Rick's b.log - entry 2009/07/29

HeyRick site statistics

Then I came across Quantcast - you can check it out at http://www.quantcast.com/heyrick.co.uk#demographics. This site attempts to go one further and say who visits. Given the lack of tracing information and cookies on my site, plus the fact that I've not heard of Quantcast until Google, plus the fact that I'm pretty sure Glenn won't be sharing site logs - I wonder how on earth they get this information, even if the disclaimer says it is inaccurate due to small sample size I do wonder where this information comes from in the first place...

If you look carefully, it is also something of a comedy of carefully manipulated charts. It's okay for gender - 53% male versus 47% female. I'm quite pleased I have that many female readers, given that it's all a bit geeky.

It is less realistic when looking at the "Teens" category. Whoa do I appeal to teenagers. With an index of 193, you could say my teen (13-17) appeal is off the chart. In reality, however, my teen appeal is 23%. With a much larger (and less trumpeted) 34% is the 34-49 age group.

Same thing with Asians. It is never clear whether "Asian" is referring to Indian or Chinese/Japanese; as they are quite different. Actually, I think "Asia" can be used for pretty much Turkey eastwards. Anyway, there is a notice that my site appeals to more Asians than is normal with a crowd-pleasing index of 322. I like to think it's all the cute Japanese girls coming to giggle at my pitiful attempts at their language. Whatever, they represent 14% of my visitors. Basic boring standard issue Caucasian people represent a very understated 73% of visitors. I like the inclusion of "African American", as if Blacks from anywhere else (uhhh. like Africa, perhaps?) aren't counted. I also have quite a high rating in the "Other" category. While only 3%, these others get an index of 240. Perhaps these are the non-American Africans? Or perhaps it is visitors from the planet Xyzzy looking for signs of intelligent life. Well, I'm alive. I haven't seen cat döppelgangers and the walls aren't green and wobbly so I know I'm alive. Really. Intelligent? That's a whole different question...

As for having kids, in real terms I appeal more to the no-kids (56% vs 44%). I really don't appeal at all to people with kids 0-2; but when regular diapering and chronic lack of sleep are less of an issue, HeyRick appeals. Of families with kids, HeyRick appeals most to those aged 3-12. I am not sure how this is counterbalanced as "No kids 3-12" and "No kids 13-17" are surely the same? I mean there are no kids in my household but I'd really like a daughter to arrive aged five or six, and to leave before she gets stroppy (13ish?), so would that count me as "No kids 3-12"?!?

Now it is interesting for "Less affluent" when the site says that I attract a less affluent audience. My index for the $0-$30K bracket is high - 169, but this only means 31% in real terms. I am slightly less attractive (26%) to the $30K-$60K bracket, and then it is back up again (another 31%) for the $60-$100K bracket. For those lucky b**tards pulling in over $100K a year, my attractiveness is a much lower 12%. Perhaps my political stance is not something the wealthy feel happy with, or maybe wealthy people have better things to do than read random balls on some website. Do you think if I had a 100K (even if only once) I'd be writing this? Hell no! I'd be looking for what's cute (electronic or female) in Akihabara... My wage is something in the order of €11,000 a year. I'll leave you to work out what that is in dollars, but I feel pretty sure that I'm stuck in the non-affluent category. Oh well...

On the other hand, I'm no dummy (see, you from the planet Xyzzy, there is intelligence here!) as I attract a high level of college graduates - an index of 121, or 53%. Also with a high index (albeing lower reality) are grad. school. This I can understand as I have received numerous emails on my writing style. I write literately, and I also write more or less as I speak. Maybe this is why I don't have many English friends here, they just don't understand me for I would love to make a succinct point but I frequently diverge into tangents and run-on sentences plus I have been known for brackets-in-brackets. And yes, I speak like that too!
Incidentally, I won't ever be mistaken for a northerner. But then I don't really have a southern accent either. I'll let you decide for yourself - there are spoken versions of 2009/06/24 and 2009/06/28.
One final point - I write my site by hand using Metapad. Not only am I something of a roll-my-own with markup (leading to clean minimalist pages that don't take forever to load and try to call in dozens of extra things), but also Metapad has no spelling checker - why not cast your eye over this document to see how many typos you can find; for this is being written to you, just me and my text editor. Or should that be my text editor and I? Correct English grammer can lead to clunky phraseology up with which we should not put...

That's all I have. There is more on the site, however Quantcast seems only really concerned with Americans. This is a shame for the rest of the world exists and a status/statistics provider really ought to broaden it's horizons, but...

Hi, I'm Karen...

[image from YouTube video]

I was looking for the full lyrics, plus some etymology, for the rhyme "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" - plus to settle an argument (mom knows it as "button my shoe", but shoes with buttons reminds me of The Crucible and things turn-of-the-century). This all came about because of a discussion mom and I were having with how many stories and rhymes are being passed on nowadays. I said something to a British teenager recently referring to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she had no idea what I meant. I guess if it doesn't come out on Nintendo DS, modern kids may well miss out on a heritage of story-telling that has survived over a century.

