1. HTC Desire to OS X tethering via USB. Hardly the most general article, but it shoes how you can attract website traffic if you have useful how-to information. Of course this article is irrelevant now that the HTC Desire runs Android 2.2, which has tethering as a built-in function.
2. Cheap fake tan and fat thighs? Snooki! This is embarrassing, really, but I get traffic to this post because Google Images lists it as one of the first few results for “snooki fat”.
3. ICT Election Forum: what questions? This one puzzles me. The post just mentions that the pre-election forum was happening, and I asked people to suggest questions. Maybe they’re really looking for something else.
4. Why I’ve deleted my Facebook account, which is self-explanatory.
5. Homophobic beat-up by Sun-Herald’s Heath Aston, about a very grubby tabloid attempt to smear a politician.
6. Senate to re-open Bloggers versus Journalists. When I write about journalism, it usually gets retweeted heavily through media circles. It certainly makes a difference to website traffic.
7. Jetstar, Powderfinger to exploit fan’s enthusiasm, one of my rants against the evils of “crowdsourcing” that’s really just unpaid labour.
8. Adam Schwab’s NBN reply, which is Mr Schwab’s response to my article Adam Schwab’s NBN “analysis” arsehattery.
9. Time to dump 20th Century “leadership”?. The main point is that you can’t just bolt some sort of “government 2.0 module” onto steam-era bureaucracies and magically bring them into the 21st Century.
10. Selling the NBN: couldn’t you do better?. I have no idea why this, of all the things I’ve written about the National Broadband Network, was one of the most-read. It’s certainly not the best.

Just like last year, many older posts also continued to be popular. Indeed, as I worked down the website traffic report, I filled all ten slots in the non-2010 list while managing to find only two stories from the current year. Yet more proof that the more material you have on your website the more visits you’ll get. Don’t delete your old material, people!

However something that worries me is that so many of the items are listed not because people were reading the posts, but because other internet users had hot-linked to the images — that is, included them on another website — or robots attempting to post spam in the comments.

OK, the Top 10 posts of 2010 that weren’t written in 2010.

1. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000 (March 2008). I think this one only makes the list because the photo keeps getting embedded in various military geek forums.
2. Live Blog: Internet censorship forum, which is only in the list because for some reason or other it was hit heavily by the spambots. Who would read a live blog from a forum back in 2008?
3. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way) (September 2007) My ode to Julie Bishop, popular because of its photograph of Samantha Fox.
4. Hello Kitty, you’re dead, and other surprise products (October 2007) People link to the (fake) photo of the Hello Kitty AK-47. Few seem to realise it’s a joke.
5. Apple iPhone parodies (January 2007). Another embedded photo, I reckon. I must make sure my traffic reports filter out that stuff.
6. Spaceport America, designed by Foster+Partners (October 2007). I’m puzzled why this one is on the list. Maybe people linking to the photos again?
7. Live Blog: Politics & Technology Forum 2009 (February 2009). Another artefact of the spam robits, I think.
8. The Madness of Corey Worthington Delaney (January 2008), proving once more that the lowest common denominator wins.
9. My new hero: Hideki Moronuki (January 2008). Whenever the work of Sea Shepherd is in the news, people stumble across this post and discover that — shock horror! — I’m no a fan of that organisation.
10. Oz soldiers design own recruitment ads (April 2007).

None of that surprises me. The most common searches which brought visitors to my website were “steve irwin jokes”, “stilgherrian”, “heath ledger jokes”, “julia gillard”, “hideki moronuki”, “snooki fat”, “sas”, “fisting”, “snooki is fat” and “hello kitty ak 47″.

You might also like to check out my own selection for what I think were the best posts from 2010, plus the lists for previous years:

• Most popular posts of 2009
• Most popular posts of 2008
• Most popular posts of 2007

1. Fisting Twitter and the birth of “trend fisting” (1 March) I daresay that for many visitors this piece wasn’t what they were really looking for. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting Twitter case study. For some value of “interesting”.
2. So what is Stilgherrian, exactly? (12 April) Almost as popular as the official About Stilgherrian, which isn’t listed here because technically it’s not a “post”.
3. Virgin Blue’s mistake reveals countless selfish whingers (15 November) A combination of a good headline and being listed at mUmBRELLA helps boost traffic.
4. Live Blog: Politics & Technology Forum 2009 (22 February) Again, proof that a slow, steady audience over time can be of great value.
5. Jim Wallace’s pro-censorship lies and distortions (26 January) Wallace speaks for the Australian Christian Lobby about Internet censorship, using the “extreme libertarian” straw man and other fallacious debating tricks.
6. Special Melon Pepperoni Edition now online! (28 March) It’s probably less that this post is about an edition of Stilgherrian Live, more that it includes Andrew Bolt’s astoundingly tasteless slur on those who oppose Internet censorship.
7. What now for Senator Conroy and the Magic Filter? (30 March) Again, not what I’d have picked from my many writings about Internet censorship, but there you go.
8. Conversations are not markets, people! (26 July) A long ranty piece that seems to have struck a chord.
9. Project TOTO: the #secretmission has begun! (19 May) Interesting that the post announcing this project was the most popular, and then interest declined. Why? My guess is that visits to this post were inflated by so many people commenting on The Gnome Incident rather than the substance of the project. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
10. Live Blog: ALIA Information Online 2009, Day 1 (20 January) This is a big surprise. However we’ve now moved well out of the long head of very popular content and all sorts of factors could come into play. I suspect that traffic to this page was a short, sharp spike around the time of the conference and then virtually nothing since.

