Yet another stats post
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 27, 2008, 9:58 am
I’ve noticed a trend in my google analytics info. First off, I’m getting more like 40 visitors per week (it has doubled in the past few months). Also, about 50 to 70 percent of those visits are coming from my old hometown, Fort Valley.
Man, gone are the days of half my hits coming from my current hometown (from me, visiting from three different location), or getting a majority of hits from the UK through a random online meeting (Hi Edd!).
So now I’m wondering who from my old hometown reads this. I know my dad does, and my mom… but who else? Their neighbors? People I know from church?
My initial reaction was shock. What if Rev. Stubbs is reading my blog right now… or has been reading for a while now? Is he offended by all the dirty jokes and cursing? Should I try to keep it clean?
Then I thought about it for a bit. This is my little space on the web, and if you don’t like it you can go somewhere else. Besides, I don’t curse that much, and I try not to tell too many dirty jokes.
It helps to know your audience, though. I had originally planned to make this a tech blog, but it turns out that I have so much more to offer than geek fodder. So who are you people? What are your favorite posts? What are your little spaces on the web? Inquiring minds want to know!
Top 5 things not to do when writing a Top X list
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 24, 2008, 8:44 am
Everybody likes those “Top 5” or “Top 10” articles, so I thought I’d do one myself. I’ve read a few of these suckers myself, so I thought I’d share a few tips about what not to do when you’re writing one.
- Get long-winded - A small description of each item is necessary, but I’m here for the payoff, not an essay on each item.
- Spread the article over several pages - If I’m reading about the Top 25 Gadgets of 2007, I don’t want to click “Next” 24 times. In fact I’d rather not click next at all, but sometimes it’s necessary.
- Put a video on every single item on the list - Have you ever tried to load 5 or more videos on one website at a time? My computer at work sucks so bad it starts to choke and die at around 3 videos. Some people will put 15 or more on a page. Dear God, who told you that was a good idea?
- Miscount or have the wrong number of items - If I read “Top 5”, I want a Top 5, dangit!
Dirty Jokes
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 23, 2008, 8:48 am
It’s dirty Joke time!
Also, this:
I was a very happy man. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me - it was her beautiful younger sister.
My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a nice view. It had to be deliberate. Because she never did it when she was near anyone else.
One day her little sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn’t overcome. She told me that she wanted me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. Well, I was in total shock, and couldn’t say a word.
She said, “I’m going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up and get me.”
I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door.
I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car. Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping!
With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me and said, “We are very happy that you have passed our little test. We couldn’t ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family.”
And the moral of this story is:
Always keep your condoms in your car.
iPod touch review
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 20, 2008, 7:06 pm
So, about a month ago I got an 8 GB iPod Touch (gotta love woot!). After using it for a bit, I thought I’d let you all know some pros and cons:
Pros:
- The interface kicks ass. I enjoy flipping through my music using the coverflow view, and whenever I have a long list of something on the screen I can scroll through it as quickly or slowly as I want.
- It has built-in WiFi. When I’m near a hot spot I can whip it out and surf my favorite sites, check my email, or watch a youtube video. If I’m lost I can park outside a hotel and find out where I am using Google Maps (since I usually keep it in the car).
- No more annoying click wheel. I guess this goes under “The interface kicks ass”, but I thought it deserved special mention. The wheel was fun for a while, but its lack of precision drove me nuts. Numerous times I’d make my selection and then accidentally brush against the wheel as I was moving to click the center key, which would change my selection. Scrolling on the Touch is easier and more intuitive.
Cons:
- There’s no setting for compilations. So I have the problem of all the artists from a soundtrack or compilation album showing up as separate entries when I list by artist. Major annoyance since I hate going from Great Big Sea to Fallout Boy.
- It’s only got 8 GB of storage, but then, that’s plenty for my meager collection.
- It doesn’t work well with my car stereo adapter. It goes to sleep after 15 minutes, so I have to reach down and turn it back on pretty much every time I get in the car. My old iPod wouldn’t go to sleep for several hours, so I pretty much wouldn’t have to touch it all week (I usually don’t drive much on the weekends). It also doesn’t charge properly, probably because it uses more power, so I have to take it inside to charge once a week or so.
All in all, it’s a neat little toy, but sometimes I pine for my old fifth gen iPod.
Dunce upon a time...
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 20, 2008, 11:55 am
So I discovered this new blog today called Dunce Upon a Time. It’s technically a Battlestar Galactica “live blog” (he posts comments and such on episodes of BSG as they are aired), but if you’re not a fan I’d still recommend it. Dude is hillarious. Here are a few golden quotes:
From a post entitled Mr. Irresistable the Conclusion:
My father had not been so ashamed of me since the night he had barged into my room only to see me surfing the internet in my underwear. For a few proud moments he believed he had caught me masturbating to internet porn and had apologetically attempted to withdraw. When I brought him over and explained that I was researching string theory out of curiosity he turned around and slammed the door shut on his way out infuriated.
