These summaries always stall when we get to the fourth quarter . . . I mean, that was just a few weeks ago, right?
Well, here’s the thing . . . it’s a few weeks ago for regular readers, but digital media archeologists hundreds, if not thousands, of years from now, probably won’t have the time to sift through three months’ worth of posts and likely will appreciate this summary.
I mean, do you know how much content they’ll have to sort through? Well, let me tell you, but first, a photo . . . a photo from one of the first non-reminder posts of the quarter<<link . . .
Anyway, the number of 2020 tweets future digital archeologists will be confronted with? … roughly 200 billion tweets (an average of 6,000 tweets per second) . . . think your tweet will go viral? The odds are not good.
What about Facebook? … well, as of October, 2020, there are 3.21 active Facebook users. Sure, a billion of those are probably Russian and Chinese bots making sure we stay mad at each other, but that still leaves 2.21 billion users sharing all manner of dubious information and pet photos . . . daily.
What about blog posts? … here are the (depressing to bloggers) statistics (LINK). . .
I’ll save you the time by giving you some bullet points from the article (but it’s worth reading, especially by new bloggers who leave comments asking to “please visit my blog“):
- Each month, 70 million new posts appear on WordPress blogs alone.
- They instigate lively discussions – 77 million comments attest to it.
- The monthly readership on the platform is 409 million people.
- For comparison, Tumblr is the home of about 450 million blogs.
- Even though the average blog post contains 1150 words…
- …the average time spent on blog posts is only 16 seconds
… and …
According to WordPress statistics, users produce more than 70 million new posts each month. My in-depth research showed that almost 2.75 million posts are published each day on WordPress alone.
WordPress-driven blogs account for 27% of all posts, which, logically, makes the total number of blogs per day a little bit over 10 million.
. . . and people wonder why I’m happy when we get 30 votes on our alphabet stories challenges, or why I’m content with just a few regular readers.
Getting twenty pairs of eyes on a post is fantastic. Getting three of those readers to actually read what I write is amazing. Getting one or two leaving comments (aside from the occasional “Love your blog! Please follow me!”) would be sufficient for me to keep going even if I weren’t doing this primarily for myself and future digital archeologists.
Anyway, continuing with the summary . . .
That was the second non-reminder post of the quarter (LINK).
I keep mentioning The Alphabet Challenge<<link stories and the reminders to vote posts because they made up the bulk of posts for October, November, and December (and for the year). Note: that search result is just for the stories (in reverse order). If you want the voting results, click this LINK.
Most reminder posts are quick efforts offering up a few photos, but some offer up random thoughts spilling out from the mostly empty chambers of my brain. Some posts might have stuff of interest to some, but given the above-mentioned statistics, I doubt anyone would make the effort to scan the posts for a possible hidden gem.
BUT . . . they might be interested in a few of October’s reminder photos . . .
There were non-reminder October posts that generated a fair amount of traffic, a few thanks, and added to the bloggers I follow. Two of the posts — in reaction to comments I read on other blogs about users so frustrated with the Block Editor that they were thinking of leaving the platform — attempted to provide basic guidelines for getting up and running with the Block Editor:
Using The Classic Editor Block <<link
Classical Editor Block Template Generic <<link
As a reminder, a September provided instructions on where to still find the Classic Editor (LINK), but these two posts attempted to get users familiar with “the future” of editing.
Another post (LINK) had me wondering how many readers recognize the style of each (supposed anonymous) writer when reading our stories (again with The Alphabet Challenge!?), and gave me the opportunity to link previous posts dealing with various aspects of the writing craft.
I had fun with a post exploring Photoshop’s new Neural Filters (a fancy way of saying AI-driven). The exploration involved taking a fairly current photo of me and all my old man glory and using the filters to modify the original photo (LINK).
The following short gallery shows the original as the first photo and each subsequent photo is the result of moving a few sliders. Some are impressive, others not so much.
You can see the comparison to my younger self by going to the post . . . you’ll have to wait for the comparison of my projected older self to the actual (which I hope I’ll be able to present when I’m 107).
Near the end of October, I wrote a combination of “helpful hints” and an update about forcing myself to publish posts using the Block Editor (ptui!) (LINK) and — as the title hints — it wasn’t a favorable review. A few things I mention in there are misspoken because I mixed working with the Block Editor proper and working strictly with the Classic Editor Block.
Meaning, I mixed working only with one block — the Classic Block — and working with multiple blocks — Paragraph, Picture, Gallery, and other blocks. Really, at this point, if you’re uncomfortable with blocks, make sure you use the Classic Editor and forget about blocks (unless you find you have a need for them).
That’s an appropriate photo about how (some) users feel about blocks, but it was also my photo for the Halloween 2020 post (LINK).
The post is notable for containing an introduction to a possible (future) ghost story and for my 2020 One Sentence Halloween Stories. Those are what they sound like; one sentence-long stories which I then posted on Twitter . . . and were promptly lost among the 360,000 other Tweets that went live in the time it took me to post them. As expected, no one noticed them.
“Yes, yes, but what about November and December? I mean, at this pace, it’ll be next November before you finish this post!”
Eh, don’t fret; it’s not like anything of note took place in November and December, and so it was for my blog. But, let me begin with a short gallery of November’s reminder posts photos.
Some of the November reminder posts were, in fact, interesting . . . but, if you didn’t read them then, you’re not likely to re-read them now.
For instance, early November is when I switched to a new theme for the blog while under the mistaken assumption my old theme would soon be sent to the themes graveyard (a mistaken/misleading statement which still annoys me a bit). However, I don’t mind the new theme . . . mostly.
Also in early November, I finally resumed documenting our 2017 Alaska Cruise (LINK) with part 1 of our Ketchikan experience (part 2 would go live nearly a month later). Here are a few photo samples.
That post was followed by more of me playing with Autumn’s colorful dead leaves offerings.
. . . and, we’re in December.
I told you it would be quick . . . and I again start December with a compilation of “reminder posts” photos. but, be aware that December’s reminder posts had more content than previous reminder posts because I integrated playing with various tools and techniques. If you see anything interesting, use the calendar feature in the sidebar to check the December posts . . . or not.
Two of those posts, the hawks and the coyotes, generated non-reminder posts about re-processing old photos using new tools. If you like coyotes and hawks, they might be worth a look (LINK and LINK).
But, before those, I had the second Ketchikan post (LINK) covering the rest of the Alaska Cruise September 14, 2017, experience.
December also saw the beginning of a new type of post . . . the Where in the World posts made their first appearance and will likely continue well into 2021. (LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK)
Each new post reveals the location of the previous post’s photo. The photos are the stars and the polls are the entertainment.
Lastly, we had the Great Saturn Jupiter Conjunction of the 2020 December Solstice . . . something I’m still documenting (LINK).
That’s not the actual conjunction because I’ve yet to post those photos (I’m working on it).
And, that’s it. Well, except for the posts summarizing what I posted in 2020 . . . but if I go down that road, I’ll get into an infinite loop and will never get done.
Wait! The cartoons! Here’s a sample.
OK, a couple of them aren’t from any posts. They’re cartoons I added to comments either on my blog or when commenting on other blogs.
That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.
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