2010 Roundup

Last year, we published 195 posts on our parent site, Los Thunderlads. Among the most popular were "Words that can be spelled using chemical symbols," "Sex, perhaps; sexiness, no," "Georgia O'Keeffe Paintings," "Pictograms taking care of business," "The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must," "More veiled women," "Conway's game of life," "The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain rereleases two early albums," "The labors of Hercules," and "Discover Magazine, June 2010." I can explain the popularity of some of these posts, but not of all. Maggie Jochild linked to "The labors of Hercules" on GroupNewsBlog. Al Wood gave "The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain rereleases two early albums very high praise on Ukulele Hunt. And "Sex, perhaps; sexiness, no" links to this picture. Also, a post that mentioned Susie Bright attracted Susie Bright's own attention; a Tweet from her drove a lot of traffic to the site, not so much to that post.

2010 was also the year Los Thunderlads joined Twitter; we don't do much there, and have attracted only a few dozen followers. We might start taking more seriously in 2011. Also drifting about in cyberspace is a side project I started in February and haven't touched since March, Classical Ukulele. Compared with the fate of that site, I've almost done a good job keeping up with another satellite, our Tumblr site.

Early in the year, Believer1, aka Mrs Acilius, posted several very interesting things at her site, One Believer. She hasn't posted there since April, when she discussed differing attitudes towards the proper relationship between religion and politics as found in the "World Values Survey." I can recommend that post, and also those titled "Wheelchair Basketball," "Birthdays are for Everyone," and "Fun with Stats."

I haven't stirred up any great controversies in comment threads at other sites. The only place where I've been commenting regularly is Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For blog; to the extent that I have role there, it is most definitely not that of provocateur. In fact, on one occasion I was part of a successful effort to soothe an irritable discussion draw people out of the woodwork. At Language Log, by contrast, I've apparently acquired such a reputation as a troublemaker that all I have to do is use the word "'Tis" and parties form for and against "Acilius' argument." A couple of months ago I left a comment on Steve Sailer's blog in which I explained why I no longer leave comments on Steve Sailer's blog.