My first "scrape"...

[alexpgp]

Some time ago, I noticed that the overall number of views published by Flickr for my modest collection of images was substantially lower than the sum of the number of views for each individual shot. How large the discrepancy might be was hard to tell, but it was most certainly there.

While allowing my poor synapses to cool down yesterday, I clicked through and saved the HTML page source of all 23 pages of my Flickr stuff, and just now, having returned from The UPS Store <spit> and the bank, I decided to see just how hard it would be to write a Perl script to "scrape" the information I want out of the result.

It was so easy, it was scary.

I can with confidence say that despite Flickr claiming that my photos have been the subject of 9,996 views, the sum of the individual views is 45,911. I also have a pretty exact idea of which shots are the most popular, and so on.

Now, having done all this, I think I'll go take a nap. Shiloh is setting the example.

Cheers...

Comments

[solaecclesia.livejournal.com]

Hey, I noticed you listed mnemonics in your interests. Who have you read? I've studied Harry Lorayne's, Kenneth Higbee's, Dominic O'Briens, and a few sundry writers.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I've not read Higbee, as far as I can recall :^), but I cut my teeth on Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas, along with some good stuff in Corinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism (intended for stage performers, not believers in parapsychology). More recently, I've read O'Brien and other "targets of opportunity."

Cheers...