Another month come and gone, and time once again to review the server logs for the site's activity. The list is actually very similar to last month. I'm not sure exactly what's going on with why some of these pages are popular right now. I suspect it might have to do with spammers, but I'll stay optimistic and assume it's mostly real live people reading the entries. A new page made the list for the first time, Where's My Flying Car?. It is related to an entry that just made the list for the first time last month, When Will There Be an Aircraft in Every Garage?, so maybe there is a real link in some discussion forum sending people here.

Overall traffic is up just a bit from last month, but almost the same.

Top 10 for September 2014

1. Where's My Flying Car?
2. Debunking a Columbus Myth
3. Aviation Books
4. When Will There Be an Aircraft in Every Garage?
5. More on Origin of Species
6. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
7. Review of the Lucy's Legacy Exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
8. Obamacare Lives (A Discussion of the Individual Mandate)
9. A Skeptical Look at Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy
10. Email Debunking - Tips on Pumping Gas

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Oct 2 | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)

Now that August is over, it's that time again to check the server logs to see how popular different pages were on this site. But as soon as I started to do that, I realized I'd forgotten to check at the end of July. So, today you get two top 10 lists - one for July, and one for August.

There were several suprises between these two months. One page that made it to both lists, but that had never made the list before, was Aviation Books. I'm honestly not sure why that book would all of a sudden become popular, but I guess it could be useful. July had other more new entries to the list, Debunking a Columbus Myth, Eben Alexander Misrepresenting Carl Sagan, and Pet Peeve - Articles Aren't Blogs. The first of those is pretty good (though perhaps people would be more informed by reading Happy Exploration Day). The second I like quite a bit, too. The third is okay, but not one I'd ever have expected to make this list.

August had three more first time top 10 entries, The 2014 Texas Republican Platform, More on Origin of Species, and When Will There Be an Aircraft in Every Garage? (short answer: never). I'm really happy about seeing the first one get that kind of traffic, because I think people need to see just how off-the-wall the Texas Republican party is. The third is another entry I'm glad to see people finally reading. I am surprised by the Origin of Species entry, though, especially considering that a later entry, Book Review - Origin of Species, combines the one that made the top 10 list and another entry on Origin of Species for a more comprehensive review.

And as a bonus, since these two entries just missed making the top 10 list, but are entries that I particularly like, I made the list for August the top 10 + 2, and included Abortion and How to Convert Me Back to Christianity.

As far as overall traffic, July and August were both similar - down just a bit from the past few months, but in line with traffic for the past year or so.

Top 10 for July 2014

1. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
2. Response to E-mail - Are America's Hunters the World's Largest Army?
3. Obamacare Lives (A Discussion of the Individual Mandate)
4. Gamera II Human Powered Helicopter Sets New Record
5. Aviation Books
6. Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
7. Debunking a Columbus Myth
8. Happy Fastnach Day 2014
9. Eben Alexander Misrepresenting Carl Sagan
10. Pet Peeve - Articles Aren't Blogs

Top 10 + 2 for August 2014

1. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
2. Email Debunking - Tips on Pumping Gas
3. Obamacare Lives (A Discussion of the Individual Mandate)
4. Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
5. Aviation Books
6. The 2014 Texas Republican Platform
7. Debunking a Columbus Myth
8. Gamera II Human Powered Helicopter Sets New Record
9. More on Origin of Species
10. When Will There Be an Aircraft in Every Garage?
     
11. Abortion
12. How to Convert Me Back to Christianity

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Sep 3 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

I gave my home page a minor facelift, creating icon links to the major sections, and moving some of the text to the About page to make the home page cleaner. The previous version is still available for comparison, if you're interested. So, if you haven't seen it yet, go take a look:

jefflewis.net Homepage

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Jul 10 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, with another month come and gone, it's time again to take a look to see what pages on this site were the most popular. Eight of the ten pages have made the list previously, but two were newcomers - Response to E-mail - Are America's Hunters the World's Largest Army? and Happy Fastnach Day 2014. I'm actually really happy to see fastnachts making the list (though my Fastnacht Recipe did make the list once before).

I've slightly changed one aspect of the way I do this list. Previously, I'd prefaced all blog entries with 'Blog - ', and just listed my static pages with their title. I'd started off that way because I used to think of my blog as a separate little side project for the site, and it was interesting to distinguish the few blog entries that made the list. But in recent years, the blog has come to dominate the site, both in terms of the effort I put in, and the amount of traffic it generates. It had gotten to the point where practically every entry in this top 10 list had the 'Blog - ' designation. So, I decided to just drop that distinction.

As far as overall traffic, June was down just a little bit compared to May, but still the third busiest month for the site as measured by unique visitors.

Anyway, here's the top 10 list for last month.

Top 10 for June 2014

1. A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
2. A Skeptical Look at Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy
3. Obamacare Lives (A Discussion of the Individual Mandate)
4. Response to E-mail - Are America's Hunters the World's Largest Army?
5. Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
6. Gamera II Human Powered Helicopter Sets New Record
7. Happy Fastnach Day 2014
8. Friday Bible Blogging - 2 Chronicles 31 to 2 Chronicles 36
9. Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
10. Email Debunking - Tips on Pumping Gas

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Jul 9 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, it's only a small update, but I've embedded YouTube versions of all the videos in my old entry, Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video. I added links to all the quicktime files so that readers could still see the original videos, but the YouTube versions make it easier to review. And if you're not really interested in purchasing the camera, I'd still recommend going to that page just to watch the videos, because slow motion is just cool.

I put a comment in my update note that I'll repeat here. I'm shocked that this camera is still the best option out there for budget high speed video 6 years after it was first introduced, and indeed, after it was discontinued by Casio. I would have thought that surely, somebody would have come out with a better $1000 camera by now, or a cheaper camera that does what this one does. But alas, Casio's new high speed options aren't even as good as this, and no other manufacturer has stepped up to the plate. You'd think the fact that people are paying full price and higher for used versions of this camera, or even up to $2500 for new ones still in the box, would be enough evidence of demand that some manufacturer somewhere would start making a camera with this capability.

Actually, to give a taste of what you'll find on that page, here's my favorite of the videos, lighting a match, recorded at 1200 frames per second, slowed down 40 times for playback.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Jun 17 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)