website traffic analytics

While checking my browser cookies, I noticed some curious ones named __utma, __utmb, __utmv, etc., from a few LiveJournal and Dreamwidth domains. It turns out they are a part of Google Analytics, which can be used to track visitor traffic to your websites.

Apparently, blocking cookies from google.com doesn't block these cookies, as they belong to your website, not to google's website. I wonder whether blocking Javascript from the Google-Analytics website (which I've had NoScript set to do) disables the tracking information from being collected, or not. In my browser, I generally don't enable Javascript from that site.

Both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal support the use of Google Analytics.

So I figured I'd set up a Google Analytics account to use with my journals, to see what kind of info it generates. But it's likely I won't be checking it very often, because...

This reminded me that I hadn't checked the boingdragon counter info for my website in a very long time (a year and a half, it turns out). So today I checked it.

The Curses page remains my most popular one. A year and a half ago, it was getting around 10 hits a day. Now it's getting more than 40 a day.

on the Sleep front

Maybe my body no longer even needs 8 hours of sleep per night. I keep waking up early, even on the weekends when I can sleep in as long as I want. Annoying. It used to be that on at least one night of the weekend, I'd sleep for 10 to 12 hours. Now I barely make it to 8 hours on either night.

Last night I went to bed at 2am. I woke up at 7am to use the bathroom, and then couldn't fall back asleep again, even though I was still yawning and feeling tired. I stayed in bed til 8:30 before giving up on it and getting up.

Near the end of that time, I mentally counted 5 topics that I want to post to my journals about, this being one of them.

My body may be so used to getting up at a certain time, that to get more sleep, I'd have to go to bed earlier even on the weekends. I haven't managed to test that possibility yet, as it would involve *going to bed early*, and furthermore, *on the weekend!* (**but but but the weekend is MY time**).

Come to think of it, 2am is fairly early for me to go to bed on the weekend. Last night, I was thinking I was doing good getting to bed by that time rather than staying up til 4 like sometimes.

on the Allergies front

I have a theory that drinking tea - any kind of flavorful-hot-steaming-watery tea, including herbal teas - can alleviate my symptoms when I'm having an allergy attack. It's a theory I've had for quite some time.

I haven't tested it in a systematic way, as it's not usually convenient* to make a cup of tea whenever I'm having an attack. But various teas have definitely helped on some occasions.

I recalled this theory after reading this page about 5 Native American allergy remedies, 4 of which are herbal teas. (The other one is elderberries... hmmm, that is worth doing some research on.)

*such as when I'm about to go to bed, or about to leave for work. Or when I wake up sneezing in the middle of the night. Or when there won't be easy access to a bathroom, as drinking tea makes me need to pee.

As it isn't always convenient to drink tea, I ordered some butterbur capsules. Research studies go both ways on the effectiveness of treating rhinitis with butterbur. I figured that trying it out myself, especially before my symptoms get to the very bad stage, couldn't hurt.

Last night, right before dinner, I took the first butterbur capsule. During dinner, my nose got runny. An hour later, my nose wasn't runny anymore and my throat was feeling thick and constricted. It is similar to having a sore throat, but without the soreness. This may be due to:
- the butterbur drying out the mucous in my nose and throat, as could be expected from an allergy treatment.
- maybe just coincidence. Maybe I am coming down with a sore throat.
- maybe I am somewhat allergic to butterbur itself.

My throat still feels thick this morning. I definitely want it to get back to normal, before I try out another capsule.

The capsules have a distinct, sharp peppery smell. Based on this, it would be fairly easy to distinguish between butterbur and a placebo. I wonder whether that had any effect on the research studies. Maybe butterbur worked better than placebo, as the people taking it could tell it wasn't a placebo. In other words, maybe that increased the placebo effect, compared to the placebo.

water heater anode rod replacement

With Q's help, I finally got around to replacing my water heater's anode rod this July.
( Read more... )