BLAG

We get a lot of weird spam at SciBlogs. Specifically, Turkish spam. Im sure you all have seen one or two that gets through, before we can get around to trashing it-- "I did not expect such a topic. Please type this for another topic. Regards to the author." "Welcome! The long sought such a page but in the end I found, and most importantly - pay up." The porno sites just copy/paste post text. Oh, and my post on donating eggs gets lots of 'tubal reversal' spam. But I do have to check the trash bin now and then to see if one of you all put too many links in a comment, or something, and…
Howdy! Just want to point you all towards a Q&A I did with an animal blag, 'Paw Talk'! Theyve been doing these with lots of science bloggers, and the series has been pretty fun, so Im glad Ive been included! I also think its funny that both Ava and Conspiracy Skeptic picked the same piccie of Arnie to post lol! That is the cutest damn pic of him. Such a teddy bear, just want to squish his fuzzy puppy face :D
Uh oh. Ive dont it again! Enabled teh cranks by talking about HIV-1and HIV Denialism with The Conspiracy Skeptic (scroll down to find the mp3)! I was worried it would come off as too 'inside'-- Conspiracy Skeptic is an ERV reader, so we made some references that newbs might not be familiar with, but then CS hunted down, like, all the links to stuff we were chatting about! Hope you all enjoy it, and you can leave feedback here!
So Ive been here over a year now. And the whole time, I have had that stupid standard white place-holder banner. *points up* BUT NO MOAR! Kevin Hopkins, an artist with Super-Geek-Street-Cred made me a sweeeeeeeeet banner! Kevin has graciously allowed me to play around with the color on PhotoShop so I can has lots of colors and a rotating banner-- but I take responsibilities for those inevitable fails :P The blue one here is Kevins :) Super-Geek-Street-Cred: Kevin has earned a BA in Fine Arts with postgraduate additions and has studied under several internationally acclaimed artists. He is…
Today/Tomorrow I am getting presentations ready for two events: 1-- Science outreach to YEC Oklahomans Time: March 26, 7 pm Place: Christs Church of Yukon, 620 W. Vandament Ave Topic: ERV 'debates' a random hobo 2-- Americans United for the Separation of Church and State: Oklahoma Time: March 28, 8:30-2:30 ($15 registration if you want to stay for lunch, email me if interested) Place: OCCC Topic: They may take our lives... but theyll never take... OUR ACADEMIC FREEDOM!! Both talks will be recorded and available on YouTube for those of you not lucky enough to be in the OKC area :P Anyway,…
Im irritated with Rhology. Same comments/questions on multiple threads = rage. However, in return for standing up for me last Friday, Im making an open thread just for Rho and his crew, and people who would like to 'debate' with them. However I am asking in return that you all stop posting O/T comments on other threads. The point is to keep the discussion here. Next person to post the word 'Genesis' in a thread other that this one will be asked to post tits or gtfo. UPDATE: February 23, 2009, 10:15 PM Next person to post the word 'Genesis' in a thread other that this one will be asked to…
PZ provides mentorship. Bora provides eternal encouragement. Nisbet is an endless fountain of lulz. But John Lynch bought me beer, and introduced me to Piers Hale-- quite possibly *the* coolest tattooed, pierced, history of science professor on planet earth. Thank you John!!! You survived OK Creationists, tornadoes, and a random gunman... Hope you can come back soon!
