Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts

Monday, 1 June 2026

4,000,000+ Hits - But what does it mean?

Shrug ...


Absolutely nothing .. as my guess is that it is mostly Bots. Gawd help the future of AI if it is mining my posts for accurate knowledge. I have a disclaimer at the bottom of my page. I think that mining wargaming blogs for knowledge is the last thing the Tech Giants should be doing! You could be solving real problems like world hunger for teh cost of the compute you meaninglessly burn - no seriously you could!

Meanwhile: To all the humans still out there "Hi, I hope you are well!"

Friday, 29 May 2026

Roll of Honour for "dead" blogs: "Tidying up Blogs I Like to Read" [1]

I was checking the bottom of my "Blogs I Like to Read" list and there seems to be deadwood.
Blogs that are no longer with us (sniff). 
Lest they not be forgotten, they served to amuse me, I shall miss their passing.
I honour their digital memory!

Hrothgars Folly
Lasted Updated 2010
Unfollowed

No posts remain or were ever posted

No posts remain or were ever posted

3rd Phase
Dead Blog-Removed

Mad About Gaming
Dead Blog-Removed

Sideway Shuffle - Takeo Ichikawa
No posts remain or were ever posted

Little Soldier Company
Broken Link

Touching History
No posts remain or were ever posted

Ferrets Attention Span
No posts remain or were ever posted

The Savage AfterWorld
Broken Link

It all started when I wanted to follow a new Blog but I had filled up the blogs I could follow quota!

Bydand


Wednesday, 6 May 2026

What's Going on with the Internet?

Ok so I am back blogging but I cannot understand the statistics (see below, why the spike when I was posting any new stuff?): 


So .. I think .. "There is weird stuff going on all over the Internet! Again see my blog's stats. Now remember - given the fact that I really stopped posting - not much in the last six months (from over 100+ posts to less that 20 year) and I have just started posting in earnest again (as a diary without mass interest content).These stats do not reflect interest in my blog but I propose rather a "scraping" of the blog sphere and Internet in general! Where did a 300k viewing audience come from since March - given I only have 243 followers (of which only about an estimated 60 or so I would call actively viewing new posts)!"

OK bloggers - anybody else see this pattern? Is it all those AI Large Language Models (LLMs) trying to get stupidly clever?

Saturday, 4 October 2025

Bots - Are we back to normal "hit levels" again?

Last post was only 56 hits after the first 24 hours. Which I think are probably real people! Compared to the thousands previous .. what has changed? Ask the Bots!

Thursday, 18 September 2025

AI Blog Bots Are Still Looking At This Blog .. But For What Rhyme or Reason?

Would non-human readers please go away! (see below, there is such a strange spike in things reading my blog, that I don't believe are human - but at best can described as automated screen scrapers): 

 

They would not be doing it if there was not money in it for them at the end of the road! 

What do they think they are learning?

I think that there is a real danger that they are learning pt collating is tantamount to pure "JUNK" - unreviewed postings across the wide blog-sphere, where people could be "legitimately" (as why not) saying anything they want to. If enough people say Pi is a rational number - it does not make it a rational number. 

Friday, 4 July 2025

So true .. Hobbies should be FUN .. good video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHAqhP8EeYQ

  • Game and have fun!
  • Model and paint to have fun!
  • Retain the JOY!
  • The doing counts ..
  • Experience it for the fun of it - fearless and relaxing.
  • Laugh and smile, enjoy .. and say I did this!
  • Hobbies can be frivolous.
  • The best hobbies are frivolous fun!

I LIKE that message ;) 

Sunday, 21 July 2024

The Conference of Wargamers (CoW) 2024 - Initial Reports (from other Bloggers)

These are the early sightings of Conference of Wargamers (CoW) 2024 reports: 

I also need to post my own in due course, but the Games We Play blog covers my War Plan Orange (The Great Pacific War of the 1920's [Hypothetical]).

Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Interesting Political Military (PolMil) Game Posting - Steven Balagan


I can highly recommend Steven Balagan's website for excellent content and stimulating ideas.

https://balagan.info/using-political-tokens-for-military-political-climate-in-an-insurgency-campaign

Things you never knew with fantastic modelling and scenario development, plus excellent historical research:

https://balagan.info/portuguese-colonial-war
https://balagan.info/simulating-politics-in-a-wargaming-campaign-with-political-tokens

Always an idea spinner.
Thank you!

