Welcome to 2021!
Before we get to our main topic today, let me give you a quick update on the blog.
SearchResearch began just about 11 years ago, on January 30, 2010. Since then I’ve written 1218 posts (just over 1 / week) and together we’ve written over 7000 comments!
We’ve had over 3.7M reads during that time–usually averaging around 20K readers / month, which puts SRS into a fairly active realm of blog sites. Thanks, Regular Readers!
Another interesting factoid: Most readers use a Windows machine to access SRS, but the two biggest browsers are Chrome and Firefox.
And, as you know, the book The Joy of Search, came out of this blog. MANY thanks to all who contributed comments and thoughts about the book (and the Challenges that went into the book).
Thus far, The Joy of Search has sold more than 5K copies, which I’m very pleased about. I won’t be able to retire to Tahiti on the book proceeds, but I did buy a nice, new bike to celebrate. The whole book-writing process worked out well enough that I’m working on another book. (Which you’ll hear more about later this year. Stay tuned.)
Thanks again to everyone–all of your thoughts and contributions make my life easy (and it’s great fun to see all of the comments)!
On to this week’s Challenges….
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a file of ideas about Challenges for SRS. I was just browsing through it the other day when I noticed three different ideas that would all fit together in a nice package. Can you find the answers?
1. As you can see in the above image, meteor showers (or as in this image, a meteor storm) can be impressive. But it took the world a remarkably long time to believe that stone really fell from the sky. Can you figure out when people started to believe that rocks really fell from the sky? (Hint: There’s not a singular event for this, but you should be able to figure out when the common understanding of meteors / meteorites changed.)2. As it turns out, it’s not just stones that fall from the sky, but lots of other things as well. Fish are particularly common. Can you find a compelling / plausible / believable example of fish falling from the sky? (No, Sharknado doesn’t count…)3. Can you find a place where diamonds rain down from the sky? How is that even possible?
As usual, let us know HOW you found the answers!
Search on!
