Those vistors came from 77 countries (one more than last year) on all six continents. Top 5 countries with the most visitors (and last year's position):

1. The Netherlands (1)
2. United States (2)
3. Belgium (3)
4. United Kingdom (3)
5. Canada (8)

Search engines account for 38.04% of my visitors, and once again Google is the most popular among them. Bing is a distant second. A grand total of 852 different keywords has been recorded. Apart from the the always immensely popular searches for a (random) book title generator and evil nicknames in general, the quote screws fall out all the time. the world is an imperfect place. was quite popular too. After that, it's a blur of evolution and atheism related keywords.

Last year, I pieced together 199 posts. That's 84 more than in 2008. Compared to 2008, last year's most popular posts weren't as popular:

1. Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place (84 pageviews)
2. Top 5 Meat Loaf Songs (73)
3. Foldertjes (72)
4. Motown Turns 50 (56)
5. Least Favorite Meat Loaf Songs (44)

But The Book Title Generator 2.0 is still doing quite well, with 789 page views. The only page that gets more visitors is the front page.

Finally, the browser stats. IE is down 0.98% compared to last year. Firefox is down 3.78%, which means that the other decent browsers must be up. And indeed, two of them are:

1. Internet Explorer (59.45%)
2. Firefox (31.58%)
3. Safari (4.10%)
4. Chrome (2.40%)
5. Opera (0.96%)

Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are virtually tied around 45%, and IE6 gets 9.83%. Strangely enough, one idiot still used IE5.5. For fuck's sake.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

When I started using WordPress, I set it up so that all comments were held for moderation, except those from someone who has a previously approved comment. A couple of weeks ago, I turned off this option, so that all comments should show up immediately.

Today (after reading Zeldman's piece on Web fonts) I decided that I might as well go all the way, and add support for IE7+ too (IE6 is dead to me). So I went to fontsquirrel.com again, downloaded their @font-face kit, uploaded the IE-specific .eot file to the server, and edited my ie7+.css file to feed it the appropriate code, et voila, fancy fonts for everyone.²

The next time you need fancy fonts, pay fontsquirrel.com a visit. Good stuff.³

1. Silkscreen by Jason Kottke
2. Everyone who is using a browser that supports @font-face that isn't IE6 or earlier, that is.
3. This post isn't sponsored by fontsquirrel.com or anything. I just happen to think they're awesome.

So, what's changed?

Well, there's obviously the new color scheme and 'fancy' CSS trickery like @font-face, box- and text-shadows. For the latter you'll need a decent browser, or just sit tight until it's 2020 and Microsoft has finally caught up. Besides, do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser? (Which is exactly why IE6 gets the Universal IE6 CSS treatment, as I'm way past caring about that bug ridden, incompetent, worthless excuse for a piece of shit browser.)

Then I hacked around the Sandbox theme a bit. Out of the box it's pretty awesome for styling with all it's CSS-hooks, but there were some things that I wanted done differently: I am the only author here, so there is no need for links to author pages; the default archive page is a long list of months, and I wanted something more compact so I adapted the Smart Archive plugin to suit my needs; I wanted an easy way to add post-specific styles (see the fancy highlight in my Where's Willie? post below); and I wanted short url's for posting on Twitter that didn't need Tinyurl et al, for which the Twitter Friendly Links plugin works like a charm.

I also completely revamped the sidebar, using javascript to pull in my latest tweets, tracks and photo from Twitter, Last.fm and Flickr. Added mobile and print style sheets for those who require those, and finally I tweaked the footer. Then, today, as I beheld my work, I saw that it was good. Well, good enough anyway. And just before the deadline too.

The rest of this post is just a to do list.

• Add a "live redesign in action, beta version, never mind the mess" banner;
• Rewrite the colophon;
• Write content for the archive page;
• Tweak the meta section on post pages;
• Figure out if I need rel=canonical, rev=canonical and short urls: if so, implement them;
• Completely remove obsolete plugins;
• Compactify the database by removing old revisions, etc.;
• Add mobile CSS;
• Add print CSS;
• Implement Universal IE6 CSS;
• Optimize CSS and Javascript

Anything I'm missing here?

