Happy Christmas and a huge thank you to anyone who has been reading this blog over its first few months. Back in September when I started writing I had no idea what would happen over the following months. I had high hopes of maintaining a reasonably regular flow of posts and I had many ideas on what to write. It turns out that achieving this while also dealing with a busy day job, unexpected events in my personal life and a global pandemic in the background was not as easy as I thought. With that said, I am quite pleased with how the first four months have turned out.
Site Statistics
Looking at the site statistics I can see that easily my most popular articles were the three posts I wrote to review the first three planets shown in the Netflix Alien Worlds show (Atlas, Janus and Eden). This definitely raised a lot of interest and I had many more page views shortly after it was released than before.
My next most popular post was my overview on the personal project, Khthonia. Sadly, this has not progressed significantly further in the time since I have started this blog as I have used my spare time to write articles instead. Clearly that is something that I need to work on in 2021.
From looking at the site statistics and I can see that around a third of the page views come from the US and a third from the UK, with the remainder spread over the rest of the world.
It’s also interesting seeing where the page referrals come from. At the moment, the Speculative Evolution Forum and Planet Furaha blog are in the lead followed by Reddit. Facebook, Google and Twitter have also helped.
THank You
Speaking of which, I definitely need to thank Sigmund Nastrazzurro from the Planet Furaha blog for inviting me to write the guest posts on lighter than air organisms. Ballonts VIII: Blue Sky Thinking (Part 1) investigated whether soap bubbles could be a viable approach for alien life to float in the skies. Ballonts IX: Blue Sky Thinking (Part 2) concluded by considered whether the wonder material graphene could be used to enable small floating organisms. Writing these two articles spurred me to start this blog as it seemed I had things to say that were of interest to people.
Also, I really do appreciate reading every single comment on my posts. A key aim of this blog has been to encourage engagement with other people as that helps me shape my ideas as well. Therefore, comments are extremely important. If you haven’t commented before on any of my posts, then please do reconsider and say something. Just say what you did or didn’t like about the post, ask a question if something needs clarification or just point out where I’ve made a mistake.
Finally, please take the opportunity to subscribe via the form below (or the links in the header or footer) to receive an email when new articles are posted so that you don’t miss anything.
Until next year, Happy Christmas.
Keep up the great work, but don't overwork on anything – have a fantastic 2021 and afterwards!
-anthony docimo
Can't wait for the review of the fourth episode
Happy holidays!
Happy to be one of your readers, your blog is so informative! Thank you and happy holidays! And also, I would like to know more in detail about the statistics, but that's just me.
My wife and I are currently both slightly unwell due to catching Covid but our two young children are completely symptom free and running amok. Needless to say this a bit of a draining experience and I don't have energy to work on anything other than preparing meals and tidying up!
I wasn't entirely sure whether I should review that episode as it seemed to be slightly different to the others. However, if there is popular demand (i.e. one reader requested it) then I will add it to my list of draft posts.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Here are the stats for visitor location: US (33%), UK (29%), Italy (6%), Canada (5%), Australia (4%), Japan (2%), Germany (2%), Poland (2%), France (2%), Netherlands (1%), Spain (1%), Brazil (1%) and some other countries at less than 1%.
The site referrals mostly come from Other (84%) so I'm not really sure how accurate the remainder are, however, the ones above 1% are the SpecEvo Forum (4%), Planet Furaha blog (4%), Reddit (2%), Google (1%) and Facebook (1%).
I admit that I'm no expert on Google analytics so I'm not quite sure what it all means at the moment. I just thought it would be interesting to mention the stats so that I can compare them next Christmas.
I guess there's no reason not to finish what was started…
Sorry if my posts come off as a bit stilted, I'm not very fond of making my presence known on the internet and thus making good posts is not something I'm used to.
I remember you saying something in the comments section about exoskeletons and their biomechanics, and that got my attention since one of the worlds floating around in my imagination is a super-earth where chordates didn't evolve and centipedes filled their niches. Whether or not large exoskeletal animals are feasible is thus relevant to me. When do you think you'll be able to write that up?
Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to rush, or to favor my request over others'.
Hans
On this blog, I was originally intending to start with stars and planets before slowly moving onto biological subjects, however, I have identified several topics that keep coming up so I decided to start writing some posts on these subjects so I can reference them. Exoskeletons are certainly one of those subjects.
Unfortunately, catching covid over Christmas wiped me out for a bit which disrupted my writing plans. I'm almost back to full health now but unfortunately the schools in the UK have now closed so I have to spend time home schooling my young children while trying to work from home. It's all a bit hectic at the moment,
However, I do hope that within a few weeks I can publish my initial thoughts on large exoskeletons though. I just need a few peaceful evenings to be able to get the draft posts finished.
Completely understand.
If you want to talk about the planetary information first, I'm also down for that. Another of my planets is also in a red dwarf system, so any other posts regarding Khthonia would also be useful.
Thanks for replying.