Website Update Archive

Monday, February 23, 2015

Website Update - Top 10 Page List for December 2014 and January 2015

Top 10 ListWell, I fell a little behind in these top 10 lists. February is almost over, and I still haven't posted the lists of the ten most popular pages on this site for December or January. So, I'm correcting that now.

Although there were severy pages that have only made the list one or two times before, the only completely new addition to these list was the blog entry, Leaving Comments on Other Sites - Birds as Dinosaurs and Fossil Evidence for Evolution (a related entry has made the list a few times - Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries).

Overall traffic is similar to what it has been for a while now, perhaps down just a bit.

Anyway, here are the lists for this past December and January.

Top 10 for December 2014

  1. Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
  2. Review of Ray Comfort's New Movie - Evolution vs. God, Part I
  3. Book Review - Tribulation Force
  4. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
  5. Book Review - God- or Gorilla?, Chapter 14
  6. Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
  7. Response to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky - Why Romney Didn't Get Enough Votes to Win
  8. Gamera II Human Powered Helicopter Sets New Record
  9. A Skeptical Look at Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy
  10. Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries


Top 10 for January 2015

  1. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
  2. Response to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky - Why Romney Didn't Get Enough Votes to Win
  3. Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
  4. Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries
  5. Book Review - Archaeopteryx: The Icon of Evolution
  6. Golden Compass - A Surprise at the Bookstore
  7. Email Debunking - Tips on Pumping Gas
  8. Response to Global Warming Denialist E-mail - Volcanoes and Global Cooling
  9. Leaving Comments on Other Sites - Birds as Dinosaurs and Fossil Evidence for Evolution
  10. Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Website Update - Top 10 Page List for November 2014

Top 10 ListWith November over, it's time once again to go through the server logs to see what pages on this site were the most popular. The list was largely similar to previous months, with two exceptions. The entry, Book Review - Archaeopteryx: The Icon of Evolution, made the list for the first time. Granted, last month it was very close at number 11, but this is the first time it officially made it into the top 10. The other newcomer was Book Review - God- or Gorilla?, Chapter 14. This was part of an in depth review of an old creationist book, and while I think it's interesting and informative, I wouldn't have thought it to be the type of page to make the top 10 list. I mean, how many people are Googling "Alfred McCann" for refutations of his 92 year old arguments (though sadly, many modern creationist arguments aren't much changed).

As far as overall traffic, it's in line with what it's been for the past year, though down a bit from last month.

Anyway, here's the list of the ten most popular pages on this site in October.

Top 10 for October 2014

  1. Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
  2. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
  3. Review of Ray Comfort's New Movie - Evolution vs. God, Part I
  4. Book Review - Tribulation Force
  5. Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
  6. Book Review - God- or Gorilla?, Chapter 14
  7. Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries
  8. Response to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky - Why Romney Didn't Get Enough Votes to Win
  9. Golden Compass - A Surprise at the Bookstore
  10. Book Review - Archaeopteryx: The Icon of Evolution

Monday, November 17, 2014

Website Update - Top 10 Page List for October 2014

Top 10 ListIt's over halfway through November, so I'm a little late in getting to this this month, but here's the list of the ten most popular pages on this site last month. Mostly, they're very similar to last month, including some pages that have only very recently surged in popularity. There were two pages making first time appearances in the list - Book Review - Tribulation Force and Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries. That second page was the last in a series where I'd posted about my interactions with a creationist in the comments section of his blog. In that last entry, I wrote about how I discovered he'd plagiarized nearly the entirety of the blog entry that got me visiting his site in the first place. I do wish, however, that a related entry, Response to Kent Hovind Video - Bird Evolution would make the list one of these days. Hovind's video was the source material for the plagiarized page, and that entry of mine actually dealt in detail with many of the claims. And as long as I'm talking about bird evolution, I'll mention that the page that came in 11th place and just missed out on the top 10 list was Book Review - Archaeopteryx: The Icon of Evolution, a book that I quite liked.

Overall traffic is similar to previous months, up just a bit by most measures including unique visitors, numbers of visits, and bandwidth. However, page views and hits were both the highest they've ever been. I'm going to keep on pretending that these are all real visitors and not spammers (though if assuming that most spammers are trying to leave comments, and judging by the amount of hits the blog commenting script received, spam is only about 1/4 of the traffic).

