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razib | August 14, 2006Seems like I am no longer the undisputed champion of "brownest ass amongst ScienceBlogs," as Scientific Brown has joined the pack. That doesn't mean that my ass isn't still the brownest, just that it isn't a no contest situation when it was just Nick Anthis & Steinn Sigurðsson offering up their melanically challenged derrieres as tokens against the all powerful rich wood colored tone of mine own buns.
Update: Texas-born Nick Anthis isn't pasty, just for the record he has produced convincing proof on the comment boards.
razib | August 2, 2006Since I'm the 6th person to point to this, check out a new Science Blog, Smooth Pebbles. I'm expecting readers to come up with a real cool header....
razib | August 1, 2006There has been talk about rock star scientists and what not on Science Blogs. Rock stars? Isn't that so baby boomer? So let me rephrase it: who is the thug geneticist? I'll nominate Bruce Lahn, an evolutionary genomicist at the University of Chicago. According to Chicago Lahn is down with "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," by 50 Cent, so we know he already likes it hard-core hip hop style. Also, points for the fact that Lahn is an intellectual mugger who will leave you feeling violated.
razib | July 31, 2006Don't have time to read all the Science Blogs? Don't worry, Bora's put together a literal tapas of selections, part I, part II, part III and part IV.
razib | July 24, 2006Over at GNXP Classic our resident virgin Matt McIntosh poses 10 questions for Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve.
revere | July 22, 2006Time to update everyone on the status of banned blogs in India. Allegedly the bans are coming off, and the worldwide outrage is part of the reason, IMO. As interesting, is the backstory as it is now coming out in the Indian press.
The whole episode started when a hard right American website, ExposingTheLeft.Blogspot.Com, made a couple of snide comments about Iran and slammed Hizbollah. This was along with their usual tripe about same sex marriage and the other bogey men of the whacko US right wing, but nothing out of the ordinary for day to day Fox News watchers. There were a bunch of other…
revere | July 19, 2006We've beaten up enough on poor China for its transparent attempts to control information within its borders. Time to beat up on poor India.
From Boingboing:
India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs Friday to block several websites. The list is confidential. Indian ISPs have been slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of Monday afternoon, Airtel. State-backed BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely will soon. The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/*.
Yes folks, the Indian government…
razib | July 17, 2006Does anyone know the backstory to the child mummy in this Shakira video?
Update: A reader emails:
It's just a child with a mask, as sort of reference to the carnival inbarranquilla (http://www.carnavaldebarranquilla.com/), where she isfrom in Colombia. The video is full of references to colombia.Julianhttp://adaptare.blogspot.com
revere | July 17, 2006Our wiki partner and blogiste extraordinary, Melanie, is back at Just a Bump in the Beltway. Note the new URL and new look.
Her absence over the last week was a result of a Trackback spam attack that took her down. Now that she's on a new MT build we hope she'll not have the problem again.
If you've not been to Bump before, now's the time to hop over and show her a little blog love. Melanie was one of the pioneers in the blog world and for some time has been publisher and a Forum moderator at The Flu Wiki, our sister project.
Welcome back, Melanie. We missed Bump.
razib | July 16, 2006Over at GNXP Classic Agnostic has an extensive post up on the "women in science" controversy. I will admit to prodding him on this issue as I've been receiving emails (and comments) where people want me to "address" it. But time is finite...and I'm rereading Genetical Theory as well as hitting some George C. Williams, and I'm about as interested in getting "into it" as I am in arguing about Creationism. James F. Crow speaks for me:
Two populations may have a large overlap and differ only slightly in their means. Still, the most outstanding individuals will tend to come from the population…
razib | July 11, 2006Gmail's "chat" app is now integrated via AJAX with the email application. In other words, if you've sent someone an email from gmail to gmail you will show up in their user list for chat automatically. I was explaining this to a coworker and I proceeded to demonstrate it. One woman that I always saw as "green" (online) on my chat list had emailed me only once, she had thanked me for some help in data collection that went into a presentation she was giving for the lab. I didn't know her well, though she sure was a talker. In any case, I was like, "Check it, people never notice when you chat…