meta-blag
sb admin | December 21, 2008OK, we've got a second episode up, with much better ones to come, including, hopefully, some rather heated discussions with a few interesting guests. Interestingly, if you click on the link above in Firefox, you are taken to the rss feed. If you do it in IE, you get an error. So, either use iTunes or FF.
The iTunes feed is up and running---you can see it on the right sidebar---it's the white coat thingy.
I've found that I'm not compulsive enough to write code, but if I have to update an xml file once a week, well, I'll dig deep for my inner compulsive self.
sb admin | December 12, 2008OK, so I guess I'm not busy enough, cuz I'm experimenting with podcasting. I have a voice best left to typing, but I want to try a new medium.
The first episode is on arrogance in medicine, and the rss feed looks funky cuz i'm still learning, but let me know how it goes. This discussion is a continuation of one that has gone on right here. I'm opening a thread in the forums to discuss the issue. Please...please let me know what technical difficulties arise, as I'm quite new to this.
That is all.
sb admin | December 11, 2008Orac is celebrating his 4th blogiversary today, and folks are giving him his props over at his place. I was about to give him congrats over there, but I figured this deserved a post of its own.
I started blogging seriously in May of 07. I had been attracted to the crankosphere via the cesspit of inanity that is Conservapedia. A small cabal of folks set up a parallel site called rationalwiki to refute the hate-filled lies at the other site. I ended up writing a number of medical pieces over there, and eventually decided I needed to write pieces less consistent with what a wiki requires,…
sb admin | December 5, 2008Carnival of the Liberals is up at Capitol Annex
Skeptics' Circle 101 is up at Ionian Enchantment.
You may have noticed the Friend Feed widget on the sidebar. I've added this as a sort of "mini-blog", where we can post brief links or stories. I'd say it's just out of beta at this point, but it seems to be working out. I'll probably post links and carnivals there from now on.
You may also have noticed the HONcode badge on the left sidebar. We receive our HONcode certification several weeks ago. We do our best to comply with the HONcode principles, which you can read about on their website…
sb admin | November 24, 2008If you're not yet familiar with researchblogging.org, you need to click the picture. It's a blog-aggregator that pulls together posts about peer-reviewed research, and since the intersection of published research and blogging is getting a lot of play lately, this is a must-see.
In addition, Dave Munger is launching a new forum to discuss research blogging where yours truly will be a janitor moderator.
Next, I've started a new forum for the discussion of many of the issues seen in this space, at Science-Based Medicine, and any other interesting issues that come up. It's set for moderated…
sb admin | November 12, 2008I number of my posts have links to my old blog. I've moved my old blog to a new server, and the permalinks no longer work (and I'm probably to lazy to hunt them all down). If I send you to a blind link, sorry 'bout that. Just go to whitecoatunderground.com and search by title.
sb admin | November 9, 2008Let me start by saying that there is no "right" as such to anything on the internet. There is no blog law that allows for anonymity, etc. All we have are our evolving ethics, about which I recently wrote.
As the ongoing dispute over anonymity continues (and continues to make me uncomfortable, but not in a good way), there is one ethical aspect I must address.
There are three authors on this blog, and our writings largely compliment each other. When I decided to get HONcode certification for this blog, as I had on my old one, it was with the knowledge that with three separate writers, things…
choofnagle | November 9, 2008Sciblings are discussing the ethics of anonymity all over Scienceblogs.
I want to pose a different question: practically speaking, is anonymity even possible?
Consider:
1) There is no standard definition for what is anonymous or anonymized. For instance, AOL released a putatively anonymous database of search queries a few years ago, but it was soon discovered that individuals could be identified in it. Google "anonymizes" some user records but the method they use is pretty pathetic.
2) The field of reidentification is growing in sophistication. Professor Latanya Sweeney at Carnegie…
sb admin | November 7, 2008When we get to ScienceOnline09 in January, Abel and I will be leading a session on blogging and anonymity. I agreed to get involved because it sounded interesting, but I had no idea it would become such a big deal. There have been active discussions at many of the Sb blogs on this issue, particularly here, at Abel's TerraSig, and at DrugMonkey. As part of the discussion, I put out a piece on the ethics of blog anonymity. Now here's a related question (which I would prefer to treat in a general sense, without referring to any ongoing RL disputes).
