Blogging
clock | February 27, 2008A blog is software.
Importantly: a blog is free software.
Everyone can use it in any way they want. If there are 100 million blogs out there, there are 100 million blogging styles and 100 million ideas what blogging "is". And anyone who dares tell others how to do it incurs the wrath of the other 100 million who are NOT going to be told what to do. Blogosphere is democratic - the voice of millions of individuals who finally have the ability to have their voices heard. They will never accept any authority telling them how to do it and what they can or cannot write.
This means that one also…
clock | February 27, 2008As John quips, who is crazy to try to blog around a clock like Coturnix? Not me, for sure. But Arunn is, at least for one day! In the past 24 hours Arunn has posted 15 (fifteen!) posts on his blog. I hope this did not disrupt his marital harmony too much!
OK, so here are the fifteen posts - go check them out:
Bora At My Blog
Nature India
IITM Blogs a partially differentiated list
The silliness of WLAN
Introduction to Microlithography
How to make a gun with a hankie
Notebook Quotes
How to do Research
Snake Ears and Magudi Music
Science Writer Reading List
My Science Daily picks for Today…
neurophilosophy | February 26, 2008A few days ago, I briefly discussed the article by Oliver Sacks about geometric hallucinations in migraine aura. I thought that it was published in the print edition of the New York Times, but it turns out that this is in fact Sacks's first post on a new NY Times blog called Migraine: Perspectives on a Headache.
Sacks is one of five "migraneur" contributors to the new blog. (His co-bloggers are author Siri Hustvedt, journalist Paula Kamen, neurologist and psychiatrist Klaus Podoll and musician Jeff Tweedy.) The post/article about visual migraines generated a lot of discussion, and, in his…
neurophilosophy | February 25, 2008If you're in London, you might be interested in this event, which has been organised by the Royal Institution in collaboration with Nature Network:
Blogging science
Dr Ben Goldacre, Dr Jennifer Rohn, Ed Yong
Thursday 28 February 2008
7.00pm-8.30pm
What is it like to work in a lab? What's the latest science news? How can you tell good science from quackery? The answers to all these questions can be found in blogs, and in this event you'll meet the people who are writing them.
There are literally tens of millions of blogs online. Some read like personal diaries, while others are built round…
clock | February 25, 2008If you attended the Science Blogging Conference or read what people blogged about it, or said about it in subsequent interviews, you know how much fun it is to meet your favourite bloggers in real life. You gain a new perspective, you read them more diligently, you understand them better, and you have some calamari and beer.
So, we would like all the readers of Scienceblogs.com to organize local meetups. The organizing has already started (see here, here, here, here and here for examples). Rare are the people who read only one of us - most of our readers are shared across at least a few…
clock | February 23, 2008Mico Tatalovic of Blue Sci, the Cambridge's popular science magazine, interviewed me back in April 2007 and wrote an article on science blogging based on that interview. It came out in the Issue #9 as a PDF in October, and is finally found online on Blue Sci.
clock | February 22, 2008Chez describes how and why CNN fired him for blogging and then piles on!
Spread the word. The old media needs to learn to respect the people formerly known as audience.
clock | February 22, 2008This blog has just been notified that a bank in Sierra Leone has...nope, no millions of dollars in spam-money. Something much better - Maryannaville gave us the Excellent Blogger Award! Thank you!
Recepients of this award can proudly place this image on their side-bars:
And now, I need to pick ten recipients. Ten!? Per minute? Yikes - this is hard. Let's just assume that all of my SciBlings are Excellent by definition and take a look at some good ones outside of The Borg:
Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets
The Beagle Project Blog
Sandwalk
The INFO Project Blog
The Inverse Square…
clock | February 21, 2008Next Generation Discovery: New Tools, Aging Standards
March 27-28, 2008
Chapel Hill, NC
Discovering scholarly information and data is essential for research and use of the content that the information community is producing and making available. The development of knowledge bases, web systems, repositories, and other sources for this information brings the need for effective discovery -- search-driven discovery and network (or browse) driven discovery -- tools to the forefront. With new tools and systems emerging, however, are standards keeping pace with the next generation of tools?
Richard…
clock | February 21, 2008Wow! Al Upton teaches kids aged 8 and 9 and he is teaching them how to run their own blogs. Each young blogger also gets an adult mentor and you can sign up to be a mentor if you want. Sue Waters, who provides some good tips on classroom blogging, provides more detail about Upton's work and points to two of his good posts: Class blogs - management, moderation and protection and Class blogs - personalise your blog, a sequence of settings, which are full of good information and advice for any age students.
clock | February 21, 2008Wow! Al Upton teaches kids aged 8 and 9 and he is teaching them how to run their own blogs. Each young blogger also gets an adult mentor and you can sign up to be a mentor if you want. Sue Waters, who provides some good tips on classroom blogging, provides more detail about Upton's work and points to two of his good posts: Class blogs - management, moderation and protection and Class blogs - personalise your blog, a sequence of settings, which are full of good information and advice for any age students.
skookumchick | February 20, 2008Okay, so I've been coblogging with ScienceWoman for a little over a week so far. Which means I've been blogging as me, with no pseudonym to hide behind for the same time. What do I think about it so far?
It's terrifying. I haven't told many colleagues about this blog yet, and haven't had the nerve to add it to my email signature and such yet.
Before I decided to blog as me, I went and talked to my department head to see what he thought. He was supportive of me blogging as an outreach activity, but recommended I talk with the communication/news service people to see if they had any…
clock | February 19, 2008Sue and Ed are starting to plan the fourth ConvergeSouth and are asking the community to help with the planning.
clock | February 19, 2008In my daily interviews I always ask: what new blogs did you discover at the Conference? If anyone asked me that question - and you know it's hard to surprise me! - one I'd pick would be the INFO Project blog run by Rose Reis, now my daily read.
Now, Anna (where did she get the idea, I wonder?) interviews Rose over on the JoVE Blog and the interview is worth your time. And yes, sooner or later, Rose Reis will be interviewed here as well - stay tuned.
neurophilosophy | February 19, 2008As I mentioned recently, Alvaro has taken over as organiser of Encephalon, and he's just posted the latest edition of the carnival, which has two dozen entries on a wide of variety of neuroscience topics. I especially like this one about the hidden neuroanatomical images in Renaissance paintings (or lack thereof).
The next edition of the carnival will be at Mind Hacks on 3rd March. If you'd like to contribute, send your links to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com.
clock | February 18, 2008
(from here; hat-tip)
Or perhaps Gabe has been right all along and I am not really a science blogger....
aardvarchaeology | February 14, 2008
The thirty-fourth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Our Cultural World. Archaeology and anthropology be da shit, trudat!
The next open hosting slot is on 9 April. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. No need to be an anthro pro.
Also, don't miss the brand-spanking-new Skeptics' Circle.
clock | February 14, 2008Via Ed Cone (also see SteveK and McDawg) I see that CNN did Teh Stupid - they
fired their producer Chez Sapienza. Why? Because he is blogging! On his own blog as well as on HuffPo. He writes about the industry as a whole and writes well, though nothing specifically about CNN or his job there, so this is not a classical case of being Dooced, but a case of total blindness. The corporate media is used to controlling the message. Blogs drive them crazy. They cannot fire you and me, but they can fire one of their own, just for the sin of being a blogger, i.e., being the Enemy #1. Idiots.…
clock | February 14, 2008Yes, I know, Scienceblogs.com is The Borg. But we like our little sister, the Nature Network and they have made some impressive strides over their first year in existence:
Nature Network turns 1 today: progress report
Happy 1st Birthday!
Happy Birthday Nature Network