Digital culture
ddobbs | September 24, 2009[Note: An update from 25 Sept 09 is at bottom]
Here's a sad mess. It seems a
potentially important finding -- that getting a seasonal flu shot might
increase risk of contracting the swine flu -- is being sat on by a
journal, with the authors forbidden from talking about it, until they
get through the slo-mo publishing process.
The finding may or
may not be accurate. But as it regards an important issue, it needs to
be vetted and discussed openly, with the data at hand, as soon as
possible. But it's not.
This is a tricky situation, to be
sure. There are, at least theoretically, both good and…
ddobbs | September 21, 2009 In the intro to his self-published (on Lulu.com) collection of blog posts, The Wreck of the Henry Clay, New Yorker contributor Caleb Crain sums up nicely the anxieties shared by at least one other writer-with-blogging-addon about blogging, and, by extension, about self-publishing books. Which I may just do myself soon -- a collection -- because I CAN. Ellipses are mine.
I came to blogging ... as a veteran of print.... [and so] came to blogging nervous about losing what footing I had there... The quandary: If I wanted to communicate an important discovery, shouldn't I write it up formally,…
ddobbs | September 11, 2009
Frederic Curtiss, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, told Reuters Health that data attached to documents by Word has allowed him to discover undisclosed contributors. In one case, for instance, a revised manuscript arrived at his office with four named authors, but when he examined the metadata, he discovered an additional author was making substantial contributions.
When documents are saved in Word, the software attaches additional information, called metadata, which identifies the creator of the document. During the editing process, changes made by additional…
ddobbs | July 8, 2009
Ed Yong, echoed by Mike the Mad biologist PhysioProf asks what the heck investigative science journalism would look like. I hope to write more extensively on this soon. In the meantime, a few observations:
To ponder this question -- and to do investigative reporting -- I think it helps to have a sense of the history of science, which embeds in a writer or observer a sense of critical distance and an eye for large forces at work beneath the surface. Machinations in government surprise no one who has studied the history of government and politics. Likewise with science.
Science -- the search…
ddobbs | July 2, 2009What's been distracting me lately from the big story I really really need to finish writing ...
A splendid, rich fracas over Chris Anderson's Free, set off particularly by a pan from Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. The net fairly exploded -- search, and ye shall find -- with many noting that a pot was calling a kettle black. E.g., Itâs like War of the Speakerâs Bureaus and a more gently titled but equally damning (to Gladwell) post by Anil Dash. ,And one young writer accused Anderson of being a feudal lord. Anderson himself has been remarkably unfiltered in his tweet-pointers to reviews,…
ddobbs | June 25, 2009Much much much ado on the web this week, on the too-many fronts I try to visit. From my list of notables:
Carl Zimmer, who clearly doesn't sleep, writes up a nice post about a Nature paper announcing Limusaurus, a newly discovered fossil that is, Zimmer notes, is "not -- I repeat NOT -- the missing link between anything"-- but nevertheless sheds some light on how dinos may have turned into birds (more or less). Bonus: Great pictures of Carl holding up three fingers.
Ed Yong, who seems to be drinking the same strength coffee as Carl Zimmer lately, looks at an interesting correlation: Hidden…
ddobbs | June 16, 2009SciAm ponders evidence that fish hatcheries are watering down the trout and salmon gene pool.
Matt Yglesias looks at one of many lies being told by those opposing health-care reform â confirming Salon's prediction that the opponents of reform are not going to play nice. See also The American Prospect on How Big Pharma Intends to Kill the Public Option. I should add this campaign is having an effect: On the radio this morning I heard NPR Steve Insky Inskeep vigorously press the "public plan as trojan horse" attack on Kathleen Sibelius; I can only hope he'll as vigorously ask people such as…
ddobbs | June 3, 2009Forgive my recent blogopause. i was fishing, and then traveling, and then writing rather head-down intensely -- all activities I have trouble mixing with blogging and social media such as Twitter, which I've also left idle these last days.
So what gives with all that? I often find it awkward to switch between blogging or twittering and engaging deeply immersive physical activities. This hiatus, for instance, started when I went fishing last Tuesday on Lake Champlain for salmon -- a piscatorial retreat before a highly engaging work trip to NY, DC, and environs to talk to scientists and see my…
ddobbs | April 25, 2009Maureen Dowd pretty much asked for parody of her clueless snarkdown of Twitter. From Nancy Friedman at Frittancy
Telephone SAN FRANCISCO -- I was here on a simple quest: curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention. -- Maureen Dowd, "To Tweet or Not to Tweet," New York Times, April 22, 2009.
