Top 10 posts of Econoclasm

The year of 2013 has started. This year I plan to revive this blog. To kickstart the reboot of this blog, however, I'd rather find out what I have done with this blog in the past. You cannot look forward unless you have a solid grasp of what lies behind.

This blog is hosted by Blogger, a blog service provided by Google. It records the number of page views of each post since May 2008. It might be interesting to report the top 10 posts.

No. 10: IMF Interview (October 25, 2006) - 477 views

Apparently, those who will have an interview with IMF arrive at this post after Google search. At that time, I was in job search and recorded every step in the process on this blog (to the extent it doesn't hurt my job prospect). And this interview with IMF went pretty bad. :) Don't ask me about macroeconomics even though I'm an economist.

No. 9: Yoshikitty :) (March 8, 2009) - 481 views

Quite a few of those X Japan fans seem to hit this post. I'm a big fan of Yoshiki. He's a Japanese musician who founded the legendary rock group X Japan. And he is probably the only rock musician in this world who is willing to collaborate with the world-famous Hello Kitty. :) This special Hello Kitty character takes its inspiration from Yoshiki's appearance in the early 1990s.

No. 8: A "cabaret club" (November 17, 2005) - 825 views

Those curious about Japanese sub-culture seem to view this post on a particular kind of service business in Japan. Seven years on, I still have never been to a cabaret club.

No. 7: The Berlin Wall Memorial (July 11, 2009) - 1598 views

Many of those visiting Berlin as tourists might find this post. In July 2009, I visited Berlin for the first time. This memorial is one of many, many things that I liked about Berlin, the city I've then visited for leisure four times more since then.

No. 6: Institut du Monde Arabe (March 7, 2006) - 1712 views

I think many reach this post via Google Image Search. I myself like the pictures that I took, especially the second one on this post. And it's a superb piece of architecture, representing Arab in a modern way. One of my favorite places in Paris.

No. 5: How do you eat mackerel? (August 21, 2005) - 2138 views

My recipe on picked skin-on mackerel appears to be popular. This is a post written when I got upset by a British recipe that removes the skin of pickled mackerel. I complained about supermarkets in London not selling fresh fish. Supermarkets in Stockholm sell fresher (if not as fresh as those in Tokyo) fish, but the variety is rather limited, and all those white fish popular in the capital of Sweden do not taste really good to me. So I rarely cook fish other than salmon these days.

No. 4: Mendeley, Sente, or Papers? No, Zotero and iAnnotate will do (October 7, 2011) - 2579 views

A nerdy post actually gets a lot of visits because it hits the niche. Every time I spend a lot of time to find out what other people with similar interests would benefit from, I'm willing to share what I've found, and hence this post.

No. 3: Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris, the east side (March 7, 2006) - 2735 views

I don't really understand why this post is popular. Maybe it's unusual to see the picture of the eastern side of the Notre-Dame cathedral even though it can be more beautiful than the facade (which I recently learned is different from the original design which includes Gothic towers above). Incidentally, a reader's comment is rather hostile. :)

No. 2: Centre Pompidou, the back facade (March 8, 2006) - 2850 views

It appears that putting a nice photo of famous architecture is one effective way to increase the traffic to your blog. Personally I don't really like Centre Pompidou, both its architectural style and what's exhibited inside, though as a promotion of a contemporary art museum in the late 1970s, this design must have been very effective.

No. 1: How to "Save As ..." in Excel 2007. (July 30, 2009) - 10727 views

Obtaining by far the largest number of visits, this post has also received as many as 42 comments most of which thank me rather enthusiastically. The best way to attract people to your blog turns out to be finding a flaw in Microsoft's software design and provide solutions to it, because so many people (still) use Microsoft software, and they are badly designed.