jdupuis | August 4, 2010This past Monday morning a new science blogging community came online: Scientopia! From their Vision:
Scientopia is a collective of people who write about science because they love to do so. It is a community, held together by mutual respect and operated by consensus, in which people can write, educate, discuss, and learn about science and the process of doing science. In this we explore the interplay between scientific issues and other parts of our lives with the shared goal of making science more accessible.
As a community, we strive to be welcoming of anyone with an interest in science…
jdupuis | August 2, 2010T. DeLene Beeland (Twitter) contacted me last week and was kind enough to offer to interview me for an honest-to-goodness print newspaper -- The Charlotte Observer: Find the future at a 21st-century science library. It;s part of a series of interviews she's done with science bloggers.
Here's an exerpt from the interview. My answers to DeLene's questions were about 2-3 times longer than she was able to use, so she's done a great job editing them down to more manageable lengths.
Q. What are some of the biggest trending changes in science libraries currently?
One thing we're working really…
jdupuis | July 30, 2010Yeah, last Friday I threatened a sequel and here it is.
Too much fun. And once again, looking in the mirror is a bit tough on this one. I did do a quick search on my blog posts and none of the offending phrases shows up per se. But, some seem a little too familiar.
I'm not done with the douchebags.
After I wrote the 5 Signs You're Talking To A Social Media Douchebag, I was met with heavy feedback.
Social media douchebags used social media to attack me.
Damn it.
Should've seen that one coming.
Here goes. Read 'em and weep for the future of humanity. The elaborations on the original post…
jdupuis | July 29, 2010A few of us are proposing this session at the upcoming Science Foo Camp at Google HQ this coming weekend:
The Joys and Sorrows of Blogging on a Network
What with the recent Pepsigate crisis at ScienceBlogs and some rumblings at Nature Network not to mention a bunch of new players on the blogging network landscape, it seems like a good time to take a look at what's going on out there. Let's talk about the past, present and future of science blogging on a network and, indeed, of science blogging itself. Join Eva Amsen, John Dupuis, Jonah Lehrer, Andrew Revkin and Carl Zimmer.
I thought in this…
jdupuis | July 27, 2010A few months ago I posted a fairly long essay on how I was approaching the challenge of thinking about the future. I modelled myself on a few articles by futurist Jamais Casico and focused on why thinking about the future matters, finding the right questions to ask about the future and recognizing that the future arises out of the present.
This time around, I'll use a few more of Casico's articles to explore further the challenges of thinking about the future, specifically mapping the possibilities (Parts I and II) and Writing Scenarios.
Mapping the Possibilities
As we scan the environment,…
jdupuis | July 26, 2010Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I pay quite close attention to the InsideHigherEd web magazine. They cover lots of library issues and issues that are relevant to libraries, their blog network is pretty good with solid coverage of higher education issues and Joshua Kim's instructional technology blog covers a lot of ground, much of which is of interest for the library community.
Unfortunately, they've never had a very good blog by a librarian. Until now. (They did make an attempt at a library blog about a year ago. We will not speak of it anymore.)
Go check out the brand…
jdupuis | July 26, 2010Bora Zivkovic for several years has been doing interviews with the attendees at the annual ScienceOnline conferences.
The latest interview is with my longtime blog buddy Stephanie Willen Brown, AKA The CogSciLibrarian!
What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?
Science needs good public relations right now, and I agree with @ErinBiba's essay in the May issue of Wired "Why Science Needs to Step Up Its PR Game." I'd like to play a small part in the merger of science and PR by training public relations professionals to do good…
jdupuis | July 23, 2010This is soooo funny. So funny it hurts. Ok, so maybe I've been guilty of one or two of these. Ok, maybe you have too. The more you're guilty, the funnier it is.
To many, the Internet is a world full of promise.
To others, a ripe field ready to be harvested by douchebags.
Both are true.
I think the first douchebag was the knight in medieval times. You just know he clickity-clanked across the village in that dopey metal armor and thought he was so cool.
Oh look at me. I have armor!
And then he'd return to the castle and push the jester around with his joust. Jousting him in the ass,…
jdupuis | July 22, 2010A great article in last Friday's Globe and Mail, Will the last bookstore please turn out the lights?
The main thrust of the article is that while there's a lot of doom and gloom in the industry, there's also some hope and, more importantly, some innovation.
One source of Bleumer's optimism is the "ferocious" level of reading she sees going on among young people. Those ferocious readers will be the regular book buyers of the future. What stores need to do, she insists, is not only focus on old-fashioned face-to-face customer service, but also remain flexible enough to adapt to whatever comes…
jdupuis | July 20, 2010What with the recent blogospheric developments, I thought it would be a great idea to reprint a post from a couple of years ago where I turned the tables on Bora and interviewed him about science blogging, science and ScienceOnline. The original post is from March 13, 2008. I'd also like to point you to the interview Bora did with my son Sam after the 2009 conference.
And yes, I think "Crazy Uncle" is perfect. Science blogging is like family and I think Bora fits perfectly not as our father or our brother or our cousin, but as our uncle.
==============================
Welcome to the…
jdupuis | July 19, 2010The fallout of the Pepsigate scandal continues.