Let's take a quote from an anonymous…
sb admin | November 3, 2008But a fascinating lesson in scientific discourse is currently underway in the blogosphere. It all started with a harmless little analysis of a letter published in NEJM. The strange part (to those of us who live here) was that the authors responded. On the blog. For real. And they were kinda pissed (in the American sense of the word; I have no idea if they'd been drinking, but probably not. After all, they're not bloggers).
Communication in medical research is slow. In general, this can be a good thing. Before research is published in a respected journal, it should be thoroughly…
sb admin | October 29, 2008Arghhh! I hate blog memes, but rules are rules. As Robert Service said, "a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code," and although I'm not sure how that applies, I'm forced to respond. From Abel over at TerraSig comes a random blog meme...literally.
For the uninitiated a blog meme is sort of a meme but not really. A meme is a unit of information passed though learning or behavior, rather than genetics. A blog meme is a set of questions passed from blogger to blogger until it finally peters out. It gives bloggers a chance to connect to each other and to connect…
sb admin | October 20, 2008I took on the ScienceOnline09 anonymity panel because I thought it might be interesting, but the conversation that has developed has turned this into a much deeper issue than I had anticipated. I'm stepping into a big, brown pile of ethics here, and hopefully Janet won't make too much fun of me.
Abel over at TerraSig has a number of posts up already, and today DrugMonkey brought up a very interesting question.
The science blogosphere, being a new medium, is slowly developing a set of practical normative ethics (geez, I hope that's the right term), and that this is a critical time to start to…
sb admin | October 16, 2008On call one night as a medical student, I was presenting a case to my intern. As I recounted the patient's ER course, the intern stopped me and said, "Pal --- trust no one."
That sounded a little harsh to me, but the intern was nice enough to explain further.
"Look, you're going to be taking calls from doctors and nurses the rest of your career. They are going to give you information about a patient, but it's you who will be responsible for everything that goes right and wrong. Do you want to hang yourself on someone else's evaluation?"
As any internist knows, there is a perpetual tension…
sb admin | October 13, 2008Yeah, we know things aren't working right. Comments are timing out, but that's the least of it. Our techies aren't sure yet what's going on, but they are putting extra hamsters on the treadmill working extra hard trying to get things moving smoothly again.
Meanwhile, if you comment and it times out on you, don't worry, it probably went through.
Stay tuned...
sb admin | October 2, 2008OK, not really. I've been felled by my first respiratory virus of the season and I'm not up to doing anything beyond getting through the day, so there may not be many new posts from me for a bit.
sb admin | September 28, 2008Bora and his crack team of editors are working on Open Laboratory 08, a collection of the year's best writing on ScienceBlogs. Head over there and nominate some stuff, from this blog and others.
That is all.
sb admin | September 10, 2008Teh Overlordz have demanded some link love and a reminder that the one million mark is coming up. That means swag, celebration, and song (OK, maybe no singing).
The SE Michigan get-together is still a-plannin' (meaning I haven't decided what place to tell people to show up yet). I'm hoping I can get Orac into town for it, his being a native Detroiter and all.
Anyway, don't forget to comment on your favorite blogs, cuz the million-th really will be spoiled rotten.
sb admin | August 28, 2008Well, here at ScienceBlogs, we're heading for another milestone. Sometime in the next few weeks, we will have our millionth comment. If the past is any guide, there will be some celebratory swag, and hopefully, mini-meet-ups. We may have a little Michigan gathering of sciblings, readers, and others who may be interested. This would likely happen in mid-September, and I'd like to gauge the level of interest. Please either leave a comment or drop me an email to let me know if you might be interested in having a beer and chatting with various local or visiting science bloggers in Michigan,…
sb admin | August 27, 2008First, as most ScienceBlogs readers know, Carl Zimmer of "The Loom" has moved over to Discover's blogs. He's a terrific science writer and you must change your feed, if you haven't yet. Now, the Deep Sea News folks have some breaking news.
As for "welcomes", Blake Stacey, of Science after Sunclipse, has joined us, which is just terrific, especially since here as Sb, he isn't using that horrible black background which is apparently abhorred by "older readers".
The other wonderful edition is "Built on Facts", a physics blog that even I can usually understand.
Plus ça change...