Help Laelaps

An online poll that might have real-world consequences? Now that's something new.

(Right now, he's at 2%, with some guy currently at 43%, and around 6100 votes cast. For reference - the state before the FIST! of Pharyngula descends on this poll.)

Cast my vote. It's kind of odd to have a scholarship decided by online polls, isn't it?

Thanks for the link, PZ, and thanks to everyone who has voted for me. I knew I wouldn't have a chance without the fearsome horde here at Pharyngula helping me.

In this particular case, might it be better for us to go to the poll through the Laelaps blog instead of straight out Pharyngulizing the pole? It seems as if it would be more meaningful if the votes came from there; at least in appearance.

"Blogging scholarship"??

Come on people! We are getting trounced by over 200 votes.

He is currently 4th with 556 votes
Cameron (whose blog is on Mariner's baseball) is leading with 2743 votes (honestly I didn't think there WERE 2700 baseball fans *rimshot*)

I just looked at the guy in second's blog (827 votes). For a clue as to its caliber, it is called "American Papist".

Cameron (whose blog is on Mariner's baseball) is leading with 2743 votes (honestly I didn't think there WERE 2700 baseball fans *rimshot*)

Naw, there's plenty of baseball fans. What's surprising is that there's 2700 Seattle Mariners fans.

C'mon ... are the science nerds gonna let the jocks beat 'em?

@8: Ugh, ick. I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do (don't have time to fairly assess all bloggers, after all), until you made that point. The main competitor:
http://www.americanpapist.com/blog.html

I just looked at the guy in second's blog (827 votes). For a clue as to its caliber, it is called "American Papist".

Now now, let's not judge a blog by its title. It could be ironic, and even if the author is Catholic, let's not forget the many practicing Catholics there who are for all intents and purposes agnostics who go to church for cultural and community reasons.

Then again, after reading some of his posts, you are entirely right. I am still not entirely comfortable pharyngulating an online pole that has significant real-world consequences, however.

@John Pieret:

*swish!*

Misleading headline at BBC: Octopuses share 'living ancestor'

Needs more pharyngulating. Brian is still 4th.

Brian Switek of Laelaps as earned it. Voted!

^And by that I mean he's earned my vote. He still needs YOUR VOTE!!

Looks like he's moved into 3rd.

Can you vote more than once?
After seeing that cracker lover website I feel the urge to vote again.

Yuck.

We are still losing! Come on! The winning guy has a photo of Bennedick on his blog!

Actually that guy is second (1151 votes).
The guy in first is the Baseball fan (2900 votes).
Our guy is third (889 votes).

Come to think of it, this is like high school all over again. The first people to get the money are the sports teams and clubs, then the religious/bible study, then the science clubs. Weird.

Sorry, yes... papist is second. My fault.

I appears the voting site records you IP address rather than using cookies. Firefox gave me the votes page rather than the voting screen (I voted earlier today with Safari). Deleting cookies gave the same result. I'll vote again tomorrow from work.

Would it be considered cheating if I were to set a bot that constantly votes over the tor network?

Eh, I'll do it anyway ;)

Would it be considered cheating if I were to set a bot that constantly votes over the tor network?

Eh, I'll do it anyway ;)

:D Revenge of the science nerds. (Now the papist will need divine help.)

Ew, he's being beaten by a self described "papist" (Catholic)

He's being beaten! We need scriptage!

Whew! I got my vote in at the last minute. When I saw that "papist" website I went to boot up the other two computers we have but voting was already over. Meh! On the bright side though I think our guy came in second and it wasn't to the "papist"! Yea!

I take the Yea back! Arg! He lost to a baseball website! A frickin BASEBALL WEBSITE!!! OK gotta breath.

C'mon people!

The two Scienceblogs I always check out every day are PZ and Brian.

Brian gives the perspective of a student, not a teacher. He's got a great voice and writes tremendous things.

Help him out!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's still behind!

@#27

Actually that might be an IP address issue (I can only vote on one of the cpus I have in the house, because they share an IP address). Voting doesn't close until November 20th.

Keep voting, ~300 behind the papist.

I dropped in on Laelaps and spent ages there, it's a very good site, bookmarked for frequent viewing from now on. Voted for Brian of course, even if he does not win his viewing figures are going to rocket.

I don't understand the problem with voting for Dave Cameron (the baseball guy). He brings numbers and critical thinking to a place where it has historically never been. If you know baseball at all, you'll hear talk about quasi-religious sentiments like "team chemistry" and "hustle" being more important than the numbers involved.

There's a fight in baseball between the "traditionalists" and the "statheads" (sound familiar??). Dave's on the side of science for this one.

If you read Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight.com) over the election season, numbers are what Nate fought for in the baseball world as well. Who am I to say that Nate is wrong about anything?

There's a fight in baseball between the "traditionalists" and the "statheads" (sound familiar??). Dave's on the side of science for this one.

And the Seattle Mariners are on the side of traditionalists--i.e., they're not into sophisticated numbers and measurements. That's the sort of clash that drives Cameron's numbers up---in an area where there's a lot of numbers guys.

That clash, too, should be very familiar to folks around here...

#30 Thanks! I didn't know, I thought that each computer had their own IP address.

Oh dear. 'The American Papist' seems to be winning.