On this day fifteen years ago, in 2011, I started this blog and published the first Logos con Carne post. Since then, I’ve published 2,118,480 words comprising 1,503 posts (plus 42 pages) — an average of 1,375 words per post.
The anniversary means it’s time for the biannual extract and analysis of the blog’s content and page views. It’s time for lists and charts and stats (oh, my). And a bottle of champagne tonight.
These posts tend to be a bit dry and uninteresting to anyone but me, so, dear reader, you’ll be forgiven for skipping this one.
My post-rate here has notably declined since 2020 (which was a peak year for the blog):
The picture looks a little different (but not that much) if I include my programming blog and my brief sojourn on Substack:
The chart shows how my Substack blog got me writing posts at a greater rate than in two years. I’ve been putting a bit more effort into the programming blog, too. Presumably, the bar for 2026 will be taller by the year’s end, but how much taller remains to be seen. My expectation is that it would be about twice as tall assuming I post as much in the second half as I did in the first. (Given the lack of posts in May and June, it should be easy unless I take more time off.) If so, 2026 will end up being about the same as 2025.
I’m also curious about posts-per-month, so there’s this chart:
Which is generated by the code I originally wrote for doing this analysis. The data is copied from the WordPress “Annual Stats” admin page for the blog.
As with the two posts-per-year charts above, I created a version that includes my two other extant blogs (well, one extant blog and one that’s retired):
And, yes, I love creating charts. Doing that for various managers used to be one of my secondary tasks when I was working.
[Start with an Excel spreadsheet with an embedded SQL query for the SQL servers holding current production and sales data. Build a spreadsheet that uses and massages the query result as necessary. Create a nice chart from that spreadsheet and save the whole thing to a network drive. Now create a PowerPoint presentation that imports the chart (or charts). Give that to the manager for their talk. The PowerPoint shows up-to-date results but has no way to alter the chart, spreadsheet, query, or data. The manager has a read-only chart of live data that updates every time they open it. Some people hated the Microsoft monopoly, but I always found it very useful.]
My posts-per-whatever may be on the decline, but I’m still as wordy as ever:
In the first six years, I had a goal of 1,000-words max. When I returned after taking 2017 off, I raised that to 1,500 words and not much later decided I was okay with 2,000 words max.
I do recognize, in these TL;DR days where even videos are short, that blog posts of this length might be off-putting for some, but it also acts as something of a filter. If someone is too impatient to sit still for 2,000 words, maybe it’s just as well they don’t. Regardless, I don’t blog for others; I blog for me. I’m the only reader I really have to satisfy.
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Speaking of words, some text stats:
- Words: 2,118,480
- Lines (sentences): 307,236
- Paragraphs: 67,349
- Distinct Words: 42,366
- HTML Tags: 177,176
- Distinct HTML Tags: 37
Which provides some averages: 6.89 words/sentence; 31.45 words/paragraph; 4.56 sentences/paragraph. So, the text structure seems admirably brief and punchy, but I suspect the standard deviation is large. Lots of variation in doodads/thingamabob.
The vocabulary (distinct words) seems large but contains a lot of made-up stuff, proper names, and random junk (e.g. “f6cwrch9” and “golightly”). Restricting to words that appear at least 100 times reduces the list to 2,195 words. Some words from the tail of that list, all of which have appeared exactly 100 times: “spoilers”, “realism”, “emotional”, “suffice”, “billions” and “parameter”.
The top ten most-used words:
- “the” — 115,462
- “a” — 57,106
- “and” — 50,127
- “of” — 50,053
- “to” — 48,767
- “is” — 34,832
- “in” — 32,289
- “I” — 31,648
- “that” — 28,785
- “it” — 25,929
No surprises there.
HTML tags are of interest to me because I do a fair amount of editing at the HTML level and it comes for free in my text scanner (I have to recognize tags to differentiate post text from tag text). A few stats on key tags among the 37 distinct ones used:
- <A> (link to another page) — 25,061
- <BLOCKQUOTE> (quoted text) — 884
- <IMG> (embedded image) — 8,099
- <TABLE> (embedded table) — 87
- <EM> (emphasis aka italic) — 34,597
- <STRONG> (aka bold) — 22,287
I would have guessed there were lots more tables. The tag count (177,176) is dominated by the <P> (paragraph) tags I have for every paragraph in every post (67,349 of them). There was a WordPress bug that forced me to go back and ensure that every post had proper <P> tags wrapping each paragraph (and to do it without fail on every new post). See WP: Classic Editor vs Reader for details.]
