Maybe-good news! The mystery of the non-SSL traffic is solved, and it appears to have been “real” after all. There was a bug on the web host’s end, and it has been squashed.

But, can this much site growth really be real? The increase has been incredible. The number of unique visitors for June was 6,765, more than doubling the 2,342 unique visitors that showed up in May. But the number of unique visitors for July is already 5,177. It’s only taken six days for July to almost be caught up with June. July 3-5 averaged around a thousand uniques each, and the sixth is 800; but the final number usually doesn’t show up till around noon of the following day. So the sixth may have had more.

The growth is too much to be believed, but it’s been a steady trend for months now –

Those numbers only reflect the SSL traffic, non-SSL was larger up until July.

On the other hand, we have this number from Toocheke (a WordPress plugin for comics that this site uses) –

Pg 47 went up on Thursday, so 47’s number reflects five days of views, but sometime on Sunday, around the time the web host bug was fixed, the page count hit a brick wall. Before the brick wall, every time I refreshed the page, 47 was up another hundred views. After the brick wall, hours would pass with no views. 48 is performing the same – averaging less than one view an hour. Is that the site’s actual traffic? Or did the web host fix break Toocheke?

As the saying goes – “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” I’m expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me . If there were a bunch of comments flooding in, I’d believe the traffic increase reflected real interest in the comic. There must be some other reason for it, and it’s going to suck when I find out what it is.

AI actor Tilly Norwood set to star in first feature film

Film actors should work on buffing up their theater credentials, because it’s difficult to see how the long-form movie format, with live actors, survives and remains profitable in the future. I haven’t watched any long-form content in years. I’m not sure what the last long-form show I watched was – maybe the first two seasons of the anime where the guy gets reincarnated as a slime.

That said, what is the point of having the same AI face appear in multiple, unrelated movies?

The only thing Tilly might offer is an AI model with superior consistency. It’s an issue, but I’ve got a few different shots of Dreilide and Stuka in Bar Fight. The only consistency issues that bother me are in the logo on their shirts, which sometimes gets garbled. AI often has trouble maintaining the consistency of Dreilide’s ears, and I couldn’t get AI to animate her ear movement; but every other issue was something I could work around. All of these issues will likely disappear as AI improves, and I wouldn’t bet on it taking a long time.

I promise to post something more entertaining later, but, here’s how I spent some good drawing time –

I’ve been able to address this part of the house, so this much of it looks o.k. – but if I pulled the camera back, you’d see all the parts that still aren’t.

The switch that was here had been dysfunctional for decades. The original switch had trouble holding the “up” position. Last night, I finally got around to that item on my long, long list of fixes. This new switch is wired totally different than the original 50 year old switch – which was a three-way switch (two switches controlling one light). So we’ve got two extra complications here – the new switch is different because a ground was added, and it’s harder to understand how it works because it is a three-way switch. It took several trips to the internet, and several wrong attempts at wiring the new switch, to find the correct arrangement of wires.

And now it works right, and with the new metal wall plate it’s super pretty –

If you made it this far, here’s a pro tip – most cleaning jobs can be made easy with the right brush. That won’t sound like much until you have to apply it, then you’ll realize how big a difference such a mundane piece of knowledge can make in your life.

These little outlets and switches collect dirt and gunk, and look awful. A toothbrush and rubbing alcohol will get the dirt out, and the alcohol will evaporate away.

Most of you will never live in a log cabin, but if you do, a tire brush with bristles shaped to go around a tire works just as well on logs. Logs are terrible about collecting dust, and there’s no other good way to clean them.

I know this isn’t exciting, but, the absence of practical knowledge will have you beating yourself up over things that aren’t actually hard to do. Then you’ll end up living life poorly, for no good reason.

Since we’re moving to a civilizational model where everyone is alone with their internet buddies, we’ll all need to learn how to do the practical stuff. There’s no more splitting chores with a spouse anymore, for most of us. Most of us will have to learn it all and do it all.

So when you go into a store, look at their brushes. These things punch far above their weight. Some good ones show up once, and never again.

I’ve got a ticket filed with the web host. Couldn’t figure it out myself, the first layer tech support people couldn’t figure it out either. It should be working.

In the spirit of that video, here I am trying to fix this old car (again) –

I can’t believe we’re going back to the cars from my youth, but now normal vehicles cost 50-100k and last about as long as wet toilet paper. Anybody buying a new car is an idiot. If you think you’re going to survive without mechanic skills, good luck with that. I imagine most people with new cars are losing whatever disposable income they managed to make, and many are teetering on the edge of having their car repossessed.

I’m pretty lucky in that I’ve ended up with three old vehicles that are fundamentally good, albeit high mileage and in need of repairs. Unfortunately the situation has degraded while I’ve been back in college, having neither time, nor money, for cars. This vehicle hasn’t run since January, when I spotted a radiator leak. Between classes, working, and repairing the awful house I inherited, I have not had the time to look at this vehicle until today.

I filled the radiator up and the leak is faster than I thought it was –

The engine sounds like it’s got other problems too, which is unexpected. It ran great when I parked it. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it.

I need to rebuild my water heater too. The hits just keep on coming. I’m glad the traffic for the site peaked up. I don’t know why, the lack of interactivity is concerning, but at least something positive is happening. The fixing and repairing and rebuilding is wearing thin.

A fifth of Gen Z is still underage, but, in previous generations, few would wait until they were 18 if they had the opportunity to get it on. So the point still stands.