How to measure impact

hat is “worthless traffic”?

Suppose you’re a girl and you upload bathing suit photos. I need to chose this gender for analogy’s sake (as will become apparent later).

Upload photos.

To Facebook.

To Instagram.

Whatever.

You get many “likes” for it.

So f—ing what?

Who cares?

Will you look back, in your deathbed, recalling how many “likes” you received for a photo that is not artistic?

“Momma would be so proud of these likes!”

If you wanted more “likes”, you could expose a nipple or two.

Does that make it a great accomplishment? No.

Because it’s already erotica.

Few people would conflates accomplishment with some people lusting based on indecency.

There are male versions of the same (but different metaphor needed).

In social control media, you see people who can get a lot of “likes” for calling people insulting stuff, for using foul language and riling up a mob.

What sort of accomplishment is that?

Worthless traffic is like the above “likes”.

If you want a lot of traffic, you can published mindless garbage for “the masses”.

Quantifying things in “likes” and “traffic” is a mirage.

Ask more about “quality” or “relevance”; that takes actual work.

In praise of rainy days

REEN grass is everywhere again
Rain magnified by a factor of ten

Tulips and orchids
For nature needs more kids

The Council is planting
We’ve long been waiting

This morning it’s too cool to leave the doors open

ardening season is drawing to a close. Maybe one more month and that’s it. This means more time indoors and more time writing. How cold will this winter be? With climate collapse, anything is possible.

I’ve meanwhile noticed that despite us devoting no more than 5% (of all posts) to writing about litigation, the person the litigation is about has flooded his social control media with quips about it (about 80% of the latest 10). As I pointed out last year: “We should note that 100% of his social media posts from December 15 until December 23 were about us, which seems obsessive/compulsive.”

We strive to cover what the media will not

was very serious when I said we’d take it up another notch after our long vacation. Right now I watch back as there are about 20 new blog posts since midnight (it’s only 5AM here). The headsup was based on the devotion of time, or based on the general allocation of resources. We now put foot on the metal/pedal, or push the pedal to the metal throughout the day today, as we expect more tactical intimidation and bullying from hired guns who are extremely rude. Yesterday tuxmachines.org served 665,042 Web requests and techrights.org served 479,275 (not the same as visits).

The sites’ reach only grew since the lawfare began 3 years ago (it was always Americans, it’s still only Americans).

ermany lost the Second World War 81 years ago. Then, the Soviet Empire grew a bit. NATO was created. The Cold War soon began.

One could argue that the Cold War never truly ended, it just cooled down (further) for a few decades. By 2014 the Soviet Empire made its imperialial ambitions known again (Crimea) and 12 years later we still try to punish the Soviet Empire for it [1,2].

About 75 years after the Second World War the US elected a Putin-friendly (or Putin-admiring) loser as its national leader and we’re still paying the price for it in Europe [3,4].

I don’t view the US as our ally anymore. Worse yet, Americans keep attacking me personally, and also my family. It has gotten so ridiculous that for pointing out Americans’ aggression against American women I am asked to spend money on lawyers here in the UK.

To me, the US is not much more benign than Russia. Same playbook.

____

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Ukraine war briefing: Pressure stays on Russian economy until war is over, says Bessent

   US treasury secretary speaks with Russian counterpart who is controversially attending G20 talks; India’s Modi says war must end. What we know on day 1,651

2. UK leads way in disrupting shadowy Russian sanctions evasion network

   Chancellor calls on allies to step up their pressure on Russia and sets out new action to stop Putin evading sanctions to fund his illegal war.

3. Trump welcomes Russia back to the G20. Europe isn’t having it.

   The Trump administration’s decision to bring Russia back into the fold at a gathering of the world’s leading economic officials is stirring fresh tensions with European allies who want to continue isolating Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

4. US brings back Russia’s Siluanov to G20 finance talks, angering Europe

   Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has made a surprise appearance at United States-hosted G20 finance talks in North Carolina, sparking frustration and dismay among European ministers and officials.

   Siluanov’s appearance at the talks in Asheville on Monday marks the first time the minister, who was appointed in 2011, has attended a G20 meeting in person since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

still remember when this site was new more than 2 decades ago. In the summer of 2004 I think I was in London for a sort of “summer school” focused on computer vision. I’d log in to check AWStat after ‘classes’ (lectures rather) and be happy if this site got like 100 visitors in a day whilst I was away from home. To me, 100 people were already a good accomplishment and back then bots were easier to tell apart, hence estimating the number of daily visitors (real human visitors) was feasible.

Fast-forward many years and now I speak to millions, not hundreds. With exposure comes envy, however, and envy leads to litigiousness.

I’d rather choose the latter (with the price of litigiousness) than remain an obscure Ph.D. student who attends lectures.

Things that media is not covering or no longer covering

ONE is the summer, I guess.

September is here and I’ve published 10 Techrights pages in 3 hours, with plenty more to come.

I recognise that many news sites died. Many that used to cover Microsoft layoffs, for instance, no longer do. That leave a a gap for all of us bloggers to fill.