2011 retrospective

The year is almost over so we thought we'd highlight some of our favourite and our most popular posts from the year. We've posted something like 150 or so missives to this blog this year — nothing to boast about, but when we look over our work we do feel like we've achieved something. We've made a lot of new friends and acquaintances, which has been the greatest part of it. We've also learnt a lot about geoscience, especially when we've posted things at the edges of our knowledge... luckily we don't mind learning in plain sight! 

Most popular

One of the eye-opening things about running a website is the incredible statistics available from Google Analytics. There's no personal information, of course, but where readers clicked from, what they read, and for how long, where they went next, what browser they use... and that doesn't scratch the surface. After the main page, the most popular stops are: 

• Downloads (people want stuff!)
• About Us
• Articles — various scribblings and talks
• Evan's awesome Rock Physics Cheatsheet
• Our reading list
• The apps page
• The cheatsheets in general

After the cheatsheet posts, the most-visited posts are:

• The scales of geoscience, about being helicoptery
• Shale vs tight, about the differences between shale gas and tight gas reservoirs
• What is unconventional?, about ways to define unconventional resources
• Are you a poet or a mathematician?, about the language of uncertainty

Most commented

I have not been very rigorous and filtered our own comments here—we try to respond to every comment. Except the comments about Paul Smith shoes and Breitling watches, which I delete immediately (if you don't have a blog, you are perhaps blissfully unaware of the tedious amount of robo-spam that blogs and wikis attract—lucky for you!). Apart from the Where on (Google) Earth game posts, some of the most commented posts were:

• Wherefore art thou, Expert?, about coping without them
• Geophysical stamps 3: Geophone, mainly because of my mistake!
• Why we should embrace openness, about being less secretive in appled geoscience
• The simultaneity funnel, about the process of invention

Most favourite

Evan and I have posts we loved to write and share. For what it's worth, here they are:

Evan	Matt
Species identification in the rock kingdom	Pseudogeophysics
The Rock Physics Workshop series	Things not to think
Shattering shale	Learn to program

That's it! It's almost the end of a hair-raising year for both Evan and I, and one of the most satisfying parts of it has been meeting and conversing with you, dear reader. Thank you for investing your attention in us now and then.

And have a wonderful Christmas, Newtonmas, or whatever you celebrate round your way. Cheers!