Housekeeping
clock | September 3, 2006Wow! It's been less than three months since my move to Seed ScienceBlogs and my Sitemeter already hit 100,000.
The round-number visitor came from Oslo, Norway, a Firefox user, from Stumbleupon to see Did A Virus Make You Smart?, made three pageviews and remained 4 minutes and 13 seconds total on the last two pages.
In comparison, it took almost 16 months for Science And Politics to reach 100,000 and it has still not hit 200,000 after more than two years (the traffic there has dropped considerably but it still gets about 180 per day, mostly through Google searches).
So, I am self-…
clock | September 2, 2006This week (Monday to Friday), at least in terms of reposting stuff from my old blogs (but hopefully also a couple of new posts), the theme will be Microorganisms.
In preparation for this, you may want to check my recent posts on biological clocks in Protista, sex life of Paramecium, a virus that made you smart and the ecology of Lyme Disease (oh, I forgot - I also hosted Animalcules #4). I hope you enjoy the series.
clock | August 26, 2006Hello to my 90,000th visitor, who came in from the Culture Wars Channel, and is good at hiding wher s/he is coming from except that it is North America. Still on here right now? Say something in the comments.
clock | August 25, 2006So, did you like Books Around The Clock?
Tonight, I know where I'll be, so Friday Weird Sex Blogging may happen tomorrow or at the very best very late at night.
Next week, back to normal programming, only one repost per day (chronobiology on Mondays, miscellaneous on Tuesdays, science on Wednesdays, education on Thursdays and politics on Fridays), perhaps some cat pictures taken by my daughter, and whatever else strikes my fancy on any given day.
clock | August 22, 2006It took only two months and 13 days for this blog to reach 1000 comments. The honors and a virtual prize, go to John McKay (aka Archy) who posted this comment just a few seconds ago. Thank you and keep 'em coming!
clock | August 21, 2006Continuing with the five-day plan method of blogging, leaving the All Clocks All the Time behind us, we are starting the third week with a theme - Books Around The Clock.
Over the next five days, you will see both reposts (mostly in AM) and new posts (mostly in PM) about books. There will be straightforward book reviews. There will be NYRB-style reviews in which the book is just an excuse for me to go off on a rant. There will be Book Memes. There will be lists of books on various topics I recommend. And anything else you may recommend in comments or by e-mail.
Before we start, you may…
clock | August 18, 2006Well, the first five-day plan, all-politics blogging, kinda happened all on Echidne of the Snakes where one post got 120+ comments (mostly nasty) while the same post here got 5 nice comments. So, you pretty much missed out on all the fun if you just came here.
The second five-day plan, all about clocks is now officially over. I could not resist, of course, jumping in with short posts on other topics every now and then, which was probably refreshing for those not too heavily into nitty-gritty chronobiology.
So, tell me, do you like 5-day plans or not? And if so, what should be the next week…
clock | August 18, 2006I know most visitors do not read longer posts, especially not posts on arcane topics likeentrainment of circadian rhythms which filled this blog all week long.
But I wrote them for myself and everything else is profit. I wrote them because I wanted to hype myself for my own Dissertation writing. Even if no one reads those posts, I feel better having written them.
This whole exercise was quite instructive to me. Re-reading my old papers again, after 4-5 years made me see them in a different light. Compare, if you are interested, the way I described the data in my papers to the way I…
clock | August 8, 2006Do you remember the old Five-Year Plans ('Petoletka') in the communist countries? Well, five years is far too long for the ADHD world of the 21st century, not to mention the hyperspeed of the Internet and the Blogosphere. So, I decided to try organizing my blogging in Five-Day Plans. What do you think of that?
First, next five days (Wednesday to Sunday), it will (almost) all politics all the time. The occasion? Guest-blogging on Echidne Of The Snakes. Yes, the Goddess herself has touched me with her bifurkated tongue! After a stint guest-blogging on Eschaton, Echidne is going on a well…
clock | August 4, 2006It's been a very busy day (and I am teaching tomorrow morning), but I am working on Friday Weird Sex Blogging right now. Lots of pictures. It will posted later tonight....
tsmith | August 4, 2006...or, really, another swing to Ohio to drop off the kids. Their school-based daycare ended today, so I'm currently somewhere in a little place on Lake Huron to camp for two days, then I'll be in Ohio for a few hours to drop them off with relatives, and then back to Iowa on Monday. I have a few posts scheduled, and as always, any comments caught in the spam filter will have to wait until I'm back online after the weekend--apologies in advance.
tsmith | August 3, 2006(The title should, of course, be hummed to the tune of "Strokin'...")