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As far as posts here, including this one, they break down like this:
- “Regular” Posts — 1,295
- Sideband Posts — 81
- Brain Bubble Posts — 95
- Special Relativity Posts — 33
- Total Posts: 1,504
The list of the Top 25 Posts (or Pages) of All Time hasn’t changed too much in recent years:
- From the Far Side — 11,171
- Gibbs’ Rules — 8,371 (page)
- My Grandfather’s Axe — 6,534
- Babylon (Anime) — 6,016
- Sideband #17: Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille — 5,982
- Rick O’Shay — 5,953
- Flat Space of the Torus — 4,946
- Deflection and Projection — 4,026
- Strong Female Characters — 3,797 (page)
- God is an Iron — 3,760
- Elephant Story — 3,683
- Santa: Man or Woman? — 3,624
- Abacus and Slide Rule — 3,366
- QM 101: Bloch Sphere — 3,088
- Bushido Code — 2,569 (page)
- QM 101: Bra-Ket Notation — 2,110
- Barrel of Wine; Barrel of Sewage — 1,876
- Why I Hated The Holodeck — 1,716
- Hawkeye & Margaret — 1,485
- BB #27: Far Less — 1,480
- Madam Secretary & Scorpion — 1,469
- About — 1,261 (page)
- Here Today; Pi Tomorrow — 1,257
- Movies: Grand Canyon — 1,232
- Transcendental Territory — 1,221
Though many of these earned their stripes in previous years and haven’t seen much traffic recently. Others are relative newcomers that have surprised me with their popularity. As always, no one ever comments, so I have no idea what the draw might be for any of these.
The charts tell the story:
From the Far Side (2015): In decline since its peak in 2020 with a noticeable dropoff last year. If this year’s trend continues, it could be the lowest number of page hits since 2017.
Gibbs’ Rules (2015; page): Really exploded in 2024 and has generated traffic ever since. If the number of hits so far this year is a predictor, it could crack 4,000 hits by year’s end.
My Grandfather’s Axe (2016): Thought this one was going to have legs based on 2018–2021, but traffic died off quickly after its four-year popularity.
Babylon (anime) (2021): A fairly recent post that went viral in 2024 and 2025 and showing more activity this year than in its first three, but traffic has mostly died down now.
Sideband #17: Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille (2011): The old joke as retold by me way back in the first year of this blog. Been a steady performer over the years.
Rick O’Shay (2013): Another steady performer for years and one of my favorite posts.
Flat Space of the Torus (2021): Written mostly as an explanation for a friend, it turned out to be a surprise hit. I still think the draw might be the CG image of Torus Earth.
Deflection and Projection (2013): This one got popular during the 2016-2020 Presidential cycle. Understandably, because it addresses the same social phenomenon. Interestingly, the traffic has dropped to nearly zero in the last five years.
Strong Female Characters (2023; page): Largely ignored in the year I published it, it has since become of the top attractions here. It’s the second-most popular post in 2025 and third-most popular in 2024.
God is an Iron (2013): An oldie that has hung in there over the years (after not attracting much attention in the first two years). Had a few big years and a biggish one recently. Among my favorite posts.
Elephant Story (2013): A humorous post that had a small heyday in its early years and experienced a bigger on centered on 2024.
Santa: Man or Woman? (2012): An oldie that owes its big bump in 2012 to having been Freshly Pressed by WordPress. The experience was so startling that I wrote a poem. It has taken years for this one to drop down in the rankings.
Abacus and Slide Rule (2019): Inspired by a young couple who, at one of our parties, showed a strong interest in my abacus. I’d thought they were pretty niche, but that expressed interest made me think of a post. Turned out to be fairly popular.
QM 101: Bloch Sphere (2021): Part of my QM-101 series (quantum mechanics for beginners) and the most popular post (by far) in that series. Understandably, because the Bloch Sphere is both ubiquitous and mysterious.
Bushido Code (2012; page): Nothing original to me but something I’ve always liked and respected. Another instance of normative analysis in historical literature.
