Blog stats

Wrapping up the year.

294 posts here, plus 16 at Ficton, plus 20 at Battle Honors = 327.

"All time" stats, not counting the two sub-blogs:

13029 pageviews. Last year the total was 4369, so my net views for 2011 was 8660, or 23 a day.

Top posts by page views:

• 245 Classical Values blog
• 128 Absurd beliefs
• 123 Stones and scriptures
• 111 Letter from Australia
• 103 If I had ten thousand dollars

Top referring sites:

• 643 Google
• 574 Bing
• 119 Blogger
• 90 Google Philippines
• 68 Google Canada

Pageviews by country:

• 8859 USA
• 567 Australia
• 401 Canada
• 384 Russia
• 294 Germany
• 230 South Korea
• 177 UK
• 132 Ukraine
• 128 Netherlands
• 121 Philippines

HIVE vs Captcha

A friend of a friend said:

Today we launched the closed beta for our product: the Human Intelligence Verification Engine.
It's a replacement for CAPTCHAs - those annoying little boxes you find everywhere on the web with the twisty, distorted letters you're supposed to decipher and type in to prove that you're human.  I've always hated the damn things, and now we've created something that's a lot better.  You can try it for yourself at http://www.hive-secure.com .
Please take the time to have a look at our site, and if you like it, please share it:  Tweet it, Facebook it, blog about it, email your friends.  It's important that people learn about this and encourage website operators to make a change. If you have time, I would also appreciate it if you could visit our Facebook page and "like" it.

Blog Stats

It's end of year, so time to look back at how I did for the year.
If you're someone I don't know and decided to be a follower (Sky, zara, No More) or commenter (Blair), I'm be curious to know how you got here and what you like about it.

I had 238 posts (plus 17 at Ficton) last year, and 246+20 this year, so I'm averaging 3 posts per 4 days.

All stats are as provided by Blogger and are for "All Time"--they give stats for Week and Month but not Year.

Top posts by pageview:

• Absurd beliefs (126)
• Classical values blog (64)
• "If I had ten thousand dollars" (59)
• Hidden Meanings (32)
• Ironclads AAR (23)

Top referring sites:

• Bing.com (397)
• Blogger.com (119)
• Google.com (113)
• Google.com.ph (Filipino) (86) 
• Ask.com (28)

Search Keywords:

• Chris DeBoe (417) (what a suprise, eh?)
• what to do with ten thousand dollars (13)
• absurd beliefs (8)

Total 4369 Pageviews, with Pageviews by Country:

• United States (3440)
• South Korea (143)
• Philippines (119)
• Canada (107)
• Australia (83)
• Russia (61)
• UK (57)
• Germany (29)
• Netherlands (24)
• India (23)

Chili

I have been volunteered to provide chili, enough for 15 people, at the church Harvest-Festival-in-lieu-of-Halloween. I'm not sure if there is a contest involved or not, but I do want to make it better than just beef and beans and canned Generic Sauce. So, what's your best chili recipe? My ideal is hot, sweet, and Texan; but submit whatever you like. The only rule is that it must not be "vegetarian chili", which is an abomination and a sin against God and man.

Bumper Sticker

I need a bumper sticker or two. Something which reflects my personality, or at least that part which won't get me arrested. I'm not looking for "Here's a site which lists 375 of them", I want specifics. Suggestions?

Absurd beliefs

With a hat tip to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, what belief do you actually hold which intelligent people around you would consider absurd?

I believe that the spoken word can influence what events happen. For instance, I think it's more likely the die will turn up a 1 if, before rolling, I say "roll a one". I don't think it guarantees an outcome, just that it changes the probabilities. If I'm speaking of an undesired event, I don't say something like "in case I'm run over by a truck"; instead I say "in case I'm trampled by rabid wombats." The odds of a wombat stampede in Virginia Beach are low enough that I don't mind increasingly them slightly.

I have no suggestion on a means by which speaking of an event might make it more likely, and no proof that it does, but I still believe it.

Another example would be "the American Empire will begin to collapse by 2050."

What do you believe, that other people might think absurd?

(Feb 21, 2011 note: this is the most-viewed post on my blog, but only one comment...)

Questions to ask

With a nod to a post of Zoe Brain's--what would you ask? Specifically, if you were deciding whether or not to propose to someone, what three questions would you ask before deciding? 

We will assume this is someone you've already met, reasonably attractive, not obviously a incompatible as far as socio-economic status, religious preference, ability to speak the local language, etc. I'm not looking for "I should have asked what species he was; I never dreamed I'd be engaged to a dolphin"--unless, of course, that actually happened to you.

If you have already been married, you could make it "I wish I'd asked...." or "I'm glad I asked....".

"If I had ten thousand dollars"

The original question was "If I had a million dollars", but that's a bit of a stretch for most people. Sounds to me like Tom has a good plan for what to do with $10k. If you had $10,000 and no pressing needs, what would you do?

Choosing gifts

A friend or relative is going to give you a gift. Would you prefer:

• you pick something, the friend buys that specific item
• you make a wish list, the friend picks something from that list
• you have no input, the friend buys whatever (s)he thinks you'd like

And looking at it from the other side--if you're the one doing the buying, which would you prefer?

Who would you pick?

If you could have a conversation with one person, living or dead, who would you pick?