Why the Russians are following one of my blogs

“Found this during a recent archaeological dig.”

RussianFabergeEggITEM: I created a blog for the New York State Data Center affiliates called Data Detectives some years ago. I post every other day or so.

Sometime in early October, I was showing one of our interns the analytics of the page. I must admit that I almost never look at such things, on that blog, this one, or any of the ones to which I contribute. I’m told that I “should”, but, generally speaking, that conversation makes my eyes glaze over.

Still, I was fascinated that the most popular country among blog viewers for the week ending October 13:
Russia – 1010 page views
United States – 361
France – 35

I theorize that it had to do with my link to the article Lefty Presidents Are Better For Markets. This had to do with handedness, not politics, southpaws, not socialists.

Still, I wonder why even the total going back to May 2010 has so many views from the former Soviet Union:

United States 247,390
Russia 32,066
Germany 17,379
France 13,787
Ukraine 9,387
United Kingdom 9,078
Netherlands 3,294
China 3,278
Poland 3,040
Canada 2,963

ITEM: On Facebook, I forwarded to a terrestrial friend of mine an article about an award received by an author I knew he admired. He thanked me, adding, “It’s like I have my own personal librarian looking out for me.” This pleased me greatly.

ITEM: A guy named Jan, who was in my graduation class at Binghamton (NY) Central High School, asked to friend me on Facebook recently. I agreed, and almost immediately he posted this: “Found this during a recent archaeological dig.”
ROG.BCHS
This was taken around our HS graduation in 1971, I think, though someone theorized that it was from my college years; it DOES look like the ceiling of the Student Union Building offices of the Wind Sun News.

Just got a picture of me for our new IDs at our new work location downtown. Wouldn’t you know that it has that same “glare on the glasses” look? Since I don’t take selfies, you can’t blame ME.

Blogging, state of

Writing on deadline gives me agita

I had this really great week with my Times Union blog at the end of August. Thrice, a post was one of the highlighted posts. I say I do the blog for myself, but it’s also true that I have enough ego to enjoy when my efforts are appreciated. And the matrices are quite varied: visitors, of course, but I really appreciate it when people who’d NEVER commented before are moved to write; it says I hit a particularly responsive chord. I also like it when folks repost my meanderings on Twitter and Facebook.

This also made me happy: “Just a quick thanks for the work you do on the NYSDCA blog. I had someone asking for religion data today, and I thought, hm, I remember seeing something about that Continue reading “Blogging, state of”

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