AT about 12:56 Chicago time, the count of views went over 10,000,000. I was refreshing the site frequently, but the figures would often stay the same and then suddenly jump a lot; obviously, the views aren’t tallied one at a time but in bunches. The figure I got at 12:56 is this:
And the lucky commenter who posted closest to the odometer tick? Reader ForCarl, who posted the following comment on the “50 top atheists” thread:
Author : ForCarl
Commentors 27 and 28 are on to something. Read carefully all the bios associated with the list. They have these weird elements in them. The more I read them, the more apparent the cynicism and mockery.
ForCarl, email me with your address to claim your prize.
In other good news, FOW (friend of the website) Miranda Hale, gender traitor and known enemy of the Catholic church, has purchased a Christmas present for the website: she coughed up the thirty bucks necessary to eliminate ads from this site for one year! That’s a wonderful present: the ads were really beginning to get on my nerves (and, I suspect, yours as well), but I was too cheap to pay for their elimination. (I note that the ads are still appearing and I’ve written a testy email to WordPress.) Thanks, Miranda! Be sure to go see her plea to be adopted by Bill Donohue as part of the Catholic League’s “Adopt An Atheist” campaign.
Okay, it’s back to business as usual, and we’ll celebrate with a kitteh:
Huh, I thought you were getting pennies from the ads yourself and I made a point of clicking on them …
Who or what is a “gender traitor”?
If you don’t already know, I’d recommend not asking. It’s not worth it.
Yes, Tristan’s right. If you’re really curious, though, you can Google it.
I had the misfortune of Googling it before reading the replies here, I’m afraid. I used to think that that “us versus them” brand of feminism was only to be found in the writings of Luce Irigaray and a few others of her ilk.
Alas, I didn’t get the book! Waiting for next 10 million!
What were the odds?
Thanks Jerry!
Yi- it shouldn’t be long to the next Ten Million at the rate this site is growing!
They were adds on this site?
PS: Ya, what exactly is a gender traitor?
LOL.
Sorry. There ain’t no god, and that ain’t batman.
Jerry–
Miranda has the same annoying ads on her site. I think it only fair that, in the spirit of Christmas giving, you buy out the ads on her site as a present. 😉
Oh crap! I hadn’t seen ads on my site for a while. Ugh. Oh well. I’ll survive 🙂
WordPress doesn’t reveal their algorithm (is that the right word?) for ad placement, but I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with a blog’s popularity. The more visitors you get, the more ads they display, which explains why Jerry’s site was covered with them. I rarely get the enormous annoying ads on my posts, but, when I have, they’ve shown up on popular posts. I’ve yet to see an enormous ad on one of my not-so-popular posts. However, they do appear in my blog’s RSS feed pretty frequently.
I think “algorithm” is the right word for the module which does the ad placement, though people working in the area prefer the term “mechanism” which handles all the details of getting bids from advertisers, to deciding the pricing and the placement.
The difference between an “algorithm” and a “mechanism” in computer science is that a algorithm need not worry about the user being a cheater (for example, an algorithm for finding the best route for a road trip can safely assume that it is in the best interests of the user to give the correct input, and hence need not take any steps to ensure the truthfulness of the user input), while a mechanism does need to take possible lying by users into account (for example, if you are running an auction, you might want to elicit people’s true valuations of the object being sold. This is however non-trivial to achieve, since in a normal highest-bidder-gets-the-item-at-her-price auction, people have an incentive to understate their valuation).
Dear Fish,
Only the Shadow knows…
Nommily yours,
The Cat
And I’m still waiting to hear from Bill Donohue. Maybe he’ll send me a text-message in all caps (he’s fond of the capslock key). Fingers crossed, you guys! 😉
Followed the link to the “Adopt” sight.
It ends with: ‘”As an added bonus, they will no longer be looked upon as people who “believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”’
How very very insulting.
It’s not so much as insulting (can’t take these people seriously) as scarily righteous!
Great, you must have the most popular cat in the Universe! Didn’t the Egyptians (2000 BC) think that cats had supernatural powers?
Very noble of Miranda. As my mother used to say, ‘you deserve a putty medal’!
Someone – cannot recall who – said use Adblock Plus & it worked for me.
Yes, thank you Miranda!
Congrats!
I use Ad Block Plus on Firefox. It works.
Bravissimo!
Pains me to see already stressed out feeder goldfish swimming in what is probably chlorinated bathtub water polluted bu residual surfactants from shampoo and soap.
Death by cat would be merciful and quick compared to what they’re facing.
7,023 views?
In half a day you’ve already received about 7,023 more views than I do on any given day.
😉
Congratulations, Jerry (I’ve gone out on a limb with the informality, but what the heck!)
I like your writings on most of the topics you cover; I like the informality of this place; and I positively love receiving emailed updates that feature kittehs!
So there!