SVP Technology at Fiserv; large scale system architecture/infrastructure, tech geek, reading, learning, hiking, GeoCaching, ham radio, married, kids
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Should I still use analytics?

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I set up Google Analytics on my site in 2010, and since then use it to track page views to my site. I only care about page views, which I find useful to figure out which pages get the most traffic. It’s interesting data, and sometimes rather useful. But Google collects much more information than just page views, and it’s tracking is more intrusive than I would like. But I had other things I’d rather spend to spend my time on, so doing anything about it never made it high enough up my todo list.

But last month I finally did something, having come across some information that did I thought did what I wanted. Essentially I want things set up so that I don’t need to bother with a cookie banner because I only track things that are trackable when someone says “deny all”. Based on some google documentation, I changed my google analytics fragment to:

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-6D51F4BDVF"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('consent', 'default', {
    'ad_user_data': 'denied',
    'ad_personalization': 'denied',
    'ad_storage': 'denied',
    'analytics_storage': 'denied',
    'wait_for_update': 500,
  });
  gtag('js', new Date());

  gtag('config', 'G-6D51F4BDVF');
</script>

As I understand the documentation, this should turn off the most problematic tracking, but still send a page view event. I took a look at it the following day, and everything seemed to be ok, but now, a couple of weeks later, page views reported by Google Analytics have dropped drastically. Not to zero, but to near zero.

I’ve spent a bit of time trying to figure out what’s happening. I used google tag assistant and it indicates the page view events are being sent correctly. But that doesn’t explain why I’m not seeing the page views in my Google data.

I’m not sure what to do next. I don’t want to spend too much time on this, after all I’d rather work on writing and editing. I did consider other services to do the tracking, but it looks we’re talking about $100s a month - and it’s just not worth that much to me. There are open source setups I could try an configure on my server, but again that’s effort I don’t really want to go into. Maybe I just live without analytics data.

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JayM
10 hours ago
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Atlanta, GA
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Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (21/2025): Librem 5 5G and other fun stuff

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Here's what happened from the 19th to 25th of May, 2025: A RaspBerry Pi CM5-based handheld, successful experiments with a 5G modem plugged into a Librem 5, phosh-osk-stub gets a sweet new name, and more! Enjoy!

Again, apologies for the delay and thank you for understanding. In case you missed it:

The update for the past week (May 26th - June 1st, 2025) will be published later today. Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

Worth Watching

Worth Noting

Hardware (enablement)

Conferences

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

Phosh

Plasma Ecosystem

Sxmo

Sailfish OS

Ubuntu Touch

Kernel

Non-Linux

Stack

Distributions

Apps

Matrix

Thanks

Huge thanks to Plata for the nifty set of Python scripts that speed up collecting links from feeds by a lot.

Something missing? Want to contribute?

If your project's cool story (or your awesome video or nifty blog post or ...) is missing and you don't want that to happen again, please just put it into the hedgedoc pad for the next one! Since I am collecting many things there, this get's you early access if you will ;-) If you just stumble on a thing, please put it in there too - all help is appreciated!

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JayM
2 days ago
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Atlanta, GA
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RFC 9780: Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for Multipoint Networks over Point-to-Multipoint MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSPs)

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This document describes procedures for using Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for multipoint networks to detect data plane failures in point-to-multipoint MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSPs) and Segment Routing (SR) point-to-multipoint policies with an SR over MPLS (SR-MPLS) data plane. Furthermore, this document updates RFC 8562 by recommending the use of an IPv6 address from the Dummy IPv6 Prefix address block 100:0:0:1::/64 and discouraging the use of an IPv4 loopback address mapped to IPv6. In addition, this document describes the applicability of LSP Ping (as an in-band solution) and the control plane (as an out-of-band solution) to bootstrap a BFD session. The document also describes the behavior of the active tail for head notification.
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JayM
3 days ago
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Atlanta, GA
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Precision Clock Mk IV

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JayM
3 days ago
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Atlanta, GA
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Superfund CEOs

jwz
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Lead pipes? Pfffft! Netscape Cancer says "hold my beer."

Toxic Origins, Toxic Decisions: Biases in CEO Selection:

We examine how selection bias in CEO promotion amplifies risk-taking, using prenatal exposure to pollution as an exogenous shock to individual risk preferences. CEOs born in future Superfund sites are more likely to be promoted internally, suggesting firms reward observed success without recognizing underlying risk tolerance. These "Superfund CEOs" excel in internal roles but pursue riskier external policies once promoted-leading to greater volatility and weaker performance. Our results suggest firms may systematically mistake luck for skill in promotion decisions, filtering for high-variance risk-takers whose traits only become problematic when decision-making shifts to exposed, irreversible domains. In short, Superfund CEOs display performance with essentially lower mean but higher variance.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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JayM
3 days ago
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Atlanta, GA
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Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

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JayM
3 days ago
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Atlanta, GA
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