From one of his BSG synopses on 5/23/2008:
I put two tiny chickens into the oven about two hours ago, after I smeared them with garlic butter (which I made, and to which I also added a dash or two of peppercorn). The house now smells like a garlic asshole so all the doors are opened.
It’s just the kind of odd humor that I find blindingly hilarious. Maybe it’s because I’m truly my father’s (1) son.
1 - Yes, that’s a link to my dad’s blog. Approach with caution: he’s retired, owns guns, and is staunchly conservative… but his string of “Letters from Terrance” are so funny I ROTFL for real.
Website Stats
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 19, 2008, 5:06 pm
According to Google Analytics, this is the current spread of Operating Systems of my site visitors over the past week:
I’d like to see that blue section shrink, but at least the majority of windows-using visitors are using XP instead of Vista.
PETA sucks and Jessica Simpson is a patriot
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 18, 2008, 10:50 am
I have to say I agree with Bill O’Reilly here.
Totalitarianism is not accepted here
Firefox Download Day
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 18, 2008, 9:12 am
So apparently the Mozilla Foundation is trying to set a Guiness World Record for number of downloads in a 24 hour period with their release of Firefox 3. Currently (17 hrs after the official start of the record time), there have been just over 6.5 million downloads internationally according to the counter.
So, without further ado:
(Man that looks like crap with the white background. Wish they’d used some transparency there.)
I’ve been using FF3 since yesterday and I have to say it’s quite an improvement over version 2. I’ve only got 3 addons currently (would be 4, but the folks that made aardvark are dragging their feet), and I’ve been monitoring memory usage constantly — which hovers around 100 MB even with several tabs open. IE7 takes just shy of twice the resources and it’s not near as zippy.
I’m sure I’ll post my list of pros and cons later on once I have a chance to use it for a while. While you’re waiting on that, go download Firefox 3!
It's hard not to be political right now
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 11, 2008, 9:30 am
So the message is “go vote, but if you’re voting for a republican candidate you’re a typical stupid mouth breather”. Gotta love a “public service announcement” that’s horribly biased. One reason I don’t pay attention to the news is because it has all become one big spin doctor game show. No matter where you get your news — networks, CNN, Fox News, or even the internet — it has some political bias.
I’m more of a fan of the Vote for Nobody idea.
The U.S. falls even farther behind...
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 3, 2008, 2:32 pm
Apparently we’re at the bottom of the “average bandwidth to the home” chain, and now it looks like ISPs are looking at restricting us further by keeping us from using what little bandwith we have.
Hey, you’re going the wrong way! Turn around! De-monopolize and fix our information infrastructure! Don’t take more money from us just for the sake of taking it. What’s wrong with you?
Good things come in twos (again)
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 3, 2008, 8:30 am
Once again, I’ve found two pieces of internet greatness:
First off, there are rumors that Clinton will be dropping out of the race. Guess she got tired of folks like me (and several other folks that I know) calling her out on her shit.
Then there’s this youtube video of some dude that was apparently having a very bad day at the office. We all have those, right? Hopefully not as bad as this guy.
Delegate Scorecard
by Tim Faircloth on Jun 2, 2008, 10:43 am
CNN’s Delegate Scorcard for the 2008 Primaries
According to the link above, Hillary Clinton has no chance of winning. She could get all 200 remaining delegates and be 3 shy of a nomination. True, in the past few primaries she has closed the gap from about 200 to just over 150, but she still can’t win it. Not properly.
Obama, on the other hand, is only 48 delegates shy of the 2,118 required. That’s one quarter of the remaining delegates.
On the republican side, we have other problems. Ron Paul, champion among geeks, has no chance of winning but he’s managed to gain 14 delegates since McCain clinched the nomination back in early march. I still have my “Ron Paul in 2008” sign in my window, even though he can’t win unless McCain drops out, which would leave him as the only republican candidate still in the running despite the fact that both Romney and Huckabee had nearly 8 times as many delegates (apiece) than him when they dropped out.
McCain, our republican nominee, has flip-flopped so many times you could wear him to the beach. He’s insanely popular, but it’s hard not to be when almost no one has heard of your only remaining opponent.
The only thing that doesn’t bother me about this race is the way the republicans are acting as a party. Huckabee and Romney noticed early on that they weren’t going to win, and decided it was for the best if they dropped out so they could concentrate on other affairs and let McCain take the nomination with no contest. Yeah, Paul stayed in, but it turns out he isn’t as much of a threat as we geeks wish he were.
The Democrats, though, are fighting tooth and nail for the nomination. Though Obama seems to (mostly) stick to the issues, Clinton seems hell bent to spread lies and tear her opponent down… even if he is in the same party. She doesn’t realize that she’s doing more damage to the Democratic Party then she is to him, which is going to kill her in the long run. It just goes to show how much ground you lose when you’re slinging mud.
Meanwhile we have Democrats threatening to vote for McCain if their nominee hopeful doesn’t win… so it looks like McCain’s going to be our next president.
Disgusting. Truly disgusting. I have half a mind to turn in a blank ballot this election.