Northern Lights

We’re now going through that odd 2 to 3-week season called autumn here. Both spring and autumn in Israel tend to be short-lived, only denoted by frequent temperature spikes and drops on a near daily basis. Unlike my home state of Minnesota, there’s no real Theater of Seasons here and obviously we don’t have the extremes of weather that come along with it. What makes me know that autumn is in the air is that we are experiencing a wonderfully cool early morning, cool enough that when I wake up I find I’ve covered my shoulders with a light blanket.

Another herald of cooler weather way, way up north are the tweets by@AuroraMAX that the Aurora Borealis is on display in the Yellowknife, NWT area.

AURORAMAX ALERT • An aurora is now visible above Yellowknife, Northwest Territories! Check it out at asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/…—
  (@AuroraMAX) September 19, 2012

The music  in the first video is OK, but the otherworldly sounds made by the aurora itself and the wind can be just as beautiful. And while there’s too much talking in the second video, you can hear the hisses, whistles, crackles and pops that the aurora broadcasts over radio frequencies.

Anyone want to book a flight to Finland with me?

Related:

Northern Lights, Earth’s Auroras, Causes and Facts

Related articles

• Spectacular Northern Lights Photos: September 2012 (space.com)
• Spectacular aurora borealis lights up north (stuff.co.nz)
• Northern Lights Soundtrack: 230 Feet Above Ground, Aurora Borealis Pops and Claps – Slate Magazine (blog) (slate.com)

The Day of the Great Unfollow

It had to happen. All those Facebook and Twitter accounts just languishing with posts from 6 months (or more) ago or nothing but auto-posts from other social networks that I  have befriended you on already or nothing but short URL links making it look like your account has been hacked.

If you were caught in the Great Unfollow crossfire, don’t be offended. I probably connect with you in other ways. Otherwise, go start posting real content again. And in all fairness feel free to unfollow me as well if my content doesn’t interest you. We all have limited time on our plates. I would hate to think I’m wasting yours!

And since I have your attention, here’s yet another prediction of the demise of blogging as we know it. Every time I read an article like this I become more worried about the demise of lengthy or thoughtful or thought-provoking prose. Do we really no longer have the patience or time to read with intent not only articles we agree with, but  articles that we disagree with that challenge our worldview. I do wonder…

(P.S. The foot is much better. Thanks for asking!)

Related articles

• Twitter Kills Unfollowing App (But Not Before I Dropped Half My Followers) (wired.com)
• Top 6 Reasons Why Your Twitter Followers are Unfollowing You! (weblogbetter.com)
• Unintentional unfollows: Coping with Twitter’s unfollow bug (nextlevelofnews.com)

Deal With It

People I meet through Twitter events keep asking me why I don’t update my Twitter avatar to show my face rather than the pirate shoes.

It’s like this.

Over time I’ve learned that it’s the exceptional person who can see past my gray hair. Besides, the pirate shoes are a much better indication of the person you’re dealing with.

So, deal with it.

As Seen on Twitter: A Rouge Printer

Not-so-subtle marketing ploy or real mistake? You make the call…

The source: The Poke

My Three WordPress.com Wishes: Second Wish

More Stats!

Dear @wordpressdotcom More comprehensive statistics #2ndof3wishes #11millionusers Blogger Live Stats Vs WP Stats http://bit.ly/9NJxKq—
JenniferT (@wysiwygjt) July 07, 2010

So the WordPress.com Dashboard Stats page got “sexified”, but still lacks comprehensive statistics like visitor country, time of visit, length of visit, page entry/exit, etc., etc., etc. As far as I know, this information is already being collected on your blog via both Google Analytics and Quantcast. Other 3rd party stats apps such as “whos.amung.us“, “Clicky“, “SiteMeter” and Google Webmaster Tools can fill in some of these blanks, but these utilities can’t do the entire job because of the javascript limitation in place here. Timethief has some excellent information about visitor tracking, and why external stats programs are never quite as accurate as inhouse tracking, on her blog, onecoolsitebloggingtips.com

If not as a part of the basic package, can we say “Paid Upgrade”? There certainly would be a market for it. Check out these forum discussions on Google Analytics and Woopra.

(Should anyone reading this be using the WordPress Stats plugin on their external, self-hosted WordPress install, if you see other kinds of information that we here on WordPress.com don’t, please leave a comment and let the rest of us know.)

One other stat I’d be interested in seeing in all our Dashboards are full subscriber statistics. As it stands now, subscriber stats only reflect the people who signed up to receive your posts by email. If someone subscribed in the WordPress.com Admin Bar and set their Subscription Reader preference to “never”, i.e. read their subscriptions only in the Reader on WordPress.com, they aren’t counted in your subscriber stats.

As an aside, for the truly stats obsessed who use the Chrome web browser, there’s the WordPress Stats extension which will allow you to check your WordPress blog’s stats without having to log in to your site. For users of Firefox, there’s MMD WordPress.com extension. (NAYY) Of course, if you’re checking your blog’s stats continuously, you also may want to seek help for your condition. Just saying…

So that’s my second wish. What about you? Do you have a wish to make your WordPress.com experience rock? Put it in the comments or post your own “My 3 WordPress.com Wishes” and send a backtrack to any of my posts.

Third wish coming soon; stay tuned! Better yet, sign up for my blog’s RSS feed or read by email. You can grab both in my sidebar.

Better shared!