Arnot Hill Park, Arnold, Nottingham
Sorry, several days seem to have passed since my last post, despite my good intentions.
I did try writing yesterday but I had left it too late and was too tired to write. It didn’t stop me spending an hour trying but by the end I had written nothing worth reading. It’s my own fault. I can still function after midnight if I know what I am doing, but if I just start writing and see where it goes, it rarely goes anywhere useful. I just ramble. Fortunately I usually mange to spot when that is happening and delete it. Yes, about 500 words were wasted, but as I’ve observed before – words are cheap and plentiful and can be deleted without major trauma. I deleted 500 words last night, I will save a few of them and write another post.
However, the good news is that my stats have spiked (he said sarcastically). This has happened several times recently. My month will run along with about 30 visitors a day and 10 or so comments. Then it will suddenly come to life In the last three months I have had three spikes in stats with a couple of thousand views in a day. Strangely, it’s never accompanied by a rise in comments or likes. In fact yesterday’s spike in visitors was accompanied by poorer than average figures for likes and comments.
Pied Wagtail at Donna Nook nature reserve.
This where the small hours effect takes over. I then suggest that this is WP trying to make me think my stats really reflect something useful, then I move on to suggesting it is possibly a sign of rogue computer power as AI tries to take over the world, or even the US government tracking down enemies of the State by scanning social media. The abyss of internet politics then beckons and I begin to spiral out of control.
There are no real government conspiracies, I tell myself, as governments are generally incapable of organising themselves in a unified way. Even old-style Communist regimes had to have periodic culls to preserve the facade of unity. More open systems, where you swap between parties, would be incapable of keeping a conspiracy together. I refer here, to normal governments, the current US government, if it had an inkling that Democrats had ever covered up an alien landing or the existence of primitive hairy creatures living on mountains, would be right on it. The former would be deported as illegal immigrants and the latter would be quickly registered as Republican voters.
And that, coming dangerously near to the world of politics, is where I am going to stop.
Arnot Hill Park, Arnold, Nottingham
Pictures are, in the main, from my favourite duck pond in December 2018.
I agree about the stats. I quite monitoring them a long time ago.
Me too, I only notice the spikes because WP notifies me. My dreams of even modest blogging fame were replaced by the joy of having 6-8 new friends.
I have just read another blogger moaning about the spike in her stats. It is a bot and she cured it by changing her password. I have also noticed recently that a number of bloggers have been putting statements on their blogs refusing permission for their work to be used by AI for information gathering. Whether the statement stops it is a moot point.
Also, go to bed early and write in the morning, refreshed. I keep telling myself to do this but I always ignore the good advice.
I know you are another night-time writer because I remember you being on when only me, Australians and owls were out and about. 🙂 I must start, as you say, taking my own advice.
AI makes sense – as an intruder that is, as an aid to research it is rubbish and I have written in with corrections several times. It is moving internet searches further away from accuracy rather than improving things.
Exactly so!
🙂
I have been getting these spikes too recently. When I check, I find that literally hundreds of past posts have been visited so I suspect that the spikes are the results of robots trawling through the blogs collecting emails of commentators and followers.
THis is beginning to make sense, and to irritate me.I think we pay WP enough to staop this going on.
Those spikes rarely make rational sense.
True, though if they really are bots gathering information for AI, it makes sense.
I admit I stopped looking at my stats. Though I’m always surprised when I get one of those alerts that my hourly views are up ..
Same here. I have 4-8 regulars and have accepted my fate to be one of teh great forgotten bloggers. 🙂
Or great unknown blogger
I’m a new reader and I rarely comment on anything, but I really enjoy your ramblings especially like this one when I laugh out loud. Keep up the good work and be not discouraged by rogue stats. XO