As the last post of 2011, I thought this would be the perfect time to look back on Grey Matters, and take a look at some of the standout posts of the year.
January
January kicked off the year by introducing the design you see now. Besides just a new look, the site also received a new structure, with the Mental Gym and Presentation sections moving on to blogspot. Features were also added to all of the sections of Grey Matters that helped make it more accessible to touch-based mobile devices.February
This was a month in which Grey Matters was starting to be noticed by others. There was Ron White's America's Memory site, as well as a mention in the Gilbreath Principle episode of Scam School!Over at the Mental Gym, the Unit Circle tutorial was created.
March
As spring started to arrive, it was time to start laying some new groundwork. I re-wrote the entire day for any date tutorial, and started gathering memory technique videos over on YouTube. Also in March, Grey Matters' celebrated its 6th blogiversary!April
The laying of the new groundwork continued, with the introduction of the Grey Matters Online Store. Feel free to visit, take a look, and maybe even buy something to help support Grey Matters!May
I introduced my free dice calendar backgrounds for mobile devices, which can help you appear to have memorized any current year! With 2012 coming, you might want to check this out.In May, I also began a 5 part series of posts called “Iteration, Feedback, and Change,” which was real departure from the normal series of posts. It began with a post on artificial life, and then continued with a look at biological life.
June
The series continued with looks at the Prisoner's Dilemma, fractals, and chaos theory. This entire series unexpectedly proved somewhat philosophical to me as I was writing it. Many others have commented favorably on it, as well.There was also a bit of fun celebrating Tau Day on 6/28, since Tau is equal to 2 × Pi.
July
This was definitely a month for updates. I released Verbatim 2, my free mobile app for helping memorize poems, lyrics, speeches, and other texts word-for-word. February's unit circle tutorial received a sequel this month, in the form of the trig function tutorial.60 Minutes aired an interesting story on hyperthymesia, also known as superior autobiographical memory.
August
After finishing Verbatim, I toyed around with other apps, quickly developing a free webapp I dubbed Randomizer, designed to quiz you on various memory feats. There was also an examination of creative approaches to memory feats.Grey Matters got mentioned once again on Scam School, when they used my submission of Martin Gardner's “Purloined Objects,” which I specially customized for their show.
September
Posting about the hyperthymesia story back in July proved to be a good move, as CBS premiered their new show Unforgettable, about s police detective with the condition. With the math-based series Numb3rs now gone, it was nice to see a memory-based show receiving good reviews.October
October was all about memory! I posted about the PAO System, popularized by the book Moonwalking With Einstein. Also, my work on Randomizer back in August inspired me to take my 2005 Train Your Brain and Entertain software, and update it as a webapp for modern mobile devices!Grey Matter also received its biggest jump of the year! The day for any date tutorial I updated in March was noticed by the folks at Lifehacker, sending over 12,000 visitors here on the first day alone!
November
I reviewed the newly-released Magical Mathematics, and also took a look at adapting standard software to specific memory tasks this month.There was plenty of fun to be had this month as well. I used 11/11/11 to teach some surprising things about, well, 11. Scam School was mentioned once again in Grey Matters, when Brian taught Martin Gardner's 1-2-3 Trick. After this, I even put together a YouTube playlist of Grey Matters mentions on Scam School.
December
As the year wound down, I continued the ever-growing series of Nim posts with the Whim variation.My favorite post of this month, however, has to be the post on the superhero theory of developing your performing persona. I've even given it a permanent post over in the presentation section.
If you haven't already made note of it, I had to move my RSS feeds this month, as well. If you're following Grey Matters via RSS, please make sure you update to the new feeds!
I hope you enjoyed this look back at Grey Matters' 2011 posts. My next post will be on January 1st, when it will be time to start looking forwards!
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2 Response to Looking Back...
Thanks again for a great year! Looking forward to another one!
Thanks, Dave!
I think you'll like some of the things I already have planned for 2012...
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