Builders,
About 9:30 tonight, this webpage which has been running for 25 months crossed over the 400,000 mark on ‘page reads.’ The term is used by the counter on the site. If a builder shows up and reads the main story of the day, every day for a week, that is 7 ‘page reads.’ If he reads the top 5 stories on one day, It counts just 1. If he clicks on links to read other stories or finds them through the search box, they count individually.
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This doesn’t make the Corvair the most popular experimental engine, but it is a really good indication that the builders we have are in aviation for the traditional values of ‘learn, build and fly.‘ Many websites are just an on-line catalogue and a store. Here we have a setting of more breadth and depth, a place to return to, understand more about what we are building, and read thoughts on why we value making things with our minds and hands.
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This website has really good data counters built into it. It does not tell me who read what but it does keep a good count on what was read. Below is the data chart on the most popular stories of the 25 months we have had the site up. We have 464 stories here, but these top the list. You can click on any of the titles to read them.
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The Counter on the main page is high because if a guy checks in to read a story by going to the main page first, it gets recorded in that box. The individual stories below, like the Getting Started page with 2,258 reads reflects people going directly to that story. If a builder goes to our original site, and clicks the ‘Getting Started’ link, he goes directly to this story, and it is counted individually , not added to the home page total. Not bad, considering that the ‘Getting Started’ story is just 7 weeks old.
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Some of the other stories are near 2 years old, but I try to write the technical pieces so that the data is still useful a long time into the future. Unlike to posts I used to write for discussion groups, I can, and do, go back, update, add to, and clarify these stories.
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There is a particular kind of internet personality who reads that last sentence as proof that I am Orwell’s Winston Smith, working at the Ministry of Truth to rewrite history. I would like to allay such thoughts by pointing out I often speak of mistakes I have made, and how I have a long track record of being open-minded enough to get smarter. I find it ironic that it’s usually the people who have never met a person who are certain they can see the person’s motives and ethics.
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