Imaginary People

 This week with Isaac: Technical stuff! And a much longer-to-make than normal post.

You see, the widgit (gadget? whatever they call it) that I've been using to send you emails of my blog posts if you sign up, is now dead. It stopped working. Google stopped supporting it. Wasn't making them enough money I guess? So I had to find a new service. So, you will see a very similar widgit on the right hand side of the screen (or I don't know where, if you're viewing this on a phone) but it is a totally different service. Accordingly, though I was able to transfer over the active emails (interesting story on that in a moment) you may have to re-confirm that you want to be getting these emails, and there may be a little self-plug from the company I'm now using. They're called "follow.it" so if you see that, don't be alarmed.

Now for the funny thing I discovered (with pictures!) as I was spending the.. hour and a half I believe? To find and then transfer things over. I had always been surprised by how many people seemed to be following my blog, when I looked at feedburners numbers (for email subscribers.) I chose to ignore it and pretend I was just writing to the few people I know personally who read my blog.

Rather than the apparently 1,170 who were getting emails of my blog posts each time I posted 😯

I looked to see who these people were, but I didn't recognize any of them. Rando's who stumbled on me somehow via facebook?

But then as I looked at the downloaded .csv of all the email addresses, I saw the pattern clearly:

Clearly these were some kind of bot. Most of them were grouped in easy to see patterns, with the same first few letters the same followed by a string of other stuff, spread throughout the alphabet. Computer programs assigned to randomly create email addresses and sign up for things, for some unknown but probably nefarious purpose. Curiously, the email addresses were all outlook. Microsoft, being lax with it's email security, I assume.

In any case, I combed through the list and took out only the people I knew, who conveniently were none of them outlook users, so it was easy to spot. And the number of subscribers went down to a much more likely number, 9. I would say I was humbled and brought low, but I already thought something was off about that number so it simply confirmed what my common sense had assumed.

I'd love to talk more about my thoughts on my mentor, where my current analysis of what she is doing is at, my upcoming (tomorrow) wedding anniversary, and such, but I already have spent close to two hours on this, and I really need to be getting on to some other things for the week. So I'll make it quick:

Three day weekend because of independance day, woo! Final week of vacation coming up, during which I will get on a plane for the first time in a year and a half and visit my parents and have a wedding reception for all the east-coasters (and anyone else interested in making the trek) who weren't able to attend in person (because we were having a super small in-person guest list, due to covid). Less of a vacation really. I think of vacation as time to rest and recuperate and catch up on chores and errands and work that I don't have time for during a normal work week, but this will be travel, which is tiring, and spending time with family, which is important and good, but does not catch me up on todo's. And my nieces will be there, which is certainly not restful, if I'm going to play with them. (But still important and good.)

When I get back, my mentor will be gone for a week, and then I think it's only one more week before school proper starts up again. Time continues to flow so quickly. At least I feel good about what I'm doing and learning now, in that fast flow of time.

Until next time, you 9 people who read this ;-)

-I Out.