What do you think so far? Am I doing something terribly wrong, or is this heading the right way?

Oh, and, update: I'm using some new and fancy CSS3 that Internet Explorer will probably start to support around 2020 at the earliest, so for the full effect, use a decent browser.

I say almost, as I'm working on a redesign behind the scenes and I'm in half a mind to make it a 'live redesign'. You know, where I put the work in progress in place and tweak it until I'm satisfied with it, and where you get to scream bloody murder at my appalling choices of color, fonts and general aesthetics. Anyway, the final new version of this website should be up before the end of the month, and in the meantime, what you see is what you got to learn to live with.

When there's a question, if often falls in the same category: Darwin and evolution. And I've found that most of the time, those questions aren't even worth answering. I mean, you can ask what the best argument against evolution is. But you can't really answer that question, as science isn't interested in arguments but in evidence.

And sometimes I just can't be bothered. Like when the question "What are the seven promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular?" turned up. I don't care. Really. I don't. Just read those damn books.

To salvage this post somewhat, I'm going to expand the keywords 'release la derniere volonte laat me' into the question "Where can I find 'Laat me (Ma dernière volonté)'?", assume that it's the version by Wende they're after, so I can answer it by saying it's on the DVD that comes with her latest release Chante, and include the video. Just because I happen to love everything about that song.

So, that's it for this feature in the regular programming. It might make a comeback if a question worth pursuing presents itself, but until then, don't hold your breath.

Q: What did Darwin get wrong in The Origin of Species?
After I read The Origin, I Googled this myself. What I found was a lot of noise and nothing like a big, definitive list of things that Darwin got wrong. The closest I got was a list of things Darwin did not know about, like genetics and how inheritance works, plate tectonics, the age of the earth, etc.
But does it matter that Darwin got things wrong in The Origin of Species? No. Science changes with new research. What Darwin got wrong 150 years ago does not disprove the theory of evolution as it stands today. Which brings us to the next question:

Q: What arguments are there against the theory of evolution?
From what I've encountered, arguments against the theory of evolution are either based on a severe misunderstanding of how evolution works, or on the assumption that "God did it." There are no valid, scientific arguments that disprove the theory of evolution. If there were, it would have been big news.

Q: Did I live before this life?
As far as I know, there's no scientific proof for reincarnation. So I think it's safe to say that no, you did not live before this life. But in case I am wrong about that, you can find out what you will return as the next time around with at the Reincarnation Station.

Q: What did you need to be a prime minister?
This question came from Canada, and there you only need to be a Canadian citizen. More can be found in Wikipedia.

So, this is how it's gonna work: at the beginning of every month, I'm going through the the web stats. If I can easily make a coherent question from a set of keywords ('easy' as in adding a question mark, but I'm all for slippery slopes on this one), and if that question isn't answered anywhere on this website, I'm going to do my darnedest to provide an answer.

To get things started, here are the answers to January and February's questions.

Q: how long did it take darwin to write on the origin of species?
A: It took Darwin less then a year to write On the Origin of Species. He started on July 20th, 1858, and corrected proofs in May 1859, so he should have been finished by that time.

Q: how to come up with a evil nickname?
A: There's no magical formula for coming up with good nicknames. The problem with good nicknames is that they should be unique. Does the world need another Satan666 or a Evil_Dead_Chick_17? No, it does not. Be clever, and think outside the box. For example, take something really cute, and make it, like, really evil. 'Ladybug of Fiery Doom' or 'StuffedAnimalGuts' seem to be free.

Q: how to say jeroen in dutch?
A: Jeroen. (right click, save as…)

Q: origins of the saying 'get on the bus.'?
A: Beats me. The only thing I found was someone supposing it came from some management book.

Q: what and who turns 50 in 2009?
A: Isn't this what Wikipedia is for? To name a few: John McEnroe, Morrissey, Suzanne Vega, Richie Sambora, Kevin Spacey, Marie Osmond, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Bryan Adams, Flo-Jo, Motown, the first photograph of the Dark Side of the Moon, the Mini, Alaska as the 49th United State and Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Q: what do hand lines say?
A: There are people who are certain that you can read someone's character from the palm of their hand. The only correct answer to this question, however, is 'absolutely nothing'.