Which brings us to "Hi! I'm Karen, for Expert Village" (or at least, that's what it sounds like she is saying). She was one of Google's suggestions. Actually, it was a GoogleVideo link, but fairly easy to untangle to get to the YouTube one (I have a proggy that can download MP4 right off YouTube). And guess what, Karen also does Itsy Bitsy Spider, as well as "Where is Thumbkin" which I'd never heard before (although the tune is familiar as it is a French playground song - Frère Jacques) though mom knew it. Casting my eye over the woman with the pink cardigan in YouTube thumbnails, she must be a walking encyclopædia of nursery rhymes. It is useful that she has made this stuff as it can be used for other parents. I mean, by the time said daughter arrives in my life (don't hold your breath), I'd certainly consider using it with her for I only sort of know my nursery rhymes. One Karen doesn't cover, oddly enough, is somebody and somebody kay-eye-ess-ess-eye-en-gee <giggle> but given the rest of the words that's junior school playground and not nursery. I don't remember much of that one either. But I could probably quote for you the entire lyrics of T'Pau's China In Your Hand. Useful, huh?

I wonder where she's from. Can't place the accent. Parts of it sound almost New York, but then parts sound sort-of Wisconsinish. This is when I find out she's from Miami or something so totally different... ☺

On a much darker note, YouTube really ought to filter the comments. I can understand how small minded idiots might laugh at Karen, for unless you've been around young children you probably won't understand a woman singing a nursery rhyme to a camera... but to write comments like "I did this to grandma and she came"? For God's sake, that is so sick. I really hope Karen has a lot more to do in her life than ever bother reading the sorts of comments that no-hoper dickheads write as commentary on YouTube videos because they are so damned sad and lonely that it's all they do all day. Perhaps they are too stupid to be creative and try to bring something useful into the world. Whether or not my site is useful depends on who you are, but I can always find something to add to it, or something to do with it should I feel sad and lonely and there's nothing on TV. To make a bunch of tasteless comments in response to somebody's serious attempts at doing something... well, I would consider life to be too valuable to waste on such futile trivialities, but some, obviously, never figured that out.

Actually, if ADSL ever turns up here, I may well investigate Karen further. I spent about a year in American "kindergarten" when I was four or something before returning back to England. I was "bused". Some integration scheme in place in Maryland in the late '70s. From the stuff mom tells me it all sounds like it was a fun time, but sadly I only remember certain things.
I'll tell you what. I'll share my main memory of that time with you.

Mom worked... nurse or something. Did odd hours. So to give her a chance of getting some shut eye, an old bloke used to take me for walks with him. I don't know if old meant mom's age or granddad's age or what. I don't remember him at all. I understand he had a heart issue and his doctor said he should walk. I was a troublesome brat so God only knows why he agreed to take ME. Anyway... Catonsville, MD. Somewhere. It was in a forest. I remember trees on each side. Running through this forest was a railway. It was raised on embankments. I remember it being sandy coloured, and quite high up (but remember my age - a metre would seem massive). We walked along the railway. In my memory is is slightly curving to the left, and a single rail. The colours are lovely, sand and green.

That's it I'm afraid. As we walked the railway, and no trains ever came, it was probably a disused railway. Does anybody with local knowledge of Catonsville know where I might be describing? I'd love to return to see it again some day, or failing that, I'd cherish a photo. I don't know why. I just find as I get older I am missing the stuff I can barely remember. Snippets of a life that doesn't always feel like it was my own. Or maybe just at this moment in time life isn't exactly exciting so reminiscence takes the place of present day. I'll leave it to a qualified psychiatrist to analyse all that. It's like when I write poetry and people come up with some odd interpretations. I never say what my poems are about, for I just do, and I just am. Making sense of it is for others. In my heart I know what I'm about, and I am pleased when others understand and get it. They rarely do. Too many looking for too deep an explanation. Like with the description of the railway above. Let's be honest, how many of you were waiting for the "sick old codger" routine? Well, never happened. Get your mind out of the gutter and see a lovely railway walk on a sunny day for exactly what it is, a lovely railway walk on a sunny day. Likewise, Karen with her plethora of nursery rhymes is exactly that. Not a subject of ridicule, not something to consider offensive. That a well-meaning person with a kind face can't put something like that on a video sharing site without attracting abuse really shows how far the Internet has to go before it can be considered a mature communications medium, and it also shows how far society has to go likewise.

ADSL when?

I am wondering now, perhaps, to leave the Livebox in the living room and WiFi from Azumi (this eeePC901). It will save hooking Ayleigh and Aiko up to the internet when I don't really need to, plus there's the issue of both machines requiring a gazillion service packs to get them 'safe'. I might, if I really need the connectivity on those machines, run a long patch cable into my bedroom to the WAN port of the router, and make sure it firewalls practically everything. Might be useful for Azumi too, as I make heavy use of shared folders and VNC. All ideas, we'll have to see how it works out.

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Rick, 8th March 2010, 00:53

Oops, my wage is only around 11K/year if years are decimal and contain 10 months. Whoa, EPIC FAIL Rick!

Rob, 8th March 2010, 23:41

That's presumably somewhere along this railway:  http://www.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=3 9.241531,-76.748257&spn=0.001849,0.003449&t=h&z=18&msid=11335545 9213838842846.000481528b7c1fde2aedc    Must admit, I've become more proficient in remembering nursey rhymes since I had another youngster demanding them. 1,2,3 4 5, once I caught a fish alive ... I can sing-along-to China in your hand, too, even if I can't quite recite it.. ...

Rick Murray, 10th March 2010, 02:21

"I'm sorry, we don't have imagery at this zoom". Let me zoom out.... WTF? Oh, yes, epic! Yes, I like that. &9786;    As for "China In Your Hand", it is not quite my favourite song at the moment (I should probably be totally embarrassed, but... um... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6YnzsFp9VM&fmt=18  However, yes, it was my favourite song growing up. I think I remember all the lyrics. Mmm, a wasted youth? (...is better by far than a wise and productive old age!)

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