Many older posts also continued to be popular.

Indeed, 5 of the top 10 posts of all time are not from this year, and it took longer to work down the list to find a Top 10 for 2009 than it did to find the Top 10 of all time — yet more proof that the more material you have on your website the more visits you’ll get. Don’t delete your old material, people!

This could also explain why the Top 10 above is mostly from the first half of the year.

OK, the Top 10 posts of 2009 that weren’t written in 2009.

1. So this is human sexuality? July (2008) Little more that a collection of the popular words from sex-related spam, it continues to attract 2000-odd visits a month.
2. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way) (September 2007) My ode to Julie Bishop, popular because of its photograph of Samantha Fox.
3. Live Blog: Internet censorship forum (November 2008) Can anyone tell me why this post is the most popular of the many I wrote about Internet censorship prior to this year?
4. Hello Kitty, you’re dead, and other surprise products (October 2007) People link to the (fake) photo of the Hello Kitty AK-47. Few seem to realise it’s a joke.
5. Film Review: “Joy Division” (February 2008) I think most people link here for the classic photo of Joy Division by Kevin Cummins.
6. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (January 2008) My tasteless experiment in Googlebaiting continues to attract visitors.
7. More Steve Irwin jokes (September 2006) Another lesson: Providing a forum for the lowest common denominator of society generates hits — but are they of lasting value?
8. The Madness of Corey Worthington Delaney (January 2008) And speaking of lowest common denominator…
9. What’s wrong with used knickers? (December 2007) Well, it’s a fair question, isn’t it?
10. Used knickers, revisited (January 2008) I detect a theme developing here. Thank goodness we’ve reached #10.

You might also like to check out my own selection for what I think was best, plus the lists for previous years:

• Most popular posts of 2008
• Most popular posts of 2007

1. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please. It’s rather depressing to discover that my tasteless little experiment was this year’s highlight. Maybe I should’ve put advertising on this page.
2. So this is human sexuality?
3. How do you treat your staff? Like 37signals, or like this prick?
4. Topic 9 to discuss Australia 2020 Summit’s government topic. This is actually spurious, as most hits are from link-following robots attempting to spam my blog at topic9.com.au (which has been since been abandoned).
5. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000, though most of this traffic is to see the photo. The miltech fanboys are incapable of hosting their own photos, it seems, because most of their troll-filled forums don’t allow people to upload photos. Dark Ages.
6. About Stilgherrian, which would seem to be a popular second page for people to visit once they’ve arrived here for other reasons.
7. Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party) — and increasingly I think Mr Corey Worthington Delaney is one of the true heroes of 2008. But not thereafter.
8. Spaceport America, designed by Foster+Partners.
9. Jason Calacanis and the Evil Cult of the Internet Start-up.
10. Achtung! Die grosskapitalistischen Hühner kommen!

As with last year’s list, I’m somewhat disappointed with the results. I’ll therefore choose my own selection of “best” posts, just like I did last year.

And the results for all posts over time, not just those published in 2008?

1. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way). Most of this traffic is to see the “revealing” photo of Samantha Fox. This page is also still currently the number one Google search result for “neocon sex kitten”. Thank you, Julie Bishop!
2. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please.
3. So this is human sexuality?
4. How do you treat your staff? Like 37signals, or like this prick?
5. Topic 9 to discuss Australia 2020 Summit’s government topic.
6. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000.
7. Hello Kitty, you’re dead, and other surprise products, another “let’s hotlink to the photo” spurious result.
8. About Stilgherrian.
9. More Steve Irwin jokes, which was our Number One last year.
10. Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party)

Last night’s episode 26 of Stilgherrian Live is now online for your viewing pleasure.

In a disorganised episode which started late thanks to Art — I’ll write more about that later — former Treasurer Peter Costello was voted “Cnut of the Week”, narrowly beating controversial Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej (สมัคร สุนทรเวช) and journalist Mark Day for his backward-looking story Blogs can’t match probing reports.

