early 1969. The resulting film, Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, is a revealing look at Cash, his creative process and his ties to family.
Via:
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down | MetaFilter
For more than two years, the police in San Leandro, Calif., photographed Mike Katz-Lacabe’s Toyota Tercel almost weekly. They have shots of it cruising along Estudillo Avenue near the library, parked at his friend’s house and near a coffee shop he likes. In one case, they snapped a photo of him and his two daughters getting out of a car in his driveway.
Mr. Katz-Lacabe isn’t charged with, or suspected of, any crime. Local police are tracking his vehicle automatically, using cameras mounted on a patrol car that record every nearby vehicle—license plate, time and location.
Via:
Click to read more of New Tracking Frontier: Your License Plates – WSJ.com
Could the Republican Party face an impossible Catch-22 when it comes to excising the crazy from their party? This is a party, after all, that has numerous candidates who are running for office on a platform of ending the direct election of senators. It’s a party whose most prominent voice in the media goes around calling women “sluts,” and one with a Senate candidate who talks nonsense about the biology of rape. Most notably, it’s a party with a presidential candidate who simply parrots back the party’s conventional wisdom (47 percent!) — and who sounds totally out of touch and not a little insulting to most voters. So what’s next?
Via:
Click to read more of Can anyone save the GOP? – Salon.com