Bora's recent relative blogging silence left me with a bad feeling, an ominous feeling. A feeling like the other shoe was about to drop.
Well, it did. Bora is leaving ScienceBlogs.
As with most of Bora's giant summary zeitgeist posts, you just have to read the whole thing yourself. The comments too are incredibly heartfelt.
For me, Bora always epitomized ScienceBlogs. He was always the ultimate SciBling and I was so thrilled to be blogging her next to him when I joined. Bora's also always really epitomized science blogging as a whole to…
jdupuis | July 16, 2010So, it appears that Batman is on Twitter.
From the newly renamed Blastr site, I give you a selection of Batman's 34 greatest tweets:
Watch out criminal scum, I'm trying to kick caffeine again. And we all remembered what happened last time, don't we? DON'T WE!!!
Going to help with the clean up effort in the Gulf. And by "clean up effort" I mean breaking some BP exec's knee caps.
Hey Tony Stark, there's a "Rich Drunk Douchebags Anonymous" meeting tomorrow. I'll sign you up for a seat. With my fists.
Arkham is a disgusting, human rights-violating hellhole. It's like my Disneyland.
What do I call…
jdupuis | July 15, 2010When we think of outreach and recruitment, we don't usually think of using the library as a tool to attract students to our institutions. Here at York I do occasionally take part in Faculty of Science & Engineering outreach activities -- mostly when the library is included in high school science class tours of the institution.
Rather than do something really boring like a "here's the reference desk" tour, I like to take smaller groups down into our teaching lab and do (hopefully) fun and amusing interactive sessions on the current state of the information universe. You can get an idea…
jdupuis | July 14, 2010Usually every day brings one or two interesting things at InsideHigherEd, but today is a bonanza.
The Ed Tech Sonic Boom
Today, we are able to leverage a set of well-developed and stable technologies to build in pedagogically advanced active learning methods into a wide variety of courses and modes of instructional delivery. To be a great teacher it is no longer a prerequisite to be a dynamic and gifted lecturer. Rather, faculty can partner with learning designers, librarians, and teaching specialists to create dynamic, student-centered courses that allow students interact and create with…
jdupuis | July 12, 2010For now, at least.
My natural inclinations about this whole mess are probably closest in nature to either Chad Orzel's or Jason Rosenhouse's, so reading them will probably give you a pretty close idea of where I stand. Bora, not surprisingly, has collected a lot of the reaction.
I also really like what Christie Wilcox has to say:
Let me make it clear, though - I don't blame anyone for leaving. I don't hold it against them. While I may not have had the same visceral reaction they did, I also haven't been here that long. I haven't dealt with this kind of mismanagement and gotten fed up about…
jdupuis | July 12, 2010As if Pepsigate wasn't enough to get people riled up, this could be even move apocalyptic!
H. Steven Wiley takes a close look at the real Two Cultures, Scientists vs. Engineers!
In the past, I have heard there was conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. I don't see a lot of evidence for that type of conflict today, mostly because my scientific friends all are big fans of the arts and literature. However, the two cultures that I do see a great deal of conflict between are those of science and engineering.
*snip*
At one extreme, you have basic scientists, who seek to…
jdupuis | July 10, 2010Following up on my first post a while back, All aboard the York University Space Elevator!, the York University Earth and Space Science and Engineering research team of Raj Seth, Brendan Quine and George Zhu have published another paper, this time in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Feasibility of 20 km Free-Standing Inflatable Space Tower. (Open Access version)
This paper describes the theory and analysis for the construction of a thin walled inflatable space tower of 20 km vertical extent in an equatorial location on Earth using gas pressure. The suborbital tower of 20 km…
jdupuis | July 9, 2010I love Wikipedia. I probably use it every day. It's become an indispensable part of the modern information landscape.
But.
A few months ago, I was doing a session in our lab with a bunch of high school students. When I do these sessions I try and illuminate how the modern information landscape is a bit more complicated than they think -- I try and instill a little doubt and humbleness into their mostly quite confident attitudes. I talk about Facebook and privacy and Wikipedia and a whole bunch of things. Anyways, I'm talking about Wikipedia and demoing how easy it is to randomly change…
jdupuis | July 7, 2010So, PepsiCo has started up a new blog here on ScienceBlogs called Food Frontiers.
From the profile:
PepsiCo's R&D Leadership Team discusses the science behind the food industry's role in addressing global public health challenges. This is an extension of PepsiCo's own Food Frontiers blog.
This blog is sponsored by PepisCo. All editorial content is written by PepsiCo's scientists or scientists invited by PepsiCo and/or ScienceBlogs. All posts carry a byline above the fold indicating the scientist's affiliation and conflicts of interest.
From the introductory post:
On behalf of the team…
jdupuis | July 6, 2010Nice article by Vit Wagner in Sunday's Toronto Star, Tough times, but some bookstores have a different story.
A couple of different independent bookstore owners/managers in the Toronto area talk about some of the challenges faced in surviving and even thriving in what should be a period of death and decline for bricks and mortar bookstores.
But while some of the competition is retrenching or worse, BakkaPhoenix, which recorded a double-digit increase in sales last year, is expanding. In stark contrast to the recently shuttered This Ain't the Rosedale Library, BakkaPhoenix is readying a fall…