There was also an impromptu interview with Crikey cartoonist First Dog on the Moon wherein we discuss, inter alia, deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop and rabbits.

The real fun now is seeing who’s actually ready for the future, and who just wants to stifle discussion.

Human rights lobbyist Howard Glenn puts it well, and shows that he’s ready:

Why am I enthusiastic about a relatively small two-day conference in April? Because it is a big gesture which says clearly that we have permission to start thinking about the future again. The flow-on effects are already starting. Schools want to have their own future summits, difficult long term issues are emerging for community debate. And that’s before it’s all really started.

It’s only two days and 1,000 people. Who gets to go is not as important as the fact that it is occurring at all, and that there’s such media attention to the attendance. Some will see it as a revival of the mythical Keating elites; the start of European-style social planning; a talk fest. I see it as the start of a restoration of confidence in Australian culture, identity and ingenuity, and a faith that we can think about future challenges, and find what we need to face them.

So what about everyone else?

Looking through recent news stories…

• Opposition leader Brendan “Mr 9%” Nelson reckons the summit will be a dog’s breakfast. Looking at the state of his own party, I guess he’d know a dog’s breakfast when he sees it.
• His deputy Julie Bishop branded it an “elite” event — yes, she’s imaginatively dragging out that Howard-era term of denigration, which apparently is not negative when applied to “elite athletes”. Somehow she knew this before she’d even seen the steering committee, let alone the full list of attendees. “Elitism is dead,” says the deputy leader of the party full of lawyers and private school attendees. Yes, that’s certainly reflected in the polls, luv! Keep up this mindless negativity and your stay in opposition will be a long one.
• All sorts of people with a “special interest” whinge that their own specific focus isn’t mentioned by name somewhere: Gisela Kaplan on the environment; Duncan Riley on tech; Yvonne Zeniou on the parents of disabled children. Folks, a “vision for the future” is not just a list of jigsaw pieces.
• Disappointingly, steering committee member Tim Costello focuses on the problem of teenage binge drinking which, while perhaps a problem that needs addressing, is hardly “a vision thing”. Let’s hope the “strengthening families and communities” topic doesn’t become a shopping-list for wowsers craving a return to some mythical golden past of endless backyard cricket.

People are wanting to talk about the future. Grass-roots websites have sprung up at Summit2020.org and CounterSummit Australia2020 and OzIdeas and BangTheTable and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more.

Is it only the federal opposition that’s afraid of the conversation?

Leena Jangjanya (ลีนา จังจรรจา, pictured above) is the most beautiful, most sexy woman in all of Thailand.

She’s usually just called Leena Jang, and since she’s a candidate in Sunday’s Thai general election her posters are everywhere in Bangkok’s northern suburbs. There’s three versions, including one in her graduation robes (law) and one where she’s looking like a successful businesswoman in white. You can see them both below.

But for me, that first image is the killer. The pink blouse! Those alluring eyes! The hair!

Julie Bishop, you’re so dumped!

The densest concentration of Leena posters is around the Chatuchak weekend markets — a massive concentration of more than 15,000 stalls over 1.1 square kilometres where it would seem Leena has her strongest support base. She’s seen as fighting for the poor and “ordinary people”, people such as the stallholders, and fighting against corruption.

I guess she’s a bit like Pauline Hanson without the racism. Or a left-wing Bronwyn Bishop, if that’s possible.

Apart from the legal foundation and her political ambitions, Leena runs a cosmetic business.

One of ’Pong’s friends, a political journalist, tells me Leena doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting elected. Still, she has profile.

It was interesting hearing the Thai perspective on Australia’s federal election, which took place only a few days before I arrived in Bangkok. While many Australian commentators were talking about “Me-too Rudd”, supposedly identical to John Howard in all significant policies, Thai commentators could see real differences.

One late-night talk show host was even jealous that Australians had choices. Thais, he said, could really only choose between different sets of cronies. Rudd, he said, was very different from Howard: he was signing Kyoto, getting out of Iraq and apologising to the Aborigines. The me-too of economic issues didn’t get a mention.

And yes, Chairman Rudd’s skills in Mandarin were mentioned a lot in the newspapers, as was the Malaysian heritage of our Minister for Climate Change, Senator Penny Wong.

Whichever set of cronies gets elected tomorrow, they’ll be engaging with an Australia whose eyes are, once more, on the region instead of being focused solely on Washington. I get the feeling they’re expecting big changes.

And you know, when I linked to Samantha Fox singing Touch Me last week, that was just to make a joke about Andrew P Street. That was just me trying to be clever. I realise now that was so immature. Andrew means nothing to me. I’ve realised the truth — you’re as sexy as Samantha Fox ever was!