QM 101: Bra-Ket Notation (2021): Another post from the QM-101 series, this one about another key aspect of quantum mechanics, Paul Dirac’s Bra-Ket notation — the stuff that looks like: 〈φ|ψ〉.
Barrel of Wine; Barrel of Sewage (2011): An oldie from the first year. My first post describing entropy and still, I think, a good post. In the years since, I returned to the topic six times. See: Entropy 101 and Entropy 102 along with The Puzzle of Entropy, Entropy and Cosmology, and Entropy Isn’t Fundamental!
Why I Hated The Holodeck (2011): My little rant about how silly the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation was. Sadly, the same silliness later brought us a holo-doctor and eventually other holo-characters. (I formally gave up on Star Trek — once a dearly belovèd show — at its 50-year anniversary. FWIW, I’ve posted about Star Trek a lot here.)
Hawkeye & Margaret (2012): An old post about a once-favorite show. (Still is, I guess, but I’ve seen them all so many times now that I have little interest in seeing them again.) But another favorite post that I’m happy to see getting traffic.
BB #27: Far Less (2013): A dated post mostly about “Toyota Jan” that I’m surprised still gets any hits at all. OTOH, “Jan” is still around, though I sometimes wonder how much Ai might be involved now.
Madam Secretary & Scorpion (2014): Another dated post about two TV shows, one I loved (from beginning to end) and one I thought was pretty lame.
About (2011; page): I’m glad at some people are interested in what this blog is all About (and Why? and Who?).
Here Today; Pi Tomorrow (2015): The other post of mine that WordPress put on their Freshly Pressed page, which resulted in a huge number of hits shortly after it was published. Traffic has picked up a bit in the last three years. [As I mentioned recently, I’ve written about pi a lot here.]
Movies: Grand Canyon (2016): An analysis of one of my favorite movies (and another favorite post).
Transcendental Territory (2015): One of my many posts expressing my skepticism regarding computationalism — the notion that a human-like mind can run on a conventional computer. Or more abstractly, that human-like consciousness is algorithmic. I agree with Roger Penrose that it cannot be (his 1989 book, The Emperor’s New Mind is his argument against algorithmic consciousness).
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The Baker’s Dozen of Top Posts for 2026 (so far):
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- Gibbs’ Rules — 2,138 (page)
- Strong Female Characters — 1,530 (page)
- Flat Space of the Torus — 1,186
- Musical Scale Modes — 381
- Rick O’Shay — 369
- QM 101: Bloch Sphere — 356
- QM 101: Bra-Ket Notation — 327
- Sideband #29: The Danger of Bread — 286
- Sideband #17: Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille — 281
- Elephant Story — 246
- The Expanse: Disappointment — 208
- From the Far Side — 192
- Sideband #69: Inside a Tesseract — 190
Those first three take turns being the Top Post of the Day. Interesting that two of the three are pages, not posts.
One of these days, it might be interesting to do a chart, but it would require a lot of manual data capture. (I wish WordPress had a stats API.)
In comparison, the Baker’s Dozen of Top Posts for 2025:
- Babylon (Anime) — 3,204
- Gibbs’ Rules — 2,878
- Strong Female Characters — 1,658
- Flat Space of the Torus — 1,362
- QM 101: Bra-Ket Notation — 857
- Rick O’Shay — 828
- QM 101: Bloch Sphere — 779
- From the Far Side — 742
- Elephant Story — 591
- Sideband #17: Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille — 579
- Musical Scale Modes — 502
- God is an Iron — 493
- Joe, Jim and Bernie — 391
Some posts come and go, some are persistent.
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As an aside, in 15 years I’ve only managed to use 13% of the 13 GB WordPress allows each blog for media. I’ve got almost 7,400 images in the Media Library, but most of them are pretty small.
Even when I use photos, rather than the thousands of little images I used to pepper my posts over the years, I tend to upload a smaller size than full-size (which for my iPhone is 4032×3024).
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As a second aside, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to call this post and considered several possibilities. Here are the runners up: 1.5 Decades (short but I have a weird bias against starting sentences or title with a number); 3/20th of a Century (same problem but I like how obscure it is; almost used it); 0.15 Century (again starts with a number).
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Stay encoded, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
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Logos con carne 
And what do you think?