We recently published our 500th post on this blog. I made the first post on 11 November 2010, a week after quitting my job in Calgary (yes, there was a time when people used to quit jobs). So, 500 posts in a little over 2000 days — about a post every 4 days. About 300,000 words (still only about half of War and Peace). And I probably shouldn't think about this, but let's call it at least 1000 hours (it's probably double that). 

To celebrate the milestone, however arbitrary, I thought I'd spend an evening rounding up some of our favourite and most popular posts. If nothing else, it might serve as place to start for any new readers.

Geoscience

• Shale vs tight — What's the difference between shale and toght plays?
• What is unconventional? — What is an 'unconventional reservoir'?
• K is for wavenumber — What the heck is wavenumber?
• What do you mean by average? — Do you know when to use the mean, the mode, or the geometric mean?
• G is for Gather — What's a seismic gather anyway?
• Well-tie workflow — How we tie wells.

Uncertainty (broadly speaking)

• Are you a poet or a mathematician? — A post about the language of uncertainty.
• Polarity cartoons — You are using polarity cartoons on your seismic displays, aren't you? 
• A mixing board for the seismic symphony — What's wrong with our approach to seismic processing today.
• The curse of hunting rare things — If you interpret 2D seismic data, this is for you.
• How to QC a seismic volume — The first steps to take when you get some new seismic data.
• Filters that distort vision — The difference between reality, and images of reality.

Tech and coding

• Learn to program — The most important advice I have for every professional scientist.
• Coding to tell stories — Why we program.
• The Agile toolbox — The software we use to get our work done.
• Introducing striplog — A bit about one of the open source tools we built.
• Well tie calculus — The maths and code of the well tie.
• Minecraft for geoscience — Why might we want to combine geoscience and Minecraft?

Our culture

• Are conferences failing you too? — This 2012 post explains a lot of our other activities.
• Scientists not prospects — Frustration at marketing in our business, and a promise that I soon broke <sad face>.
• Are we alright? — A 2014 post about recruitment in our business.
• What now? — The horrible state of the petroleum industry in 2015.
• Expert culture is bad for you — Look for expertise, not experts. Everyone will thank you.
• Two sides to every story — Except the one about the shoe-shine girls.

I did say this post was about the top 5%, so strictly I owe you one more post. If you'll indugle me, I'll hark right back to the start — this post on The integration gap from 5 January 2011 was one of my early favourites. It was one of those ideas I'd been carrying around for a while. Not profound or interesting enough for a talk or an article. Just a little idea. I doubt it's even original. I just thought it was interesting. It's exactly what blogs were made for.

It only remains to say Thank You for the support and attention over the years. We appreciate it hugely, and look forward to crafting the next 500 posts for lining the bottom of your digital cat litter box.