BOSTON --Edgar Allan Poe would love Alexander Graham Bell's workshop here. Pendulums, buzzers, and ticking sounds everywhere, with a mysterious note to the chambermaid in crabbed script. In a droll nod to shifting technologies, there's an 18th-century ear trumpet on the…
ddobbs | April 3, 2009What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of long-form, slow-bake, "mainstream" journalism and the idiom we call the blogosphere? As per Bora, the meaning of these terms are shifting as we speak. Last night, using my recent story and blogging on PTSD as a point of focus, I put in my latest two cents on this subject at my talk -- actually a long conversation with host and audience -- at the NYU Science, Health and Environmental Program's "Inside-Out" lecture series.
This was a crowd of writers, journalism profs, and journalism students, and I think we were all surprised at how many…
ddobbs | March 27, 2009The shepherds responsible for the sheep art I featured earlier (i.e., Sheep + LEDs - Mona Lisa, Fireworks, etc.") explain how it was done. Via the BBC:
ddobbs | March 26, 2009A heads-up: to those in or near NYC:
Tuesday, March 31, at 6 pm, at 20 Cooper Square in NYC, I'll be giving a talk/discussion on blogging and long-form journalism -- particularly on the different demands, pros and cons, possibilities and constraints, and reader and writer experiences those two different modes of writing (and reading) impose and offer.
The event is part of the NYU journalism Science, Health, and Environmenatl Reporting programs's "Inside-Out" series. WSJ science columnist and former NASW president Robert Lee Hotz will sit down with me to discuss this and other topics.
We'll…
ddobbs | March 19, 2009Were the makers of that sheepherding-art video I put in an earlier post (and further below in this post as well) pulling the wool over our eyes? Can you really get sheep to do that stuff? My sister Ann, who sent me the link to start with and who has spent some time training sheepdogs and watched others do so, says Yes:
I think they're being true to "extreme sheepherding". Watch the tiny dots in the Pong game and you'll get a good idea; the tiny dots are the sheepdogs. The walking sheep is speeded up, but yes, it's great sheepdogs and great shepherds, hence the "extreme sheepherding". From…
ddobbs | March 19, 2009Who knew? You take a bunch of sheep, put LEDs on them, choreograph via sheepdogs: you can paint! I'm not fully convinced they're playing straight all the way through, but this is good entertainment regardless.
HT: My sister the sheepherder.
ddobbs | March 5, 2009
Is this working?
Jefrey Mervis brings the word from Science ($):
U.S. students using educational software do no better learning primary school math and first-year algebra than their counterparts who follow a traditional curriculum. That's the conclusion of a new federally funded study that is loaded with caveats about what it means for students, educators, and the companies that make the software.
The $14.5 million study, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey, was designed to find out whether students are…
ddobbs | March 2, 2009The Nieman Journalism Lab has a nice round-up of some beautifully informative and often luscious work that "visualizes" news -- that is, turns news trends (and the social concerns and changes they document) into visual representations of data, like changing maps, splats of paint, or -- a favorite -- a simple needle meter.
For example:
An interview with Tim Schwartz (who has more great stuff at his site) about his indexing of various terms as used by the Times over the decades:
Tim Schwartz visualizes history (1851-2008) through word usage in The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on…
ddobbs | February 13, 2009
In a wonderful post at Mind Hacks, Vaughn, writing on "The myth of the concentration oasis" makes an argument that rather challenges my resistance to it:
The 'modern technology is hurting our brain' argument is widespread but it seems so short-sighted. It's based on the idea that before digital communication technology came along, people spent their time focusing on single tasks for hours on end and were rarely distracted.
The trouble is, it's plainly rubbish, and you just have to spend time with some low tech communities to see this is the case.
He's been doing just that -- spending time in…
ddobbs | February 13, 2009Oh man. This is good.
Via Kottke, who has other mixes as well.
Soviet Army dance ensemble + Run DMC = the invention of breakdancing in the mid-1900s.
ddobbs | February 13, 2009Dangerous concept; successful execution: From the mediea team at Small Mammal, a cute video story that deconstructs a cute YouTube video to look at the science of cuteness.
Somebody run tell Liz Spikol!
ddobbs | February 11, 2009
Just lost my physical science book... How is that possible? It's so BIG.
People do not believe in science.
masturbation IS a science
why did i decide to get involved with this computer science networking stuff? i am an arts person! what was i thinking? lol
sitting here doing science homework , o fun.
painting my nails... but should probably do my science homework?
Science nerd Alert:I just spent an hour learning about the evolution of early tetrapods. Evolution is so damn cool
its 7 pm i have 3 hours to get all caught up on my science paper design a wine poster and type of my life plan for…