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jdupuis | February 25, 2011In the spirit of openness and transparency and "does anybody really care except me" I've included some blog hit statistics below for 2010. These stats are from the Google Analytics application that ScienceBlogs has installed.
For 2010, this blog got 77,630 visits and 91,022 pageviews. To put it all into perspective, to say that this is a fairly insignificant portion of the total traffic for ScienceBlogs is a bit of an understatement. There are defunct blogs that still generate more traffic.
Here are the numbers in graphical format (click to see full year):
And by month (click to see full…
sastyk | October 4, 2010I'm about to leave town. Oh, and I'm about to start my Adapting in Place Class. And I'm about to begin my new liveblogging project. And I have to clean the barn, vaccinate the goats, band two goats and get my life ready to run with only one adult. And do a lot of laundry. Oh, and I'm the only member of the ASPO board of directors anyone can reach right now (everyone else is in varying stages of transport), so I'm in charge, scary as that is. Gah!
Some notes: First, blog will not be quiet this week, but will be very busy! John, Molly and Shannon and possibly a couple of others, plus me,…
sb admin | August 2, 2010I'm also leaving ScienceBlogs, but it's not for the reasons some others have given. I don't think Pepsi's blog will hurt my real life reputation and besides, it's been pulled, there have been apologies - it's time to forgive. July was the first month I've gotten enough hits to get a paycheck - and that's completely due to the BYU video - no one is more shocked than I about that. It's also not about the technical support - I mean, look at my old blog. Does it look like I use fancy tricks? Some of the tech support things are related to getting thousands of comments, which I don't. Of course I…
cpikas | August 2, 2010I'm also leaving ScienceBlogs, but it's not for the reasons some others have given. I don't think Pepsi's blog will hurt my real life reputation and besides, it's been pulled, there have been apologies - it's time to forgive. July was the first month I've gotten enough hits to get a paycheck - and that's completely due to the BYU video - no one is more shocked than I about that. It's also not about the technical support - I mean, look at my old blog. Does it look like I use fancy tricks? Some of the tech support things are related to getting thousands of comments, which I don't. Of course I…
sb admin | July 21, 2010So there I was, try all kinds of librarian ninja tricks on the fanciest, most expensive research databases money can buy (SciFinder, Reaxys, Inspec...) and no joy. Couldn't find what I needed. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I don't know all that much chemistry, but usually I do ok since I work with one chemist quite a bit. Finally I gave up and googled it. After a few tries, I found way down in the results an article about something else (like I needed a chemical in an aqueous solution and it had the chemical in alcohol), but the snippet drew my eye. Sure enough - had a table with my…
cpikas | July 16, 2010The comments made last night weren't showing up - I think I've fixed that now. Sorry for any inconvenience!
sb admin | July 15, 2010And why we should care. Gary Price of the Resource Shelf pointed to a news story today, that Ebsco has acquired two more research databases: Criminal Justice Abstracts and Communications Abstracts. For those of you who haven't been following, Ebsco has recently acquired Ageline (it is now not available for free), NetLibrary, research databases from OCLC, The Music Index Online, World Textiles, ExPub (ChemExpert)... oh and exclusive rights to some magazines.
What we can expect from this is that those other databases will no longer be available on multiple platforms. Folks who aren't librarians…
cpikas | May 11, 2010see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Someone around here is bound to have an answer! Ask a scibling is back, see this post: http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2010/05/ask_a_scienceblogger_anything.php
Feel free to ask any library or information questions, too.
cpikas | March 6, 2010I haven't been a great team player recently, so this post catches up on some things going on in the world recently. These are in no particular order.
The USA Science and Engineering Festival is coming up in the Fall. ScienceBlogs is the official blogging partner and thereâs a blog here to talk about the preparations. This is one reason why itâs cool to live near DC â I get to go and wave the flag. (hm. mpow should have some representation, too)
3/14 is fast approaching and there will be a pie bake off. My pies are notoriously tasty but ugly. Unfortunately, youâll be judging them on looks…
cpikas | February 25, 2010This blog is a Research Blogging Awards 2010 Finalist
Thank you for whoever nominated me and thanks for your votes! I'll try to bring more research blogging posts to you in the coming year :)
cpikas | December 5, 2009Getting this from Drugmonkey - the first line from the first post of each month this year. Looks like I should pay attention to having snappy first lines!