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Contrast Paints - Am I still not "Getting It"? (Probably Not)

As is my want, when in town I pop into any shop that could vaguely have wargaming "related" (as in useful) material in it. My local "Boyes" shop (apologies for those overseas or out of the relative area - so Boyes makes no sense) has Vallejo paints. Straight in like Flynn! As I was perusing the Vallejo aisle doing my usual -"Which colours do I have?" and only having a vague sense of this one and that one" - I  saw a new rack of Vallejo paints called, Xpress Color. Well certainly I had "none" of them and what is more there, was only a pitiful few of them left on the shelves. That talked volumes to me, so I picked up two of the stragglers (see below, Plague Green and Black Lotus - Contrast Paints by any other name): 


I rushed back home eager to give it a bash with Vallejo's babies - having had a hit and miss affair with GW's Contrast Paints. The targets were a set of 10mm Pendraken Modern Warsaw Pact and NATO British ("Cold War Gone Hot" era) toys. The result was really a heavy all over green wash with blue-black boots and metal gun parts. They are relatively small kit so probably not the 25/28mm ideal target range, but to me it was still a "primer and very good wash" [all my crevesses are certainly covered] but still really wanting paint. Though probably "less" than normal. It certainly was a factory style productionline, which is good.

Afterwards I set off around the Internet to see what others thought. The accomplished painter "The Beard Bunker" was of interest.


My verdict: I think I am still missing the point and probably playing around with too small a scale for real benefit! Washes are probably good enough for 10mm. 

Thursday, 17 August 2023

Note to Self: Listen to "Military History Plus" Podcast



Military History Plus Podcast, interesting content already after just eight episodes (see link below): 

https://www.militaryhistoryplus.com/


Thursday, 10 August 2023

Good Blogger to follow: Shaun's Wargaming with Miniatures

Now this is an interesting recommendation from a friend (Game We Play). Something for the Ancient and WWII enthusiast: 


http://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com/

WWII  3x4 Advancing Companies Rule Set:

http://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com/search/label/advancing%20companies

Some time shall be spent investigating here!

Thursday, 12 January 2023

Strange Blogger Stat Question - View Count Seems Frozen at (1) : Blog Feed Problem

----------------- FIRST DRAFT OF PROBLEM ---------- FIRST DRAFT OF PROBLEM ------------------

Very, very strange, all my posts since (after) January 1st 2023 (as in 2nd January onwards) seem to be getting only one read (best hang up my blogging boots, but wait, I was doing it for my self really, so blog on). I therefore must have one very devoted reader that is not me, or something is amiss with blogger stat counting? Curious!  

If you are reading this and are not the author then the stat counting will have a problem if it says only one read. Please leave a comment to say you were here.

Thank you in advance for your posted comment.

Then after an Internet search ... 

------- STOP PRESS ---------- STOP PRESS --------- STOP PRESS ----------- STOP PRESS ---------

Turns out to be a different problem [not the inability to see this blog as I first thought but] with respect to the "blogger feed" mechanism, updates are not been delivered to other Blogs that advertise my new posts. All getting a bit technical I know.

This helpful post sorted me out by clearing my cache (the "clever" behind the scenes mechanism which controls spotting content "which is new without having to do too much work finding it):

https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/190043761/new-blog-posts-not-updating-on-other-blogs-sidebars?hl=en

With computers there is always something "Heath Robinson" going on in the background ;)  

---------- PROBLEM SORTED ---------- PROBLEM SORTED ---------- PROBLEM SORTED ----------

Business as Usual :) 

---------- PROBLEM SORTED ---------- PROBLEM SORTED ---------- PROBLEM SORTED ----------

Sunday, 17 July 2022

WD's COW 2022 at Shrivenham

To give you a better insight into the event I can do no better than direct you to some excellent bloggers (see below, fellow WD'ers who are also far quicker than me on the keyboard): 

Blog Reports: 

As you can see there was a fabulous array of games to be had plus you could get up close to some dark armoured denizens (see below, an evil looking T72, not recommended if you are either claustrophobic or like like a sense of "Health and Safety" in your working environment): 


The whole event was scarily brilliant!

Sunday, 24 October 2021

I have started .. eating .. Mince pies!

I think "they" have appeared in the shops very early this year! I have a theory, maybe it is because of the disrupted logistical network so .. they (fancy people in marketing suits) are shipping anything they can sell to fill up the shelves and making Xmas come early this year. Whatever, I am eating the pies whatever with a nice cuppa (see below, scene of the crime evidence - that has since disappeared):  


Merry Xmas!