Archive for category Administrivia
Hiatus
Posted by Ed in Administrivia, Home Ec on 2020-02-07
Between the ACM presentation, an upcoming Digital Machinist column, and homeowner stuff “not relevant here”, I’ll be posting intermittently for a week or so.
Algorithmic Artifacts will be getting more attention!
ACM Poughkeepsie Presentation: Algorithmic Art
Posted by Ed in Administrivia on 2020-01-27
In the unlikely event you’re in Poughkeepsie this evening, I’ll be doing a talk on my Algorithmic Art for the Poughkeepsie ACM chapter, with a look at the HPGL and G-Code transforming math into motion:
The PDF of the “slides” lacks my patter, but the embedded linkies will carry you to the blog posts & background information:
See you there! [grin]
Blog Summary: 2019
Posted by Ed in Administrivia, Science on 2020-01-01
Another year of being the Domain Expert of scam-by-mail gadgets, obsolete ABS codes, and water heater anode rods:
Plotting the log of page views against posts in descending order of popularity gives a power-law relationship of some sort:
The log-log view has odd discontinuities:
Overall page views are down 30% from last year: 205k vs 290k.
WordPress served 1 million ads (vs 1.2 million in 2018) on those 205k page views, nearly five ads per page view, which seems horrifying. If you’re not using an ad blocker, you surely have difficulty finding the blog post amid all the crap.
The implosion of on-line advertising continues apace, however, as WordPress paid only 63% as much per ad: $0.40 (vs $0.70 in 2018) per thousand views. Obviously, ads on WordPress blogs aren’t worth much these days.
Recommendations:
- Set up PiHole on a Raspberry Pi to cut the clutter from all devices on your home network
- Install both Ublock Origin (not Ublock nor Adblock) and Privacy Badger on all your Firefox installations
- Stop using Chrome / Chromium
While I could pay WordPress their upgrade ransom to eliminate the ads, it’s better if you defend yourself by eliminating all ads, wherever they may be.
Hiatus
Posted by Ed in Administrivia on 2019-10-10
Several home projects of steadily increasing priority will interfere with writing up Basement Laboratory projects through early November:
Ground truths:
- No barnacles on her foot
- No sea creature eating her leg
I’ll be posting infrequently during the next few weeks.
All remains right with our world …
Beware the Domain Squatters
Posted by Ed in Administrivia, Software on 2019-08-06
A squatter has taken over a defunct domain at the far end of a link buried somewhere in the 3800 posts you find here. In place of the useful page I saw, you’ll see this stylin’ popover:
The “standard security check” is a nice touch, although you should keep in mind the Dilbert cartoon about unexpected side effects.
The actual URL, which I will not make clickable, includes the domain ffgetsplendidapps, which tells you just about everything you need to know about what’s going on.
Because they’re squatting, “continue directly to your destination” means being dumped into a Google search after they’ve meddled with your browser & system configuration. Clicking the inconspicuous × in the upper right closes the popover and dumps you into the search, perhaps before doing anything.
I have no good (i.e., automated) way to find broken links and, as far as I know, there is no way to automatically detect domain squatting, so you’re on your own.
Trust, but verify!
Blog Summary: 2018
Posted by Ed in Administrivia, Oddities, Science on 2019-01-01
Page views for 2018:
At this late date, the RepRap site has a much better G-Code reference, at least for the weird and wonderful assortment of 3D printer commands.
Given that I’m at best a secondary reference for Toyota Sienna ABS trouble codes, things must be getting grim out there in the minivan crowd.
And, as always, houses (and especially plumbing) are trouble!
As for everything else, well, it’s just me and my shop notes …
WordPress reports 101 k ad impressions per month for 24.6 k “page views”, suggesting most folks see four ads per page. If you’re not using an ad blocker, start now!
Those seem to be the most aggressive (and thus highly desirable to advertisers) video ads, because WordPress pays me a whopping 8¢ per kilo-impression; a few percent of the Youtube rate. The numbers are dropping, though, suggesting ads will never push me into the ranks of the thousandaires.
Now you know.
Summer Downshift
Posted by Ed in Administrivia, Home Ec on 2018-06-12
We have several high-intensity / long-attention-span home projects scheduled this summer, all of which will keep me away from the Basement Laboratory.
We’re OK, all is right with our world, but painting rooms and yard maintenance always take way more time than they should, while having close to zero intellectual content.
Like, for example, the result of a strenuous morning devoted to removing a severely overgrown holly bush:
Mother of All Holly Bush Stumps
I’ll post odd & ends a few times a week until maybe mid-August, whereupon I should get back to more usual pursuits.
Enjoy your downtime …
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