Delicious Internet Noms

Okay, I'm still trying to figure out why my del.icio.us link-posting script is broken, but it's time to get back to quasi-regular link-posting anyway.

• Christie at the Cape has a great post on archetypal female geologists - a counterpart to those irritating jokes about geology stereotypes that suggest you can only be a real geologist if you have a beard:
  

  Why are the portraits so important, and why am I obsessed with Grey Braid fashion? Because it asserts so strongly the geologistness of these women, and the womanliness of these geologists. It represents a collective turning-of-the-back to mainstream ladies clothing, the clothes are functional, machine washable, there is almost a pioneer sensibility about the corduroy and wool. Layered on top of this functionality is a feminine flamboyance expressed in wacky color and irrepressibly geological, often uncomfortably heavy accessories. This look is every bit as vital and expressive as any form of fashion, and a good deal more individual than what my students are wearing these days.

• How Robert Sapolsky writes - a transcript from a Stanford discussion. Blogging scientists should be able to relate:
  

  [A]nyone who does science, like nothing ever works when you're doing science and when it works it takes two and a half years to find out that it's worked. It's a very different sort of metabolic rate than the writing stuff, where like you can find out in the course of an hour if this paragraph pleases you or not. It's like teaching, sort of; it's much faster. So, sort of, if you're spending most of your time in the science, where it's this very holding your breath process. The writing stuff just has much faster reinforcement rates, and so it's real addictive.

  As an aside, Sapolsky's verbal tics are annoying to read, but I am holding their existence in reserve for the next time someone complains to me about how the word "like" is, like, so inarticulate or whatever.

More under the fold: Other blogging Brumms, continental shelf oil, and commodity prices.

• ResearchBlogging.org wants you to help refine the list of subtopics for "version 2.0". The initial list for the geosciences is: agricultural science, atmosphere science, climate science, energy, geochemistry, geology, geophysics, glaciology, hydrology, oceanography, seismology, soil science, sustainability
• Speaking of agriculture blogging, I've been meaning to plug two blogs by ag scientists, both of whom happen to be my uncles. Tom, a professor in the department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State, has been writing about faculty life at Brumm Blog for a bit over a year... and still lacks an RSS feed. Not my uncle Mike, who has just started speaking out about the pork industry for the Minnesota Pork Board. Apparently, the fact that corn is now more expensive, as plain ol' corn, than the equivalent price of the pig it would feed, is not actually enough of an economic disincentive to stop feeding it to pigs.

  Other blogging Brumms exist, but are not (as far as I know) related to me, and do not seem to have written anything new since 2007.

• And speaking of obscure commodity economics, I meant to post this USGS treasure trove of historical mineral commodity statistics a month ago, and never did. You know, just in case you suddenly need to graph the price of pumice.
• Brian at Clastic Detritus has posted a great overview of petroleum resources on the continental shelf.
• More from Christie at the Cape: Fun with fluorite:
  

  When nobody's looking, toss a handful or a few bigger chunks into the campfire. Best if it's a little low to the coals and not too bright. A few minutes later, long enough for anyone who saw the toss to forget about it, small points of turquoise glow fade into view among the coals. They grow brighter and brighter and then POP! Like a little popcorn kernel the crystal explodes in a tiny shower of blue sparks.

• Finally, I stole this video from the Angry Toxicologist: