Some reflections - 8 months later

It has been 8 months since my last blog post. When I decided to stop blogging, I was afraid I would miss it. Truth be told, I can only think of once or twice when I think I have something "blogworthy" to say. This post isn't one of them, but I couldn't help myself.

Every few weeks I've been looking at what sort of traffic my blog generates. With the tracker I have, I can see not only where people are physically located when they surf to my blog, but also what they were looking for when they get here. I've noticed some interesting patterns.

Pattern #1: Students wanting to cheat
I use some book names in my posts, and the title of my blog - "Fear and Trembling" - is itself the title of a book. I get a number of Google searches for things like "summary of 'Fear and Trembling'", or "the theme of Ecclesiastes" or "psychology of 'Many Colored Days'". The most popular is "book report for 'Summer of the Monkeys'". I can just see a 6th grader needing to do a book report on "Summer of the Monkeys" and ending up on my blog. Bummer, dude. Oh, and how do I know these are students wanting to cheat? The overwhelming majority come in from a school computer lab. ;-)

Pattern #2: People love Giant Ichneumon Wasps
I get a lot of people searching for info on giant ichneumon wasps that end up on my blog. I didn't understand this until I googled it myself not too long ago, and realized that my post on the giant ichneumon was on the first page of search results. The really entertaining part is that the people who find that post visit it multiple times over the next few days. In any case, there are a couple of things I don't understand - first, how on God's green earth did that post get on the first page of google? If you have Google stock, you should probably seriously consider selling - the place is going to the dogs. Second, why do people come back to a post that is seriously not helpful to finding out anything about Ichneumon Wasps? I would say that it is funny, but I just read it again and it's not that funny. My guess is that they just love anything to do with Giant Ichneumon Wasps. That must be it.

Pattern #3: People love guns and ammo
My post called "Ammo for the War" from the Lessons from Sem series gets an insane amount of traffic from people looking guns or ammo. I have no idea why. I guess people just love bullets.

Pattern #4: Europeans and anti-sociality
The little comic image that I have plagiarized in the previous post gets a ton of traffic - almost exclusively from Europeans. I could make some reflective comment about why only Europeans care, but that feels too much like blogging. I would rather make fun of the word 'European'. I mean, if you're American when you go into the bathroom, and you're American when you come out of the bathroom...well, you know. And the one place I encourage anti-sociality is the bathroom. So, you can see the connection.

Pattern #5: Satirical Christmas Reflection
My post called "A Satirical Christmas Reflection" generated zero traffic until Christmas, when traffic suddenly went through the roof. I guess people are much more cynical at Christmas than I realized. If only they had a dog named Max and a village of Whos they could go burglarize.

Pattern #6: East-Coasters, Foreigners, and some Texans love Christian art
As much as was possible, I tried to use classical works of Christian art in my posts. Some Rembrandt, some Don Lorenze Monaco, and some others I don't remember right now. People from foreign countries, people on the east coast, and a couple of people from southern Texas really love that stuff. Other than that, they have nothing in common. Wait, didn't I read somewhere that a shared love of art overcomes all barriers? I'd love to see those Lebanese and Texans argue over art. Guns and Ammo, anyone?

Well, there you have it, the top reasons my blog still gets traffic to the tune of a couple of dozen hits a week. There are lots of other patterns, including some people who just keep coming back for no good reason. Bless those poor souls.

Boys and Girls are Biologically Different

In a stunning paper released this week by researchers at Northwest University and the University of Haifa, it was revealed that differences in language skills between girls and boys appears biological, rather than social, in nature. The full article can be found here.

For the first time, it seems, there is robust data to suggest that the brains of girls actually operate differently than the brains of boys. In the two groups, not only did different parts of the brain become active when using language skills, the level of activity in those parts of the brain differed drastically.

"Our data indicates that boys and girls are biologically different," said Dr. Obvious, one of the co-authors of the study. "This is exciting because it suggests that there might be other biological differences between boys and girls, perhaps even at the level of chromosomes. Who knows how these differences will manifest themselves in the phenotype? There may be actual physical differences between boys and girls due to their underlying biology."

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers performed tests measuring the brain activity of those doing spelling or writing language tasks. What they found was that the brain area associated with abstract thought worked the hardest in girls, and the area associated with sensory perception worked the hardest in boys.

"Dude, it was so boring," moaned Quintin, a 13 year old boy who took part in the study. "After about 30 minutes, all I could think about was a hot beef'n cheddar from Arby's. I wanted it so bad I could taste it, but I would have settled for some ding-dongs."

"I loved the words and phrases," bubbled Patty, an 11 year old girl who also took part in the testing. "They made me think of a pasture in Ireland or maybe Wisconsin where there is a girl who lives on a farm and is in love with a boy who looks like Zac Efron. He really likes her, too, but they don't know it and end up asking other people to the dance. They spend the whole night ignoring each other until both of their dates get sick, and they have to dance together for the final song. During that dance, they look into each other's eyes, and realize how deeply they care for each other. But just before they kiss, someone runs in and says that the Jones' barn is on fire and the guy who looks like Zac gets called off to help put it out," Patty sighed. "You know, sorta like Anne of Green Gables, but with the guy from High School Musical. He is sooo hot."

"What's really amazing about these results is that they held true even though we controlled for things like age, gender, and performance accuracy," said Dr. Bozzo, lead researcher and director of the center for language science. When asked if the study controlled for the crazy thoughts that zip through the head of a child at an alarming frequency, Dr. Bozzo replied that they had not yet proven such a thing even exists.

"The results of this study do not in any way undermine the hard work we have done to prove we are just as capable as men on any and every level," said Sarah Paxson, junior political science major and president of the Feminine Equality League at Northwest University, when asked about the implications of the study. "If anything it shows that we bring needed insight into a world dominated by the confused thinking of men."

When also asked about the implication of the study, Brian Landman, a sophomore biology major shouted, "Eat it, you PC hippies!" as he waved a copy of the study over his head. "Eat it and then iron my shirt. Wooooo! Sigma Phi!"

Marathon Runner

On Sunday of last week we had the Twin Cities Marathon. Somewhere around 10,000 people ran in the marathon. It was a huge event.

My coworker and friend, Joe, came in 89th place overall with a time of 2:50:52. He came in 70th in the mens. Not bad for a 26.2 mile run. I was reading about the results in the paper, and looking for Joe's name when I came across an article about this nut:

His name is Dean Karnazes, and he has committed to running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. Yup, you heard me right, a marathon a day for 50 days.

Why would he do such a thing? you might ask. According to the paper, it is to "promote fitness among children".

Dude, did that guy just say he was doing it to get kids to exercise more? Cuz, I gotta be honest with you, just thinking about running a marathon every day makes we want to sit on the couch and eat a pack of candy bars. You know, for energy.

This makes me glad I'm an engineer. I'm pleasantly plump, reasonably intellegent, and sorta healthy. I have no delusions that doing what I do is going to inspire kids get into shape.

Plus, after he runs his 50, then what? Me, I'll still be able to sit here and make fun of him for a looooong time.

In any case, congrats, Joe.