Blogging
aardvarchaeology | December 3, 2008The fifty-fifth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Cognition and Culture. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology!
Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. The next open hosting slot is on 31 December, less than a month from now. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me for hosting. No need to be an anthro pro.
sciencewoman | December 2, 2008You've got a blog. You've developed a comfortable voice. Your writing has found a receptive audience, with thoughtful and supportive commenters. Things are going well.
Then, WHAM! You defend your thesis. Or you get a new job. You have a baby. Or get a divorce. You move to a new continent. Your blog gets assimilated by a Borg. Or you decide to come out of the pseudonymous closet.
Suddenly, you find you've lost some confidence in your writing. Maybe your usual stream of topics has been cut off. Maybe you worry about the appropriateness of your blogging in your new professional capacity.Maybe…
awild | December 2, 2008Evolving Complexity tagged me in. Here they are:
5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
Buzzing on yerba maté
Learning Portuguese
Living in Asunción's transvestite district
Picking out sites for the incoming Peace Corps volunteers
Applying to graduate school
5 Things On My To-Do List Today
Process the latest batch of RNA pol II sequences
Buy stamps
Pay the bills & the rent
Renew my subscription to National Geographic
Email the Brazilians
5 Snacks I Love
Bagels
Junior Mints
Cheese (various)
Double-chocolate cookies
Is bacon a snack?
5 Things I'd do if I was a Millionaire
Buy a…
laelaps | December 2, 2008I was hoping someone would tag me for the "5-56" meme that has just started going around. (Thanks, Bora!)
The rules are that you have to pick 10 books (of whatever genre, chosen any way you see fit) and transcribe the 5th sentence on page 56 of each book. If you're slick you can use Google Books to figure out where the quotes I have selected came from, but it's a lot more fun to guess. Here are my picks;
1: "Above, i.e. towards the elbow, a tubercle of the radius plays into a socket of the ulna; whilst below, i.e. towards the wrist, the radius finds the socket, and the ulna the tubercle."
2…
clock | December 2, 2008It started with Henry who was bored with the simplicity of the "pick the nearest book" meme and decided to make it really hard!
Mike picked it up and tagged a few people, including me and Wilkins.
So, what are the rules? Hey, Henry came up with this, so feel free to make the rules as you go. After all, what's he gonna do - release calcium from intracellular stores?
OK, pick not one but TEN books. They don't need to be the closest to you - take your time and make good picks. It's not easy - you want people to work hard, but still figure out the sources eventually. Goldilocks Principle…
laelaps | December 2, 2008There has been a slight hold-up in getting the next edition of The Boneyard ready for exhibition, so you have an extra day to get your posts together. Any paleo-posts are fair game, but remember that Traumador wanted to make this a special edition all about your favorite museum;
So my thinking for this themed boneyard is for anyone and everyone out on the innerweb to put up a post about their favourite museum... it doesn't have to be a really "smart" or sciencey one, cause afterall it's me the archosaur without enough grey matter to fill a walnut running the show! rather i'd like to get to…
sciencewoman | December 1, 2008Dr. Isis has issued quite the challenge with her prompt for the December Scientiae. I knew exactly how I wanted to respond.
My science is hotter than Dr. Isis's Naughty Monkeys, because I wear better shoes [when I do my science]. To demonstrate, I present a sampling of actual shoes I have worn while collecting my hot, hot science data.
The field assistant is bonus. She doesn't wear shoes...although we tried once with a pair of these. They lasted all of about 4 minutes in the field. The Princess Pup prefers to do her science in the buff.
clock | November 30, 2008For those of you too busy to read this blog daily and who did not have time to check out each of 233 posts I published on this blog in November, here is a sampling of some of the posts you may like to check out now:
Spring Forward, Fall Back - should you watch out tomorrow morning?
Semlin Judenlager
I have voted. Have you?
Roosevelts on Toilets
Transition and the new Cabinet
Post-election thoughts
Republicans? Who's that?
The Science Blog Meme
Will there be new communication channels in the Obama administration?