I'm out playing with cows again this afternoon. In the meantime, a few good posts from elsewhere:
Ed talks about the excuses Dembski's given for why research into intelligent design isn't being done.
Revere notes a cull of 50,000 dogs in China due to rabies. He notes:
We've gotten pretty used to the idea that if H5N1 appears in birds it is legitimate to slaughter birds wholesale within a certain distance of the infected flock. In the west, birds are kept as caged pets by some people but not huge numbers. In Indonesia…
tsmith | July 21, 2006Just a note, since yesterday's post on Gallagher generated a lot of comments. I have a few posts on tap today (well, really tomorrow, as I'm writing this Thursday evening), but they're all scheduled and I'm not near a computer (and won't be until late this afternoon). So should there be some blow-up or comments stuck in the spam filter, my apologies, but I won't be around to tend to them until the end of the day today.
clock | July 18, 2006Keyboard screwed up! Bakspace, Delete, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th key on high row do not work (q, e, t, u, and a). Does anyone know what could be wrong? (using onscreen keyboard to type this)
Update: I bought a new one and it works fine....
tsmith | July 17, 2006Even a microbiologist can't keep her kids well 100% of the time. Have a post scheduled for later today but that'll be it; hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the newest edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds.
clock | July 8, 2006Many of us on SB are having problems with Movable Type today. Some of us can post OK, some can post only very short posts with no links and/or no mention of dr*gs etc. Others cannot post at all. This is a test to see if I can post anything. I'll try to post The Synapse late tonight or early in the morning, but if that does not work I may have to postpone it until Monday when the tech-guy fixes the problem.
Also, I have not received a single comment in more than 24 hours. We have a new super-tough anti-spam system. I am afraid that it is blocking legitimate comments (and trackbacks).…
clock | June 30, 20063 weeks
159 posts: that is 53 per week - a suit of cards with a Jocker - or roughly 7.5 posts per day! You have to click on Archives - June 2006 to see them all!
268 comments
17 trackbacks
$582.52 raised for DonorsChoose (9 of the 15 projects fully funded)
Technorati Rank: 15,376 (245 links from 135 sites), which is nice drop down from around 32millionth three weeks ago.
Visits: 46,379 (daily average 722) - according to Sitemeter, about 30% more by Google Analytics
Pageviews: 57,120 (daily average 1,101)
clock | June 27, 2006A bunch of updates are in store. First the DonorsChoose update. Let's look at the whole SEED scienceblogs action first (thanks Janet for all the information):
Total raised so far: 13,535.14Total donors so far: 170
Excluding Pharyngula (because Pharyngula is done), the top 5 in terms of ...
Amt/donor:
Stranger Fruit ($132.64)
A Blog Around the Clock ($116.50)
Good Math, Bad Math ($110.34)
Terra Sigillata ($86.35)
The Scientific Activist ($86.25)
Donors per 1000 hits:
Terra Sigillata (4.96)
Evolgen (2.35)
Stranger Fruit (2.02)
Afarensis (1.89)
The Questionable Authority (1.74)
$ raised per…
clock | June 24, 2006If you like my banner, you should also go and see what Carel did for his own blog! Gorgeous!
clock | June 22, 2006This is one hundredth post since I moved to scienceblogs.com! Wow - that was fast! And only nine of those are re-published old posts from old blogs.
OK, tomorrow at noon will be the second septidieversary (two weeks, OK?) of this blog. Time to take stock again.
I got 183 comments in two weeks! Thank you all - that is great! Only a few of those I had to dig out of the Junk Folder. The spam-prevention software appears to be working just fine, especially for Trackbacks.
This blog is ranked 8th out of SEED scienceblogs in the total amount given by readers to the DonorsChoose educational…