Anyway, here's the list of the ten most popular pages on this site in October.

Top 10 for October 2014

  1. Where's My Flying Car?
  2. Aviation Books
  3. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
  4. When Will There Be an Aircraft in Every Garage?
  5. Debunking a Columbus Myth
  6. More on Origin of Species
  7. Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
  8. Book Review - Tribulation Force
  9. Creationist Dishonesty and a Follow Up to Previous Entries
  10. Blog - Golden Compass - A Surprise at the Bookstore

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Updated Blogroll

Blogroll may be an outdated term by this point, but I'm keeping mine just for the hell of it. Looking over mine, I noticed that a lot of the blogs/websites that I read have moved to new locations, some of them I've quit following regularly, some of the inactive blogs have gone completely defunct, and some of my current favorites aren't on there. So, it's time to fix that. Of course, I've updated the blogroll in the right-hand column of the blogs main page. Below is a summary, along with a description of each site. If you're not familiar with these sites, go check them out.

Active

  • Bad Astronomy Blog - Phil Plait's site dedicated mostly to astronomy, but with a dash of general skepticism and science, including global warming and the anti-vax movement
  • The Digital Cuttlefish - A skeptic & atheist who puts almost all of his/her posts (I think his) into verse
  • Dinosaur Dracula - An entertaining blend of nostalgia, candy, toys, and Halloween
  • IFL Science - I Fucking Love Science, with a focus on, obviously, science, kind of aggregating and offering commentary on science headlines
  • Mark Witton's Blog (Paleoart) _ Mark Witton's blog with a heavy focus on paleoart and pterosaurs, but also general commentary on paleontology (he does have a PhD after all)
  • The Panda's Thumb - A group blog dedicated to the science side of the evolution/creation culture war, especially on keeping sound science education
  • Pharyngula - A blog on evolution, atheism, liberalism, & politics (not for the faint of heart or easily offended)
  • Phenomena - Nat Geo Science Salon - National Geographic's blog collective, focusing mostly on biology and evolution
  • Sandwich Monday - Reviews of different sandwiches every Monday (my favorite was 'The Hypocrite' - a bacon cheese veggie burger)
  • Wait But Why - A little hard to explain, but entertaining essays on a variety of topics on a weekly basis, with crude to informative graphics
  • What If? - The XKCD guy (Randall Munroe) gives entertaining but realistic answers to strange questions
  • Why Evolution Is True - Jerry Coyne's excellent website on evolution and atheism

Inactive / Marginally Active:

  • The Ant Hunter - Scott only seems to post an entry every year or so, but they're still worth the read
  • New Minority - Eric's not been very active, either, but what he has is still good
  • Confessions of an Anonymous Coward - An ex-mormon turned atheist - no longer active at all, but very interesting for the archives

Removed:

  • TerrapinTables - Defunct entirely, but this used to be for my college buddies
  • Greg Richter's Idea Dumpster - Greg seems to post occasionally, but I just basically quit going back to check
  • Pooflingers Anonymous - Defunct entirely, but used to focus on atheism and evolution
  • Sandwalk - A good blog on evolution and science, but I just quit going back to check on it regularly
  • Respectful Insolence - A very good blog on applying skepticism to medicine - I still read it occasionally, but not regularly

Not Exactly Removed, but Replaced with a Blog Network:

  • The Loom - Carl Zimmer's blog is now on Nat Geo's Phenomena (BTW, Zimmer is my favorite science writer)
  • Dinosaur Tracking Blog - Dinosaur Tracking Blog went defunct, but another of Brian Switek's blogs, Laelaps, is now also a part of Nat Geo's Phenomena

And these are a little too frivolous to go into the blogroll, but here are the webcomics I keep up with:

Webcomics

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Website Update - Chile Relleno Recipe

I've added a new recipe to my How To page, Chiles Rellenos. It's a recipe from one of my sisters-in-law. Even though it's an easy recipe, it is time consuming. Plan on a solid 3 hours from start to finish if you plan to try making them. They're really very good, though, and worth the effort.

Chile Relleno

Image Credit: Me

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