The map is in the bag, but the sequence may yet reveal if kangaroos have jumping…
clock | November 30, 2008Checking one's incoming links on Sitemeter, Technorati and Google Blogsearch is essential tool for a blogger - it allows one to notice responses to one's posts in approximately real time, so the blog-to-blog conversation can continue fluently.
But, for a couple of weeks now, Google Blogsearch has been useless. They have changed the algorithm so, instead of picking up only links from individual blog posts, it picks up links from all sorts of widgets, blogrolls, etc. and thus floods the search with tons of useless hits. I have no idea who just posted a blog response to something I said, and…
clock | November 30, 2008Martin Fenner started it all, so Martin also put together a summary of most frequent, most interesting and funniest responses. Take a look.
And here is the Worldle summary of the Question #1 and here for Question #2.
clock | November 30, 2008This is what you need to do:
2008 Nominations Contact Form
In order to nominate blogs for the 2008 Edublog Awards you have to link to them first!
So, follow these two simple steps to nominate (nominations made without links or without correct submission will not be counted)
1. Write a post on your blog linking to a. The 2008 Nomination page & b The blogs & sites that you want to nominate (must be linked to!)
You can nominate for as many categories as you like, but only one nomination per category, and not yourself :) You can nominate a blog (or site) for more than one category)
2. Use…
awild | November 30, 2008Apparently the leafy green banner above is insufficient camouflage in the blogosphere. The Myrmecos Blog has been noticed by the meme-passers. Three times this week.
Bug Girl has tagged me with the "Six Random Things". Adrian Thysse would rather have me do "Five Things". And Huckleberry Days linked me with a "Superior Scribbler Award".
This unexpected recognition gives me plenty to blog about apart from the usual buggy fare, but the meme-passers will have to forgive me if I take my time. It's a busy week. I'm giving the departmental seminar tomorrow, and I've got piles of new RNA…
clock | November 27, 2008The online drive has already produced 10 donors. Let's see if we can up that number a little....
awild | November 27, 2008As a matter of coincidence, my first blogiversary falls on Thanksgiving day. Happy Thanks-Blog-Giving, then. Or something.
I started out aiming my writing at a non-technical audience. So I featured insect photographs, simplified coverage of entomological news, and notes about photographic technique. But I've come to realize from various feedback that many of my regular readers are professional scientists. This poses a bit of a problem of where to pitch my content. Both my mother and Phil Ward read this blog. What might interest both of them?
This imbalance in the biological fluency…
clock | November 26, 2008StoryCorps is declaring November 28, 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening:
This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives -- it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won't ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.
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This Thanksgiving, StoryCorps asks you to start a new holiday tradition--set aside one hour on Friday, November 28th, to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone…
clock | November 26, 2008Inspired by The Open Laboratory, the Gamers in the blogosphere are planning to do something similar - the Open Game Table.
If you are a gaming blogger, take a look and participate....
clock | November 26, 2008Peggy Kolm wrote a book review in Nature of Academeology by Female Science Professor.
My copy arrived some weeks ago, but it will have to wait until I read at least three other books I promised to review....eh. Anyway, Peggy says:
FSP's stories of being a woman in a male-dominated field are engrossing. She describes the casual sexism, such as being ignored or treated as a secretary by visiting scientists, or having male colleagues comment that she received an award "because she is a woman". These tales might be disheartening to some. But FSP also relates her successes as a scientist and in…
clock | November 25, 2008....drumroll....
Peggy Kolm! You can find Peggy on Biology in Science Fiction and Women in Science blogs.
The prize is a trip to NYCity, a brunch with bloggers, museum trips, lab tours and a big SciBlings-made gift basket.
Congratulations!
clock | November 25, 2008Scienceblogs.com is...
...hosting a limited-run group blog called What's New in Life Science Research, which will cover four separate topics in biotechnology: stem cells, cloning, biodefense, and genetically modified organisms. The blog is sponsored by Invitrogen, but like the Shell-sponsored Next Generation Energy blog, the bloggers (including our own Janet Stemwedel and Mike the Mad Biologist) will have complete editorial control over the content of their posts - we will merely provide questions about each topic to guide the conversation.
Go forth and comment....