I've Been Blog Conned and It Was A Blast

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Whew, what a day! I've been to the Second NC Science Blogging Conference, and I've had a blast.

The best part was actually to meet loads and loads of blogging friends whom I'd only seen in pictures. Amazing to actually meet them, hug or shake hands, talk and laugh. I even listened in as Bora chatted in Serbian with a compatriot. These are the eighteen nineteen SciBlings I managed to bag (I'll put all those links in later, too tired & jet lagged now):

  • Tara of Aetiology
  • Evil Monkey of Neurotopia
  • Shelley of Retrospectacle
  • James of Island of Doubt
  • Sheril & Chris of The Intersection
  • Bora of A blog Around the Clock
  • Jennifer of Shifting Baselines
  • Ginny the dominatrix
  • Zuska of Thus Spake Zuska
  • Dave of Cognitive Daily
  • Janet of Adventures in Ethics & Science
  • Brian of Laelaps
  • ScienceWoman Sr & Jr
  • Josh of Thoughts [No Longer] From Kansas
  • Peter of Deep Sea News
  • Karen of Science to Life
  • Abel of Terra Sigillata
  • Kevin of Deep Sea News (He speaks Swedish!)

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And of course, any number of other charming bloggers, scholars, students and media people.

In the morning I caught a session about open science chaired by the excellent Hemai Parthasarathy. Before lunch, I chaired a session on blogging the humanities and social sciences (as documented by Ginnay). Before it began, I was afraid I'd be the only person in that room while everybody was somewhere else talking about natural sciences. But in the event, there was hardly one free chair in the room, and discussion was lively. Thanks, everyone who took part!

After lunch I caught Tara's and Becky Oskin's sesh on blogging public health and medicine issues. Then a huge common session about framing science and the Science Debate 2008 initiative with Jennifer, Sheril and Chris forming a panel. And finally some personal remarks about science blogging and science writing by Jennifer Ouelette. All in all a great conference with great Southern food - I've had grits and pulled pork and corn puppies and Locopops and lemonade and more!

Many, many thanks to Bora, Anton and all the volunteers for making it all happen!

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"SciBlings"... I might not...no scratch that. I AM not a hardcore edumacated archaeoafficionado (just a hardcore unedumacated archaeoafficionado), but as a linguistic apprecionist (whoah, two hits on google on apprecionist) that hit me hard in the spleen.

And I like it!

It was great to finally meet you in the Real World. And yes, SciBlings should have been the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year!

Glad you're enjoying the southern cuisine, but Locopops aren't southern (well, not southern U.S., anyway). They're based on paletas, a flavorful Mexican version of what the U.S. would call popsicles. Yummy, but not native (and only available here for the past few years). Just wanted to clarify -- Southerners take their traditional cuisine seriously!

By anonymous (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink