Blogging
jdupuis | August 26, 2011What with the latest round of departures seemingly immanent with the new "no pseudonymous bloggers" policy, I thought I'd revisit the list I did last year at about this time.
With a few exceptions, I'll call blogs dormant if there hasn't been a post in 2011.
2010 World Science Festival Blog (Dormant, 1 post in 2011)
A Few Things Ill Considered
Aardvarchaeology
A Vote for Science (dormant)
Aetiology
Art of Science Learning
bioephemera
Brazillion Thoughts (1 post in 2011)
Built on Facts
Brookhaven Bits & Bytes
Casaubon's Book
Class M
Common Knowledge (1 post in 2011)
Confessions of a…
jdupuis | August 19, 2011According to DrugMonkey's recent post, ScienceBlogs' new overlords The National Geogrpaphic Society will no longer allow pseudonymous to continue blogging here.
I have just been informed that ScienceBlogs will no longer be hosting anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers. In case you are interested, despite extensive communication from many of us as to why we blog under pseudonyms, I have not been given any rationale or reason for this move. Particularly, no rationale or reason that responds to the many valid points raised by the pseudonymous folks.
This is, as they say, not unexpected. It is…
aardvarchaeology | August 17, 2011
Joseph Hewitt of Ataraxia Theatre is the artist who rendered almost the entire ScienceBlogs stable as zombies last summer. He has submitted the third t-shirt design, and when I saw it I thought, "Screw the reader's poll, this is the one I want!". So although I'd very proudly wear shirts with the designs by Stacy Mason and Jim Allen/Sweeney too, I've decided to go with Joe's image. Keep your eyes open for a future sweepstakes.
neurophilosophy | August 11, 2011AFTER four years here at ScienceBlogs.com, Neurophilosophy is moving to a new home. As of today, it will be hosted by The Guardian.
During its time here, the blog has grown from strength to strength. It has received over 2.5 million page views, was featured regularly on the New York Times science page, and has been translated into about a dozen languages. It has also enabled me to earn a living as a freelance science writer for the past two years.
Thanks to everyone here at ScienceBlogs and especially to all my readers. I hope you'll continue reading. The URL for the new blog is: http://www.…
aardvarchaeology | August 7, 2011
Here's the second t-shirt design suggestion, from Stacy Mason! Compare the first one from Jim Allen/Sweeney.
And Barn Owl has volunteered to distribute the shirts! So unless a third design comes my way soon, I'll set up an on-line poll to decide which image goes onto the Aardvarchaeology t-shirts, and then place the order.
aardvarchaeology | July 31, 2011
Here's the first t-shirt design suggestion, from Jim Allen/Sweeney! Says Jim, "The image could be printed in black or white on a contrasting shirt, or even in three colours - say, white for the eyes and trowel, tan for the outline and green for the lettering." I'm thinking that the URL would go on the back.
jdupuis | July 29, 2011I usually don't feature too many Cracked posts here because, well, they can tend to be a little on the NSFW for a family blog like this one.
But this one is very funny and very true. Fortunately, I don't seem to qualify as any of the worst kinds of blogs, but I guess I'm not the best judge of that!
Here they are:
The "Let's Start a Blog" Blog
The Corporate BlogThe Shill BlogThe Parrot Blog. This is a blog which seems to exist solely to reprint, quote or link to other people's content. You can find these blogs everywhere, but by their very nature, they prefer cropping up in the more heavily…
jdupuis | July 25, 2011My previous post was about Brian Mathews moving his blog to the Chronicle, a non-librarian blog network.
So for this post I thought I'd list all the academic and research librarians I know of that are embedded in non-library blogging communities.
On the one hand, it's a pretty short list. On the other hand, it's not like there are that many relevant blogging communities out there!
Needless to say, I think it's hugely important to get the librarian point of view in front of our patrons and getting ourselves into their blogging communities and talking about issues they care about is a great…
jdupuis | July 25, 2011As I have in the past, I'd like to point out a librarian embedded in a faculty-focused blogging network.
Brian Mathews recently moved his blog, The Ubiquitous Librarian, to the Chronicle Blog Network run by, you guessed it, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The new URL for Brian's blog is here.
And a few recent posts:
Instructionally Adrift? Are instructors letting their students down?
A Future Space For Reference Services? An Inspiration From GALE
Why does my library use social media?
When talking about the library remember N3P3: an advocacy talking points framework for academic…
aardvarchaeology | July 25, 2011A company has offered to sponsor Aard with 15-30 free printed t-shirts bearing the design of my choice, delivered to a US address. I'd like to accept their offer, and so I need help from my readers.
1. I need a hi-res design to put on the shirt. I only have the blog's venerable masthead as a lo-res file, and the anonymous artist who made it four years ago doesn't reply to email on their old address. If you want to submit a design, please write me for info on how to go about it.
2. I need a regular commenter based in the US who is willing to take delivery of the t-shirts and send them on to…
jdupuis | July 8, 2011I chose this one more for the humourous title of the post since the content itself is very seriously intentioned.
I almost see this as a double sequel to both the social media evilness post and to some of my recent ramblings on thought leadership.
The post in question is We Don't Need No Steenkin' Social Media Gurus by York prof Robert Kozinets.
After I had left the stage and assumed a position within the audience, beer in hand, a woman began talking to me in the crowd. Let's call her "Jennifer." Jennifer told me that she knew nothing about social media even a few weeks ago, but that her…
jdupuis | July 5, 2011Yet another science blogging community. The more the merrier.
We've had another quiet period in the science blogging universe these last couple of months. It seems that the rapid evolution that kicked off with the founding of Scientopia in the wake of Pepsigate is continuing.
And this is the big one: Scientific American Blogs. This is easily the biggest and most important science blogging community launch since ScienceBlogs itself launched back in 2006.
Of course, it was engineered by the master of us all, Bora Zivkovic.
Here's what he has to say about the makeup of the network:
Diversity…
aardvarchaeology | July 5, 2011
Scientific American has opened a blog portal, poaching a number of excellent erstwhile SciBlings and other blog buddies of mine! Head on over and greet
Bora Zivkovic at A Blog Around The Clock
Krystal d'Costa at Anthropology in Practice
Jennifer Ouellette at Cocktail Party Physics
Janet Stemwedel at Doing Good Science
Kevin Zelnio at EvoEcoLab
Jennifer Jacquet at Guilty Planet
Christina Agapakis at The Oscillator
Eric Michael Johnson at The Primate Diaries
SciCurious at The Scicurious Brain
Christie Wilcox at Science Sushi
Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology
Jason G. Goldman at The Thoughtful…
emjohnson | July 5, 2011After nearly a year on the road I'm pleased to announce that The Primate Diaries now has a permanent home at the new Scientific American blog network. I would like to thank everyone who supported my work here and during my "exile." I look forward to the continuing conversation at my new home.Please update your readers and blogrolls with the following links:
URL: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries
RSS: http://rss.sciam.com/primate-diaries/feed
jdupuis | June 30, 2011Sometimes two posts just collide in my brain.
I thought I'd share a recent case of this phenomenon.
First up, marketing/PR/social media Rock Star Mitch Joel on taking the best advantage of the inherent evilness of social networks like Twitter in The New Media Pecking Order.
Newsflash: the world is one big pecking order.
My friend - the rock star - travels infrequently by plane. I'm a loyal customer of the airline. It doesn't seem fair and it doesn't make sense. C'est la vie. Klout, PeerIndex, Twitter Grader and others simply bring to light something we've all known for a very long time: it's…
jdupuis | June 8, 2011As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I did a short presentation on Scholarship in the Public Eye: The Case for Social Media as part of a panel for a York Faculty of Graduate Studies Scholarly Communications Series.
And yes, I was the Twitter guy, although some of the other presenters did talk about their use of Twitter. Basically, my point was that Twitter and blogs can be part and parcel of the research and research outreach life of academics. I mostly concentrated on Twitter, but I did try and make the same sorts of points about blogging as well as I spoke.
Anyways, I thought I would share…
jdupuis | May 6, 2011I'm not usually a big fan of Seth Godin's guruish pronouncements, but I thought this one was a pretty good encapsulation of what it means to be a public professional or a public academic in the 21st century.
In other words, Why bother having a resume?
If you don't have a resume, what do you have?
How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow
up?
And we shouldn't kid…
omnibrain | April 20, 2011I was digging through some of my old blog posts and had almost totally forgot about this artwork I commissioned for the blog when I first started back on blogger. Check it out and then I'll fill you in on what I've been up to and why I've been so sparse over the last many months.
I stopped blogging consistently a while back, and it was for a great reason, I promise!
About a year ago, after I passed my prelims, I went on the job market. I interviewed for a couple academic positions (mainly liberal arts) and a number of industry/government jobs. I finally decided to 'sell out' and take the…
aardvarchaeology | April 2, 2011
Birger Johansson is an awesome guy. We've never met, but he's one of Aard's most prolific and witty commenters. And then, out of the blue, he suddenly tells me that he's got some free shipping to spare on Amazon and sends me a hoard of books, a DVD and a graphic novel! THANK YOU BIRGER! I hereby grant you an Earldom and the right to be called Birger Jarl!
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Douglas Adams 1987.
The Skinner. A Spatterjay Novel. Neal Asher 2002.
The Devil You Know. A Felix Castor Novel. Mike Carey 2006.
Halting State. Charles Stross 2007.
The Grimrose Path. A Trickster…
aardvarchaeology | March 29, 2011I just got paid half a year's back wages by the ScienceBlogs Overlords. Christmas came early! No, I mean, last Christmas came late!
Paying me off wasn't such a big deal as I usually make only $75 a month. But at least two of the heaviest hitters here on Sb have also been paid. That's a tidy sum each, which can only mean that the angel investor we've been hearing about back-stage has now taken over Sb's assets and liabilities. Excellent news! ScienceBlogs is not dead!