Facebook and Images

Here’s the image I was testing in that last post. I’m embedding it this time and going with no featured image.

I’m trying to figure out how Facebook pulls images when I share and publicize links. It seems random at times, but given the fetish for algorithms Facebook seems to have, I think randomness is quite impossible. So I’m testing and comparing notes with Therefore I Geek, Part Time Monster, Infinite Free Time, Victim to Charm, and others about it.

Here is how I think it works.

1. It seems to always pull a featured image as a little square with the link to the side.

2. If no featured image, it pulls from the post starting with the largest. If no images in the post are the right proportions to run across the column with the link underneath, It pulls an image and puts it in the little square.

3. If the post is all text with no media at all, it uses the blavatar, in a little square.

4. Oddly. If the post has other media, such as videos and pins, but no image, it pulls whatever site-wide art it can find and displays that.

If I use only pins for art at here, it pulls one of my header images, because that is the only site-wide art I have that isn’t in a slideshow. It routinely pulls blogging badges from Part Time Monster with her links when she does pin-only posts and puts them in a little square, but I can’t find any rhyme nor reason to how it decides which badges to pull.

(And  yes, people who are better at searches that me. I have heard of Google. I’m happy for you to drop me an explainer with a non-snarky comment if you can find one in under 5 minutes because I really want to know. I’m tinkering here and playing blogger games. Combing through websites from a search page is not fun. This is.)

 

Tuesday Texture: Manhole Cover

photo by Gene’O

Manufactured in Opelika, Alabama. I know not when. They’ve had foundries there a lot longer than I’ve been alive.

I have a post up at Sourcerer that I’d love some feedback on. Making long-term decisions and such.

Throwback Thursday: My First Photoblog (Spider Lily)

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photo by Gene’O

This is the first original photo I ever posted on the blogs. It was my first Wordless Wednesday and I posted it in April. Here are some funny and interesting things about me posting this photo.

• This is a fall flower, not a spring flower. Apparently I just had it sitting around for months when I should have been posting it on the blog.
• I thought this photo sucked until I actually went back and took a look at it. It’s not as good as most of my other stuff, but not a bad photo, really.
• It got 33 likes. That was an unheard of number of likes for a Sourcerer post last April, and it is still more than we get there on most days. Those 33 likes are what convinced me to keep blogging photos.
• I thought I blogged this photo with a little text explaining why Spider Lilies are so special. Turns out, I just left cryptic clues in the tags.
• I remembered it being purple rather than pink. Memory is a treacherous thing.

So, for this Throwback Thursday, I’ll tell you what makes a Spider Lily so special if you live along the Gulf Coast. They tell you when the frost is coming.

Spider Lilies are actual lilies, but they are wildflowers. They are not robust, persistent lilies that last all year. They live a couple of weeks at most. They grow along roadsides and in vacant lots. They bloom in late September or early October, depending on the weather. They can be white, purple, or red, and maybe some other colors depending on the soil composition and the time of year and so forth.

Spider Lilies are harbingers of winter. When you see the first one bloom, you can mark that day on your calendar and be sure you’re getting your first real frost in six weeks, give or take a day or three. My father passed this bit of lore on to me more than ten years ago, and for most of those years, I’ve marked my calendar just to see. The frost always comes when the spider lilies predict it.

I glanced out my kitchen window last Saturday as I was making coffee and spied these beauties . . .

photo by Gene’O

I almost re-wrote last Saturday’s coffee post just to mention them, but thought the better of it. I’m expecting the first real cold on November 8, give or take a day or three. Thank god for Spider Lilies, for calendars, and for fathers.