I had planned on letting a long rant loose on these assholes. Statler and Waldorf John and George are still bitching about me. 'Me' being their magnificently crafted straw-man/ad hominem chimera. But their comments have reached such a fantastic level of meta-fail (and Ive only watched 12 minutes of their second bitch-fest) I cant help but think that this has to be a joke. I mean, from Georges Dembski-esque not-pology, to John bitching about how depression and anxiety disorders are 'made up' by scientists, to the extreme meta-fail regarding scientists trumpeting their own research (hint:…
Oh George. I dont blame you for being angry. I attacked your profession, your profession is an extension of you, thus you took my comments personally, and completely missed what the hell I was talking about. 1-- I dont know whether she had a bad experience with 'The Wichita Beacon Journal'*... Someone who lives in Santa Fe, a hotbed of pseudoscientific wooshit, is not *exactly* in a position to be making fun of 'Wichita' for being backwards. Someone who is trying to establish that *he* is the better communicator probably shouldnt talk down to an entire segment of the country either. Just…
Wow! Awesome time at the Viral Evolution conference! But now I have a ton of work/blogging to catch up on! First and foremost: I must have had a near-death experience this weekend, or something, cause I was in heaven. Get this-- I got to see two gods in abiogenesis, Susanna Manrubia and Valerian Dolja, get into a good-natured debate over the probabilities of there being life on other planets at dinner. Marco and I were cheering on Susanna (Valerian was dead the second he brought up astrophysics, unaware that was Susannas area of expertise). We were eating enchiladas. It was so surreal.…
News #1 Felicia Day, the cutest girl on the internet, is going to be a guest patient on House tonight. If you are Bill O'Reilly or Oprah Winfrey and you dont know who Felicia Day is, welcome to the internet! Get your butt over to Hulu to watch 'Dr. Horrible', and YouTube to watch 'The Guild'. News #2 Michael Moore just released his latest movie, 'Slacker Uprising'. Hes releasing it online, for free. Gonna watch it after House :P
This past Tuesday a troupe of SciBlog readers met up in OKC for pizza, beer, and cookies!! Ill leave it to readers to out themselves if they want (or email me to anonymize you!), but I had to put up a funny pic of Logan, my partner-in-crime from Dembskis infamous OU visit: And a pic of the good sports at 'the other table' (we didnt have the room I thought we had reserved, so the group got broken up *sad* ), plus a crazy ranting atheist: Some nice OESE folks sent home some pizza for poor Arnie. It was amazing how fast he went from 'poor baby who cant get up from bed' to '…
In celebration of SciBlogs imminent 1 millionth friggen comment, a lot of us are throwing local SciBlog meet-up parties. SO! Im throwing one September 16th, 7 pm at Hideaway Pizza (the one at 6616 N Western Ave Oklahoma City, OK 73116-- we will be in the side room right as you walk in the door). Pizza + beer + ERV = WIN!! If you wanna come, send me an email with 'RSVP 4 PARTYYYYY!!!1!1!11' as the subject line so I can tell the restaurant how many to expect!
Edited 8-22-08 to contain MORE win Its going to be a slow blag week. Im trying to cram as many experiments as possible into this last week before school starts again. The last major experiment I want to finish (have to finish) this summer is a 'pulse-->chase' to watch how fast each of my chimeras process gp160 into gp120 and gp41. I do this by 1-- transfecting cells with my clones, 2-- starving the cells of cystine and methionine, 3-- giving the cells radioactive food (sulfur-35), 4-- waiting a set period of time, and blowing up the cells. While blowing up radioactive things is one of…
Its time for SEEDs annual reader survey! Takes 10 minutes, and youre entered in a drawing to win an iPhone3G, a MacBook Air, and a 40 gig Apple TV. Sweeeet!
A funny thing happened today. PZ is now, officially, a D-List Blogger** (a status I attained months ago, hehehehehe!!). Shortly after that, Richard Dawkins made a nice statement of support for PZ on RichardDawkins.net. ... I love being *us*, you guys. I love being *the good guys*. One of us is in a tight spot, and the rest of us have their back. Contrast that to *the bad guys*: Michael Behe gets shown up by a kid... silence from his 'friends'. Dembski gets nailed for stealing and has Harvard law on his ass... silence from his 'friends'. Luskin is used and abused like any other cheap…
Ive been trying to make an active effort not to link/quote Associated Press articles since their little temper-tantrum last month. I thought it would be easy, I mean, link to a journal article instead of the crappy AP synopsis. Link to a blogger that was at a 'gay' wedding in CA instead of a chicken-little AP story. Support a real journalist instead of the AP idiots. No big deal, right? Wrong. This has been a lot harder than I previously anticipated. I didnt realize how dependent I was on APs hard hitting journalism. You simply cannot get high quality journalism, like this, anywhere else…
I love blogging. Ive learned a ton, Ive had a helluva lot of fun, Ive made great connections with people all over the world-- Its been a very positive experience for me. So I thought Id share a few tips/tricks Ive learned over the past couple of years for readers who are thinking about taking up blogging: 1. Write for yourself. Write for you. Make blagging a journal, something fun, not 'work'. The second posts become an 'obligation', youll stop doing it. So write about something funny your dog did that you want to remember forever. Write about a paper you have to read for class anyway (…