The wonder of the age
Even after all these years [nearly 16 now] I still find it a little unsettling and even a little bit weird.
I think up some piece of drivel and scribble it here and before long there are people all over the planet reading it. Insane!
I keep a passing eye on traffic reports just out of idle interest. Years ago I was more concerned but now if no one visits then I have lost nothing. I don’t take them seriously now and would probably feel depressed if I did.
When I first started, I signed up with Google Analytics and they have been counting visits ever since. Now they have fucked it up. For some unknown reason they’re changing the whole thing and I can’t find how to retain my old statistics. I have archived all four million or whatever number and Google can screw themselves.
I have abandoned Google Search in favour of DuckDuckGo and I miss nothing there. I am replacing Analytics with Matomo [run on my own server]. I have never used Chrome and used Firefox before it was even known as Firefox. A while back I switched to Waterfox. I still have a couple of Gmail accounts which I use on the very rare occasion when I want to write anonymously, so I’ll keep them. So I am [almost] completely Google-free and have less than no regrets
As for the weirdness, here is a snapshot I took of visitors just now on the “new” Google they insisted I use [but make that Past Tense] –
So here I am in the valleys of the Wicklow Mountains, minding my own business but there are people in New York, France and the UK all reading my shit. They just happened to be there when I opened the little map.
Things are a little different on my new system. That displays visits over a period of 12 hours or so –
Fuck me! People from all over the planet are reading humble little Rambles.
For a bloke who was brought up in the days of letter writing and local phone-calls, that is really mind boggling!
FOOTNOTE:
Bugger! I just pressed Publish when I remembered Google Earth. Yes, I use it quite a lot. It’s hard to beat Street View when researching something?
Do you know if anyone in your wee village reads your missives.
Some people get offended at the funniest things.
Mind how you go now.
There was one who haunted here for a while. I don’t know if he bothers these days. Maybe I should say something really insulting about him to see if there’s a reaction?
What? Vermont doesn’t count any longer? Oh…wait…
…it never counted in the first place.
Of course folks still read your writings. Highly enjoyable you know.
You have a fan here in Oregon!
Make that 2.
In the high desert here, Gilliam County.
That dot in Miami is probably me, but at other times it is in northern Spain.
Unfortunately it’s not like FlightRadar24 – It only says where you are and not where you should be.
You could at least have had NZ on your maps!
Welcome Chester! Visit every six hours day and night and you probably will be. NZ is currently on the map which is probably yourself [and Gareth below who is only virtually there].
And, by the magic of VPN, this hit comes all the way from Auckland, New Zealand.
Out and back, those little IP packets have gone right round the world just to tickle your counter 🙂
Great to see people giving Google the heave-ho