Julie… Julie Bishop, I don’t ever want anyone except you. Samantha Fox is just a cheap slut. Those lyrics… I can’t hear them now without thinking of you!

Like a tramp in the night
I was begging you
To treat my body like you wanted to

Those left-wing bastards at Crikey just make fun of you too. Unforgiveable! You have to meet George W Bush this week, you have to look your best, and they said:

New tie for Alexander Downer we expect! Julie Bishop combs her Safeway for the required 15 cans of Cedel.

Julie, they just don’t appreciate your beauty like I do. I know I write for Crikey sometimes but that doesn’t mean I share their narrow views.

Julie, will you be my neo-con sex kitten? Please?

Christian Kerr, the national affairs editor for Crikey, was promoting his book “in conversation with” Antony Green, the thinking woman’s crumpet — a combination too good to miss! We went for dinner afterwards.

I didn’t realise I’ve actually met Christian before, until he saw me. “I know you,” he said. “You were the first person to play me I Like It Both Ways with Shaun Micaleff at 5UV.” I have no recollection of this event, Your Honour. However Christian recalled sufficient details for me to be convinced the event probably did happen. Somewhere. He knew certain obscure hand gestures. Stop asking questions.

In a preview of the federal election and subsequent conversation I learned:

• Christian thinks that the election won’t be fought over industrial relations, as many pundits are saying, but over the economy. It’ll be about the Howard government’s “sound economic management” (as they describe it) versus the It’s Time factor.
• Unless something changes, it will be a Labor victory. For all the talk of “the polls are all over the place,” Antony Green says this is the most consistent series of polls he’s ever seen.
• There is a Big Yabby in Alexander Downer‘s electorate, at Goolwa, which is symbolic somehow.
• Malcolm Turnbull could still win the federal seat of Wentworth thanks to his Fabulousness Factor.
• No-one seems to understand why John Howard won’t support gay-related issues. And I’ve just finished reading his biography — nothing there gives a clue either.
• Mattresses.
• Iguanadons.

Now where’s that moisturiser…?

Andrew P Street is a genius. I say that because (a) he is, (b) knowing Andrew is one of the three vital components for understanding the full subtlety of this week’s poll, and (c) I dare not upset him by failing to acknowledge his enormous throbbing brain.

Last night ’Pong and I went to the Excelsior Hotel in Glebe. Their website is slick and glossy — but the web designer has clearly never set foot in the establishment because the Excelsior is what we in the business call a “dive”. Or, as the Macquarie Dictionary puts it, “a disreputable place, as for drinking, gambling, etc.”

I wish to report that the Excelsior is well-equipped for drinking, and we made ample use of its facilities.

Andrew P Street is, I believe, also well-equipped for drinking, being in possession of hands, mouth, gullet etc. He also has a guitar, and his mouth is so arranged that red wine may flow inwards while, at other moments, song flows outwards.

You may learn much more about Andrew from his MySpace profile and in particular the blog post The *Real* Andrew P Street. I was moved to learn — and I’m sure you will be too — that:

Like so many of the world’s hottest supermodels, I’m entirely made up of tinier Andrews; each of whom are, in turn, made of deliciously spicy Andrews which are only slightly tinier, but wear thicker jumpers. That’s fractal geometry at work, right there.

And:

WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU’VE NEVER TOLD ANOTHER PERSON?
“My hovercraft armada will take those universal dorsal flaps to Bournemouth, Jason Donovan.”

Andrew P Street was also at the Excelsior last night. But before I elaborate on that, I encourage you to revisit the 1980s and listen to a song.

Yes, Samantha Fox, singing Touch Me. Possibly the finest song of the 80s, in the same way that I Like It Both Ways was without doubt the finest song of the 1970s.

Samantha’s performance in that video is notable for three reasons:

• Her breasts
• The young man who dances with her who, in my expert opinion, is extremely unlikely to be genuinely interested in said breasts. That’s professionalism.

Last night, Andrew P Street also sang Touch Me. And can I say that the song has a very different meaning when sung by a 35-year-old man who’s had more than one glass of red wine and who, it must truthfully be said, is not quite as slim as when I first met him more than a decade ago.

Like a tramp in the night
I was begging you
To treat my body like you wanted to

Uh….
Uh, it’s begging for you

(this is the night)
Touch me, touch me

This all set me thinking.

If Andrew P Street is perhaps not the most appropriate person to be singing this song, who is?

Obviously it has to be a politician because politics remains the most popular topic on this website. But which one? Please visit the website to vote. Or, if your favourite candidate isn’t listed, please add them in the comments — with an explanation.

Last week’s results: It started off looking like the most annoying Howard government action was buying $6 billion of military aircraft the RAAF doesn’t want, the “intervention” in Aboriginal communities edged ahead.