The first half of the year is all about preparing for my comprehensive exams and the second half of the year is all about recovering from taking them! Let's hope next year brings a dissertation proposal defense and writing, writing, writing.
January: Finished Yin [link]
February: This is 2 weeks, and really quite paltry. [link]
March: I'm now back into re-reading, so notes will be shorter (and I'm hoping to pick up speed). [link]
April:…
jdupuis | December 4, 2009Announced today:
Dear Readers,
It is our great pleasure to bring you news of an exciting new partnership, starting today, between ScienceBlogs and National Geographic.
ScienceBlogs and National Geographic have at their cores the same ultimate mission: to cultivate widespread interest in science and the natural world. Starting today, we will work together to advance this common mission through new content, applications, and initiatives. We will bring acclaimed voices from National Geographic into our rich discussion on ScienceBlogs, and National Geographic will invite their worldwide audience…
jdupuis | November 2, 2009Just so you all know, the last couple of comments I've received are stuck in limbo. I can see them on the admin side but they're not showing.
Unfortunately, my work computer just died and I can't seem to access my email, even via the web interface.
Hopefully, all will return to normal soon.
cpikas | October 1, 2009Update2 (10/2/2009): and I'm back, and typing in the right box this time. yay! posts to come this weekend.
Sorry for the time off - technical issues and all sorts of excitement around the house. (b-day celebrations and a cousin returning from Iraq). This is being updated from my iPhone so please pardon any weirdness. (post updated)
jdupuis | September 23, 2009If you feel the need to socially network with ScienceBlogs and any of us various SciBlings, you can do so on Facebook and Twitter. I suspect that most of us who are on those services are fans/followers of ScienceBlogs.
The main places I hang out are Friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook. Drop by and say hi!
(I don't know if it exists, but it would be interesting to see a list of all of our various handles on those and other services.)
jdupuis | September 3, 2009It looks like ScienceBlogs will be getting a lot more community-like and a lot less we-talk-you-listen -- and that's a very good thing.
Since we're listening, we'd also like your feedback on how we should set up our community.
As you may have heard from one of our bloggers, ScienceBlogs will soon be introducing an optional user registration program. We hope that this will help you, as readers, connect with one another, keep track of the posts and discussions you are interested in, and control how you interact with the site.
To that end, we'd love to hear what you think would most improve your…
jdupuis | August 27, 2009And speaking of reading, a couple of the books on the summer reading list I posted yesterday were actually purchased at the World Science Fiction Convention dealers' room! We were lucky that this year the con was in Montreal, my home town and very near Ste-Agathe, where we spent most of our vacation time. The whole family came down to Montreal for the Friday of the con, while I stayed for Saturday and Sunday as well.
Overall, the con was a blast. I had a fantastic time! Of course, since I lived in Montreal for 38 years and was quite involved in Montreal sf fandom for a few years (I was on…
jdupuis | August 26, 2009My annual summer blogging break has officially come to a close. I returned to work Monday after a very nice four week vacation. Yes, I use my whole annual vacation allotment all at once and go the rest of the year without any significant break except for Christmas.
The first three weeks we spent most of our time at a cottage we rent every year near Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, about 90 minutes north of Montreal. The weather was mostly pretty good, so a great time was had by all -- swimming, canoing and just lounging around reading books. For my part, let's just say a lot of BBQing and drinking…
jdupuis | July 24, 2009Yes, it's here. My annual summer blogging break. A time to recharge my blogging batteries.
Time to pack up my virtual bags, hop on my ePlane and take a posting holiday. As usual, I'll be offline for the next four weeks or so, probably back the week of August 24th. I have scheduled some posts for my absence, however: four Friday Fun posts as well as four items I'm reposting from the old blog.
As for the summer reading poll, I guess it's now time to declare the two winners:
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick with 44% of the vote.
The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth…
cpikas | July 23, 2009Ack. NO.
...Ok, well when you gonna finish?
ARRRGHGH
PhD students unite! Rebel against these questions!
My answer - I don't know, and it will probably be a while. Like ask me in 3-4 years.
Here are some ways my program differs from others you might know more about:
very linear - we do coursework, then comps (or integrative paper), then dissertation proposal, then dissertation
everything is new work - the comps (or integrative paper) is not like presenting a portfolio of work already completed but a new separate thing, the dissertation is a new piece of empirical research (no publishing…